YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

Cl,

SERMONS

PREACHED UPON

SEVEEAL OCCASIONS

BY

ROBERT SOUTH, D.D
PREBENDARY OF WESTMINSTER, AND CANON OF CHRIST CHURCH, OXON.

WITH THE

CHIEF HEADS OF THE SERMONS,
A BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR,
AND
GENERAL INDEX.

VOLUME SECOND.

s?

LONDON:
HENEY G. BOHN, YOEK STREET, COVENT GAEDEN.

MDCCCXLV.

THE

CHIEF HEADS OF THE SERMONS.

VOLUME SECOND.

SERMONS LXIV. LXV. LXVI. — P. 1.
DELIVERANCE FEOM TEMPTATION THE PRIVILEGE OF
THE RIGHTEOUS.
" The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of
temptations." — 2 Peter, ii. 9.
Man's condition, with reference to temptation, is
so desperate, that without tiie assistance of a supe
rior good spirit he cannot be an equal match for tlie
evil one. The text sets forth to us the signal mercy
of God to the godly, or truly pious persons, in de
livering them from all temptations or trials, chiefly
such as are designed to corrupt them.
1st, All the ways of deliverance from temptation
may be reduced to these : 1. Of being kept from it ;
2- Of being supported under it ; 3. Of being brought
out of it, when the temptation has in some measure
prevailed ; for there are several degrees, namely,
seduction, enticement, consent of the will, commis
sion of sin, and the habitual reigning of sin, — into
which last state those scarcely fall who are actually
in a state of grace. From the foregoing particulars
we may learn, 1. The great goodness and wisdom of
God in the severest precepts of religion ; 2. The
most effectual method of dealing with a temptation,
namely, prevention.
2dly, The impulsive causes inducing God thus to
deliver the godly, are, 1. The free mercy of God ;
^The prevailing intercession of Christ. Some ob-
jebbiozig answered, and a case resolved concerning
the faMWUv of regenerate persons ; and the several
assura^R^ bf regeneration, and the expectations
men may iave 6r being delivered, in relation to the
ways of .entering "into temptation, illustrated by
instances of different success ; with a confutation of
some pretences alleged by some bold men, who
unwarrantably put themselves upon trial.
3dly, Deliverance out of temptation is a transcen
dent privilege, — which will appear from those intol
erable evils consequent upon a prevailing tempta-
tation, namely, 1. The soul's utter loss and damna
tion ; 2. Loss of a man's peace with God and his own
conscience ; 3. Temporal judgments of God in some
signal and severe affliction ; 4. The disgrace and
reproach which it casts upon our Christian profession.

Some useful inferences, and directions for a man
not to be peremptory with God in his prayers for
any particular enjoyment or state of life, but to
acquiesce in the state allotted him by Providence.

SERMON LXVII. — P. 27.
THE HAPPINESS OP BEING KEPT FROM THE HOUR OF
TEMPTATION.
" Because thou hast kept the word of ray patience,
therefore will I keep thee from the hour of temp
tation, which is coming upon all the world, to try
the inhabitants of tbe earth." — Rev. iii. 10.
Nothing more sets off the greatness of God's
mercy in delivering his people out of temptation,
than the critical time of his vouchsafing it. For,
1st, There is a certain proper season, and hour
which gives a peculiar force and efficacy to tempta
tion. 2dly, A temptation attains its proper season and
hour by these means : 1. By the original, universal
corruption of man's nature ; 2. By every man's par
ticular corruption ; 3. By the continual offer of
alluring objects agreeable to it ; 4. By the unspeak
able malice and activity, the incredible skill and
boldness ofthe tempter ; S. By God'sjust judgment,
in commissioning this evil spirit to tempt at a rate
more than ordinary ; 6. By a previous growing
familiarity of the mind with the sin which a man is
tempted to ; 7. By a long train of gradual, imper
ceptible encroachments ol the fiesh upon the spirit.
Sdly, A temptation's proper season, may be dis
cerned by some signs, — as, 1 . By an unusual con
currence of all circumstances and opportunities for
the commission of any sin ; 2. By a strange averse
ness to, if not a total neglect of, spiritual exercises,
prayer, reading, and meditation ; 3. By a tempta
tion's unusual restlessness and importunity.
4thly, Useful inferences may be drawn from this
discourse, — such as these : 1. Every time wherein a
man is tempted, is not properly the hour of tempta
tion ; 2. Every man shall assuredly meet with such
an hour ; 3. The most successful way to be carried
safe through this hour, is to keep the word of Christ's
patience. A

CONTENTS OF THE SERMONS.

SERMONS LXVIII. LXIX. — P. 35.
HOW, A.ND BY WHAT WATS, GOD DELIVERS US FROM
TEMPTATION.
*' God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be
tempted above that you are able ; but will with
the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye
may be able to bear it." — 1 Cor. x. 13.
True faith is bottomed upon God's infinite wisdom
and power, who alone is able to give a full and
absolute deliverance out of temptation. Some of
tile principal temptations which threaten most the
souls of men, are, 1. A public declared impunity to
sin. 2. The vicious examples of persons in place
and power. 3. The cruel oppressions of men in
tlu-ir persons, liberties, and estate. In opposition to
wliich, we must consider, 1. That the strongest temp
tations to sin are no warrants to sin : and, 2. That
God delivers only those who do their lawful utmost
to deliver themselves.
The deliverances out of temptation are oftwo sorts :
1st, Tiiose whereby God delivers immediately by
himself and liis own act. I. By putting an issue
to the teraptation ; 2. By supplying the soul witli
mighty inward strength to withstand it ; 3. By a
providential change of a inaJi's whole course of life
and c'rcumstaiices of conditiou ; 4. By the over
powering operation of his Holy Spirit, gi'adually
weakening, and at length totally subduing the terap
tation. From these considerations, that God alone
can deliver out of temptation, and that the ways by
which he does so are above man's power, and for the
most part, beyond his knowledge, we raay deduce
these useful, practical consequences,. — I. That the
estimate of an escape frora temptation is to be taken
from the final issue and result of it ; that a tempta
tion may continue very long, and give a man many
foils before he escapes out of it : which affords an
antidote against presumption on the one hand, and
despair on the other. 2. No way out of any cala
mity, if brought about by a man's own sin, ought to
be accounted a way allowed by God for his escape
out of that calamity or temptation. Nor, 3. 'To
choose a lesser sin to avoid a greater. 4. When a
temptation is founded in suffering, none ought to be
so solicitous how to get out of it, ,ia how to behave
himself under it. 5. There can be no suffering
whatsoever, but may be endured without sin. Since
to be delivered out of teraptation is of an infinite
concern, and since the tempter has so many advan
tages, we should be so much the raore careful to use
iii;cli means as our Saviour himself has prescribed to
us, namely, watchfulness and prayer.
2dly, By watchfulness and prayer on the part of
the person being terapted ; which forms the subject
of the following serraon.

SERMON LXX. — P. 60.
WATCHFULNESS AND PRAYER A SECCRITT FBOM TEMP
TATION.
" Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation."
— Matt. xxvi. 41.
In the Christian man's warfare, the two great
defensatives against temptation are watching and
prayer.

1st, Watching imports, 1 . A sense of the great
ness of the evil we contend against ; 2. A diligent
survey of the wit and strength of our enemy, com
pared with the weakness and treachery of our own
hearts ; 3. A consideration of the ways by which
temptation has at any time prevailed upon ourselves
or others ; 4. A continual intention of mind upon
the danger, in opposition to idleness and remissuess ;
6. A constant and severe temperance.
2dly, Prayer'is rendered effectual by, 1. Fervency,
or iraportunity ; 2. Constancy, or perseverance.
Lastly, Watching and prayer must always be
joined together ; the first without the last being but
presumption, and the last without the first, mockery.
Which is shewn by two instances, in which men may
pr.ay against temptation without any success.

SERMON LXXI. — P. 60.
THE FOLLY OF TRUSTING IN OUR OWN HEARTS.
" He that trusteth in his own heart is a fool." —
Prov. xxviii. 26.
Of all the cheats pnt upon a man by trusting,
none is more pernicious than that of trusting his
own heart, and resigning up tlie entire conduct of
himself to the directions of it, as of an able and a
faithful guide. The folly of which will appear by
considering, —
1st, The value of the things wo commit to that
trust, namely, 1. The lionour of God, who is our
Creator, our Lord, aud our Father ; 2. Our happi
ness in this world, with relation both to our temporal
aud spiritual concerns ; 3. Our eternal happiuoss
hereafter. 2dly, The undue quiilifications of that heart to
whose trust we comrait these things, which, 1. Can
not raake good the trust because of its weakness, in
point both of apprehension and of election ; 2. Will
not raake it good because of its deceitfulness, which
shews itself in several delusions, that relate either to
the coraraission of sin, or to the performance of duty,
or to a mau's conversion.
Since, therefore, the heart is so deceitful, and to
trust it is inexcusable folly, we ought to trust only
in the conduct of Gt)d's Holy Spirit, who will lead
us into all truth.

SERMON LXXII.— P. 69.
THE HOPE OP FUTURE GLORY AN EXCITEMENI W
PURITY OP LIFE.

!

" Every man that hath tins hope in b?*' P«rifi«*
himself, even as he is pure." — ) JoHt», iii. 3.
A Christian, tiiough he lias great privileges and
hopes, yet ought not to presume, but prepare himself
for future glory by the purity of his life. Having
considered how a man may be said to purify himself,
and to sueh a degree, even as Christ is pure, we
shall in these words observe,
1st, What is implied in a man's purifying of him
self, namely, to rid himself, 1. Of tho power of sin ;
which consists in bewailing all his past sinful acts,
and in a vigilant prevention of future ones. Aud
this will be effected by opposiug every first sinful
motion, by frequently periorming severe raortifying

CONTENTS OF THE SERMONS.

duties, and by often using fervent prayer, whence
we may perceive the error of those who pursue the
reformation of some particular sins only, and of
others who only complain of the evil of their nature,
without endeavouring to amend it ; 2. Of the guilt
of sin, which can be expiated by no duty within
man's power, but only by applying the virtue of
Christ's blood to the soul through faith.
2dly, How the hope of heaven does purify a man,
namely, 1 . Upon a natural account,'as it is a special

grace, in its nature contrary to sin ; 2. Upon a moral
account, by suggesting to the soul arguments for
purification, such as these, — that purity is the
necessary means to the acquisition of eternal happi
ness, that it alone can qualify the soul for heaven,
that it is a duty we are obliged to out of gratitude,
that it only can evidence to us our right in tiiose
glorious things that we hope for. From all these,
every one may gather a certain criterion, by which
to judge of his hope as to his future happiness.

POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

SERMON I. — P. 79.
" He that descended is the same also that ascended
far above all heavens, that he might fill all things."
— Ephesians, iv. 10.
Christianity, in thoae great matters of fact upon
which it is founded, happily comphes with man's
mind, by affording proper objects to affect both the
pensive, sad, aud composed part of the soul, and also
its more joyful, serene, and sprightly apprehensions ;
which is instanced in many passages of Christ's life,
from the humble manger, attended with angels, to
fais descent into the grave, followed by his miracu
lous resurrection and ascension. This last great and
crowning passage, however true, still affords scope
for the noble actings of faith ; and since faith must
rest itself upon a divine word, such a word we have
here in the text ; wherein are four things consider
able :
I. Christ's hurailiation implied in these words,
" he that descended." The Socinians answered con
cerning Christ's descent according to his divine
nature. And an inquiry made as to the place
whither he descended, " the lower parts of the
earth," wbich, 1. Some understand simply of the
earth, as being the lowermost part of the world ;
2. Sorae of the grave ; 3. Sorae of hell itself, the
place of the damned ; 4. The Romanists, by the help
of this text, have spied a place called purgatory ;
or rather the pope's kitchen. These words may
bear the same sense with those in Psalm cxxxix. 15,
and be very properly taken for Christ's incarnation
and conception in the womb of the blessed Virgin j
and that upon these grounds ; — 1. Because the for
mer expositions have beeu shewn to be unnatural,
forced, or impertinent, and there is no other besides
this assignable ; 2. Since Paul here uses David's
very words, it is most probable that he used thera
in David's sense ; 3. The words " descending" and
"asceuding" are so put together in the text, that
they seem to intend a summary account of Christ's
whole transaction in man's redemption, which was
begun in fais conception, and consummate in his
ascension. II. Christ's glorious advancement and exaltation,
" he ascended far above all heavens," that is, to the

most eminent place of dignity and glory in the highest
heaven. III. The qualification and state of Christ's person,
in reference to both conditions : he was the same,
" He that descended," &c. which evinces the unity
of the two natures in the sarae person.
IV. The end of Christ's ascension, " that he might
fill all things." " All things" may refer here,
1 . To the Scripture prophecies and predictions ;
2. To the church, as he might fill that with his gifts
and graces ; Or, 3. (Which interpretation is pre
ferred,) to all things in the world, which he raay be
said thus to fill in a double respect : (1.) Of the
omnipresence of his nature, and universal diffusion
of his godhead ; (2.) Of the universal rule and
governmeut of all things committed to hira as Medi
ator upon his ascension. It remains that we tran
scribe this into our lives, and by being the most
obedient of servants, declare Christ to be the greatest
of masters.

SERMON IL — P. 85.
" That he raight fill all things." — Ephes. iv. 10.
These words are capable of a tlrreefold interpre
tation, —
I. " All things" may refer to the whole series of
prophecies and predictions recorded of Christ in the
Scriptures, which he may be said to fulfil by his
ascension. Saint Paul vindicated against the Jews'
charge of perverting the prophet's raeaning in that
eminent prediction. Psalm Ixviii. 18.
II. " All things" raay refer to the church, which
sense is here raost insisted on. The church, from
its very nature and constitution, has unavoidably a
double need or necessity, which it is Christ's pre
rogative to fill, —
1st, In respect of its government. Hereupon he
" gave some, apostles ; some, evangelists ; some,
prophets ; some, pastel's and teachers.
2dly, In respect of instruction, for this Christ made
a glorious provision by the diffusion of the Holy
Ghost upon the apostles. In which passage two
things are observable : 1. The time when, which is
remarkable in this respect, (1.) Of Christian reli
gion itself, it being about its timl solemn promulga-

CONTENTS OF THE SERMONS.

tion ; (2.) Of the apostles, — it was when they en
tered upon the full execution of their apostolic office.
2. The manner how the Holy Ghost was conferred,
namely, in the gift of tongues. And as these tongues
were a proper representation of the gospel, so the
peculiar nature and efficacy of this gospel was em
phatically set forth by those attending circumstances
of the fire and the mighty wind, both of which are
notable for these effects : (1.) To cleanse ; (2.) To
consume and destroy.

SERMONIII. — P. 89.
" The night cometh, when no man can work.'' —
John, ix. 4.
The sense of the text natui'ally lies in three pro
positions :
I. That there is a work appointed to every man
to be performed by him, while he lives in the world.
Man, as he is, 1. a part or meraber of the body
politic, hath a temporal work, whereby he is to
approve iiiraself a good citizen, in filling the place of
a divine, lawyer, Htc. 2. As a member and subject
of a spiritual and higher kingdom, he has also a
spiritual calling or profession of a Christian ; and
the work that this engages him to is threefold :
(1.) Making his peace with God ; (2.) Getting his
sins mortified ; (3.) Getting his heart purified with
the proper graces and virtues of a Christian.
II. That the time of this Ufe being once expired,
there is no farther possibility of perfonning that
work. The word by which the time of this life is
expressed, namely, " a day," may emphatically
denote three tilings : 1. The shortness of our time ;
2. The sufficiency of it for our work ; 3. The deter
minate stint and hmitation of it.
III. That the consideration of this ought to be
the highest argument for using the utmost diligence
in the discharge of this work, which requires all our
diligence, 1. Frora its difficulty ; 2. From its neces
sity.

SERMON IV. — P. 95.
PREACHED AT Tnri CONSECRATION OF DB SETH WARD,
BISHOP OF OXON.
" I will make thee unto this people a fenced brawn
wall : and they shall fight against thee, but they
shall not prevail against thee : for I am with thee
to save tliee and deliver thee, saith the Lord." —
Jebemiah, XV. 20.
Presbytery, derived by some from Jethro, came
first ii-i.iu Midian, a heathenish place. Their elders
are mentioned sometimes in the Old Testament, but
their office not described. A superintendency of
bishops over presbyters may be argued from the
superiority of the priests over tlie Levites, much
better than they can found their discipline upon the
word " elder." But if Gud instituted such a stand
ing superiority and jurisdiction of the priest over the
Levites, these two things follow : 1. That such a
superiority is not in itself absolutely irregular and
unlawlul ; 2. That neither does it carry in it an
antipathy and conti'ariety to the power of godliness.

And yet upon these two suppositions, as if there was
something in the very vital constitution of such a
subordination irreconcileable to godliness, are all the
presbyters' calumnies commenced.
In the words are three things considerable :
I. G.id's qualification of Jeremy to be an overseer
ill his church ; " I will make thee a fenced brazen
wall." Now a wall imports, 1. Enclosure ; 2. Forti
fication. This raetaphor of a wall, as appUed to a
church-governor, being explained ; to raake good
that title he raust have, 1. Courage ; 2. Innocence
and integrity ; 3. Authority.
II. The opposition that the church-governor thus
qualified will be sure to meet with in his office ;
" they shall fight ag.aiust thee." And this they are
like to do, 1 . By seditious preaching and praying j
2. By railing and libels ; 3. Perhaps by open force.
III. The issue and success of this opposition;
" they shall not prevail agaiu,st thee." It is bold to
foretell things future, which fall under human cog
nizance only two ways ; 1 . By a foresight of them in
causes ; 2. By divine revelation ; and from both
these there is ground of hope to the church. The
arguments against this answered, 1. That the ene
mies of the church in the late confusion did not
prevail against her ; for that only is a prevaiUng
which is a final conquest ; 2. That he who is piUaged
or murdered in the resolute perforraance of his duty
is not properly prevailed against ; wherefore the
governors of the church may with confidence from
the text bespeak their opposers ; Who shall fight
against us 1 it is God that saves. Who shall
destroy ? it is the same God that deUvers.

SERMONS V. VI.— P. 100.
" Paul, a servant of God, and an apostle of JesuB
Christ, according to the faith of God's elect, and
the acknowledging the truth wfaicfa is after godli
ness." — Titus, i. 1.
The end of all philosophical inquiries is truth ;
and of all religious institutions, godlineti ; both
which are united and blended in the constitution of
Christianity. I. In this expression of the gospel's being "the
truth which is after godliness," three things are
couched : 1. That it is simply a truth ; 2. That it is an
operative truth ; 3. That it operates to the best effect.
The words may have a double sense : 1. That the
gospel is so called, because it actually produces the
effects of godliness in those that embrace it ; 2.
That it is, in its nature, the most apt and proper
instrument of holiness ; and the truth which has
thus an influence upon godliness consists of two
things : (1.) A right notion of God ; (2.) A right
notion ot what concems the duty of man.
II. Three things are deduced frora this description
of the gospel :
1st, That the nature and prirae design of reUgion
is to be an instrument of good Ufe. This cleared
by these arguments. 1. That religion designs
the service of God, by gaining to his obedience
raan's actions and converse ; 2. It designs the
salvation of man, who is not saved as he is more
knowing, but as he is more pious than others ; 3.
That the excellency of Chi-istianity does not consist
in discovering more sublime truths or more excel
lent precepts thau philosophy, (though it does this,)

CONTENTS OF THE SERMONS.

but in suggesting better arguments to enforce the
performance of those precepts, than any other reli
gion ; 4. That notwithstanding the diversity of reU
gions, men will generally be condemned hereafter for
the same things, namely, their breaches of morality.
2dly, That so much knowledge of truth as is suffi
cient to engage men in the practice of godliness,
serves the necessary ends of reUgion ; for if godU
ness be the design, it ought also to be the measure
of men's knowledge in this particulai'.
3dly, That whatsoever does iu itself, or its direct
consequences, undermine the motives of a good
life, is contrary to and destructive of Chi-istian reli
gion. The doctrines that more immediately concern
a good Ufe, are, 1. Such as concern the justification
of a sinner. Herein the motives to holy living are
subverted, (1.) By the doctrine of the covenant
of grace without conditions of performance on nian's
part, but only to beUeve tliat he is justified, taught
by the antinoraians ; (2.) By the doctrine of accep
tance witli God by the righteousness and raerits of
other saints, taught by the Roraanists, 2. Such as
concem the rule of life and raanners. Here the
motives to godUness are destroyed, — (1.) By that
doctrine of the antinoraians, that exempts all beUevers
fi*om the obUgation of the moral law ; (2.) By that
doctrine of the church of Rome, which asserts any
sin to be in its nature venial ; the church of Rome
herein resembUng the Jewish church corrupted by
the Pharisees, who distinguished the commandments
into the great and the small ; (3.) By the Romish
doctrine of supererogation ; (4.) By that doctrine
that places it in the power of any mere mortal man
to dispense with the laws of Christ, so as to discharge
any man from being obUged by them. 3. Such as
relate to repentance. The doctrine of repentance
may be perverted in a double respect: (1.) In
respect of the time of it ; as is done by the Romish
casuists, who say, that a man is bound to repent of
his sins once, but when that ouce shall be, he raay
determine as he thinks fit ; (2.) As to the measure
of it. The Romish doctrine considered iu this
respect, and refuted.
The improvement of all Ues in two things : 1. To
convince us how highly it concems all, but especially
the most knowing, to try the doctrines that they
believe, and to let inquiry usher in faith ; 2. It sug
gests also the sure marks by which we may try
them ; as, (1.) It is not the pleasingness or suitable
ness of a doctrine to our tempers or interests ; nor,
(2.) The general or long reception of it ; nor, (3.)
The godliness of the preacher or asserter of any
doctrme, that is a sure mark of the truth of it : but
if it naturally tends to proraote the fear of God in
men's hearts, and to engage them in virtuous courses,
it carries with it the mark and impress of the great
etemal truth.

SERMONS VII. VIII. IX. — P. 112.
" A man that flattereth his neighbour, spreadeth a
net for his feet." — Proverbs, xxix. 5.
The words being plain, the matter contained in
thera is prosecuted under three general heads :
I. What flattery is, and wherein it does consist.
Though we cannot reach all the varieties of it, the
general ways are,
1st, ConceaUng or dissembUng tfae defects or vices

of any person. And here are shewn two things :
1. Who tliey are that are concerned to speak in this
case, naraely, (1.) Such as ai'e intrusted with the
government of others ; (2.) Persons set apart to the
work of the ministry ; (3.) Those that profess friend
ship. 2. The manner how they are to speak, as,
(1.) The reproof should be given in secret ; (2.) With
due respect to, and distinction of, the condition of
the person reproved ; (3.) With words of meekness
and commiseration ; (4.) That the reproof be not
continued or repeated after amendment of the occa
sion. 2dly, The second way of flattery is the praising
and . defending the defects or vices of any person.
Under this species, the distinction between a reUgious
and a political conscience observed,and censured. Two
sorts of men charged as the most detestable flatterers :
1. Such as upon principles of enthusiasm assure
persons of eminence aud high place, that those trans
gressions are aUowable in them, that are absolutely
prohibited and condemned in others. 2. The Romish
casuists, who persuade the world, that many actions,
which have hitherto passed for impious and unlawful,
admit of such qualifications as clear them of all guilt.
This kind of flattery is of most mischievous conse
quence, and of very easy effect: (1.) From the
nature of man ; (2.) Frora the very nature of vice
itself. 3. The third kind of flattery is the perveree
iraitation of any one's defects or vices. 4. The
fourth consists in overvaluing those virtues and per
fections that are reaUy laudable in any person.
II. The grounds and occasions of flattery on his
part that is flattered. Three mentioned : 1. Great
ness of place or condition ; 2. An angry, passionate,
disposition, and impatient of reproof; 3. A proud
and vainglorious disposition.
III. The ends and designs of the flatterer ; "He
spreads a net for his neighbour's feet." The flat
terer is influenced by these two grand purposes : —
1. To serve himself. 2. To undermine hiin whom
he flatters, and thereby to effect his ruin. Which
he does, (1.) As he deceives him, and grossly abuses
and perverts his judgment, which should be the
guide of all his actions ; (2.) He brings him to
shame and a general contempt ; he effects his ruin ;
forasmuch as by this raeans he renders his recovery
and amendment impossible.

SERMONS X. XI. XTI. — P. 126.
"Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous
sins ; let them not have dominion over me." —
Psalm xix. 13.
These words suggest three things to our considera
tion : 1. The thing prayed against "presuraptuous
sins," 2. The person raaking this prayer ; one
adorned with the highest elegies for his piety, even
by God himself ; 3. The means he engages for his
deUverance, namely, the divine grace and assistance.
The words are discussed under two general heads ;
I. Shewing what these presuraptuous sins are.
II. Shewing the reason of this so holy person's
praying so eamestiy against thera.
The first head is handled in three things :
1st, Shewing in general what it is to presume.
The Scripture description of presumption. Three
parts go to make up a presumptuous sin : 1. That a
man undertake an action, known by him to be un-

iL-

CONTENTS OF THE SERMONS.

lawful, or at least doubtful. 2. That, notwithstanding,
he promise to himself security from any punishment
of right consequent upon it. 3. That he do this
upon motives utterly groundless and unreasonable.
The presumptuous sinner is divested of the two only
pleas for the extenuation of sin ; as, 1. Ignorance ;
2. Surprise. Distinction between sins of presumption
and sins of infirmity. Three opinions concerning a
sin of infirmity : 1. The first derives the nature of
it from the condition of the agent ; affirming that
every sin committed by a believer, or a person truly
regenerate, is a sin of infirmity. This docti*ine con
sidered and refuted. 2. Some, from the matter of
the action ; as that it is committed only in thought
or desire, or perhaps in word. To this is answered,
(1.) That there is no act producible by the soul of
man under the power of his will, but it is capable of
being a sin of presumption ; (2.) The voice of God
in Scripture is loud against this opinion. 3. Some,
frora the principle iramediately producing the action,
namely, that the will is carried to the one by malice,
to the other by inadvertency. For our better con
duct is shewn, 1 . Negatively, what is not a sin of
infirmity : as, (1.) When aman ventures and designs
to commit a sin upon this ground, that he judges it
a sin of infirmity ; (2.) That sin, though in itself
never so sraall, that a man, after the committing of
it, is desirous to excuse or extenuate. 2. Positively,
what is a sin of infirraity, namely, a sin committed out
of mere sudden inadvertency, that inadvertency not
being directly caused by any deliberate sin imme
diately going before it.
2dly, Assigning some of the most notable kinds of
presumptuous sins ; as, 1. Sin against the goodness
of God, manifesting itself to a raan in great pros
perity ; 2. Sins committed under God's judging and
afflicting hand ; 3. Committing a sin clearly dis
covered, and directly pointed at by the word of God,
either written or preached ; 4. Committing a ain
against passages of Providence, particularly threaten
ing the commission of it ; 5. Sins against the inward
checks and warnings of conscience ; 6. Sins against
that inward taste, relish, and complacency, that men
have found in their attempts to walk with God ;
7. The returning to, and repeated commission of, the
same sin.
Sdly, Proposing some remedies against these sins.
As, 1. Let a man endeavour to fix in his heart a deep
apprehension and persuasion of the transcendent evil
of the nature of sin in general ; 2. Let him most
seriously consider and reflect upon God's justice ;
3. Let hira consider, how rauch such offences would
exasperate even raen.
II. Shewing the reason of the Psalmist's so earnest
praying against these sins. The prosecution of the
first head might be argument enough : but yet, for
a raore full discussion of the point, these farther
reasons, which might induce him to it, are con
sidered ; 1. The danger of falUng into these sins;
(1.) From the nature of raan, which is apt to be con
fident ; (2.) From the object of presumption, God's
mercy ; (3.) From the tempter, who chiefly con
cems himself to engage men in this kind of sin.
2. The sad consequences of them, if faUen into.
Amongst which are, (1.) Their marvellous aptness to
grow upon him that gives way to them ; (2.) That
of all otiiers they prove the most difficult in their
cure ; (3.) They waste the conscience infinitely more
than any other sins ; (4.) They have always been
followed by God with greater and fiercer judgments
tlian any others.

SERMON XIII. — P. 141.
" Thou compassest my path and my lying down,
and art acquainted with all my ways." — Psalm
cxxxix. 3.
The metaphorical expressions in the text being
explained, this doctrinal observation is gathered from
it, namely, that God knows, and takes strict and
accurate notice of the most secret aud retired pas
sages of a man's life ; wliich is proved by reasons of
two sorts :
I. Such as prove that it is so, that God knows the
most secret passages of our Uves. 1. He observes
them, because he rules and governs them. Which
he does three ways : (1.) By discovering them ;
(2.) By preventing of them ; (3.) By directing them
for other ends than those for which they were in
tended. 2. Because he gives laws to regulate them.
3. Because he will judge them, first, in this life,
wherein he often gives the sinner a foretaste of what
fae intends to do in the future ; and second, at the day
of judgment.
II. Such reasons as shew whence it is that God
takes such notice of thera. He observes all hidden
things : 1. From his omniscience, or power of know
ing all things. 2. From his intimate prescience to
the nature and being of all things. The application
of the whole lies in shewing the uses it may afford
us ; which are, 1st, a use of conviction, to convince
all presumptuous sinners of the atheisra of their
hearts ; 2dly, 1 1 speaks terror to all secret sinners.
Secret sins are of two sorts, both of which God per
fectly knows. As, 1. The sins of our thoughts and
desires ; aud he will judge of raen by these, (1.) Be
cause they are most spiritual, and consequently raost
opposite to the nature of God ; (2.) Because raan's
actions and practice may be overruled, but thoughts
and desires are the natural and genuine offspring of
the soul. 2. Such sins as are not only transacted in
the mind, but also by the body, yet are covered from
the view of men. 3. As God's omniscience is a ter
ror to secret sinners, so it speaks no less comfort to
aU sincere-hearted Christians.

SERMON XIV. — P. 148.
" Say not thou, What is the cause that tfae former
days were better than these 1 for thou dost not
inquire wisely conceming this.". — Eccles. vii. 10.
In the days of Soloraon, when Jerusalem was the
glory of the whole earth, these complaints of tho
times were made ; and yet a little backward in the
calendar, we have nothing but tumults, changes, and
vicissitudes. The words run in the form of a ques
tion, yet include a positive assertion, and a downright
censure. The inquiry being determined before it
was proposed, now the charge of folly here laid upon
it may relate to the supposition, upon which it is
founded, in a threefold respect, namely,
I. Of a peremptory negation, as a thing absolutely
to be denied, that former times are better than the
following. II. As of a case very disputable, whether they are
so or no,
III. As admitting the supposition for true, that
they are better.

CONTENTS OF THE SERMONS.

In every one of which respects this inquiry ought
to be exploded. And,
I. That it is ridiculous to ask, why former times
are better than tlie present, if they really are not so ;
and that they are not, is evinced, 1. From reason ;
2. From history and the records of antiquity.
II. Supposing the case disputable ; which being
argued, 1. On the side of antiquity ; 2. Of succeeding
times ; this inquiry is shewn to be unreasonable,
(1.) In respect of the nature of the thing itself;
(2.) In respect of the incompetence of any man
living to judge in this controversy.
III. Supposing it true, that former times are
really best, this querulous reflection is foolish, 1. Be
cause such complaints have no efficacy to alter or
remove the cause of them. 2. Because they only
quicken the smart, and add to the pressure. 3. Be
cause the just cause of them is resolvable into our
selves.

SERMON XV. — P. 153.
A FUNERAL DISCOURSE.
" Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou
art in the way with him : lest at any time the
adversary deUver thee to the judge, and the judge
deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into
prison.
" Verily I say unto thee. Thou shalt by no means
corae out thence, till thou hast paid the uttermost
farthing." — Matt. v. 25, 26.
In these words, Christ enforces the duty of an
amicable concord and agreeraent betwixt brethren,
from the unavoidable misery of those obstinate
wretches that persist in and perpetuate an injury.
Some understand the words in a Uteral, sorae in a
figurative sense. The several terms therein ex
plained in the spiritual sense of them ; according to
which, by the word " adversary" is meant the divine
law, or a nian's own conscience, as commissionated
by that law ; by " the way," the time of this life, or
rather the present opportunities of repentance ; by
" judge," the great God of heaven ; by " officer,"
the Devil ; by " prison," hell ; by " paying the ut
most farthing," the guilty person's being dealt with
according to the utmost rigour and extremity of
justice. The text is parabolical, and includes both
senses. For the better understanding which, a
parable is explained to contain two parts : 1 . The
material, literal part, contained in the bare words.
2. The formal, spiritual part, or application of the
parable ; which is sometimes expressed, and some
times understood, as in this place. The sense of the
text is presented under three conclusions : 1. That
the time of this life is the only time for a sinner to
make his peace with God. 2. That this considera
tion ought to be a prevailing, unanswerable argu
ment to engage and quicken his repentance. 3. That
if a sinner lets this pass, he irrecoverably falls into
an estate of utter perdition.
The second conclusion, the subject of this dis
course, the trath whereof made appear three ways :
I. By coraparing the shortness of life with the
difficulty of this work of repentance. The difficulty
of repentance appears, 1. Because a raan is to clear
himself of an injury done to an infinite, offended
justice, to appease an infinite wrath, and an infinite,
provoked majesty ; 2. Because a man is utterly un

able of himself to give God any thing by way of just
compensation or satisfaction.
II. By comparing the uncertainty of life with the
necessity of the work.
III. By considering the sad and fatal doom tliat
will infaUibly attend the neglect of it. The misery
and terror of this doora consists in two things :
1. That it cannot be avoided ; 2. That it cannot be
revoked. Application iu urging over the sarae duty
frora another arguraent, namely, that so long as
there is enjoyment of a temporal life, there may be
just hope of an eternal. Therefore " kiss the Son,
lest he be angry, and so ye perish from the way."
SERMON XVI. — P. 159.
" But aU their works they do for to be seen of men.''
— Matt, xxiii. 5.
This notable instance of religious ostentation iu
the pharisees leads to an inquu-y, how far the love of
glory is able to engage men in a virtuous and reli
gious lite.
I. A love of glory is sufficient to produce aU those
virtuous actions that are visible in the lives of those
that profess religion : because, 1. It has done so :
this shewn from the examples of the noblest and
most virtuous of the heathens, from the abstinence
of the ancient athletics, frora the character of the
ancient pharisees, and from that of raany modern
Christians ; 2. There is nothing visible in the very
best actions, but what may proceed from the most
depraved principles, if acted by pradence, caution,
and design.
II. The reasons whence this affection conies to
have such an influence upon our actions are these :
1. Because glory is the proper pleasure of the mind ;
it being the complacency that a man finds within
hiraself arising from his conceit of the opinion that
another has of sorae excellency or perfection in hira ;
2. Because it is founded in the innate desire of
superiority and greatness that is in every man ;
3. Because a fair reputation opens a man's way to
all the advantages of life ; as in the times of the
rebellion, when the face of a dissembled piety gave
men great credit and authority with the generality.
III. This principle is insufficient to engage ra.an-
kind in virtuous actions, without the assistance of
religion. Two considerations premised, namely,
1. That virtue and a good life determines not in out
ward practices, but respects the most inward actions
of the mind ; 2. That the principle of honour or
glory governs a man's actions entirely by the judg
ment and opinion of the world concerning thera.
These considerations premised, the principle of hon
our appears to be utterly insufficient to engage aud
argue men into the practice of virtue in the following
cases : I. When, by ill customs and worse discourses,
any vice (as fornication, theft, self-murder, &c.)
comes to have a reputation, or at least no disreputa
tion, in the judgraent of a nation ; the shame God
has annexed to sin being in a great raeasure taken
from it by fashion ; 2. When a man can pursue his
vice secretly and indiscernibly : as, first, when he
entertains it in his thoughts, affections, and desires ;
secondly, when, though it passes from desire into
practice, yet it is acted with such circumstances of
external concealment, that it is out of the notice and
arbitration of all observers. If, then, honour be the
strongest motive nature has to enforce virtue by, and

CONTENTS OF THE SERMONS.

this is found insufficient for so great a purpose, it is
in vain to attempt such a superstructure upon any
weaker foundation.
IV. Even tiiose actions that a principle of honour
does produce are of no value in the sight of God ;
and that upon the account of a double defect : 1. In
respect of the cause from which they flow ; inas
much as they proceed only upon the apprehension
of a present interest, which, when it ceases, the
fountain of such actions is dried up ; 2. In respect
of the end to which they are directed ; which end is
self, not the glory of God. In both these respects,
the most subUme moral perforraances of the heathens
were defective, and therefore have been always
arraigned and condemned by Christian divinity.
Two things inferred, by way of coroUary and con
clusion ; — 1. The worth and absolute necessity of
reUgion in the world, even as to the advantage of
civil society ; and the raischievous tendency of athe
istical principles ; 2. The inexcusableness of those
persons who, professing religion, yet live below a
principle inferior to reUgion.

SERMON XVIL — P. 168.
« For by faith ye stand." — 2 Cor. i. 24.
Faith raore usually discoursed of by divines than
explained. Three sorts of faith raentioned in Scrip
ture, — I.A faith of simple credence, or bare assent ;
2. A teraporary faith, and a faith of conviction ;
3. A saving, effectual faith (which here only is in
tended) wrought in the soul by a sound and real
work of conversion.
Two things considerable in the words : —
I. Something supposed, namely, that believers
will be encountered and assaulted in their spiritual
course. In every spiritual comfort are to be con
sidered, 1. The persons engaged in it, which are be
lievers on the one side, and the Devil on the other ;
2. The thing contended for by it. This assault of
the Devil intended to cast beUevers down frora their
purity aud sanctity of life, and from their interest in
the divine favour ; The means by which it is carried
on. The Devil's own immediate suggestions. The
Devil assaults a man, by the infidelity of his own
heai't, by the alluring vanities of the world, and by
the help of man's own lusts and coiTuptions.
II. Something expressed, namely, that it is faith
alone that in f-uch encounters does or can make be
lievers victorious. For making out which, is shewn,
1. How deplorably weak and insufficient man is,
whUe considered in his natural estate, and void of
the gi'ace of faith ; 2. The advantages and helps
faitii gives believers for the conquest of their spiritual
eneray ; it gives them a real union with Christ ; it
engages the assistance of the Spirit on their behalf ;
and lastly, gives them both a title to, and a power
effectually to apply, God's promises through Christ,
who is the rock of ages, the only sure station for
poor sinners, and able to save, to the utterraost, all
those that by faith rely upon him.

SERMON XVIIL — P. 175.
" The Lord is good to all : and his tender mercies
are over all his works."— Psalm cxlv. 9.
Mercy, as it is ascribed to God, may be considered
two W'ays,

I. For the principle itself.
II. For the effects and actions flowing from that
principle, which, in the sense of the text, ai'e such
as are general and diffusive to all.
The words are prosecuted by setting forth God's
general mercy and goodness to the creature in a
survey of the state and condition, 1. Of the inanimate
part of the creation ; 2. Of plants and vegetables ;
3. Of the beasts of the field, and the fowls of the air ;
4. Of man ; 5. Of angels ; in respect of their nature,
of their place of habitation, and of their employ
raent. A deduction from the precedent discourse, to
settle in the mind right thoughts of God's natural
goodness to men, with arguments against the hard
thoughts men usually have of God, drawn from two
qualities that do always attend them : 1. Tfaeir un
reasonableness ; 2. Their danger.
SERMON XIX. — P. 180.
" But every raan is tempted, when he is drawn away
of his own lust, and enticed." — James, i. 14.
The explication of these two terras being premised,
1. What the apostle raeans here by being " terapted ;"
2. What is intended by " lust ;" the prosecution of
the words lies in these particulars :
I. To shew the false causes upon which raen are
apt to charge their sins. And that, 1. The decree of
God concerning things to come to pass is not a proper
cause for any man to charge his sins upon. Objec
tion to this stated and answered. 2. The influences
of the heavens and of tfae stars imprint notfaing upon
men that can impel or engage them to do evil, j
3. Neither can any man charge his sins upon the I
constitution and teraper of his body, as the proper i
cause of them. 4. No man ean justly charge his sins i
upon the Devil, as tfae cause of them. Though these j
be not the proper causes of sin, they are observed to [
be very often great promoters of it, where they meet i
with a corrupt heart. 1
II. To shew, that the proper cause of sin is the ;
depraved will of raan ; which being supposed suffi- \
ciently clear from Scripture, is farther evinced by
arguments and reasons, — 1. From the office of the
will. 2. From every man's experience of himself and
his own actions. 3. From the same man's making a '
different choice of the same object at one time from I
what he does at another. 4. From this, that even \
the souls in hell continue to sin.
III. To shew the way by which a corrupt will, '<
here expressed, is the cause of sin. 1. It draws a '
raan aside from the ways of duty. 2. Entices him, |
by representing the pleasure of sin, stript of all the
troubles and inconveniences of sin, and by repre
senting that pleasure that is in sin greater than
indeed it is. The exceeding vanity of every sinful
pleasure is made to appear by considering, — I. The
latitude or measure of its extent. 2. The duration or
continuance of it.

SERMON XX. — P. 186.
" For it is a people of no understanding : therefore
he that made thera will not have mercy on them,
and he that formed them will shew them no
favour." — Isaiah, xxvu. 11.
The prophet, after eloquently describing a severe
judgment to be inflicted on the Jews in the deplor-

CONTENTS OF THE SERMO. VS.

able destruction of Jerusalem, does in the next
words assign a reason for it : " For it is a people of
no underste-nding." This ignorance is here explained
to be not that of an erapty understanding, but of a
depraved heart and corrupt disposition, and there
fore the highest aggravation. From the words of
the text are deduced two observations :
I. The relation of a Creator strongly engages God
to put forth acts of love and favour towards his
creature. The strength of which obligeraent ap
pears, — 1. Becjiuse it is natural. 2. Because God
put it upon hiraself. Three engaging things, iraplied
in the creature's relation to God, that oblige him to
manifest himself iu a way of goodness to it : 1. The
extract or original of the creature's being, which is
from God himself, which includes in it two other
endearing considerations : (1.) It puts a likeness
between God and the creature ; ('2.) Whatsoever
comes from God, by way of creation, is good, and so
there naturally does result an act of love. 2. The
dependence of its being upon God. 3. The end of
the creature's being is God's glory.
II. How sin disengages, and tekes off God from
all those acts of favour that the relation of a Creator
engaged him to. 1. It turns that which, in itself, is
an obUgation of mercy, to be an aggravation of the
offence. 2. It takes away that similitude that is
between God and the creature, which (as has been
observed) was one cause of that love. 3. It takes
off the creature from bis dependence upon God ;
that is, his moral dependence, which is a filial re-
Uance and recumbency upon him. 4. It renders the
creature useless as to the end for which it was
designed. In an application of the foregoing, the first use is
to obviate and take off that comraon argument, in
the mouths of the ignorant, and in the hearts of the
knowing, that God would never make them to
destroy them ; and therefore, since he has made
thein, they roundly conclude that he will not destroy
them. Now the reasons upon which men found
their objections may be these two : 1. A self-love,
and a proneness to conceive some extraordinary
perfection in themselves, which may compound for
their misdemeanours. 2. Their readiness to think
that God is not so exceeding jealous of his honour,
but he may easily put up the breach of it, without
the ruin of his creature. These pleas and objections
of men answered by considering and comparing the
offence of a child against his natural parent, with
that of a creature against his Creator. The second
use is to inform us of the cursed, provoking nature
of sin. The third use may shew us under what
notion we are to make our addresses to God ; not as
a Creator, but a reconciled God.

SERMON XXL — P. 194.
" When the young raan heard that saying, he went
away sorrowful, for he had great possessions." —
Matt. xix. 22.
After reflecting upon the comraand that gave
occasion to this sorrow under these three degrees :
I. "Go sell that thou hast." 2. " Give to the poor."
3. " Come and follow rae," — and likewise stating and
answering sorae abuses in the doctrine of the Papists
conceming this scripture, the words of the text are
observed to contain in them four things considerable ;

1. The person making the address to Christ, who
was one whose reason was enlightened to a solicitous
consideration of his estate in another world ; 2. The
thing sought for in this address, namely, eternal life ;
¦3. The condition upon which it was proposed, and
upon which it was refused, namely, the sale and
relinquishment of his temporal estate ; 4. His beha
viour upon this refusal, " he departed sorrowful."
Which are all joined together in this one proposi
tion, namely, he that deUberately parts with Christ,
though for the greatest and most suitable worldly
enjoyment, if but his natural reason is awakened,
does it with rauch secret sting and remorse. In the
prosecution of this is shewn,
I. Whence it is that a man, acted by an en
Ughtened reason, finds such reluctancy and regret
npon his rejection of Christ : it raay proceed from
these causes :
1st, From the nature of conscience, that is apt to
recoil upon any error, either in our actions or in our
choice. 2dly, Frora the usual course of God's judicial pro
ceeding in this raatter, which is to clarify the eye of
reason to a clearer sight of the beauties and excel
lencies of Christ, in the very moraent and critical
instant of his departure.
3dly, Because there is that in Christ, and in the
gospel, even as they stand in opposition to the best
of such enjoyments, that answers the most natural
and generous discourses of reason. For proof
hereof, two known principles of reason produced,
into which the most severe commands of the gospel
are resolved : 1. That the greatest calamity is to be
endured, rather than the least sin to be committed.
2. That a less good is to be forsaken for a greater.
To reduce this principle to the case in hand, two
things are demonstrated : (1.) That the good pro
mised by our Saviour to the young man was reaUy
greater than that wfaicfa was to be forsook for it ;
(2.) Tfaat it was proposed as such with sufficient
clearness of evidence, and upon sure, undeniable
grounds. Here, to omit other arguments, the truth
of the gospel seems chiefly to be proved upon these
two grounds, — 1. The exact fulfilling of prophecies
in the person of Christ. 2. His miraculous actions ;
the convincing strength of which is undeniable upon
these two most confessed principles : (1.) That they
did exceed any natural created power, and therefore
were the immediate effects of a divine ; (2.) That
God cannot attest, or by his power bear witness to,
a Ue. II. The causes are shewn why, notwithstanding
this regret, the soul is yet brought, in the issue, to
reject Christ. 1. The perceptions of sense overbear
the discourse of reason. 2. The prevailing opposition
of some comipt affection. 3. The force and tyranny
of the custora of the world.
Now the inferences and deductions from the words
thus discussed are these : 1. We gather hence the
great criterion and art of trying our sincerity.
2. That misery which attends a final dereliction of
Christ; whereby a man loses all his happiness, —
(1.) That which is eternal ; (2.) Even that which is
temporal also. Now we may conclude, that unbelief
is entertained upon very hard terms, when it not
only condemns a man to die, but also (as it were)
feeds him with bread and water tiU his execution ;
and so leaves him wretched and destitute, even in
that place where the wicked themselves have au
inheritance.

CONTENTS OF THE SERMONS.

SERMON XXIL — P. 203.
" Who, being reviled, reviled not again." —
1 Peter, ii. 23.
A Christian's duty is fully comprised in his active
and his passive obedience. Christ's example shews,
that he was not only able to do, but also to suffer
miracles ; and all his actions are usually reduced to
three sorts : 1. His miraculous. 2. His mediatorial.
3. His moral actions ; which last he both did hira
self, and also coramanded others to do : wherefore it
is our positive duty to imitate this particular instance
of Christ's patience. The words are discussed in
three particulars :
I. In shewing what is implied in the extent of this
duty of " not reviUng again." It implies two things :
1. A suppressing of our inward disgusts. 2. A
resti'aint of our outward expressions. A caution
given for our regulation in this duty, that a due
asperity of expression against the enemies of God,
the king, and the public, is not the reviling in the
text, the scene of which is properly private revenge.
II. In shewing how the observation of this duty
coraes to be so exceeding difficult. It is so, 1. From
the peculiar, provoking quality of ill language.
2. Because nature has deeply planted in every man
a strange tenderness for his good name, which, in the
rank of worldly enjoyments, the wisest of men has
placed before life itself.
III. In shewing by what means a man raay work
himself tl. such a composure aud temper of spirit, to
observe this excellent duty. Nothing less than
God's grace can subdue the heart to such a frarae ;
but we may add our endeavours, by frequently and
seriously reflecting, that to return railing for railing
is utterly useless to all rational intents and purposes.
This is made appear inductively, by recounting the
sever.al ends and intents to which, with any colour of
reason, it may be designed : 1. The first reason
should be to remove the cause of the provocation
received. 2. May be by this means to confute tfae
calumny, and to discredit the trath of it. 3. To take
a full and proper revenge of him that first reviled.
t. To manifest a generous greatness of spirit, in
shewing impatience of an affront. By severally
unravelling of which is shewn, how unfit reviling
again is to reach i;v effect any of thera. And Saint
Paul writes, " If any one that is called a brother be
an extortioner or a railer, not to keep company with
such an one, no, not to eat," but especially at the
Lord's table : and he that is thus excoraraunicated
and excluded the company of the saints in this
world, is not like to be thought fit for the society of
angels in the next.

SERMON XXIIL — P. 209.
" Who knoweth the power of thine anger ? even
according to thy fear, so is thy wrath." — Psalm
xc. 11.
This description of God's anger is supposed to
come from Moses, who might well be sensible of its
weight. Anger (and the like affections) cannot
properly be said to be in the infinitely pei'fect God
at all ; but is only an extrinsical denomination of a
work wrought without him, when fae does something

that bears a similitude to those effects that anger
produces in men. The prosecution of the words is
managed in four particulars :
I. Two preparatory observations are laid down
concerning God's anger : 1. That every harsh .ind
severe dispensation is not an effect of it. 2. That
there is a great difference between God's anger and
his hatred.
II. Those instances shewn in which this unsup-
portable anger of God does exercise and exert itself :
1. It inflicts immediate blows and rebukes upon the
conscience. 2. It imbitters afflictions. 3. It curses
enjoyments. III. Those properties and qualifications considered,
which set forth and declare the extraordinary gi'eat-
ness of it : 1. It is fully commensurate to the very
utmost of our fears. 2. It not only equals, but
infinitely transcends our fears. 3. Though we may
attenipt it in our thoughts, yet we cannot bring it
within the coraprehension of our knowledge. 4. The
greatness of God's anger appears, by comparing it
with that of men.
IV. Some use and iraproveraent made of the
whole. As, 1. It may serve to discover to us the
intolerable misery of such as labour under a lively
sense of God's wrath for sin. 2. It may discover to
ns the ineffable vastness of Christ's love to raankind
in his sufferings for them. 3. It speaks teiTor to
such as can be quiet, and at peace within themselves,
after the commission of great sins. 4. A\l that has
been said of God's anger is a warning against sin,
that cursed thing which provokes it. Therefore
men are advised to begin here, and not expect to
extinguish the flame till they withdraw the fuel.
Let them but do this, and God will not fail to do the
other.

SERMON XXIV. — P. 215.
" Fear not them which kill the body, but are not
able to kill the soul ; but rather fear him which is
able to destroy both body and soul in hell." —
Matt. x. 28.
Christ in this chapter is commissioning his twelve
apostles for their evangelical expedition : frora the
fifth verse alraost to the end of the chapter we have
an explication of their commission. 1. In respect of
the place where they were to administer it. 2. In
respect of the doctrine they were to preach. Christ's
instractions are reducible to these two : 1. A caution
against the luxury of the world. 2. An encourage
raent against the cruelty of the world. To raake his
adraonitions more effectual, he descends to those
particular things he knew they chiefly feared.
1. Bodily torments. 2. Disgrace. 3. Death ; which
last he cautions them against for these three reasons :
(1.) Because it is but the death of tfae body ;
(2.) Because hell is raore to be feared ; (3.) Because
they live under tfae special care of God's overseeing
providence ; and therefore cannot be taken away
without his special permission. Au objection con
cerning the fear of men stated, and answered.
These things premised, the words of the text are
pregnant with many great concerning truths. As,
1. That it is within the power of raan to divest us of
aU our temporal enjoyraents. 2. That the soul of
man is iramortal. 3. That God has an absolute and
plenary power to destroy the whole man. 4. That
the thouglit cf damnation ought to have greater

CONTENTS OF THE SERMONS.

weight to engage our fears than the most exquisite
raiseries tfaat tlie power or raalice of man is able to
inflict. The prosecution of this lies in two things :
I. In shewing what is in these miseries which
men are able to infiict tliat may lessen our fears of
them. Seven considerations ought to lessen our
fears of those miseries : 1. That they are teraporal,
and concern only this life : as, (1.) Loss of reputa
tion ; (2.) Loss of an estate ; or, (3.) Loss of life,
which of itself is quickly past. 2. They do not take
away any thing from a man's proper perfections.
3. They are all limited by God's overruling hand.
4. The good that raay be extracted out of sueh
miseries as are inflicted by men, is often greater
than the evil that is endured by tliem. 5. The fear
of these evils seldom prevents them before they
come, and never lessens them when they are corae.
6. The aU-knowing God, who knows tfae utmost
of them better than men or angels, has pronounced
them not to be feared. 7. The greatest of these
evils have been endured, and tbat without fear or
astonishment. II. In shewing what is impUed in the destruction
of the body and soul in hell, which makes it so
formidable. After running over several common
considerations, this gives a sting to all the rest, that
it is the utmost tfae Almighty God can do to a sinner.
Some objections about total annihilation and diminu
tion of being, here answered.
AppUcation in exliorting us, whenever we are
discouraged from duty, or tempted to sin by raan,
on one side conscientiously to ponder man's inability,
and ou the other God's infinite power to destroy.
The power of the latter consideration instanced in
the case of Shadrach, Meslia«h, and Abeduego ; of
Joseph, and of the apostles' perseverance in preach
ing ; and the neglect of the former consideration in
the case of Saul and Amalek, David's raadness, and
Peter's denial of Christ. 2d use. That it is not
absurd to give cautions for the avoiding eternal
death, even to those whose salvation is sure, and
sealed up in the purpose of God. 3d use. This
speaks reproof to that slavish sort of sinners who are
men-pleasers. Flattery of men always carries with
it a distrast or a neglect of God ; it is ignoble as a
man, and irreUgious as a Christian.

SERMON XXV. — P. 225.
" For verily he took not on him the nature of angels ;
but he took on him the seed of Abraham." —
Heb. u. 16.
The dark and miserable ignorance considered,
tliat had overspread almost ail the world for four
thousand yeai'S before the coraing of Christ, who was
bom to be the great Mediator and Instructor of
mankind ; which he was to do by the strongest
methods, and raost miraculous condescensions to our
likeness. A critical exposition of fhe words to vin
dicate the translation of tfae text, which is prosecuted
in two particulars :
I. In shewing what is naturally infeiTed from
Christ's faking "on him the seed of Abraham."
Four things follow, and are inferred upon it : 1. The
divine nature of Christ is unavoidably consequent
from hence. 2. The reaUty of Christ's human
nature. 3. The truth of his office, and the divinity
of his mission is deducible from the same ground.

4. Christ's voluntary choice and design, to assume a
condition here upon earth low and contemptible.
II. In shewing why Christ took upon him the
natui'e of man, and not of angels. The reasons
whereof (besides that it was the divine will, which is
a very sufficient one) may be these two : 1. The
transcendent greatness and malignity of the sin of
the angels above that of men : (1.) As beuig com
mitted against much greater Ught ; (2.) As com
menced upon a greater Uberty of will and freedora
of choice. 2. Without such a Redeeraer the whole
race and species of mankind had perished, as being
all involved in tlie sin of their representative ;
whereas, though raany of the angels sinned, yet as
raany, if not raore, persisted in their innocence. We
are exhorted to a return of gratitude, and to a
remembrance that Christ made hiraself ** the Son
of miin," that, by the change of our nature, we might
become " the sons of God."

SERMON XXVI.— P. 330.
" And his disciples asked him, saying. Master, who
did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born
bUnd?
" Jesus answered, Neither hath tfais man sinned, nor
his parents : but that tfae works of God should be
raade manifest in him." — John, ix. 2, 3.
The circumstance of this blindness, thus expressed
in the words of the first verse, was the occasion of
those words that follow in the two next ; in which
we have, 1. A question of Christ's disciples. The
design of the proposal raay be twofold : (1.) Simply
and positively as their opinion, really judging all
maladies of the body to corae from the antecedent
demerit of sin, as past and actually coramitted, or as
future and foreknown by God ; (2.) Only for argu
ment sake. 2. The answer or rejoinder of Christ, in
which, by a reprehensive shortness, he both clears
the man's innocence, and vindicates God's proceed
ings. The words thus cleared briefly exhibit to ns
the erroneous curiosity of the disciples, in their
inquiry into the reason of God's judgments, and the
state of another man's soul : the design of them is
prosecuted in three propositions :
T. That raen are prone to charge God's judgments
upon false causes. And, 1. These false causes are
shewn ; which are, (1.) Sin on his part that suffers ;
(2.) Hatred on God's part. 2. The principles are
shewn, inducing men to make such false references :
and tfaese are, (1.) Tfae fallibility of the rale, and the
falseness of tlie opinion by which they judge ; (2.)
Their inabihty in discerning, joined with their confi
dence in pronouncing ; (3.) The inbred maUce of
our nature.
II. That not always the sin or merit of tfae person
aflKcted, but the will of God that afflicts, is some
times the sole, but always the sufficient reason of the
affliction. In support of which, God's own testi
mony. Job, xlii. 7, is produced ; a distinction is made
between punishments and afflictions, and God's pro
ceeding herein cleared from injustice upon these
reasons : 1. His absolute, unaccountable dominion
and sovereignty over the creature. 2. The essential
equity of his nature. 3. His unerring, all-disposing
wisdom. III. God never inflicts evil upon men but for the
great end of advancing his own glory, and that
UbUiiUy in the way of their good. This is sufficiently

CONTENTS OF THE SERMONS.

clear in the present instance, and expressed in those
words of the text, " that the works of God might be
raade manifest in him." The works that God in
tends thus to glorify, usually are, 1. Tfae miraculous
works of his power. 2. The works of his grace.
The use and iraproveraent of the doctrine thus
discussed is a confutation and reproof of the bold,
uncharitable interpreters of God's providences ;
whose peremptory way of judging is peculiarly odious
to hira for the cursed cause of it, curiosity, which
raay be properly accounted the incontinence of the
mind, and is but one remove from the rebeUion of it.

SERMON XXVII. — P. 240.
"But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou
mayest be feared." — Psalm cxxx. 4.
After man had once sinned, and so was for ever
disabled to stand before God upon terms of the law,
which spoke nothing but irrevocable death to hira
who transgressed in the least iota, had God conti
nued tfais inexorable sentence, it would of necessity
have wrought in man these two things : 1. Horror of
despair. 2. Height of malice. God therefore as
sumes to himself the most endearing description in
these words ; which consist of two parts :
I. A declaration of mercy in these words, " There
is forgiveness with thee ;" and the greatness of it is
displayed in the consideration of three things : 1.
The principle from which it flows. It is from the
free, spontaneous motion of God's good pleasure.
This evinced by sundry reasons. His raercy shewn
to be consistent with fais justice, and the former to
be made glorious ; (1.) In the relaxation of the law,
which required of every sinner a satisfaction in his
own person ; (2.) That, as he was pleased to be
satisfied with a surety, so he himself found and pro
vided this surety. 2. The sius that are the subject-
matter of it : and the greatness of the pardon
advances upon considering them, as they are height
ened by these two properties : (1.) Their number ;
(2.) Their greatness. 3. The persons on whora this
pardon is confeiTcd, who are men ; that is, very
worthless and inconsiderable creatures, in compa
rison of those to whom the same pardon is denied.
II. The end and design of such a declaration,
which is fear aud obedience : under which head are
shewn, — 1. What that fear is, which is here in
tended. There are three sorts of fear : (1.) An
anxious, distracting, amazing fe.ir, such as Moses
felt upon tfae sight of God ; (2 ) A slavish and ser
vile fear, such an one as is called, " the spirit of
Uondage," (3.) A filial, reverential fear, such an one
as is enUvened with a principle of love : which is
that alone tfaat is designed in these words. 2. How
God's forgiveness may be an argument to enforce
tills fear : as, (1.) Because the neglect of the fear of
God, upon supposal that he has forgiven us our sins,
is highly disingenuous ; (2.) Also most provoking
and dangerous.
Hence we learn, 1. The different nature of Christ's
spiritual kingdora frora all other Idngdoras in the
world, in respect of the fear of the subject ; 2. Upon
what ground every man is to build the persuasion of
the pardon of his sins, namely, the effects this per
suasion of God's mercy works upon their spirits : for
he, that from God's raercy gatliers no arguraent for
his fear, may conclude thus much, that there is

indeed forgiveness with God, but no forgiveness for
hira.

SERMON XXVIII. — P. 248.
PREACHED JUST AFTER CROMWELl's DEATH. -
" Yet the Lord has not given you an heart to per
ceive, nor eyes to see, nor ears to hear, unto thia
day." — Deut. xxix. 4.
God's miraculous favours to the children of Israel
are shortly enuraerated, and their invincible hardness,
strange unbeUef, and frequent rebellion under them.
An interchange of raercies on God's part and mur
murings on theira being the continual custora and
raanner of their whole life, Moses might well accom
pany tfae repetition of the covenant, with this up
braiding reprehension. From the several phrases
of the sarae signification in the text, we may collect
the exceeding stupidity and total ignorance of the
Jews, in apprehending the divine dispensations ; or
refer them to those several means which God suited
to every apprehensive faculty of their soul, that he
might force his convictions upon them. The words
afford us these observations : 1. That the heart may
remain unaffected and unconvinced in tfae midst of
convincing means, so termed ; (1.) Because they do
actually convince some, thougfa they miscarry in
others ; (2.) Because they have a fitness or aptitude
to convince all. 2. That a perceiving heart is
totally and entirely the free gift of God ; free, (I.)
in respect of the motive ; (2.) in respect of the per
sons on whom it is conferred. 3. That God's denial
of such a perceiving heart does certainly infer (but
not cause) the nnsuccessfulness of all the means of
grace. In handling of which is shewn, —
I. What is meant by God'a giving to the soul a
perceiving heart ; which is here set out by such acts
as are properly acts of knowledge, as understanding,
seeing, hearing ; not because grace is placed only in
the understanding, as some iraagine ; but, 1. Because
the understanding ' has the precedency and first
stroke in holy actions, as well as others. 2. Because
the means of grace are most frequently expressed
by the word of truth, and the understanding is that
faculty, whose proper office it is to close in with
truth as such. To have a perceiving heart is not,
1. To understand and receive the word according to
the letter and notion, by a bare assent to the truth of
it. But, 2. To have a light begot in the mind by an
immediate work of the Spirit, whereby alone the
soul is enabled to apprehend and discern the things
of God spiritually, and to practise thera effectuaUy.
II. Whence it is, tliat without this gift tfae soul
cannot make any improvement of the means of
grace. It arises from two reasons : 1. From its
exceeding impotence and inability to apprehend
tfaese things. 2. From its contrariety to them,
which chiefiy consists, (1.) In carnal corruptions ;
(2.) In carnal wisdora.
III. That although, upon God's denial of a per
ceiving heart, the soul remain unprofitable under the
means of grace, " so as not to hear nor perceive ;"
yet this unprofitableness cannot at all be ascribed to
God as the chief author of it. God's denial of a per
ceiving heart admits of a double acceptation : 1. It
impUes only a bare denial of grace. It is not this
denial that causes us to reject the means of grace,
but the immediate sinfulness of tfae heart. 2. It

CONTENTS OF THE SERMONS.

includes also a positive act of induration. Now God,
without begetting any evil disposition in the heart,
raay harden it to sin ; (1.) By affording a general
influence or concurrence to the persuasions or sug
gestions of Satan or sinful raen, so far as they are
natural acts ; (2.) By disposing and offering such
objects aud occasions, which, though good in thera
selves, yet, concurring with a corrupt heart, have a
fitness to educe that corruption into act ; (3.) By
aftbrding his concurrence to those motions that such
objects and occasions stir up in the soul, so far as
they are positive and natui'al.
IV. How God can justly reprehend men for not
hearing nor perceiving, when upon his denial of a
heart there is a necessity lying upon them to do
neither. For clearing this, it is already shewn, that
God's denial of a heart is not the cause of the
necessity of the soul's not perceiving, but its own
native harduess. Now this hardness is the irarae
diate product of the sin of Adam, which was most
free and voluntary ; and every man is as really
guilty of this sin, as he was really represented in
Adara. Application. 1st use. This doctrine spealts refu
tation to that opinion, that states a sufficiency of
grace in the bare proposal of things to be believed
and practised. The 2d use, is of exhortation ; that
in the' enjoyraent of the means of grace we shonld
not terminate in the means, but look up to God,
who alone is able to give a heart to improve thera.

SERMON XXIX.— P. 256.
PREACHED MAY, 29.
" But when the Comforter is come, whom I will
send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of
truth, which proceedeth frora the Father, he shall
testify of me." — John, xv. 26.
These words contain two general parts :
I. The promise of sending the Spirit : wherein we
have a full description of him, 1. In respect of his per
son ; he is said to " proceed from the Father." There
has been great controversy betweeu the Latin and
Greek churches concerning his procession, the former
holding that he proceeds equally from the Father and
the Son, and the latter that he proceeds from the
Father only by the Son. 2. In respect of his office or
employraent in these two things : (I.) That he is a
" Comforter ;" (2.) That he is the " Spirit of truth."
He is a " Comforter," because he is " the Spirit of
truth :" and truth has this coraforting influence upon
the raind, (1.) From the native congenial suitable
ness that it has to raan's understanding ; (2.) From
the sovereign virtue it has to clear the conscience ;
first, from guilt, secondly, frora doubt.
II. The end of his being sent, which was to testify
of Christ. In which are considered. 1. What the
Spirit was to testify of Christ ; which was, that he
was the Son of God, the Messias, and Saviour of the
world. 2. By what ways and means he was to tes
tify this of him ; which were the gifts conferred by
hira upon the disciples ; three of wfaicfa seera more
eminently designed for tfae great purpose of preach
ing the gospel : (1.) The gift of miracles ; (2.) The
gift of tongues ; (3.) That strange, undaunted, and
supernatural courage fae infused into the disciples.
A full reflection upon what has been said will fur
nish an infalUble rule for trying men's pretences of

the Spirit. If they find not only comment, but text
also, and plead the spirit in defiance of the letter ;
it is not God's Spirit that acts them, but the spirit of
darkness and desolation, that ruins government and
subverts kingdoms. But thankfully and forgetfully
to accept our oppression, the king's restoration is
commemorated as the work of the Holy Ghost,
carrying in it suoh bright testimonies of a sujierna-
tnral power, so much above, nay, against the means
and actors visibly appearing in it, that it may pro
perly be expressed iu those words, Zech. iv. 6, " Not
by might, nor by strength, but by my Spirit, saith
the Lord."
Trin'itij Sunday. — Though the chief subject of
the text was the Holy Spirit, yet it seems to poiut
both at the Pentecost and the Trinity ; for in the
words, we have, 1. The person sent, which was the
Holy Ghost. 2. The person sending him, which
was the Son. 3. The person from whora he is said
to proceed, which was the Father, — all eraployed iu
man's salvation ; the Father contriving, the Son
ordering, and the Spirit performing.
From the whole passage may be collected two
things : 1. God's gi'acious love aud condescension to
man. 2. The worth of souls : the salvation of which
is never left to chance ; all the persons of the
Trinity being solicitous to comfort them in this
world, and at length to waft them to a better.
SERMON XXX. — P. 262.
" But a wounded spirit who can bear ?" — Prov.
xviii. 14.
Few raen being kept frora sin but merely by the
check of their fears representing to them the endless,
insupportable torments of another world, as the cer
tain, consequent, and terrible reward of it ; atheists,
who shake these fears off, are adraonished, that God
can antedate the torraents they disbelieve, and, by
what he can make them feci, teach them the cer
tainty of what they refuse to fear. By way of
explanation of the words is premised, 1. That by
" spirit" is meant the soul, in which there is a lower
or inferior part, the sensitive faculties and appetites ;
and a raore noble portion, purely intellectual, in
operation, as well as in substiince, perfectly spiritu.xl.
2. By being " wounded" is to be understood, its being
deeply and intimately possessed with a lively sense
of God's wrath for sin. The sense of the words, then,
lies full and clear in this one proposition, naraely,
that the trouble and anguish of a soul, labouring
under a sense of God's displeasure for sin, is inex
pressibly greater than any other grief or trouble
whatsoever, which is prosecuted under the following
particulars ; shewing,
I. What kind of persons are the proper subjects of
this trouble, namely, both the righteous and the
wicked, but with a very different issue.
II. Wherein the excessive greatness of this trouble
doth appear ; which may be collected, I . From the
behaviour of our Saviour himself in this condition.
2. Frora those raised and passionate expressions
that have been uttered by persons eminent in the
ways of God, while they were labouring under it.
3. Frora the uninteri-upted, incessant continuance
of it. 4. From its violent and more than ordinary
manifestatation of itself on outward signs and
effects. 5. From those horrid effects it faas had
upon persons not upheld under it by divine grace.

CONTENTS OF THE SERMONS.

III. By what ways and means this trouble is
brought upon the soul : four ways instanced, 1. By
dreadful reflections upon divine justice, as provoked.
2. By fearful apprehensions of the divine mercy, as
abused. 3. By God's withdrawing his presence, and
the sense of his love from the spirit. 4. By God's
giving coraraission to the tempter more than usually
to trouble and disquiet it.
IV. What is God's end and design in casting men
into such a perplexed condition. 1. For the wicked
reprobate, it is but the first-fruits of hell, and the
earnest of their damnation. 2. For the pious and
sincere. God designs it, (1.) To imbitter sin to
them ; (2.) To endear and enhance the value of
returning raercy.
V. The inferences to be drawn from the whole
are, 1. That no man presume to pronounce any
thing scoffingly of the present, or severely of the
final estate of such as he finds e-xercised with
the distracting troubles of a wounded spirit. 2. Let
no secure sinner applaud himself in the presumed
safety of his spiritual estate, because he finds no
such trouble upon his spirit for sin. 3. Let no
person exclude himself from the nuraber of such as
are sincere and tmly regenerate, only because he
never yet felt any of tfaese amazing pangs of con
science for sin.

SERMON XXXI  P. 271.
" Unto whora I sware in my wrath that they should
not enter into my rest." — Psalm xcv. 11.
By this expression, " I sware in my wrath," is
meant God's pereraptory declaring his resolution to
destroy the murmuring and rebeUious Jews. Tfae
word " swearing" is very significant, and seems to
import, 1. The certainty of the sentence here pro
nounced. 2. The terror of it ; if the children of
Israel should say, " Let not God speak to us, lest we
die." As for the word " rest," we must admit, in
this scripture, as well as in many others of the like
nature, a double interpretation : 1. A teraporal rest
in Canaan, the promised land ; 2. An etemal rest
in the heavenly Canaan.
The words thus explained are drawn into one pro
position, namely. That God sometimes in this life,
upon extraordinary provocations, may and does in
evitably design and seal up obstinate sinners to
etemal destruction. The prosecution is managed
under these particulars : —
I. Shewing how and by what raeans God seals up
a sinner to perdition. There are three ways by
wliich God usually does this: — 1. By withholding
the virtue and power of his ordinances. 2. By re
straining the convincing power of his providences.
And there are three sorts of providence instanced,
iu which God often speaks convincingly : (1.) In a
general, comraon calamity ; (2.) By particular, per
sonal, and distinguishing judgments ; (3.) By signal,
unexpected deliverances. 3. By delivering up a sin
ner to a stupidity or searedness of conscience.
II. Shewing what sort of obstinate sinners those
are that God deals with in this manner : which are,
1. Such as sin against clear and notable warnings
from God. 2. Such as sin against special renewed
vows and promises of obedience made to God.
III. Answering and resolving two questions that
may arise from the foregoing particulars : —
1st, Whether the purpose of God passed upon an

obstinate sinner (here expressed by God's swearing
against him) be absolutely ii'revocable ? Concerning
which it is affirmed that the Scripture is fuU and
clear for it.
2dly, Whether aman raay know such a purpose to
have passed upon him antecedently to its execution !
In answer to wfaicfa, frora a consideration of the or
dinary ways by which God imparts his will to raen,
naraely, 1. By his word. 2. By raen's collection of
it frora its effects, — it is affirraed, that no man in
this life can pass any certain judgment concerning
the will of God in reference to his own final estate.
But here is observed a wide difference between the
piu'pose of God hitherto discoursed of, and tfaat which
the schools call God's decree of reprobation. 1. Be
cause that decree is said to comraence upon God'a
good pleasure and sovereign will, but this purpose
upon the provocation of the sinner. 2. Because
that decree is said to be frora all eternity ; but this
purpose is taken np after some signal provocation.
1 V. From all which we are exhorted to bewai'e
of sinning under sin-aggravating circurastances, and
shewn the danger of dallying with and venturing
upon the Almighty, by a daring continuance in a
course of sin.

SERMON XXXII. — P. 280.
" The fool hath said in his heart. There is no God."
— Psalm xiv. 1.
In these words we have two particulars, wherein
we may consider, —
I. An assertion made, " There is no God." 1. The
thing asserted, which may be understood, (1.) Of an
absolute reraoval of the divine being and existence ;
or, (2.) Of a removal of God's providence, by which
he governs and takes account of all the particular
affairs of the world, and more especially of the lives
and actions of men ; 2. The manner of the assertion,
" The fool hath said in his heart ;" it wears tfae badge
of guilt, privacy, and darkness. By the " fool's say
ing in his heart. There is no God," may be implied,
1. An inward wishing that there was no God.
2. His seeking out arguments to persuade himself
tfaat tfaere is none. 3. Not only a seeking for reasons
and arguments, but also a raarveUous readiness to
acquiesce in any seeming probability or appearance
of reason, that may make for his opinion. 4. An
other way, different frora all the former : for a man
to place his sole dependence, as to his chief good and
happiness, on any thing besides God, is (as we may
so speak) virtually and by consequence for him " to
say in his heart, Tfaere is no God."
II. The second particular considered is, the per
son who made this assertion, " the fool," whose folly
will appear from these foUowing reasons : — 1. That
in making and holding this assertion, he contradicts
the general judgment and notion of mankind. 2. That
he lays aside a principle easy and suitable to reason,
and substitutes in the room of it one strange and
harsh, and at the best highly improbable. 3. His
folly appears from the causes and motives inducing
him to take up this opinion, which, amongst others,
are, (1.) Great impiety, and disquiet of conscience
consequent thereupon ; (2.) Great ignorance of na
ture and natural causes. 4. Frora those cases in
which such persons begin to doubt and waver, and
fly offfrora their opinion, instanced, (1.) In the time
of some great and imminent danger ; (2.) In the

CONTENTS OF THE SERMONS.

time of approaching death. Tfae modern and more
thoroughpaced sinners affect a superiority in viUainy
above their ancestors ; therefore this discourse against
atheism is supposed to be of sorae use ; and if so, the
most proper use is, to give every one of us a view
and prospect into his own heart ; and such as are
willing to watch over that, so as to prevent this mon
strous birth, are advised to beware, 1 . Of great and
crying sins, sucfa as make the conscience raw and
sick ; 2. Of discontents about the cross passages of
God's providence towards them ; 3. Of devoting
themselves to pleasure and sensuality ; there being
notfaing in the world that casts God out of the heart
like it.

SERMON XXXIII. — P. 286.
PREACHED AT WESTMINSTER ABBEY, MAY, 29.
" Our fathers understood not thy wonders in Egj-pt ;
they remembered not the multitude of thy mer
cies ; but provoked him at the sea, even at the
Red Sea." — Psalm cvi. 7.
The resemblance between the transactions of Pro
vidence with the children of Israel in their rederap
tion from Egypt, and with ourselves in the restoration
of the royal faraily, being briefly considered, to shew
how like we are to thera for their rairaculous ingrati
tude, we must observe tliree things in tfae text : — ¦
I. The unworthy and ungrateful deportraent of
tlie Israelites towards God upon a most signal mercy
and deliverance ; " they provoked hira ;" which ex
pression seeras to iraport an insolent, daring resolu
tion to offend ; and, as it relates to God, strikes at
him in a threefold respect : 1. It rises up against fais
power and prerogative ; 2. It imports an abuse of
his goodness ; 3. It is an affront upon fais long-suffer
ing and his patience.
II. The second thing to be observed is, the aggra
vation of this deportment from the nature and cir
cumstance of the deliverance, " They provoked him
at the sea, even at the Red Sea." The baseness
and ingratitude of which God casts in their teeth,
by confronting it with the glorious deUverance he
vouchsafed them ; a deliverance ennobled with these
four qualifications: 1. Its greatness; 2. Its unex
pectedness ; 3. The eminent seasonableness of it ;
4. Its absolute undeservedness. Our case is severally
shewn in the above particulars to be parallel to that
of the IsraeUtes, and likewise in the retum made to
God for his goodness.
III. The third thing observable is, the cause of
this misbehaviour, " They understood not thy won
ders in Egypt." Now in every wonderful passage
of Providence two things are to be considered :
1. The author by whom it is done ; 2. The end for
which it is done : neither of these, in the cases be
fore us, were understood by the Israelites, nor have
been attended to by us as they ought to have been.
SERMON XXXIV. — P. 292.
" Howbeit, this kind goeth not out but by prayer and
fasting." — Matt. xvii. 21.
It was a general received command, and an ac
knowledged mle of practice in all ages and places of
the Christian world, that we are "to hear the church ;"
which, being acted by the immediate guidance of

the Holy Ghost, hath set apart the time of our
Saviour's fasting in the wilderness, to be solemnized
with the anniversary exercise of abstinence, for the
subduing the flesh and quickening the spirit. As
for tlie words, among other expositions, they are
more judiciously interpreted of an evil spirit having
had long and inveterate possession of the pai'ty out
of whom it was east, and the sense of them, as im
provable into a standing, perpetual precept, is this ;
that there are some vices which, partly by our tem
per and constitution, partly by habit and inveterate
continuance, have so firra a hold of us, that they
cannot be thoroughly dispossessed but with the
greatest ardour and constancy of prayer, joined with
the harshest severities of mortification. In the
text are two parts : 1st, An intimation of a peculiar
duty, "prayer and fasting." 2dly, The end and
design of it, whicli is to eject and dispossess the un
clean spirit. The entire discussion is raanaged in
three particulars :
1. In taking a survey of the extent of this text.
This duty of fasting admits of several kinds and de
grees : The first kind is of constant, universal exer
cise ; universal, both because it obUges at all times,
and extends to all persons. The second is a fast of
a total abstinence, wheu for sorae tirae we wholly
abstain frora all bodily repasts. The third is an
abstinence frora bodily refreshments in respect of a
certain sort or degree, and that undertook for some
space of time. This head is closed with a caution,
that the observation of fasting in this solemn season
should be so strict, as not to bend to any nian's
luxury ; so dispensable, as not to grate upon hig
infirraity of body.
II. In shewing what are the qualifications that
must render this duty of fasting acceptable to God,
and efficacious to ourselves. There are four condi
tions or properties, a joint concurrence of all which
is a necessary qualification of it for this great pur
pose : 1. That it is to be used, not as a duty either
necessary or valuable in itself, but only as an instru
ment. 2. That it be done with a hearty detestation
of the body of sin, for the weakening of which it is
designed. 3. That it be quickened and enlivened
with prayer. 4. That it be attended with alras and
works of charity.
III. In shewing how this duty of fasting comes tc
have such an influence in dispossessing the evil spirit,
and subduing our corruptions.
It does not affect this, either, 1. By .my casual
force naturaUy inherent in itself ; neither, 2. By
way of merit, as procuring and engaging the help of
that grace that does effect it. But it receives this
great virtue, 1. From divine institution ; 2. By being
a direct defiance to that disposition of body and
mind, upon which especially the Devil works. But
when we have taken aU these courses to eject the
evil spirit, we raust remember that it is to be the
work of God himself, whom the blessed spirits adore,
and whom the evil obey.

SERMONS XXXV. XXXVI. — P. 301.
" Repent ; or I will come unto thee quickly, and
fight against them with the sword of my mouth."
— Rev. ii. 16.
It is wonderful upon what ground a rational, dis
cerning man can satisfy and speak peace to his con
science in the very career of those sius, which, by
his own confession, lead hira to assured perdition.

CONTENTS OF THE SERMONS.

One wonld think that the cause of it must of neces
sity be one of these three : 1st, That he is ignorant
of the curse attending his sin ; which cannot be here
the cause. 2dly, That he raay know the curse, and
yet not believe it. 3dly, That though he knows
and believes the curse, yet perhaps he relaxes no
thing of his sin, because he resolves to bear it. But
it is shewn that it can proceed frora neither of these
reasons ; therefore the true one is conceived to be a
presuraing confidence of a future repentance : other
reasons indeed may aUure, this only argues a man
into sin. Now the face of these words is directly set
against this soul-devouring imposture of a deferred
repentance. In the prosecution of them it will be
convenient to inquire into their occasion. In tlie
12th verse we find, they are part of a letter to the
church (here collectively taken, as including in it
raany particular churches) of Pergamos, indited by
the Spirit of God, and directed to the angel, that is,
the chief pastor of that church. The letter contains
a charge for some sinful abuse that had crept in,
and was connived at, verse 14. This abuse was its
toleration of the Nicolaitans, whose heresy consisted
in this, 1st, That they held and abetted the eating of
sacrifices offered to idols to be lawful. 2dly, That
they held and abetted the lawfulness of fornication.
It Ukewise contained the counsel of speedy and ira
raediate repentance in the words ofthe text, in which
are two parts: 1. The first stands directed to tfae
cfaurcfa itself ; " Repent, or I will corae unto thee
quickly." God's " coming" is shewn to raean here
his approach in the way of judgraent. 2. The other
part of the words relates to those heretics ; " And I
wiU fight against thera with the sword of ray mouth ;"
that is, with the reprehending, discovering force of
the word, and the censures of the church. From
tills expression these two occasional observations are
collected : (1.) That the word of God, powerfully
dispensed, has the force and efficacy of a spiritual
sword. 2. When God undertakes the purging of a
church, or the reformation of religion, he does it
with the weapons of reUgion, with " the sword of his
mouth." The general explication of the words thus finished,
the principal design of them is prosecuted by enforc
ing the duty of iraraediate repentance ; which is done,
I. In shewing what tfaat repentance is that is here
enjoined. Repentance, in Scripture, has a three
fold acceptation : 1. It is taken for the first act, by
which the soul turns frora sin to God. 2. It is taken
for the whole course of a pious life, from a raan's first
tuming from a wicked life to the last period of a
godly : which is the only repentance that Socinus
will admit. But this is not the proper notion of re
pentance ; (1.) Because then no man could properly
be said to have repented till his death ; (2.) Because
Scripture, no less than the natural reason of the
thing itself, places repentance before faith ; (3.) Be
cause Scripture makes all those subsequent acts of
new obedience after our first turning to God, not to
be the integral, constituent parts, but the effects,
fruits, and consequents of repentance. 3. Repentance
is taken for a man's tuming to God after the guUt of
some particular sin.
II. Arguraents are produced to engage us in the
speedy and iraraediate exercise of this duty, which
are, 1. That no man can be secure of the future.
2. That supposing the aUowance of time, yet we can
not be sm'e of power to repent. 3. That adraitting
a man has both tirae and grace to repent, yet by such
delay the work wiU be incredibly more difficult. Aud

the delay of this duty is most erainently and signally
provoking to God, upon these reasons : (1.) Because
it is the abuse of a reraedy ; (2.) Because it clearly
shews tfaat a raan does not love it as a duty, but
only intends to use it for an expedient of escape ;
(3.) Because it is evidently a counterplotting of God,
and being wise above the prescribed raethods of sal
vation, to which God raakes the immediate dereUction
of sin necessary.
After the general nature of this subject, follows a
consideration of it in particular. The grand instance
of it is a death-bed repentance ; the efficacy of which,
having been much disputed in tlie world, is here dis
cussed under two heads :
I. This great case of conscience is resolved,
whether a death-bed repentance ever is or can be
effectual to salvation. Sevei'al arguraents against it
being stated and answered, six positive arguments
are produced to prove and assert it : 1. That such a
repentance, comraenced at the last hour of a man's
Ufe, has de facto proved effectual to salvation. 2. Is
taken from the truth and certainty of that saying,
owned and attested by God himself, " that if there
be first a wiUing mind, it is accepted, according to
that a man hath, and not according to that a man
hath not." 3. Because repentance saves not, as it ia
a work, or such a number of works, but as it is the
effect of a renewed nature and a sanctified heart,
from which it flows. 4. If to repent sincerely be a
thing at the last raoments of our lives impossible to
be done, then, for that instant, impenitence is not a
sin. 5. That to deny that a death-bed repentance
can be effectual to salvation, is a clear restraint and
liraitation of the compass and prerogative of God's
mercy. 6. That if a death-bed repentance cannot
possibly be effectual to salvation, then a sinner upon
his death-bed, having not repented before, may law
fully, and without sin, despair.
II. Supposing a death-bed repentance may prove
effectual, yet for any one to design and build upon il
beforehand is highly dangerous, and therefore abso
lutely irrational ; which appears from these conside
rations : 1. From the exceeding unfitness of aman
at this tirae, above all otfaers, to exercise this duty.
2. That there can be no arguments, from which
either the dying person himself, or others by him,
can certainly conclude that his repentance is sound
and effectual. In fine, this alone can be said for it,
(and to a considering person no more need to be said
against it,) that it is only not irapossible.

SERMON XXXVIL — P. 318.
" Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who
was made of the seed of David according to the
flesh ;
" And declared to be the Son of God with power,
according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrec
tion from the dead." — Romans, i. 3, 4.
Where the construction of the text lies ao that we
cannot otherwise reach the full sense of it without
making our way through doubts and ambiguities,
philosophical discourses are necessary in dispensing
the word. The present exercise therefore consists
of two parts :
I. An explication of the words : for the scheme i;
of the Greek carries a very different face from our (
translation, which difference renders the sense of J
them very disputoble. The expUcation is comprised 1|

CONTENTS OF THE SERMONS.

in the resolution of these four inquiries : 1. Whether
the translation rightly renders it, that Christ was
" declared to be the Son of God," since the original
admits of a different signification. 2. What is im
ported by the terra, " with power." 3. What is
intended by the following words, " according to the
spirit of hoUness." 4. How those words, " by the
resurrection from the dead," are to be understood.
II. An accommodation of the words to the present
occasion, which is in shewing, 1. How Christ's resur
rection may be a proper argument to prove his
divinity and eternal sonship, next, that it is the
greatest and principal of aU others. For this we
may observe, that it is not only true, but more clear
and evident than the other arguments for the proof
of the truth of Christ's doctrine, when we consider
them as they are gener.illy reducible to these three :
1st, The nature of tfae things taught by him.
2dly, The fulfiUing of prophecies in his person.
Sdly, The rairacles and wonderful works which he
did in the time of his life. And though these were
undoubtedly high proofs of Christ's doctrine, yet his
resurrection had a vast pre-eminence over them
upon two accounts : 1. That aU the miracles he did,
supposing his resurrection had not followed, would
not have had sufficient efficacy to have proved him
to be the Messias. But his resurrection alone, with
out relation to his preceding miracles, had been a full
proof of the truth of his doctrine ; which appears
npon these two accounts : (1.) That considered ab
solutely in itself, it did outweigh all the rest of his
works put together ; (2.) That it had a raore inti
mate and near connection with his doctrine than any
of the rest. 2. Because of the general opinion and
judgment that the world had of both.
The Jews and unbelievers never atterapted to
assign any causes of the resurrection besides the
power of God, so as by that means to destroy tfae
miraculousness of it ; though they constontiy took
exceptions to Christ's other miracles, stiU resolving
them into some cause short of a divine power ; which
exceptions may be reduced to these two heads :
1. The great difficulty of discerning when an action
is really a rairacle. 2. Supposing an action is knoivn
to be a miracle, it is as difficult to know whether it
proves the truth of the doctrine of that person tfaat
does it, or not. But neither of these exceptions toke
place against the resurrection ; for, (1.) Thougfa
we cannot assign the determinate point where the
power of nature ends, yet there are some actions
ihat at first appearance so vastly transcend it, that
there can be no suspicion that tliey proceed from any
power but a divine. (2.) Should God suffer a miracle
to be done by an impostor, yet there was no neces
sity hence to gather, that God did it to confirm tfae
words of tfaat impostor : for God raay do a miracle
when and where he pleases.

SERMON XXXVIIL — P. 325.
" In much wisdora there is rauch grief : and he
that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow." —
Eccles. i. 18.
This assertion is taken up upon Solomon's judg
ment, who, by the very verdict of omniscience itself,
was of all raen in tfae world the raost knowing.
After preraising that, in speaking to the text, the
patronage of ignorance, especiallyin things spiritual,
is not intended ; but if any thing is indeed said

against knowledge, it is against that only that is so
rauch adored by the world, and falsely called
ph'dosophy ; and yet more significantly surnaraed by
the apostle, " tain phUosophy." To rectify the
absurd opinions of the world concerning knowledge,
and to take down the excessive ebtimation of it, in
the prosecution of the words, it is demonstrated to
be the cause, or at least the inseparable corapanion
of sorrow in three respects :
I. In respect of the nature and properties of the
thing itself. Under this head a question is started,
whether or no there be indeed any such thing as
true knowledge in the world ? And three reasons
advanced, which seem to insinuate that there is
none. And then the uncertainty of knowledge, its
poorness, and utter inability to contribute to the
solid enjoyments of life, is shewn in several theolo
gical and philosophical problems.
II. In respect of the laborious and troublesome
acquisition of it : in setting forth which, the scholar's
labour is considered with that of the soldier and the
husbandman, and a view is taken of those callings to
which leaming is necessary, the physician, the lawyer,
and tfae divine.
III. In respect of its effects and consequents,
three whereof are instanced : 1. The increase of
knowledge is an increase of the desire of knowledge.
2. Knowledge rewards its followers with the miseries
of poverty, and clothes them with rags. 3. Know
ledge makes the person who has it the butt of envy,
the mark of obloquy aud contention ; which con
sidered, men are advised to make him that is the
great Author, also the subject of their knowledge.
For though there is a vanity, a sorrow, and a dis
satisfaction in the knowledge of created, inferior
objects, yet we are assured that " it is life eternal, to
know God, and whora he has sent, fais Son Clirist
Jesus."

SERMON XXXIX. — P. 331.
" If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not
hear me." — Psalm Ixvi, 18.
The resolution and model of tliis whole Psalm,
which is Da\id's grateful coraraeraoration of all God's
raercies, together with a retribution of praise being
given, and therein the occasion and connection of
these words. They are considered two ways : 1. As
they have a peculiar reference to David and his
particular condition, and so they are a vehement
asseveration of his integrity. 2. Absolutely in them
selves, and so they are applicable to all men. And
being resolved, as they lie in supposition, into a
positive assertion, they afford this doctrine, " Who
soever regards iniquity in his heart, the Lord will
not hear him." In prosecution of which is shewn,
I. What it is for a man to regard or love sin in
his heart, which he may be said to do several ways :
1st, There is a constant and habitual love of sin
in the unregeneracy and corrupt estote of the soul.
2dly, There is a regarding of sin in the heart, that
consists in an unmortified habit or course of sin,
much different from the fonner, because even a child
of God may thus regard sin. Which may be evinced,
1. From example. 2. From Scripture reason, which
is grounded upon those exhortations that are there
made even to beUevei'S for the raortification of sin.
And the soul may thus love sin two ways :
(1.) Directly, and by a positive pm'suance of it;

CONTENTS OF THE SERMONS.

(2.) Indirectly, and by not attempting a vigorous
mortification of it.
Sdly, There is another kind of regarding sin in the
heart, and that is, by an actual intention of the mind
upon sin.
II. What it is to have our prayers accepted with
God : and this is to prevail with God for the obtain
ing the good thing we desire, by virtue of an interest
in Jesus Christ, and in the covenant of grace.
Several objections to this doctrine stated and
answered. III. Whence it is that a raan's regarding or
loving sin in his heart hinders his prayers from
acceptance with God. 1. Because in this case he
cannot pray by the spirit. 2. Because he cannot
pray in faith, that is, he cannot build a rational con
fidence upon any proraise, that God will accept hira.
3. Because he cannot pray with fervency, which, next
to sincerity, is the great qualification of prayer, to
which God has annexed the promise of acceptance.
By way of application, the duty of sincerity in our
worship is pressed from these two raotives : 1 . By
praying to God with insincere, sin-regarding hearts,
we incur the certain frastration of all our prayers.
2. In sucfa prayers we are not only certain not to gain
a blessing, but also we incur the danger of a heavy
curse. And to direct us how to pray with sincerity,
this rule is laid down, to endeavour first to prepare
our hearts by a thorough and a strict exaraination.
SERMON XL.— P. 338.
"God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all
things." — 1 John, in. 20.
The words are plain, and need no explication ;
therefore, after preraising some things concerning
God's attributes in general, this doctrine is drawn
from them, not much different frora the words them
selves, namely, that " God is an all-knowing God."
This is indeed a principle, and therefore ought to be
granted : yet since it is now controverted and
denied by the Arminians and the Socinians, it is no
less needful to be proved. In prosecution of this,
I. The proposition is proved, and that both by
Scripture and by reason. Under this head we are
exhorted to the knowledge of God in Christ.
II. Is shewn the excellency of God's knowledge
above the knowledge of men or angels. And this
ajipears, 1st, From the properties of this knowledge. 1. Its
first property is the exceeding evidence, and conse
quently the certainty of it. 2. Its second property
is this, that it is a knowledge independent upon the
existence of the object or thing known. For God
beholds all things in himself, and that two ways :
(1.) By reflecting upon his power, and what he can
do, he has a perfect knowledge of all possibilities,
and of tilings that may be produced ; (2.) By reflect
ing upon his power and his will, he knows whatso
ever shaU be actually produced.
2dly, The excellency of God's knowledge appears in
respect of his objects, which are aU things knowable ;
but they may be reduced to three especially, which
God alone perfectly knows, and are not to be known
to men or angels. 1. The mature of God hiraself.
2. Things future. 3. The thoughts of raen.
III. Is shewn, by way of application, that the
consideration of God's omniscience may serve as an
arguraent to press several duties upon us : 1. It must
be a sti'ong motive to bring us to a free confession

of all our sins to God. 2. It may enforce us to an
hurable submission to all God's coraraands and
directions, and that botfa in respect of belief and of
practice. 3. That as we are commanded "to be
perfect, as our heavenly Father is perfect," we
should endeavour to resemble hira in knowledge,
wisdom, and understonding, that we make a true
judgment of every thing relating fo our temporal or
eternal happiness or raisery.

SERMON XLI. — P. 345.
A FAST SERMON, PREACHED IN 1658.
" But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth,
and cry mightily unto God : yea, let them turn
every one from his evil way, and from the violence
that is in their hands.
" Who can tell if God wiU turn and repent, and
turn away from his fierce anger, tfaat we perish
not 1" — Jonah, iii. 8, 9.
We are called this day by public authority to the
work of humiliation ; and the occasion of this work
is the deplorable eruption of a sad distemper in
suitdry parts of the nation ; and tfae cause of this, we
are to know, is sin.
In this chapter we have the example of a fast
celebrated by heathens, (the raen of Nineveh,) but
worthy of tfae iraitation of the best Christians.
Here are several tilings considerable : 1. Jonah's
denunciation of a judgraent of God irapendent upon
them. 2. Their humiliation upon the hearing of this
judgment ; in which fast or humiliation there is con
siderable, I. The manner of it, which consists in two things :
1. The external hurailiation of the body. 2. An
internal, spiritual separation from sin.
II. The universal extent of it, and the particular
application of it, ver. 8.
III. The raotive of it, which was hope of mercy
and a pardon upon the exercise of this duty.
The words afford six observations, which are here
discussed : 1. The consideration of a judgment ap
proaching unto, or actually lying upon, a people, is
a sufficient argument for fasting and humiUation :
( 1 . ) Because in every judgment God calls for humilia
tion ; they are the alarms of the Almighty, by which
he terrifies and awakens sleepy souls ; (2.) It deserves
our humiUation ; though this be an unpleasing duty
to the flesh, yet it is abundantly countervailed by
the greatness of the trouble it does remove. 2. The
affliction of the body is a good preparative to the
humiliation of tfae soul : (1.) Because the operations
of the soul do much follow the disposition and temper
of the body ; (2.) Because afflicting of the body
curbs the flesh, and makes it serviceable to the spirit.
3. The nature of a fast especially consists in a real,
sincere separation from sin. The truth of this will
appear from these considerations : (1.) That fasting
is a spiritual duty ; (2.) The natm'e of a fast chiefly
consists in a separation from sin, because this is the
proper end of it. 4. National sins deserve national
humiliation : (1.) Because a general hurailiation
tends most to solve the breach of God's honour ;
(2.) Generality gives force and strength to humilia
tion. 5. The best way to avert a national judgment,
IS for every particular man to inquire into and
amend his own personal, particular sins. This is
proved, (1.) Because particular sins oftentimes fetch

CONTENTS OF THE SERMONS.

down general, universal judgments, which God
sometimes inflicts upon that account, either to shew
ns the provoking nature of sin, or else because,
though tiie sin is particular in respect of the subject
and cause of it, yet it may be general in respect of
its contagion ; (2.) Because if there were no personal,
there could be no national sins ; (3.) Because God
takes special notice of particular sins ; (4.) No
humiUation can be weU and sincere, unless it be
personal and particular. 6. Upon our serious
humiUation for, and forsaking of om- sins, tfaere is
sufficient argument in God's mercy to hope for a
removal of the severest judgment, wfaich will appear,
(1.) Because God has promised it ; (2.) Because God
has often removed judgments upon a sincere humi
liation ; (3.) Because in this God attains the ends of
his judgments.

SERMON XLII. — P. 352.
" Blessed are the poor in spirit : for theirs is the
kingdom of heaven." — Matt. v. 3.
Our Saviour begins his serraon in the mount with
seven or eight such propositions as are paradoxes
and absurdities to the maxiras and practices of tiie
camal world ; and these he ushers in with the text,
in which we have two things considerable :
Ist, A quaUty, or disposition recoraraended by
our Saviour, which is "poverty of spirit." In
treating whereof,
T. The nature of this poverty of spirit is declared, —
1st, Negatively, by shewing what it is not ; as,
1. A raere outward indigence, and want of aU the
accoraraodations of coramon life. 2. A sneaking
fearfulness and want of courage ; there being nothing
base in nature that can be noble in religion.
2dly, Positively, by shewing what it is ; and it
may be said properly to consist in these two things :
1. An inward sense and feeUng of our spiritual
wants and defects. 2. A sense of our miserable
condition by reason of such want, the wretchedness
whereof appears frora these two considerations :
(1.) That we are unable, by any natural strength of
our own, to recover and bring ourselves out of
this condition ; (2.) That during our continuance
under it we are exposed, and stand obnoxious to aU
the curses of the law.
II. The means are shewn, by which this poverty
of spirit raay be obtoined. Now there are three
ways by whieh, through the concurrence of the
Holy Ghost with our endeavours, we may bring
ourselves to it : 1. By a frequent, deep, and serious
considering of the relation we stond in towards God.
2. By being much in coraparing ourselves witfa tfae
exceeding exactness, perfection, and spirituality of
the divine law. 3. By making a due and spiritual
use of aU those afflictions and cross events, that the
providence of God is pleased to bring ns under.
The second general head considered is, the ground
and argument upon wfaicfa this poorness of spirit is
recommended, namely, that it entitles hira who has
it to the kingdom of heaven. In the words, " theirs
is the kingdom of heaven," two things are worthy
of remark : 1. Tfae thing promised, " the kingdom of
heaven ;" which here signifies not only tfae future
stote of glory allotted for tfae saints in the other
world, but tlat whole complex of blessings that is
exhibited to mankind in the gospel. 2. The manner
of the promise ; which is in words importing the
present time ; not " theirs shall be" but " theirs is
the kingdom of heaven."

SERMONS XLIIL XLIV.— P. 361.
" The hypocrite's hope shall perish.'' — Job, viii. 13.
Sincerity and hypocrisy are the two great things
about which the whole stress of the gospel is laid
out ; namely, to enforce tfae one, and to discover and
detect the other. Two things explained, to clear the
words. 1. What is meant by "the hypocrite :" aU
hypocrites may be comprehended under these two
sorts : (1.) The gross dissembler, who knowingly
pursues some sinful course, endeavouring ouly to
conceal it from the eyes of men. (2.) The formal,
refined hypocrite, who deceives his own heart, and is
the person spoken of in the text. 2. What is meant
by his " hope," wfaicfa is, those persuasions a
raan has, that he is now in a state of grace, and
consequently shall hereafter attain to a stote of
glory : and this hope raay be distinguished into two
degrees : (1.) A probable opinion ; (2.) A pereraptory
persuasion. After these premises, the words cast theraselves
into two propositions :
First, That a hypocrite may proceed so far as to
obtoin a hope and expectotion of a future blessedness.
The prosecution whereof Ues in three things :
I. Proving that the hypocrites have such hopes.
This evinced by two arguments : 1. From the nature
and constitution of man's mind, which is veheraent
and resfless in its pursuit after some suitoble good.
2. From that peace aud comfort that even hypocrites
enjoy ; which are the certain effects, and therefore
the infalUble signs, of some hope abiding in the
mind. II. Shewing by what ways and means tfae hypo
crite comes firet to attoin this hope, which are four :
I. By misapprehending God, in his attributes of
justice and of mercy. 2. By raisunderstanding of
sin, and from undervaluing the nature of sin in
general, he quickly passes into a cui'sed extenuation
of particulars. 3. By mistakes about the spiritual
rigour and strictness of the gospel, which he looks
upon to be all raercy without justice. Several texts
instanced, which he first misunderstends, and then
draws to his own purpose. 4. By his mistokes
about repentance, conversion, and faith. Whence
a caution is given to such as " think they stand, to
beware lest they fall," and stiU to fear, that that
hope is scarce sure enough that can never be too
sure. III. Shewing how the hypocrite continues and
preserves his hopes. Three ways particularly in
stanced : 1. By keeping up a course of external
obedience, and abstaining from gross, scandalous
sins. 2. By comparing himself with others, who are
openly vicious, and apparently worse than himself.
3. By forbearmg to make a strict and impartial trial
of his estote.
Second proposition. Tfaat the hypocrite's fairest
expectotion of a future happiness will in the end
vanish into raiserable disappointment. For the
prosecution of which,
I. The proposition itself is proved, 1. From Scrip
ture. 2. From the weakness of the foundation upon
wfaicfa his hope is built.
II. Those critical seasons are shewn, in which
more especiaUy his hope will be sure to fail him.
As, 1. In the time of some heart-breaking, dis
couraging judgment frora God. 2. At the time of
death.

CONTENTS OF THE SERMONS.

TII. An appUcation is made of the whole discourse,
by displaying the transcendent misery of the final
estote of all hypocrites.

SERMONS XLV. XLVI. — P. 375.
" I was durab, I opened not ray raouth ; because
thou didst it." — Psalm xxxix. 9.
All the duties of a Christian are reducible to these
three : faith, obedience, and patience : and the vitol
principle that aniraates them all is submission. This
great virtue is here recommended to us by a great
pattern. In the text are these two general parts :
1. David's submissive deportment under a sharp
affliction. 2. The reason of such his deportment,
which was the procedure of that affliction from God.
The words being a full lecture of patience, and
designed to argue us into an absolute submission to
the divine will in our most severe distresses, ai'e
prosecuted in two things :
I. In declaring the nature and measures of this
submission. This is done,
1st, Negatively, 1. By shewing tfaat it does not
consist in an utter insensibility of, or unconcernraent
under, an affliction, for he who is so insensible, (1.)
robs God of that honour he designs to himself from
that afflicting dispensation ; and, (2.) renders every
affliction befalling hira utterly useless to all spiritual
purposes. 2. That this submission ought not to re
strain us frora praying against any calamity inflicted
or approaching. 3. It should not exclude our endea
vours to prevent or reraove an affliction.
2dly, Positively, by shewing what this submission
is ; namely, a quiet composure of the whole raan
under any calamity, distress, or injury ; and re
quires, (1.) A submission of the understonding to
God ; (2.) A perfect acquiescence of the will, and
resignation of it to God's will ; (3.) A composure
and serenity in our passions and affections ; (4.) A
suppressing of all hard and discontented speeches ;
(5.) .V restraint of all rage and revenge against such
as are the instruments of God. By way of deduc
tion are inferred three things : (1.) The worth and
excellency of such a submissive, composed frarae of
spirit ; (2.) The difficulty of attaining to it : which
appears, 1. Frora that opposition which a man is to
conquer ; 2. Frora that mean opinion which the
generality of raen have of such a temper. (3.) The
necessity of an early and long endeavour after it.
II. In shewing the reasons and arguments for
this submission, as the suffering pei'son stands re
lated to God. Every thought which a man can
jjossibly conceive, either of God or of hiraself, aright,
will strongly enforce this duty : but six things in
God are particularly instonced for this purpose ;
(I.) His irresistible power ; (2.) His absolute, un
questionable dorainion and sovereignty over all
tilings ; (3.) His infinite and unfaiUng wisdora ; (4.)
His great goodness, benignity, and mercy to all his
creatures ; (5.) His exact and inviolable justice ;
(6.) His gracious way of treating all patient and
humble sufferer's, by turning every thing to their
advantage at last.
This submission has three noble qualities, as it
stends related to the foregoing considerations : I.
The necessity. 2. The prudence. 3. The decency
ofit. The foregoing discourse raay teach us an art that
all the wisdom of the world cannot teach ; which is,
by acquiescing cheerfully and entirely in the good

pleasure of Almighty God, to make ourselves happy
in the most afflicted, abject, and forlorn condition of
life. SERMONS XLVII. XLVIII. XLIX. L.
" If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live
peaceably with all men." — Romans, xii. 18.
Christianity the last and most correct edition of
the law of nature : every precept of it may be re
solved into a natural reason, as advancing and
improving nature in the higher degrees and grander
concerns of it. Christianity tokes care for man, not
only in his religious capacity, but also in his civil
and political, binding the bonds of government
faster, by the happy provisions of peace.
I. The shewing what is iraplied in the duty here
enjoined. II. What are the measures and proportions by
which it is to be deterrained.
III. What are the raeans by which it is to bo
determined. IV. What are tfae motives by which it may be
enforced. I. The duty here enjoined is, " live peaceably ;"
which m.ay be taken,
1st, For the actual enjoyment of pe.aoE with all
men : and so he only " lives peaceably," whom no
man molests. But this cannot be the sense intended
here. 1. Because so to live peaceably is impossible,
(1.) Frora the contentious, unreasonable humour of
many men ; (2.) From the contrary and inconsistent
interests of raany men. 2. Because, though it were
not impossible, it can be no man's duty.
2dly, For a peaceable behaviour towards aU men ;
which isthe duty here enjoined : it seeras adequately
to consist of two things : 1. A forbearance of all
hostile actions ; and that in a double respect : (1.)
In a way of prevention ; (2.) Of retaUation. 2. A
forbearance of injurious, provoking words.
II. The measures and proportions by which itis
to be deterrained are expressed in the words, " if it
be possible." Now " possible" may be teken two
ways : 1 . As it is opposed to " naturally impossible,"
and that which cannot be done. 2. As opposed to
" morally impossible," and that which cannot be done
lawfully. But the observance of peace being limited
by the raeasure of " lawful," all inquiries concern
ing the breaking of it are reducible to these two :
1st, Whether it be at all lawful.
2dly, Supposing it lawful, wheu and where it
ought to be judged so.
Under the first is discussed that great question,
whether war can be lawful for Christians. War
is of two distinct kinds : 1. Defensive, in order
to keep off' and repel an evil designed to the
public. 2. Offensive, for revenging a public in
jury done to a community. And it is allowable
upon the strength of these arguments : (1.) As
the defensive is properly an act of self-preserva
tion ; (2.) As the offensive is a proper act of dis
tributive justice ; (3.) Because Saint John the
Baptist, Christ himself, and the aposties, judged the
eraployment of a soldier lawful. The ground of the
Socinians' arguments in this case, naraely, that God,
under the Mosaical covenant, promised only tem
poral possessions to his people, tiierefore war was
lawful to ttiem ; but now, under the covenant ot
grace tiirough Christ, has made no proraise of tem
poral enjoyments, but on the contrary bids us to

CONTENTS OF THE SERMONS.

despise thera, and therefore has token from us all
right of war and resistonce. This argument exji-
mined and confuted. The Scriptures, produced by
those who abet the utter unlawfulness of war, exa
mined and explained. As,
I. Matt. V. 39 ; Rom. xu. 17, 19.
II. Isaiah, ii. 4.
III. Matthew, xxvi. 62.
IV. James, iv. 1.
Under the second inquiry, supposing it lawful,
when and where it ought to be judged so ?
First, some general grounds, that may authorize
war, are laid down ; as when those with whom we
are at peace, 1. Declare that they will annoy us,
unless we cut off our limbs, &c. and, upon our refusal,
disturb us. 2. Declare war with us, unless we will
renounce our religion. 3. Injure us to that degree
as a nation, as to blast our honour and reputotion.
4. Declare war with us, unless we will quit our civil
rights. Secondly, some particular cases are resolved ; as,
F'irst Case. Whether it be lawful for subjects in
any case to make war upon the magistrate ? Gro-
tius's seven cases, wherein he asserts it to be lawful.
David Partens's arguments, in a set and long dispute
upon Rom. xiii. exarained and answered.
Second case. Whether it be lawful for one private
man to make war upon another in those encounters
which we commonly call duels ? And here are set
down, 1. The cases in wfaich a duel is lawful. As,
(1.) When two raalefactors condemned to die are
appointed by the magistrate to fight, upon promise
of Ufe to the conqueror ; (2.) Wheu two armies are
drawn out, and the decision of the battle is cast upon
a single combat ; (3.) When one challenges another,
and resolves to kill hira, unless he accepts the cora
bat. 2. The cases in which duels are utterly unlaw
ful. As, (1.) When they are undertook for vain
ostentotion ; (2.) To purge oneself from sorae crime
objected ; (3.) When to agree upon a duel, for the
decision of right, rautuaUy clairaed by both, agreeing
that the right shall fall to the conqueror ; (4.) When
undertoken for revenge, or some injury done, or
affront passed. There are other arguraents against
duels, besides their unlawfulness ; as, 1. The judgment
of men generally conderaning thera. 2. The wretched
consequences of the thing itself ; which are twofold :
(1.) Such as attend the conquered person, naraely,
1 . A disastrous death ; 2. Death eternal. (2.) Such
as attend the conqueror, 1. In case he is appre
hended ; 2. Supposing he escapes by flight ; 3.
Supposing by the intercession of great friends he
has outbraved justice, and triumphed over the law
by a fuU acquitment.
Th'ird case. Whether it be lawful to repel force
by force, so as to kill another in one's own defence ?
If a man has no other means to escape, it is lawful
upon two reasons : I. The great natural right of
self-preservation. 2. From that place where Christ
coraraands his disciples to provide theraselves swords.
Add to this, the suffrage of the civil law. Yet so to
assert the privUege as to teke off the danger, it is
stoted under its due liraitations by three inquiries :
1st, What those things are which may be thus de
fended, naraely, 1. Life. 2. Limbs. 3. Chastity
invaded by force. 4. Estote or goods ; which case
admitting of some raore doubt than the others, the
opinions for the negative are steted and answered.
Whatsoever a man raay thus do for himself, tfae
sarae also is lawful for hira to do in the sarae danger
and extremity of his neighbour. 2dly, What are the

conditions required to render such a defence lawful ;
which .ai'e these : 1. That the violence be so appa-:
rent, great, and pressing, that there can be no other
means of escape. 2. That there be no possibility of
recourse to a raagistrate for a legal protection. 3.
That a man design only his own defence, without
any hatred or bitter purpose of revenge. 3dly, Who
are the persons against whora we raay thus defend
ourselves. Fourth ease. Whether it be allowable for Chris
tians to prosecute, and go to law with one auother ?
1. The arguraents brought against it are examined,
which seem principally to bear upon two scriptures :
(1.) Matt. V. 40 ; (2.) 1 Cor. vi. 7. The arguments
against going to law being drawn from the letter of
these scriptures, they are exarained and explained
according to the sense of them. The third argu
raent is the strict command that lies upon Christians
to forgive injuries. Here prosecutions are distin
guished as they concern restitution or punishraent,
and going to law with regard to the first of these
shewn to be just and aUowable. The arguments for
the proof of the assertion are next considered. Which
are, 1. That it is to endeavour the execution of jus
tice, in the proper acts of it, between man and man ;
2. That if Christian religion prohibits law, observance
of this reUgion draws after it the utter dissolution of
all government. The liraitations of law-contentions
are three : I. That a raan takes not this course, but
upon a very great and urgent cause ; 2. Th.at he be
wiUing to agree upon any tolerable and just terms,
rather than to proceed to a suit ; 3. Supposing great
cause, and no satisfaction, that he manage his suit by
the rule of charity, and not of revenge.
III. The raeans by which tfae duty of living peace
ably is to be effected, are, 1. A suppression of all
distasteful, aggi'avating apprehensions of any ill turn
or unkind behaviour from raen. 2. The forbearing
all pragraatical or malicious informations agaiust
those with whom we converse. 3. That men would
be wiUing in sorae cases to wave the prosecution of
their rights, and not too rigorously to insist upon
thera, as (1.) When the recovery of it seems impos
sible ; (2.) When it is but inconsiderable, but the
recovery troublesome and contentious ; (3.) When a
recompense is offered. 4. To reflect upon the ex
ample of Christ, and the strict injunction lying upon
us to follow it. 5. Not to adhere too strictly to our
own judgments of things doubtful in themselves.
IV. The motives aud arguments to enforce this
duty are, 1. The excellency of the thing itself;
2. The excellency of the principle from which peace
ableness of spirit proceeds. 3. The blessing entailed
upon it by proraise. Matt. v. Two instances of
this blessing, that certainly attend the peaceable in
tills world : (1.) An easy, undisturbed, and quiet
enjoyment of themselves ; (2.) Honour and reputa
tion, which such a temper of mind fixes upon their
persons. Their report survives thera, and " their
raeraory is blessed." Their narae is glorified npon
earth, and their souls in heaven.

SERMON LI. — P. 429.
" The wages of sin is death." — Rom. vi. 23.
A discourse of sin not superfluous, while the com
mission of it is continual, and yet the preventing
necessary. The design of the words prosecuted in
discussing three thing : —

CONTENTS OF THE SERMONS.

I. Shewing what sin is, as it is nsuaUy divided in
to two sorts :
1st, Original sin.
2dly, Actual sin ; which is considered two ways :
1. According to the subject matter of it ; as, (1.) The
sin of our words ; (2.) Of our external actions ;
(3.) Of our desires. 2. According to the degree or
measure of it ; as, (1.) When a man is engaged in a
sinful course by surprise and infirmity ; (2.) Against
the reluctances of an awakened conscience ; (3.) In
defiance to conscience.
II. Shewing what is coraprised in death, which is
here allotted for the sinner's wages. 1. For death
temporal. 2. Death eternal, which has other proper
ties besides its eternity, to increase the horror of it ;
as (1.) It bereaves a raan of all the pleasures and
coraforts which he enjoyed in this world ; (2.) Of
that inexpressible good, the beatific fruition of God ;
(3.) As it fills both body and soul witfa the highest
torment and anguish that can be received within a
finite capacity.
III. Shewing in what respect death is properly
called " the wages of sin." 1. Because the payment
of wages stiff presupposes service and labour. 2. Be
cause wages do always imply a merit in tfae work,
requiring such a corapensation. Sin is a direct stroke,
1st, At God's sovereignty ; 2dly, At his very beiug.
Having thus shewn what sin is, and what death is,
the certain inevitable wages of sin ; fae who likes tiie
wages, let him go about the work.

SERMON LII. — P. 436.
" Blessed arc the pure in heart ; for they shall see
God." — Matt. v. 8.
It raay at firet seera wonderful, that there are so
few men in the world happy, when happiness is so
freely offered : but this wonder vanishes upon con
sidering the preposterous ways of men's acting, who
passionately pursue the end, i;nd yet overlook the
means : raany perishing eternally because they can
not eat, drink, sleep, and play themselves into salva
tion. But this great serraon of our Saviour teaches
us many other things, being fraught with the most
sublime and absolute morality ever vented in the
world. An eminent instonce whereof we have in
the text, which is discussed under four heads :
I. Shewing what it is to be " pure in heart."
Purity in general cannot be better explained than
by its opposition, 1. To mixture. 2. To pollution.
" Purity in heart" is shewn, 1. By way of negation ;
that it does not consist in the external exercise of
religion, tiiere being many other reasons for the out
ward piety of a man's behaviour ; as, (1.) A virtu
ous and strict education ; (2.) The circumstonces and
occasions of fais life ; (3.) The care and tenderness
of his honour. 2. Positively, wherein it does consist,
namely, in an inward change and renovation of the
heart, by the infusion of such a principle as naturally
suits and corapUes with whatsoever is pure, holy, and
coraraanded by God, which raore especially raanifests
itself, (1.) In the purity and unteinted sanctity of the
thoughts ; (2.) In a sanctified regulation of the de-
tires ; (3.) In a fearful and soUcitous avoiding of
every thing that may tend to sully or defile it.
II. Explaining what it is "to see God." Some
disputes of the schools conceming this. Our enjoy
ment of God is expressed by seeing him ; because
the sense of seeing, 1. Represents the object with
greater clearness and evidence than any of tfae other

senses. 2. Is most universally exercised and em
ployed. 3. Is the sense of pleasure and delight.
4. Is the most comprehensive and insatiable.
III. Shewing how this purity fits and qualifies the
soul for the sight of God, namely, by causing a
suitableness between God and the soul. During the
soul's impurity, God is utterly unsuitoble to it in a
double respect : 1. Of the great unlikeness. 2. Of
tfae great contrariety there is betwixt thera.
IV. The brief use aud .application is, to correct
our too great easiness and credulity in judging of
the spiritual estote either of ourselves or others. If
we would prevent the judgment of God, we muat
imitate it, judging of ourselves as he will judge of
us : for he who has outward purity only, without a
thorough renovation within hira, and a sanctified
disposition of heart, may indeed hereafter see God,
but then he is like to see him ouly as his judge.

SERMON LIII. — P. 444.
" And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh
witfa the affections and lusts." — Gal. v. 24.
As all sects and institutions have their distinguish
ing badge, or cbaracteristic name, that of Christianity
is comprised in tfae cruciflxion of tfae flesh, and the
lusts thereof. This explained by shewing, —
I. What is raeant by " being Christ's ;" it consists
in accepting of, and having an interest in, Christ, as
he is offered and proposed in the gospel, under three
offices ; his prophetical, his kingly, and his sacer
dotal. II. What is meant by " the flesh," aud " the
affections and lusts." By the former we are to
understond the whole entire body of sin and corrup
tion, the iiibred proneness in our nature to all evil ;
by the latter, the drawing forth of that propensity or
principle into the several coraraissions of sin througfa
the course of onr lives. The text farther prosecuted
in shewing two things : —
I. Why this vitiosity and corrupt habit of nature
comes to have tfais denomiuatiou of "flesh," and
that for three reasons : 1. Because of its situation
and place, which is principally in the flesh ; con
cupiscence, which is the radix of all sin, followiug
the crasis and teraperature of the body. 2. Because
of its close, inseparable nearness to the soul ; being,
as it were, ingrafted into it, and thereby made con
natural to it. 3. Because of its dearness to us, there
being notfaing we prosecute with a more affectionate
tenderness, than our bodies ; and sin being our dar
ling, the queen-regent of our affections. Hence is
inferred, 1. The deplorable estate of fallen man ;
2. The great difficulty of the duty of mortification ;
3. The mean aud sordid employment of every
sinner. II. What is imported by the crucifixion of the
flesh. Under which is shewn, 1. What is the reason
of the use of it in this place ; it is used by way of
allusion to Christ, of whose behaviour and sufferings
every Christian is to be a living copy and represen-
totion. 2. The full force and significancy of the
expression ; it imports four things : (1.) The death
of sin ; (2.) Its violent death ; (3.) Its painful, bitter,
and vexatious death ; (4.) Its shameful and cursed
death. 3. Two means prescribed for the enabUng
us to tiie perfoi-raance of this duty, namely, (1.) A
constont and pertinacious denying our afi'ections and
lusts in all their cravings for satisfaction ; (2.) The
encounterrag them by actions of the opposite virtues.

CONTENTS OF THE SERMONS.

IV. What may be drawn, by way of consequence
and deduction, from what has been delivered : 1. We
collect tfae high concernment and absolute necessity
of every man's cmcifying his carnal, worldly affec
tions, because, without it, he cannot be a Christian.
2. We gather a standing and infallible criterion to
distinguish those' that are not Christ's frora those
that are. An objection, that " it is a hard and dis-
couraguig assertion, that none should be reputed
Christ's, unless he has fully crucified and destroyed
his sin," answered by exphuning the doctrine to
mean, an active resolution against sin.

SERMON LIV.- P. 453.
" Wo to hira that buildeth a town with blood." —
Habakkuk, ii. 12.
A short account being given of this whole pro
phecy, which foretells the great event of the Baby
lonish captivity, the words of the text are prosecuted
in five particulai's : —
I. The ground and cause of this wo or curse ;
which was the justiy abhorred sin of blood-guiltiness.
II. Tfae condition of the person against whom tiiis
curse is denounced ; he was such an one as had
actually estobUshed a government and built a city
with blood.
IIT. The latitude and extent of this wo or curse ;
which includes the miseries of both worlds, present
and future : and, to go no farther than the present,
is made up of the following ingredients: — 1. A
general hatred and detestotion, fastened upon such
men's persons. 2. The torraent of continual jealousy
and suspicion. 3. The shortness and certoin disso
lution of the govemment that he endeavours so to
establish. 4. The sad and dismal end that usuaUy
attends such persons.
IV. Tfae reasons why a curse or wo is so pecu
liarly denounced against this sin. Among raany,
these are produced : 1. Because the sin of bloodshed
raakes the most direct breach upon human society,
of which the providence of God owns the peculiar
Care and protection. 2. For the malignity of those
sins, that almost always go in conjunction with it ;
particularly the sins of fraud, deceitfulness, and
hypocrisy. V. An appUcation of all to this present occasion,
by shewing how close and home the subject-matter
of the text comes to the business of this annual
solemnity. 1. In the charge of unjust effusion of
blood, considered, (1.) As pubUc, and acted by and
upon a community, as in war ; or, (2.) Personal, in
the assassination of any particular raan. 2. In the
eud or design for which it was shed, namely, the
erecting and setting up of a govemraent. 3. In the
wo or curse denounced, which is shewn to have be
fell these bloody builders, (1.) In the shortness of
the govemraent so set up ; (2.) In the general hatred
that foUowed their persons.
SERMON LV. — P. 460.
" For this purpose the Son of Grod was manifested,
that he raight destroy the works of the Devil." —
1 John, iii. 8.
This divine apostle endeavours to give the world
u, right information about this so great and concern

ing affair in this chapter, and particularly in thess
words ; wherein we have, —
I. An account of Christ's coraing into the world,
in this expression, " the Son of God was manifested ;"
whioh term, though it principally relates to the
actual coraing of Christ into the world, yet it is of a
larger comprehension, and leads to an enuraeration
and consideration of passages before and after his
nativity. II. The end and design of his coraing, which was
" to destroy the works of the Devil." In the prose
cution of which is shewn, 1. What were those works
of the Devil that the Son of God destroyed. These
works are reduced to three ; (1.) Delusion, his first
art of mining mankind; which is displayed by a
survey of the world lying under Gentilisra, in tiieir
principles of speculation and practice. (2.) Sin.
As tfae Devil deceived raen only to raake tfaera
sinful, sorae account is given of his success herein.
(3.) Death the inseparable concomitant of tfae for
raer. 2. Tfae ways and raeans by which he destroys
them. Now as the works of the DevU were three,
so Christ encounters them by those three distinct
offices belonging to him as Mediator : (1.) As a
Prophet, he destroys and removes that delusion, that
had possessed the world, by those divine and saving
discoveries of truth, exhibited in the doctrine and
reUgion promulged by hira. (2.) As a Priest, he
destroyed sin, by tfaat satisfaction that he paid down
for it, and by that supply of grace that he pm'cbased,
for the conquering and rooting it out of the hearts of
believers. (3.) As a King, he destroys death by his
power, for it is he that " has the keys of hfe and
death, opening where none shuts, and shutting where
none opens."

SERMON LVL — P. 466.
" And when Herod the king heard these things, he
was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him." —
Matt. ii. 3.
It having been the method of divine Providence,
to point out extraordinary events and passages with
some peculiar characters of reraark, such as may
alarra the minds and engage the eyes of the world,
in a raore exact observance of, and attention to, the
hand of God in such great changes ; no event was
ever ushered in witfa such notable prodigies and cir
curastances as the nativity of our blessed Saviour.
Sorae of them the apostie recounts in this chapter,
which raay be reduced to these two heads : —
I. The solemn address and homage made to him
by the wise men of the east. Under which passage
these particulars are considered : 1. Who and what
these wise men were. 2. The place frora whence
they came. 3. About what tirae they carae to Jeru
salem. 4. What that star was that appeared to
them. 6. How they could coUect our Saviour's
birth by that star.
II. Herod's behaviour thereupon. Herod is dis
coursed of, 1. In respect of his condition and temper,
in reference to his government of Judaea ; which are
marked out by three things recorded of him, botii in
sacred and profane story: (1.) His usurpation;
(2.) His cruelty ; (3.) His magnificence. 2. In re
spect of his behaviour and deportment, upon this
particular occasion, which shews itself, (1.) In tfaat
trouble and anxiety of mind that he conceived upon
this news. (2.) In that wretched course he took to

CONTENTS OF THE SERMONS.

secure himself against the supposed competitor.
3. In respect of the influence this his behaviour had
upon those under his government.
The question, why Christ, being born the right
and lawful king of the Jews, yet gave way to this
bloody usurper, and did not assume the governraent
to himself, answered : 1. Because his assuming it
.would have crossed the very design of that religion
that he was then about to establish ; which was, to
unite both Jew and Gentile into one church or body.
2. Christ voluntarily waved the Jewish crown, that
he niight hereby declare to the world the nature of
his proper kingdom, which was, to be wholly without
the grandeur of human sovereignty, and the splen
dour of earthly courts.

SERMON LVII.— P. 473.
I " He that loves father or raother better than me is
j not worthy of me." — Matthew, x. 37.
! Our Saviour here presents hiraself and the world
together, as corapetitors for our best affections, chal
lenging a transcendent affection on our parts, because
of a transcendent worthiness on his. By " father"
and " mother" are to be understood whatsoever en
joyments are dear unto us, and frora the next ex
pression, " he is not worthy of me," the doctrine of
merit raust not be asserted ; because there is a two
fold worthiness : 1. According to the real uihercnt
value of the thing ; and so no man by his choicest
endeavours can be said to be worthy of Christ.
2. When a tiling is worthy, not for any value in
itself, but because God freely accepts it as such.
This being premised, the sense of the words is pro
secuted in three particulars :
I. In shewing what is included and comprehended
in that love to Christ here mentioned. It may in
clude five things, — 1. An esteem and valuation of
Christ above all worldly enjoyments whatsoever.
2. A choosing hira before all other enjoyments.
'.). Service and obedience to him. 4. Acting for him
ill opposition to all other things. 5. It imports a
full acquiescence iu him .alone, even in the absence
and want of all other felicities.
II. In shelving the reasons and motives that may
induce us to this love, — 1. He is the best able to
reward our love. 2. He has shewn the gi'eatest love to
us, and obliged ns with two of the highest instances
of it : (1.) He died for us ; (2.) He died for us while
we were eneraies, and in the phrase of Scripture,
enraity itself against him.
III. In shewing the signs and characters whereby
we raay diseeru this love : I.A frequent, and in
deed a continual thinking of hiin. 2. A willingness
to leave the world, whensoever God shall think fit
by death to summon us to a nearer converse with
Christ. 3. A zeal for his honnur, and an imp.atieuce
to heal' or see any indignity ofl'ered hira.

SERMONS LVIII. LIX. LX  P. 482.
" In whom we have boldness and access with confi
dence by the faith of him." — Ephes. iii. 12.
Prayer is to be exercised with the gi'eatest caution
and exactness, being the most solemn intercourse

eartii can have witii heaven. The distance between
God and us, so great by nature, and yet greater by
sin, makes it fearful to address hira ; but Christ lias
smoothed a way, and we i\xe comraanded to come
with a good heart, not only in respect of innocence,
but also of confidence. The words prosecuted in the
discussion of four things :
I. That there is a certain boldness and confidence,
very well becoming of our humblest addresses to
God. This is evident ; for it is the very language
of prayer to treat God with the appellation of Father.
The nature of this confidence is not so easily set forth
by positive description, as by the opposition that it
bears to its extreraes ; which are of two sorts :
1st, Tn defect. This confidence is herein opposed,
1. To desperation and horror of conscience. 2. To
doubtings and groundless scrupulosities. Some of
these stated and answered.
2dly, In excess. Herein confidence is opposed,
1. To rashness and precipitation. 2. To impudence
or irreverence, which may shew itself mauy wiiys
in prayer, but more especially, (1.) By using of
saucy, familiar expressions to God, or, (2.) In vent
ing crude, sudden, extemporary conceptions before
God. II. Is shewn, that tfae found>atioii of this confi
dence is laid in the mediation of Chi'ist, which is yet
more evidentiy set forth,
III. In shewing the reason why Christ's media
tion ought to minister such confidence to us ; which
i.s, the incomparable fitness of Christ for the perfor
raance of that work. This appears by considering
him, 1. In respect of God, with whom he is to medi
ate. God, in this busi ness, sustains a double capacity,
(1.) Of a Father; and there cannot be a more pro-
raising ground of success in all Christ's pleas for ua.
(2.) Of a Judge ; now Christ appears for us, not only
as an advocate, but as a surety, paying down to God
on our behalf the very utmost that his justice can
exact, and besides, God himself appointed him to
this work. 2. In reference to men, for whom he
mediates. He bears a fourfold relation to them :
n .^ Of a friend. (2.) Of a brother. (3.) Of a surety.
(4.) Of a lord or master. 3. In respect of himself,
who performs the office : (1.) He is perfectly ac
quainted with all our wants and necessities ; (2.) He
is heartily sensible of and concerned about thera ;
(3.) He is best able to express and set thein before
the Father.
IV. Whether there is any other ground that may
rationally imbolden us, in these our addresses to
hira. If there is, it must be cither, 1. Something
within ; as tiie raerit of our good actions. But this
cannot be, (1.) Because none can raerit but by doing
soraething absolutely by his own power, for tiie ad
vantage of him frora whom he merits ; (2.) Because
to merit is to do sometiiing over and above what is
due. It raust tiieu be, 2. Something witiiout us :
and this must be the help and intercession either,
(1.) Of angels ; or, (2.) Of saints. Angels cannot
mediate for us, and present our prayers : 1. Because
it is irapossible for them to know and perfectiy dis
cern the thoughts. 2. Because no angel can kuow at
once aU the prayers that are even uttered in words
throughout the world. The arguments some bring
for the knowledge of angels, partly upon Scripture,
and partly upon reason, examined and answered.
The foregoing arguments against angels proceed
more forcibly ag<ainst the intercession of saints : to
which there may be added over and above, 1. That
God soraetiraes takes his saints out of the worid, tiiat

CONTENTS OF THE SERMONS.

XXV

they may not know aud see what happens in the
world. 2. We have an express declaration of their
ignorance of the state of things below, in Isaiafa,
Ixiii. 16. Tfae Romish arguments from Scripture,
Luke xxi. and from reason, stated and answered.
The invocation of saints supposed to arise, 1. From
the solemn meetings, used by the primitive Chris
tians, at the saints' sepulchres, and tfaere celebrating
the memory of their martyrdom. 2. From those
seeds of the Platonic philosophy, that so much
leavened many of the primitive Christians. 3. From
the people's being bred in idolatry. But the primi
tive faUiers held no such thing ; and the councU of
Trent, that pretended to deterraine the case, put the
world off with an ambiguity.
Conclusion, that Christ is the only true way ; the
way that has Ught to direct, and life to reward them
that walk in it ; and consequently there is " no
coming to the Father but by him."

SERMON LXI. — P. 497.
"And the Lord said, My Spirit shall not always
strive with man." — Genesis, vi. 3.
God, in the first chapter, looks over all created
beings, and pronounces them to be good : in thia
chapter, he surveys the sons of men before the flood,
and deUvers his judgment, that they were exceeding
wicked, nay, totally corrapt and depraved. But
amidst those aboundings of wickedness, God left not
himself without a witness in their hearts : tfaey had
many checks and calls from the Holy Spirit, which,
by their resolution to persist in sin, they did at
length totoUy extinguish. God withdraws his Spirit,
and the strivings of it : and presently the flood
breaks in upon them, to their utter perdition. The
words afford several observations ; as, 1. From the
method God took in this judgment, first withdrawing
his Spirit, and then introducing the flood, we may
observe, 1. D. That God's toking away his Spirit
frora any soul, is the certain forerunner of the min
of tfaat soul. 2. From that expression of the " Spi
rit's sti'iving with man," we may observe, 2. D.
That there is in the heart of raan a natural enmity
aud opposition to the motions of God's Holy Spirit.
3. From the same expression we may observe, 3. D.
That the Spirit iu its dealings witfa the heart is very
earnest and vehement. 4. From the definitive sen
tence God here passes, we may observe, 4. D. That
there is a set tirae, after which the convincing ope
rations of God's Spirit upon tfae heart of man, in
order to his conversion, being resisted, will cease,
and for ever leave him. This last doctrine, seeming
to teke in the chief scope of the spirit in these words,
is here prosecuted in four things :
T. In endeavouring to prove and demonstrate the
trath of this assertion from Scripture. That it is
the way of God's dealings still to withdraw his Spirit
after some notorious resistonce, instanced £rom
several scriptures : 1. From Psalm xcv. 10, 11.
2. From Heb. iv. 7. 3. From Luke, xix. 42. And
from Gen. xv. 16. Here note, that by a set time, is
uot to be understood a general set time, which is the
same in every man ; but a set and stinted time in
respect of every particular man's life, in which there
is some limited period wherein the workings of the
Spirit will for ever stop. II. In shewing how many
ways the Spirit may be resisted ; that is, in every

way which the Spirit tokes to coraraand and per
suade the soul to the performance of duty and the
avoidance of sin. As,
Ist, Externally, by the letter of the word, either
written or preached, it raay be resisted ; (1.) By a
negligent hearing and a careless attendance upon it ;
(2.) By acting in a clear and open contrariety to it.
And this last kind of resisting is great and open
rebelUon ; (1.) Because action is the very perfection
and consummation of sin ; (2.) Because sin in the
actions argues an overflowing and a redundancy of
sin in tfae heart.
2dly, By its immediate internal workings upon the
soul. And here the Spirit may be resisted,.!. In
ite illumination of the understanding ; tfaat is, its
infusing a certain light into the mind, in sorae mea
sure enabling it to discern and judge of the things of
God. Now this light is threefold : (1.) That univer
sal Ught, usuaUy termed tfae Ught of nature ; (2.) A
notional Ught of Scripture, or a bai-e knowledge of,
and assent to, scripture truths ; (3.) A special con-
vincmg Ught, which is a higher degree, yet may be
resisted and totolly extinguished. 2. In its convic
tion of tfae will. Now the convincing worlts of the
Spirit upon the wUl, in aU which it raay be opposed,
are, (1.) A begetting in it sorae good desires, wishes,
and incUnations ; (2.) An enabling it to perform
some imperfect obedience ; (3.) An enabUng it to
forsake some sins.
III. In shewing the reasons why, upon such re
sistance, the Spirit finally withdi'aws :
1st, The first reason is drawn from God's decree.
2dly, Because it is most agreeable to the great
intent and design of the gospel, 1. In converting and
saving the elect. 2. In rendering reprobates inex
cusable. 3dly, Because it highly tends to tfae vindication of
God's honour : 1. As it is a punishment to the sin
ner. 2. As a vindication of his attributes : (1.) Of
wisdom ; (2.) Of mercy, in shewing it is no ways
inferior, much less contrary to his hoUness, and not
repugnant to his justice.
4thly, Because it naturally raises in the hearts of
men an esteera and valuation of the Spirit's work
ings : 1. An esteera of fear. 2. An esteera of love.
IV. In an appUcation. We are exhorted " not to
quench tfae Spirit," but to cherish all his suggestions
and instructions. Because our resisting the Spirit
will, 1 . Certainly bereave us of his coraforts, which
are, (1.) Giving a raan to understand his interest
in Christ, and consequently in the love of God ;
(2.) Discovering to hira that grace that is within him.
2. It wiU bring a raan under hardness of heart, and
a reprobate sense, by way, (1.) Of natural causa
tion ; (2.) Of a judicial curse from God. 2. It puts
a man in the very next disposition to the great and
unpardonable sin against the Holy Ghost ; the fore
going acte being like so many degrees and steps
leadmg to this dreadful sin, which is only a greater
kind of resistonce of the Spirit.

SERMON LXII. — P. 512.
« For I say unto you. That unless your righteous
ness exceed the righteousness of the scribes and
pharisees, ye shall in no case enter the kmgdom
of heaven." — Matthew, v. 20.
Our blessed Saviour here shews, first, that eter
nal salvation cannot be attained by the righteousness

CONTENTS OF THE SERMONS.

of the scribes and pharisees ; secondly, that it m.ay
be obtoined by such an one as does exceed it. For
understanding the words it is explained,
I. That these scribes and pharisees araongst tiie
Jews were sueh as owned themselves the strictest
livers and best teachers in the world.
II. That righteousness here has a twofold accep-
tion. 1. Righteousness of doctrine. 2. Righteous
ness in point of practice.
III. That the " kingdom of heaven" has three
several significations in Scripture : 1. Itis taken for
the Christian economy, opposed to the Jewish and
Mosaic. 2. For the kingdom of grace. 3. For the
Ivingdom of glory.
These tilings premised, the entire sense of tbe
words lies in three propositions : 1. That a righteous
ness is absolutely necessary to the atteiiinieiit of
salvation. 2. That every degree of righteousuess is
not sufficient to entitle the soul to eternal happiness.
3. That the righteousness that saves must far sur
pass the greatest righteousness of the raost refined
hypocrite in the world. This proposition, virtually
containing both the former, is the subject of the
discoiu'se, and prosecuted in three things :
I. Shewing the defects of tfae faypocrites, here ex

pressed by " the scribes and pharisees.'' As, 1. That
it consisted chiefly in tlie external actions of duty.
2. That it was but partial and imperfect, not extend
ing itself equally to all God's coraraands. 3. That it
is legal ; that is, such an one as expects to win heaven
upon the strength ofitself, and its own worth.
II. Shewing the perfections and qualities by
which the righteousness that saves transcends that
of the hypocrites. Among many, four are insisted
upon : 1 . That it is entirely the sarae, whether the
eye of mau see it or not. 2. That it is an active
watching against and opposing every even the least
sin. 3. That it is such an one as always aspires and
presses forward to still a higher and a higher per
fection. 4. The fourth, and certainly distinguishing
property of it, is huraility.
III. Shewing the necessity of such a righteous
ness in order to a raan's salvation. Which arises,
1. From the holiness of God. 2. From the work and
employment of a glorified person in heaven ; and no
person, whom the grace of God has not thoroughly
renewed and sanctified, can be fit for such a task ;
for it is righteousness alone that must both bring
raen to heaven, and make heaven itself a place of
happiness to those that are brought thither.

THEEE SERMONS.
[FIRST PUBLISHED IN 1717.]

.SERMON I.— P. 521.
I The heads of this Sermon will be found at Sermon
L. as they relate to the subject there treated of.]
SERMON IL — P. 629.
[For the heads of this Sermon, see Sermon LX.,
upon the same subject.]
SERMON IIL — P. 534.
the certainty op a judgment AFTER THIS LIFE.
"We must all appear before the judgment-seat of
Christ ; that every one may receive the things
done in his body acccording to that he hath done,
whether it be good or bad." — 2 CoR. v. 10.
There are but two ways, besides instruction and
exhortation, in the ordinary course of God's provi
dence, by which man is restrained from evil, or
brought to do that which is good ; naraely, the hope
of future reward on the one hand, and the fear of
punishment on the other. From the words of the
text, considered only in the more severe sense, it is
endeavoured, —
1st, To convince every man's conscience that there
wUl be such a general trial or doom of all mankind
as is here spoken of. The reasonableness of it is
shewn in this: 1. That it is very agreeable to the
nature o( God. 2. It is also very consonant to the
nature of the soul. 3. It is necessary for the mani
festation of the divine justice. 4. The inequality
between men's parts and their fortunes in this life
seems to require sueh a judgment. 5. There is an
inbred notion, or natural instinct aud apprehension.

in all men, that there will be sucfa a judgment.
Three reasons given why this must be infallible,
namely, (1.) Because the inbred notion or knowledge
is not a conclusion drawn from our own discourse
and judgment, but is created in us by God himself;
(2.) If this knowledge were not infallible, the maxim
that God made nothing in vain would not be true ;
(3.) It is proved by the instinct of the inferior ani
mals. The dictates and imaginations of nature differ
from conceits and imaginations of fancy, inasmuch
as, (1.) They are believed aud consented to by all
men ; whereas the latter, though they may be be
lieved by a few, yet can never be consented to by
all. (2.) They are implanted in every man without
teaching. (3.) They receive neither addition nor
diminution from other principles.
2dly, To shew what raanner of appearance thia
will be, witfa the issues, effects, and consequences of
It In the prosecution of which are shewn, 1. Who
shall be judge. 2. Who are tfae parties to be judged.
3. The things controverted, or for what they shall
be judged. 4. The form of the trial, or the manner
of proceeding. 5. The sentence itself, with tfae issue
and execution of it.
Sdly, By way of application, to shew how all men,
especiallly the wicked and ungodly, are concerned in
it, aud consequently, how much it concerns every
one to think upon and prepare for it ; with an ex
hortation to all to make it part of their daily business
to meditate, 1. Upon the vanity and shortness of
life. 2. Upon the certainty and uncertainty of death.
.3. Upon the great exactness and severity of the
judgment to corae after death. 4. Upon the eternity
and immutability of every man's condition in the
other world, whether for good or evil.

SOUTH'S SERMONS.

SERMON LXIV.
DELIVERANCE FROM TEMPTATION THE
PRIVILEGE OF THE RIGHTEOUS.
PART I.

*' The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temp
tations." — 2 Peter, IL 9.
I do not fenow a greater and a juster
grouud of discouragement to wise and think
ing men, with reference to the high concerns
of their immortal souls, than to consider, that,
over and above that innate corruption brought
with them into the world, and so mightily-
strengthened and improved by the continual
restless working of the same in the actual
commission of sin ever since, that there
should, I say, besides this, be an external
agent and evil spirit incessantly blowing up
this fire within us, exasperating, stirring up,
and drawing forth this active quality in the
several raischievous actings thereof : and this
evil spirit, withal, of such force, such sagacity,
and such unspeakable vigilance for the com
passing of men's destruction, as far surpass all
that men themselves can be brought to do
even for their own salvation. A sad case
certainly, and such as must needs cast the
issue of the war between them upon very
unequal terms ; where the superior in malice
is as much the superior in strength too ; and
where (to make the odds yet greater) man on
the one side must venture all, and the tempter
on the other has nothing to lose.
It is true, indeed, that the will of man can
never be forced by any created or finite spirit,
good or bad, but may still stand its ground
against all attacks from without. Neverthe
less, there are so many ways to allure, inveigle,
VOL. II.

and persuade it, by ill, but suitable objects
from abroad, that this bare natural power, or
rather possiljility, of resisting them, in the
issue of the raatter, proves but a very poor
security to it, being so often urged and over
borne (as it is) by the powerful impressions
which such objects are ahnost continually, and
with so rauch success, still making upon it.
Nor is it only the present state of corrupt
nature which gives force and efficacy to these
importunate assaults ; but it is altogether as
manifest, that the forementioned qualifica
tions of this subtle agent, even in the state of
innocence itself, made him so much too hard
for our first parents, that, under all the ad
vantages of that blessed estate, he got ground
of them so speedily and so effectually, that he
made a shift to out them of paradise and their
innocence too, before they had passed one
whole day in either.
¦Whereupon a universal contagion seizing
the whole mass of human nature, and all
mankind (the second Adam only, by his
miraculous conception, excepted) being ever
since born in sin, and not only born, but
fatally grown up in it, and made slaves to it
too ; how almost could it be imagined, that
there should be so much as room for any
farther addition to the forlorn and miserable
estate of a creature so weak, so wretched, and
so wholly biased to his own ruin, as man.
Upon this account, undeniably is? Indeed,
with so mighty a bias is he now carried on
towards it, that (one would have thought) it
might have given even this restless and ma
licious spirit himself (were he capable of it)
his quietus est: it being hard to judge, to what
purpose so skilful an artist (and so perfectly
acquainted with his business) should employ
himself in planting engines and laying trains
to blow up one, who, by the freest choice of
his own will, and in spite of all theprinciples
of self-preservation, is upon every turn so
ready to destroy himself. He who will needs
A

SOUTH'S SERMONS.

Srrm. LXIV

venture into the deep, with neither strength
nor skill to encounter the boisterous element,
will quickly find the stream alone more than
sufficient to bear him dow n and sink him,
without the concurrence of either wind or
tide to speed his destruction.
And this, God knows, is but too much our
case. Every one of us, from the bare sway
of his own inherent corruption, carrying
enough and enough about him to assure his
final doom, without any farther impulse from
without, to push horae and finish the killing
stroke. He who is ready to breathe his last
by a fever, surely needs not to be despatched
with a sword.
But this is not the worst nor saddest of a
! raan's condition, with reference to teraptation,
neither : for though it be too certain, that the
I corruption of man's nature is such, that it is
¦ sufficient to destroy him without the tempter's
doing any thing towards it, yet it is as certain
also, that it never actually destroys him, but
the tempter has a hand iu that fatal work.
Such au adversary have we, the sons of Adam,
to contend with ; an adversary, who, in con
junction with his two grand allies, the world
and the flesh, will be always carrying, on an
implacable war against souls. For God has
declared so much, and men have found and
felt it ; and (whatsoever atheism or infidelity
may object) neither must the justice of the
one be disputed, nor the experience of the
other be denied. Nevertheless, from what has
been said, this, I think, may very rationally
be inferred, that there cannot be a stronger
argument to evince the necessity of a superior
good spirit to assist and bear men through
the difficulties of a Christian course, than this
one consideration, that, besides a raan's own
natural corruption, there is an evil spirit con-
tinutilly active and intent to seduce and draw
him from it. Upon which account raost cer
tainly it is, that the heart of raan, so weak in
itself within, and so assaulted from without,
if not borne up and assisted by something
mightier than itself, is by no means an equal
match for the tempter.
In the prosecution of the words, I shall
consider these two things, —
1st, Who are here to be understood by the
godly. And,
2dly, What is here meant by temptation.
And here,
First, for the first of these : we may take
this for a certain, though perhaps an obvious
direction of our inquiries in this matter,
namely, that we are uot to look or seek for
the godly, here spoken of by the apostle, where
we may be sure beforehand not to find them ;
that is to say, amongst such as, with the high
est confidence, or rather impudence, not only
arrogate, but engross this great character to
themselves ; such as mea.sure their godliness
by looks, postures, and phrases, by a jargon

of scriptural cant, and a flow of some warm,
rapturous, and fantastic expressions ; all ac
cording to the sanctified whine and peculiar
dialect of those times of infatuation, when
noise and nonsense so mightily bore down
sense and reason, and the godliness then in
vogue turned religion quite out of doors. 11
was the very shibboleth of the party ; nothing
being so much iu fashion with them as tlie
name, nor more out of fashion, and out of
sight too, than the thing itself.
But godliness (blessed be God) is nota
mere word or pretence, a trick of state, or
political engine to support a party or serves
turn, and much less an occasional cover for a
stated hypocrisy. No, it springs from a nobler
soil and a deeper root, and, like the great
object of it, God himself, "is the same yester
day, to-day, and for ever ;" in its original,
divine; in its rule, unchangeable.
And therefore, since bare negatives are not
to be rested in, where so high a perfection is
to be accounted for, (a perfection compre
hending iu it all the graces of a Christian, aud
no less than the image of God himself new
stamped upon the soul,) he and he only eau
Lay claim to so glorious a qualification, who
is'actually iu covenant with God, aud that
not only by external profession, but by real
relation ; a relation entitling him to all the
benefits of a federal estate, by coming up to
the conditions of it ; or, to be yet more parti
cular, he who with a full and fixed resolution
of heart has taken the whole law of Christ in
the several precepts of it, with the utmost
hardships attending them, for his portion in
this world, aud the promises of it for his in
heritance in the next : he who rules his appe
tites by his reason, and both by his religion:
he who makes his duty his business, till at
length he comes to make it his delight too :
he whose sole design is to be pious, without
aflFecting to be thought so : he who lives and
acts by a mighty principle within, which
the world about him neither sees nor unde^ i
stands; a principle respecting all God's com- {
mands without reserve ; a principle carrying
a raan out to a course of obedience, for the
duration of it constant, and for the extent of
it universal : and lastly, in a word, he and
he only ought to pass for godly, according to
the stated, unalterable rules and measures of
Christianity, who allows not himself in the
omission of any known duty, or the commis
sion of the least known sin. And this cer
tainly will, and nothing less, that I know of,
can, either secure a man from falling into
temptation, or (which is yet a greater happi
ness) from falling by it. All other measures
not coming up to this standard are vain,
trifling, and fallacious, and to all the real
purposes of religion wholly ineffectual. Tbey
give us but a godliness of a man's own making,
and consequently of his owu rewarding too,

DELIVERANCE FROM TEMPTATliOIN.

if ever it be rewarded at all. And thus much
for the explication of the first thing ; namely,
who and what the godly are, to whom the
text promises so great a privilege, as to be
"delivered from temptation."
2dly, The other thing to be inquired into
and explained by us is, what is here meant
by temptation; a thing better known by its ill
effects, than by the best description. The
Greek word is iTstp«<r(A,o{, which signifies triat,
and so imports not so much the matter, as the
end of the dispensation. So that any thing
whatsoever which tends to try and discover
what is in the heart or will of man, is aud
may be (in one respect or other) called a
temptation. In which sense, outward crosses
and afflictions are so called, and the people of
•God are bidden by the apostle " to rejoice,
when they fall into divers temptations,"
(James, i. 2.) And according to the several
ways and methods, whereby God draws forth
and discovers what is lodged in the hearts of
men, good or bad, God himself is said to
" tempt them," that is, to try or prove them.
In which respect he was said to have tempted
Abraham, (Gen. xxii. 1.) But (the common
and most received use of the word having
added something of malignity to its first and
native signification) generally in scripture it
denotes not only a bare trial, but such an one as
is attended with a design to hurt or mischieve
the people so tried. In which sense the
scribes and pharisees are so often brought in
by the evangelists tempting our Saviour ;
that is, they were still trying him with cap
tious, ensnaring questions, as we find in Luke
xi. 54, and elsewhere, " to get something out
of his mouth to accuse and destroy him."
But chiefly and most frequently the scripture
means by it such a trial, as is intended to
supplant and ruin a man in his spiritual con
cerns, by inducing him to sin, and so subject
ing him to the fatal effects and consequents
thereof. And thus, on the contrary, it is said
of God, " that he tempts no man," (James, i.
13.) This sort of temptation always proceed
ing from a man's own inherent corruption and
concupiscence, set on work by their trusty
confederate and co-worker the devil, whose
peculiar province and perpetual business being
to tempt men this way, he has accordingly,
by way of eminence, appropriated the odious
name of tempter to himself. And therefore,
to give a full account of this whole matter in
short ; any thing or object whatsoever, where
by a man, either through the instigation of
the devil or his agents, or the corruption
of his own heart, or the particular circum
stances of his condition, or all of them to
gether, is apt to be drawn or disposed to some
sinful action or omission, is that which the
scripture principally and most properly calls
a temptation. And this, I conceive, gives us so true and

full an account of the general nature of
temptation, that no particular sort of it can
be assigned, but what is directly compre
hended in it, or fairly reducible to it.
As for the sense in which the word ought
to be taken here, it may be, and no doubt
with great truth is, in the full latitude of it,
applicable to both sorts of temptation : it
being no less the prerogative of God's good
ness and power to deliver men from such
trials as afflict thera, than frora such as are
designed to corrupt them. Nevertheless, I
think it also as little to be doubted, that the
text chiefly respects this latter signification,
and accordingly speaks here most designedly
of such a deliverance as breaks the snares, and
defeats the stratagems, by which the great
and mortal enemy of raankind is so infinitely
busy, first to debauch, and then to destroy
souls. Nor can the very reason of the words (so
far as I can judge) infer any thing else ; foras
much as all the instances here given by the
apostle in the foregoing part of this chapter,
as first, of " persons seduced and drawn aside
by false prophets and teachers bringing in
damnable doctrines amongst them," in the
first verse ; and then of Noah delivered from
that general inundation of sin, by which one
deluge (as I may so express it) brought upon
the world another, in the fifth verse; and
lastly, of righteous Lot's deliverance from
the filthy conversation of the Sodomites,
in the seventh verse, are all of them but so
many notable examples of several persons,
some delivered to, aud others delivered frora,
such a sort of temptation, as without affecting
the outward man, were to shoot their poison
and pollution only into the inmost powers of
the soul or spirit, wounding and working
upon that by secret and more killing impres
sions. Add to this, that the deliverance from
temptation here insisted upon, is set forth as
a singular privilege and special act of favour
vouchsafed by God to the righteous, and that
in a very distinguishing way, (as shall be
shewn presently ;) whereas a deliverance from
temporal crosses and calamities can hardly,
with any congruity to other places and pas
sages of scripture, be termed so ; since such'
crosses, for the most part, are there declared
to be the lot and portion of the godly in this
world, the known mark of their calling, a
proof of their saintship, and the very badge
of their profession.
Nevertheless, allowing this sense of the
word not to be wholly excluded here, the
argument we may draw frota thence, for our
present assertion, will run, a fortiore, thus :
Thatif it be so signal a mercy for God to deliver
the saints from the mere outside and surface
of misery, in those temporal pressures and
adversities, which, though possibly they may

SOUTH'S SERMONS.

Serm. LXIV

sometimes incommode the man, yet can never
reach the saint, and though they break the
casket, can nevercome at the jewel, certainly it
must needs be a mercy of a much higher rate,
to deliver them from such temptations as carry
nothing but hell and death along with thera,
and are of so strong, so malign, and so fatal an
influence upon the soul, as to drive at nothing
less than its utter ruin aad damnation.
And now, if upon what has been said it be
here inquired, whether they are the righteous
only whom God delivers from temptation, and
that no such deliverances are ever vouchsafed
by hira to any of the contrary character?
1 answer, that I can find nothing in scrip
ture or reason to found such a doctrine upon ;
but that such deliverances both raay be and
sometimes are vouchsafed to persons, far
enough from being reckoned godly, either in
the accounts of God or man. And first, that
they may be so, we need no other reason to
evince it than this, that God, in these cases,
may very well restrain the actions, without
working any change upon the will or affec
tions. And this, both with reference to the
evil spirit himself, whom he may control, and
keep from tempting; as likewise with refe
rence to wicked men, frora whom he may, in
several instances, cut off the opportunities of
sinning, or complying with the terapter, and
yet leave them as habitually wicked as they
were before : God's restraining grace often
extending itself to such as his sanctifying
grace never reaches. And in the next place,
that such deliverances not only may be, but
sometimes actually are afforded to persons re
presented under no note of piety or virtue,
but much otherwise, those three memorable
examples of Abimelech, Esau, and Balaam,
the first in the 20th of Genesis, the second in
the 33d of Genesis, and the other in the 22d
of Numbers, sufficiently demonstrate.
So that we may rationally conclude, that
even wicked persons also are sometimes
sharers in such deliverances ; but still so, that
this by all means ought to be observed withal,
that the said deliverances are dealt forth to
these two different sorts of men upon very
different grounds ; namely, to the former upon
the stock of covenant or promises ; to the
latter upon the stock of uncovenanted mercy,
and the free, overflowing egress of the divine
benignity, often exerting itself upon such as
have no claim to it at all. The sovereign
Author of all good, in this, as in innumerable
other cases, scattering some of the bounties of
his common grace, as well as those of nature,
amongst the sons of men, for the wise and
just ends of his providence in the government
of the world; which would quickly dissolve
and sink into confusion, should even the
wickedest of men be always as wicked as the
tempter (if he had his will) would assuredly
make tlieni.

Now this exposition of the words thus pre
mised, I shall cast the prosecution of them
under these three particulars :
1st, To shew how far God delivers persons
truly pious out of temptation.
2dly, To shew what is the grand motive or
impulsive cause inducing God thus to deliver
thera. And,
Sdly and lastly, To shew why and upon
what grounds this is to be reputed so great a
mercy and so transcendent a privilege.
And first for the first of these, namely, How |
far God delivers persons truly pious from
temptation. This I shall endeavour to shew,
by considering them with reference to temp
tation these three ways :
1st, As before they enter into it.
2dlj'', As they are actually entered into it.
And, Sdly and lastly. As they are in some degree
prevailed upon by it.
All ways of deliverance from it being accor
dingly reducible to, and comprehensive within
the compass of these three, namely, —
1st, Of being kept from it ; as the church
of Philadelphia was, in the third of Re?.
ver. 10.
2dly, Of being supported under it ; as
Joseph in the S9th of Genesis, and Saint Paul
in the 2d of Corinthians, 12th chap, and 9th
ver. (we read) were. And,
Sdly and lastly. Of being brought out of it,
as in Luke xxii. 31. we find Saint Peter to
have beeu, and as all true penitents aud sin
cere converts never fail to be.
Each of which particular heads shall be
distinctly considered by us. Aud,
First of all ; God delivers by way of preven
tion, or keeping off the temptation ; which of
all other ways is doubtless the surest, as the
surest is unquestionably the best. For by
this is set a mighty barrier between the soul
and the earliest approaches of its mortal
enemy. Whereas, on the contrary, the first
step in any destructive course still prepares
for the second, and the second for the third; I
after which there is no stop, but the progress |
is infinite ; forasmuch as the third more |
powerfully disposes to the fourth, than the
first to the second ; and so the advance pro
portionably goes on.
Which being so, and the soul no less than
the body, being subject to so many distempers,
too likely to prove fatal to it, must uot pre
venting remedies in all reason be both the
gentlest and the safest for it too? Distance
from danger is the strongest fence against it:
and that raan needs not fear burning, (be the
fire never so fierce,) who keeps himself from
being so much as scorched.
If we consider the sin of the fallen angels
themselves, there might, without dispute,
have been a prevention of it, though no re
covery after it ; and a keeping of their first

DELIVERANCE FROM TEMPTATION.

station, (as the apostle expresses it,) though,
when once quitted, no postliminous return
to it, no retrieving of a lost innocence or a
forfeited felicity.
For whieh causes the preventing methods
of grace may deservedly pass for some of the
prime instances of the divine mercy to men
in this world. For though it ought to be
owned for an eminent act of grace to restore
one actually fallen, yet there are not wanting
arguments to persuade, that it is a greater to
keep one from falling. Not to break a limb
is more desirable, than to have it set and
healed, though never so skilfully and well.
Preservation in this, as in many other cases,
being better a great deal than restoration ;
since, after all is done, it is odds but the scar
will remain when the wound is cured, and the
danger over. *
And therefore happy, no doubt, by a dis
tinguished sort of happiness, are those favou
rites of heaven, who have both omnipotence
and omniscience, iufinite power and infinite
wisdom, jointly engaged by infinite Aercy,
so to guard and watch over them through all
the various turns and hazardous encounters
in their Christian course, as to bring them off
from the enemy safe and untouched, and to
work their deliverance rather by rescue than
recovery. It is a work in which God, as I
may so speak, shews his art and skill. " God
knows how to deliver the godly," says the
text. The whole action is carried on by pre
venting grace, under the conduct of that high
attribute of God's knowledge ; and especially
that noble branch of it, his foreknowledge,
by which he has the remotest futurities and
the loosest contingencies under a certain and
exact view. For though, indeed, the divine
knowledge (as all other knowledge) be of it
self inoperative ; (the proper nature of know
ledge being only to apprehend and judge of
what comes before it, and rather to suppose
than to work upon its object ;) yet if the
diviue knowledge did not certainly and infal
libly foresee and comprehend every turn,
motion, and foredetermination of man's will,
with reference to every object or motive that
can possibly be presented to it, how could God
so steadily and effectually ward off all those
evils and temptations, which the several
events, accidents, and occasions of our lives
(all of them variously affecting our wills)
would from tirae to time expose us to? Om
nipotence itself could not certainly prevent a
danger, if omniscience did not foresee it. For
where there is no prescience there can be no
prevention. And this is a deraonstration that
all such preventive deliverances are so pecu
liarly and wholly from God, that, for want of
this perfection, no raan living can possibly
thus deliver hiraself. " I will guide thee with
* See Sermon XXII. Vol. I. p. 178, concerning Prevention
OtSiD.

mine eye,'' says God, (Psalm xxxii. 8.) Next
to the protecting shelter of God's wing is the
securing prospect of his eye.
Numerous are the deliverances that God
works for us, which we see, but infinitely
raore those which we do not see, but he does.
For how often is tlie scene of our destruction
contrived and laid by the tempter ! how often
are his nets spread for us, and those of too
curious and fine a thread to be discernible
by our eye, and we go securely treading ou
to our own ruin, when suddenly the mercy
of a preventing Providence stops us in our
walk, and pulls back our foot from the fatal
snare !
Unspeakable are the advantages vouchsafed
to mankind by God's preventing grace ; if we
consider how apt a temptation is to difFuse,
and how prone our nature is to receive an
infection. It is dangerous dwelling even in
the suburbs of an infected city. Not only the
touches, but also the very breath of atempta
tion is poisonous ; and there is sometimes (if
I may so express it) a contagion even without
a contact. And if the conscience has not wholly lost
its native tenderness, it will not only dread
the infection of a wound, but also the asper
sion of a blot. For though the soul be not
actually corrupted and debauched by a temp
tation, yet it is something to be sullied and
blown upon by it, to have been in the dan
gerous familiarities of sin, and in the next
approach and neighbourhood of destruction.
Such being the nature of man, that it is hardly
possible for him to be near an ill thing, and
not the worse fbr it.
For if we accurately observe the inward
movings and actions of the heart, we shall
find that temptation wins upon it by very
small, secret, and almost insensible gradations.
Perhaps in its first converse with a terapting
object, it is not presently surprised with a
desire of it ; but does it not hereby come to
lose some of its forraer averseness to it ? Pos
sibly, at first view, it may not esteem it
amiable, but does it not begin to think it less
ugly ? Its love may not be yet kindled, but
is not its forraer loathing something abated ?
Theencroaches of a temptation are so strangely
insinuating, that no security under it can be
comparable to a being remote from it : and
therefore, if we hate its friendship, let us
dread its acquaintance, shun its converse, and
keep aloof offfrom its company. For he who
would gain a complete triumph over it, must
know, that to grapple with it is at best a ven
ture, but to fly from it is certain victory.
And if so, where can a man be so safe as in
the arras of sin-preventing grace? the sove
reign influence of which will appear, not only
from those peculiar effects of it upon the pious
and the virtuous, but also frora those grejit
things done by it even for the worst and

SOUTH'S SERMONS.

Sebm. LXIV.

wickedest part of mankind, (as wc hinted
before,) and those indeed so great, (how little
soever taken notice of,) that without them
common society could not possibly subsist ;
but the moral and political frame of the world
would fall back into a fouler and more de
formed chaos than that out of which this raa
terial one was first produced. For how come
men generally, and that so extremely against
the bent of nature, to submit to laws ; laws
which for the most part lay a restraint upon
their strongest appetites, and which, if they
would but generally agree to break and to
throw off, could signify nothing? How comes
the multitude to have such an awe upon their
spirits for governors and magistrates, though
they know themselves so vastly superior iu
strength to those who govern them ? And
why rather is not all order and government
upon these terms utterly confounded and
turned topsy-turvy, by thefts, rapes, incests,
perjuries, and murders, and irresistibly borne
down by au overflowing torrent of all kinds
of villainy, forcing its way through the very
bowels of it ? Is it because there is not cor
ruption enough iu man's nature to prompt
aud carry him out to all these enormities? or
because there are uot sinful objects enough to
inflame and draw forth this corruption ? No,
it is but too sadly manifest that there is too
plentiful a stock of both to suffer the world
to be quiet one moment, if they could but
once, like two mighty seas, meet and join, and
flow in together.
But all the stop is from an infinitely wise,
preventing power, which keeps all in order
here below, by separating between ill objects
and worse appetites, by cutting off the op
portunities of sin, and so both diverting and
defeating the teraptation. For how many
raight, and without doubt would have stolen,
as Achan did, had the same allurement been
played before them ! How many might have
committed David's murder and adultery, had
they been under David's circumstances ! How
many might have denied and forsworn Christ
with Saint Peter, had they been surprised
with the same danger ! How great a part of
the innocence of the world is nothing else but
want of opportunity to do the wickedness
they have a mind to \ Aud how many for
bear sinning, not because God's grace has
wrought upon their wills, but because a raer
ciful Providence has kept off' the occasion.
And thus much for the first degree of God's
delivering men from temptation ; a benefit
which, for the common ends of his providence,
he sometimes vouchsafes to all sorts of men
promiscuously, but most eminently and fre
quently to the good and pious, whom for
higher and better ends he often rescues and
preserves from the first offers and approaches
of sinful objects and occasions, and thereby
gives his first answer to that most important

and divine petition in the Lord's prayer ;
"Lead us not into temptation.'"
2dly, We are now in the next place to con
sider such persons as advanced a step farther,
and as they are actually entered into tempta
tion ; and so also God is at hand for tneir
deliverance. But here we must first premise,
what it is " to enter into temptation." And
that in one word is, for a man to meet with
such objects, to converse with such occasions,
and to be brought under such circumstancea
of life, as have in them a peculiar fitness to
provoke and draw forth the working of his
corruption, whatsoever it be ; but especially
of that particular corruption which is strongest
and most predominant in him. So that a
man finds something ready to take hold ofhis
heart and affections, which he cannot easily
keep off, or disengage himself from. Thus
when a covetous man meets with opportu
nities of gain, fit to feed and gratify his co
vetousness ; or a proud aspiring man with
honours and preferments, suited to his pride
and at^bition ; or lastly, a lustful man with
objects or incentives apt to kindle and inflame
his lust, with other the like provisions forthe
several sinful appetites of man's corrupt na
ture, such an one must know that he is entered
into temptation ; his standing is slippery, and
his retreat doubtful, and what the issue will
be in his final coraing off, God alone knows,
in whose sole power it is to fetch him out of
the jaws of death, and to work his deliverance.
It is possible, indeed, that by the peculiar
and extraordinary favours of divine mercy, a
person so engaged may come off clear and
entire, so that the temptation shall not be
able so much as to fasten, or raake the least
irapression upon him ; but then this is very
rare, and no more than possible, and not to be
effected but by a power infinite and divine.
For as it was God who suspended the natural
force of that material fire from acting upon
the bodies of the three children mentioned in
Daniel iii. so it is God alone who must control
the fury of this spiritual flame from seizing
upon the soul, having always so much fuel
and fit matter there for it to prey upon.
And for an eternal monument of his good
ness, he has not left us without some such
heroic instances as these upon record in his
word, that so the saints may receive double
courage and confidence, having their delive
rance not only sealed and secured to them by
promise, but also that promise ratified and
made good to them by precedents and ex
amples, like so many stars appearing, both to
direct and to comfort the benighted traveller.
And here, first of all, we have Joseph
brought under as fierce a trial as the wit and
malice of hell could contrive, being tempted
to a vile action by two of the most staggering
inducements that could well work upon the
mind of man, to wit, power and favour in his

DELIVERANCE FROM TEMPTATION.

lord's family, if he complied with the tempta
tion ; and the shame, infamy, and reproach of
the very villainy he was tempted to, in case
he refused it. And no doubt, so long as the
slander was believed of him, he lay in prison
under as black a note of ingratitude and base
ness, and with as great an abhorrence of all
good men, as the charge of so foul a crime, if
true, must deservedly have branded him with.
And now, could any. thing be imagined so
grievous and intolerable to a virtuous mind, as
to hear the infamy of a lewd and base act,
only for refusing to commit it ? Yet this was
the plunge and temptation which he was
brought into, but God brought him out of it,
and that without the least spot or sully, but
with a mind as clear, and a conscience as
unblemished, as the reputation it has given
his immortal name to all posterity.
In the next place, let us cast our eye upon
Moses in the court of Pharaoh, that is, in the
shop of the Devil, the school of vice, the scene
and sink of all lust and impurity, and the
very high road to perdition ; so that perhaps
the court of Egypt was a greater plague than
any that afterwards befell Egypt ; a place in
which he was to converse with all sorts of
allurement, to walk upon traps and snares, to
have all his senses accosted with continual
messages from the Devil ; and in a word, to see,
hear, and taste nothing but " the pleasures of
sin," and scarce to be able to look off from a
temptation. This was his condition, and thus
was he bred and trained up, as " the son of
Pharaoh's daughter," a candidate for hell, and
a probationer for damnation. And yet even
here, as it were in the very bosom of sin and
death, God preserved him innocent and un
touched, and, like Gideon's fleece, clean and
dry, while all was drenched with a foul and
a killing dew round about him. Nor did God
preserve him only from ill things, but pre
pared him also for great, and perhaps the
greatest that Providence ever thought fit to
achieve by the hand of a mere man. .
Again, Such another instance have we in
David, encountered with a temptation which
seldom happens, and is seldomer resisted ; to
wit, an offer to make his way to a promised
throne and sceptre bj' the blood of his bitter
and avowed enemy, then perfectly at his
mercy ; and a greater temptation certainly
could hardly befall a man, than that which
should promise him with one stroke both to
gratify his ambition, aud to satisfy his re
venge ; to put a crown upon his head, and his
mortal enemy under his feet. And yet, as
dazzling and alluring as this offer was, David
had something within him stronger than the
strongest assaults of those two violent and
transporting affections ; something that would
not suffer him to be disloyal to gain a crown,
nor receive possession of that kingdom from
the Devil, of which God himself had given

him the reversion. No temptation eould
make him snatch God's work out of his own
hands, whose sole prerogative it is to dispose
of crowns and kingdoms, to appoint, ,ind to
exclude, and to hasten as well as alter succes
sions. But now, may there not be yet a greater
temptation than either of these? something
more glistering than a crown? and more
luscious than revenge ? If there may, surely
it was that which Saint Paul and Barnabas
met with in Acts, xiv, the offer of divine
worship and adoration. For to be like God
was the first temptation, which robbed man
of his innocence ; and so pertinaciously was
this urged upon these two apostles by the
men of Lystra, that it is said, verse 18, " that
Paul and Barnabas could hardly restrain them
from doing sacrifice to them ;" for the oxen,
the garlands, and the priests of Jupiter, were
all ready for that purpose. Bnt now, how
did this strange amMmi;, think we, affect and
work upon these holy men ? Why to be sure,
not as it would have worked upon a Simon
Magus, whose whole heart, soul, and study,
was set upon being canonized and worshipped
by the sottish Samaritans for a kind of demi
god, (Acts, viii. 10 ;) nor yet as it would have
affected a Herod, who would needs be a god
too, though of the rabble's and the Devil's
making, (Acts, xii. 22.) But these men,
whose hearts God had touched with a true
and tender sense of religion, were so far from
being exalted, that they were cast down,
humbled, and astonished at such impious and
extravagant honours ; and no doubt rejected
them with so great a horror and detestation,
that they would much rather have been sacri
ficed themselves, than have endured any to
sacrifice to them.
Now in all these notable instances of suc
cess against temptation we must observe this;
that the tempting object was brought home
and close to them, and laid directly before
them, and that with all iraaginable advan
tages of allurement, together with full oppor
tunity and power to commit the sin which
they were tempted to ; and yet the persons so
tempted came off as we have shewn) not in
the least tainted or prevailed upon. From
all which it is evident, that God secures his
saints against temptation, not only by ante
cedent preventions keeping them from it, but
also by his subsequent grace supporting them
under it, and bringing them victorious out
of it, which is the second degree of delive
rance. Sdly and lastly. We are to consider the
persons hitherto spoken of, as not only en
tered into temptation, but also as in some
measure prevailed upon by it. For that a per
son truly pious, sincere, and sound at the
heart towards God, may through the inveigle
ments of the world, and the frailty of his own

SOUTH'S SERMONS,

Serm. LXIV.

nature, be sometimes surprised, and fora while
drawn into the ways of sin, I do no more
doubt or question, than that a sound and
healthful constitution may sometimes be dis
ordered with heats and colds, battered with
wounds and bruises, and indisposed by
swellings and breakings out ; and yet all this
without destroying the main, substantial
health and habit of the body. And he who
asserts the contrary, and acknowledges no
holiness but what is perfection, will upon
trial find it a much easier matter, by the
faulty passages of his life, to prove himself
sinful and unholy, than by the very best and
holiest of thera to prove hiraself perfect.
But that I may give some light and resolu
tion to this great and weighty case of con
science, how far a person truly godly and re
generate may, without ceasing to be so, be
prevailed upon by temptation, I will here set
down the several degrees, steps, and advances,
by which a temptation or sinful proposal
gradually wins and gains upon the soul, aud
those all of them comprised in Saint James,
i. 14, 15. " Every man," says the apostle,
" is tempted, when he is drawn away of his
own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath
conceived, it bringeth forth sin : and sin,
when it is finished, bringeth forth death." I
say, in these words we have a full and distinct
account of five several steps or gradations, by
which a temptation grows upon, and at length
prevails over the souls of men.
1st, The first of which we may call seduc
tion. As when the mind, being surprised, or
suddenly struck with the taking representa
tion of some sinful act or object, begins to
think of it, so as by such thoughts to be for
the present drawn aside from its duty. For
seduction literally and properly signifies a
man's been drawn away, or drawn aside. As
the Greek word here has it. He is y^ro x^?
'{¦jriSufiia.; i^Ax.ofiiui};, drawn off, or drawn away
by his concupiscence. As for instance ; when
a man is intent upon the honest works of his
calling, and two or three lewd companions
come, and desire his company to a debauch ;
here he first begins to hearken to the proposal,
and to think with hiraself of the pleasure and
satisfaction which he might find by comply
ing with it. During which thought he ceases
for that time to intend the business he was
upon before, or to employ his mind about it.
And this is seduction, the first invading step
of a temptation, whereby it seizes a man's
thoughts and actually draws him off from his
duty, by diverting the intention of his mind
from that to something else ; much like the
first unbending of a bow, which though it does
not spoil it, yet for the present renders it
unserviceable. 2dly, The second degree of temptation may
be called enticement or allurement. As when
a man does not only think upon a sinful

object or proposal, hut also suffers his thoughts
to dwell, and, as it were, to brood upon it
with delight, pleasing his imagination by
frequent reflections upon it, and representing
it to himself under its most advantageous,
colours and circumstances, while he thus turns [
and rolls it about in his fancy. And this is ,
expressed here by the next Greek word, Sae*-
^oftii/os, which the translation renders enticed,
and imports in it a metaphor taken from the
practice of such as cast or lay some bait before
any fish or fowl ; which, as soon as they spy
it, do for a while view and look upon it with
appetite and pleasure, before they are brought
to take it in or swallow it. Now if a temp
tation chanced to be stopped here, the main
and principal drift of it is defeated : neverthe
less this is a great and a dangerous step ; for
when it comes so far, it rarely happens but it
proceeds farther. And therefore,
Sdly, The third degree is, when, after such
possession had of the thoughts aud fancy, the
teraptation comes to make its way into the
consent of the will, and to gain that great
fort also ; so that the mind begins to purpose,
and accordingly to contrive the commission
of the sin proposed to it; and this the Greek
text here calls fft/?i7v«^Saj/£«, to conceive ; ihtt
Si sj eTTi^vfiix m'K'KaQovax., when lust, or concu
piscence, hus conceived; so that the soul hereby
grows, as it were, big and impregnate with a
temptation. In which case, as all immoderate
fulness naturally endeavours after evacuation
and vent ; so the soul now becomes restless,
and, as it were, in labour, till it disburdens
itself, and discharges what it has thus con
ceived, by some sinful act or commission.
And this directly introduces and brings in,
4thly, The fourth degree of prevalence which
a temptation gets over the soul ; and that is,
the actual eruption of it in the perpetration
or commission of the sin suggested to it ; and
this in the forementioned place of Saint James
is called tIxtuu a-fiotpTiav, to bring forth sin;
when lust or concupiscence in the heart sends
forth a cursed brood or litter in the actions ;
like a fountain, which having beeu for some
time iraprisoned and pent up in the bowels of
the earth, at length forces its way through,
and casts forth its streams with a violent, un
controlled effusion.
5thly, The fifth and last degree, completing
the victory which temptation obtains over a
m.-m, is, when sin comes to that pitch, as to
reign, and, by a frequent habitual commission
of it, to domineer and lord it in a man's con
versation ; in respect of which we are said,
(Rom. vi. 17,) " to be the servants of sin," as
not being in our own power, nor having the
disposal and command of our own faculties,
but upon all occasions being turned and car
ried about by the tyrannical impure dictates
of an overruling corrnption ; in which respect
also we are said, (Rora. vii. 23,) " to be led

DELIVERANCE" FROM TEMPTATION.

captive by sin," as being conquered and over
mastered by the violent assaults of it, and
then, as it were, pinioned and fettered, (as
slaves and conquered persons use to be,) and
so by consequence put out of all possibility
either of resistance or escape.
And this the apostle Saint James, in the
forecited place, calls riKti'j aftxprla,!!, " the
finishing of sin ;" ^ "hi afictpTia iirOTiy^saSeiait
diroxiii §a»«To», "when sin is finished, it brings
forth death." And it is frequency and con
tinuance in sin which properly finishes it ;
for it is this which gives it its full maturity
and utmost perfection, which habituates, and
even turns it into another nature, which a
single a<;t or commission of sin cannot do.
And when a man comes once in this manner,
not only to act sin, but even to be acted and
possessed by it, as an absolute slave to all its
commands, he is then ripe for hell and perdi
tion, and fit only to be sent thither by the
next destroying providence.
These are the several degrees by which a
temptation grows and prevails upon the hearts
of men ; which that I may the better repre
sent and set before you at one view, I shall
gather and sum them up all into one instance ;
and it shall be that of Demas, mentioned by
the apostle, (2 Tim. iv. 10,) "Demas hath
forsaken us, having loved this present world."
Here we will first consider Demas in full
comraunion with the church, and a zealous
professor of Christianity ; during which strict
and self-denying profession it is suggested to
his raind (by the Devil, we may be sure)
what profit and advantage he might reap by
relinquishing this severe course, and swim
ming with the common stream of the world.
And this thought prevails so far with him,
as to take him offfrom his accustomed strict
ness in the actual pursuit of his duty. And
this is the first degree of temptation, which is
called sedttction. From this he proceeds to
entertain and feed his mind with frequent
thoughts of those worldly gains and eraolu-
raents, reflecting upon them with much
pleasure and complacency. And this is the
second degree of temptation, which the scrip
ture calls a being enticed or beguiled. From
this he goes on, and, from the pleasure ofthese
thoughts, begins to purpose and intend to put
them in execution. And this is that third
degree of temptation, by which sin is said to
conceive. From hence he makes a step farther,
and actually lays down the profession of
Christianity, and so, striking off to the world,
fully executes those purposes and intentions ;
which is the fourth degree of temptation, by
which sin is said to bring forth. And lastly,
having come so far, he adds the concluding
cast, and continues and perseveres in the sin
ful pursuit of his worldly advantages, never
returning, nor recovering himself by repen
tance, to his former profession. And thus at

length we see him got to the top of his sin,
which, by this perseverance in it, he properly
finishes and completes, and so stands register
ed in the black roll of final apostates.
Having thus reckoned up the several de
grees of temptation, aud set before you the
fatal round and series of the Devil's raethods
for destroying souls, let us now in the next
place inquire, how far God vouchsafes to
deliver the pious and sincere out of them.
In answer to which I first of all affirm, that
God's methods in this case are very various,
and not to be determined or declared by any
one standing or universal assertion.
Sometimes, by a total and entire deliver
ance, he delivers them from every degree and
encroachment of a temptation.
Sometiraes, he lets them fall into the first
degree ofit, and receive it into their thoughts ;
but then delivers thom from the second, which
is, to cherish and continue it there by frequent
pleasing reflections upon it.
Sometimes he gives way to this too, but
then hinders it from coming to a full purpose
aud consent of will.
Sometimes he lets it go thus far also, and
suffers sin to conceive by such a purpose or
consent ; but then, by a kind of spiritual
abortion, stifles it in the very birth, and so
keeps it from breaking forth into actual
commission. And fourthly, for reasons best known to
his most wise providence, he sometimes per
mits a temptation to grow so powerful, as to
have " strength to bring forth," and to defile
the soul with one or more gross actual erup
tions. But then, in the last place, by a mighty,
overpowering grace, he very often (as some
assert) or always (as others affirra) keeps it
from an absolute, entire, and final conquest.
So that sin never comes to that height, as to
reign in the godly, to bear sway, aud become
habitual. But though its endeavours are not
always extinguished, nor its sallyings out
wholly stopped, yet its dominion is broke. It
may sometimes bruise and wound, but it shall
never kill. It may possibly be committed,
but it shall never come so far as to be finished.
But the Spirit of God will interpose, and cut
it short in its progress.* This, I say, is the
judgraent of some in t his great and arduous
point ; who accordingly apply that glonous
supporting promise made (in Rom. vi. 14,) to
all who are actually in a state of grace, that
" sin shall not have dominion over them."
Now the foregoing particulars, upon a due
improvement of them, will naturally teach
us these two great and important lessons :
1st, Concerning the singular goodness as
well as wisdom of our great Lawgiver, even
* afemwand.— That there are some remarks of the aame
nature, concemins tlio steps aud progress of sin, in Sermon
XXII. Vol. I. p. 181.

10

SOUTH'S SERMONS.

Serm. LXIV.

in the strictest and severest precepts of our
religion. 2dly, The other concerning the best and
surest method of dealing with the tempter
and his temptations.
Of each of whicb very briefly.
And first for the first of them. The severest
precepts of Christian it)' seem to be those which
abridge men in the very first motions and
desires of their corrupt affections ; such as are
delivered in the fifth chapter of Saint Matthew.
According to which, anger passes, in the
gospel account, for murder ; and looking and
lusting, for adultery. Which are hard lessons,
you will say ; and indeed, considered barely
in themselves, cannot well appear otherwise.
But then, if you consider withal, that the just
reward of murder and adultery, without
repentance, (which is not so easy a work as
some imagine,) is certain and eternal damna
tion, and that lust and anger directly lead to
thera ; is it not the height of wisdom and
goodness too, to hinder the consummation of
those soul-wasting sins, by obliging us to
withstand them in their first infancy and
beginnings ? For then it is certain that they
may be dealt with and suppressed with much
more ease, than when, by several degrees of
lust and desire cherished and allowed, they
are ready to break forth, and, as it were, even
force their way into actual commission. Is it
not a much safer and surer way to victory, to
attack an enemy in his weakness, than in his
full strength ; while he is yet levying his
forces, than when he has actually taken the
field ? to crush the cockatrice in the egg, than
to grapple with it when it is grown a serpent ?
Is it not much easier to prevent the concep
tion of sin, than to suffier it to conceive, and
then to forbid it to bring forth ? to suffer lust
and anger to boil, and rage, and ferment in
a man's breast without control, and then to
damn him for a lustful or revengeful act,
which perhaps, after such a progress made by
those sins in his desires, it is scarce morally
in his power to forbear ?
Certainly it is a much greater mercy and
tenderness to the souls of men, to represent
the first movings of the heart towards any
forbidden object as unlawful in themselves,
and destructive in their consequence, and
thereby to incite the soul to a vigorous resis
tance of them while they may be mastered,
and with ten tiraes less trouble extinguished,
than, after they are once actually committed,
they cau be repented of. No doubt sin is
both more easily and effectually kept from
beginning, than, being once begun, it can be
stopped from going on. For every, even tho
least motion towards sin, not immediately
checked, (though it be but in the thoughts,)
is a certain step to a farther degree, and con
sequently a dangerous preparative to the very
last corapletion of it. And therefore all those

precepts of Christ, which seem at first view tu
carry with them so much of rigour and seve
rity, are indeed quite contrary, and nothing
else but the gracious and benign contrivances
of a superlative wisdom and mercy combining
to do us good ; of wisdom, as suggesting the
best course to prevent sin ; and of mercy, as
prescribing the surest way to save the soul.
2dly, The other great lesson which we may
learn from the foregoing particulars is, con
cerning the most effectual method of dealing
with the terapter and his temptations ; and
that is, to follow the method of their dealihg
with us. A temptation never begins whele
it intends to make an end.
Would the Devil tempt a raan to rebellion?
He will not persuade him to set up his
standard, to take up arms, and declare himself
immediately, unless he have to deal with one
who is as much fool as knave, (a very unfit
composition to make a rebel of ;) but he will
first tempt him to ambition, then to discon
tent, then to murmuring or libelling against
his superiors, and from that to caballing with
factious aud seditious malecontents like him
self, and by these several ascents and degrees
the tempter will effectually form and fashioli
him into a perfect Absalom, a Catiline, or a
Cromwell, in time.
Or would he work a man up to the height
of debauchery or uncleanness ? Why, in such
a case it would be too black and impudent a
proposal to bid him leap into his neighbour's
bed presently. And therefore he will make
his approaches like a more experienced artist,
first inveigling him with loose thoughts ; from
thence leading him to impure desires; and
from such desires to the farther incentives of
lewd, lustful, and licentious conversation : and
by these several stages of ^th and folly he
shall at length arrive at such a pitch of guilt
and infamy, as shall render him a public
nuisance, a very pest and infection, and able
to give the very air he breathes in the plague,
or something worse.
These are some of the Devil's methods by
which he tempts and destroys souls ; and
such as are spiritually wise will take the very
same course to preserve them. So that,!
would a raan keep the Devil out of his life
and actions? let him keep him out of his
thoughts and desires. And so long as he ob
serves this way of dealing with hira, that man
surely can be" in no danger of the guilt of'
murder, who makes a conscience of the first
sallies of an angry thought or an abusive
word ; nor is he under any likelihood of being
ever brought to defile his neighbour's bed,
who dares not allow hiraselfin a wanton look
or a lewd desire.
But on the contrary, can any one in hii
wits think to secure himself from the practice
of any vice, after he has suffered it to fix and
scat Itself in his affections ? "Will he let the

DELIVERANCE FROM TEMPTATION.

11

Devil (the most expert of wrestlers) get with
in him, and then expect that he should not
throw him ? The divine wisdom, I am sure,
prescribes us quite other methods for our
spiritual security, even the sure and sovereign
methods of prevention. God's prescription is,
that we bestir ourselves betimes ; that we nip
sin when it begins to bud in the thoughts,
and crop it off as soon as it shoots forth in the
desires. And though possibly such severe dis-
1 ciplines and restraints of ourselves may look
but like chimeras or romances to persons ira-
: mersed in their sensuality, and enslaved to
their vice, yet they are really great and ne
cessary duties, and such as must he practised,
and therefore certainly may.
And the better to convince us that they are
so, let this one consideration always dwell
upon our minds ; that there is no man so
far hardened by and overgrown with sin
at present, but there was a time of his life
once, in which his heart could have served
him to have done all this. And if, by a long,
inveterate course of sinning, he has since (in
effect) sinned away his liberty and his con
science so far, as to becorae insensible and in-
I flexible, and unable to be wrought upon by
;that which would both have wrought and
prevailed upon him heretofore, such a moral,
acquired impotence ought, in all reason, to
r lie at his own door ; for it is certain that he
cannot charge it upon God, whose wisdom,
justice, and goodness is such, that he never
fails those, who are not first failing to theqi-
selves. To whom therefore be rendered and as
cribed, as is most due, all praise, might,
majesty, and dominion, both now and for
evermore. Amen.

SERMON LXV.
DELIVERANCE FROM TEMPTATION THE
PRIVILEGE OF THE RIGHTEOUS.
PART II.
" The Lord knoweth ho\y to deliver the godly out of temp
tations. " — 2 Pbter, ii. 9.
I UAVE formerly made some entrance into
these words, in w'hich, after a short explica
tion and account given of these two things,
namely, 1st, Who are here to bo understood by the
godly; And,
2dly, What is here meant by temptation ;
I cast the farther prosecution of the words
under these following particulars :
1st, To shew how far God delivers persons
truly pious out of temptation.

2dly, To shew what is the grand motive or
impulsive cause, inducing God thus to de
liver them. And,
Sdly, and \a.%t\j, To shew why and upon
what grounds this is to be reputed so great a
mercy and so transcendent a privilege.
The first of these three I have already des
patched, and proceed now to the
Second, namely. To shew what is the prime
motive, or grand impulsive cause, inducing
God to deliver persons truly pious out of
temptation. Now this is twofold :
1st, The free mercy of God. And,
2dly, The prevailing intercession of Christ.
And first for the first of these ; the free,
sovereign inclination of divine mercy. Con
cerning which, if we duly and exactly consider
the absoluteness and simplicity of the divine
nature, nothing can be more agreeable to the
conceptions which we form of it, and conse
quently more rational, than to state the first
reason or impulsive cause of all God's actings
within himself. So that, as we must acknow
ledge the different issue and success of persons
brought into the same condition of danger or
distress, to depend wholly upon the exercise
or suspension of the divine mercy towards
such persons ; in like manner are we to re
solve the exercise or suspension of this mercy
into the divine will.
Thus in the present case : that one man is
delivered out of the plunges of temptation,
and another suffered to sink and perish under
them ; it is from an act of mercy vouchsafed
totheone, andnottotheother; and that this is
not equally vouchsafed to both, it is from the
free resolution of that sovereign, supreme will,
which " has mercy upon whom it will h.avo
mercy,'' and is by no means bound to save or
deliver those who have freely destroyed them
selves. And that this is so is evident : for if the first
motives or impulsive cause of this deliverance
were not wholly from God himself, then it
must proceed from something in the person
who is to be delivered ; and if so, it must be
either from the necessity of his condition
needing such a deliverance, or from the worth
and goodness of his person deserving it. But
it will appear to be from neither. Not from
the necessity of his condition in the first
place : for if this were the first and chief
cause inducing God to deliver men, then it
would equally do the same for all in the same
condition. But the contrary is too manifest ;
for sorae under the same circumstances of
temptation are delivered, while others are
suffered to perish by it. Nor yet, in the next
place, can the cause of this deliverance be
stated upon the goodness or piety of the per
son delivered. For certain it is, that no de
gree of piety whatsoever could ever yet ab
solutely privilege the very best of men from

12

SOUTH'S SERMONS.

Serm. LXV.

being tempted, that is to say, either from first
entering into, or for some time continuing
under a temptation ; as several in all ages,
who have been most remarkably pious, have
found and felt by sad experience. Nor is it
less certain, that it is not a man's piety which
is the cause inducing God to vouchsafe him a
final deliverance out of teraptation, forasrauch
as it could not antecedently induce God at
first to rescue or keep him from it, when yet
it is manifest, that the piety of the said per
son must needs have been at that time greater
and more untainted, than after the tempta
tion had made some breach upon it, as it
always in some measure does, before the
terapted person coraes to be perfectly con
quered by it. As, for instance, it must of
necessity bringhim to the commission of it;
and (if it were no more) this must needs de
grade his piety to a lower pitch than it was
at before the temptation began. And then if
a higher degree of piety could not obtain so
much of God as to keep the man from first
entering into the snare, surely it cannot bo
iraagined, that after he had lost some degrees
of that piety by being taken and held in it,
it should, under those disadvantages, be more
prevalent with God to deliver him out of it,
than at first to keep him from it ; which ex
perience shews it did not.
And therefore it is clear, that the first grand
motive or impulsive cause of this deliverance
is not fo be sought for in any thing inherent
in the person delivered, but in the sole and
sovereign good-will and pleasure of his great
deliverer. But you will say, Does not the text itself
state the cause and reason of this deliverance,
upon the godliness of the person delivered ?
For does not the apostle here expressly tell
us, that they are "the godly whom God de
livers out of temptation ?"
To this I answer, that in all the actings of
divine mercy we must distinguish between
the first impulsive cause of the act, and tho
proper qualification of the object upon which
that act is exerted : the confusion of which
two, frequently occasions no small mis
takes and blunders in discoursing about these
matters. God promises deliverance out of teraptation
to the godly, and yet their godliness is not
the cause of this deliverance, any more than of
God's making such a promise. It is indeed
the qualification of the person who is to be
delivered ; so that without it the deliverance
(upon a federal account, as was said before)
would not be ; but still the cause of it is quite
another thing.
A prince, for instance, has a hundred of
his subjects in captivity, and makes a declara
tion that he will redeera so many of them as
are of such a certain age, taking no notice of
the rest. Now, in this case, we cannot say

that their being of such an age was the first
impulsive cause inducing their prince to re.
deem them ; but his own good pleasure,
which first made him take up a resolution to
redeem such persons, and to make this the
condition of it. Their being indeed of such
an age is the qualifying condition, rendering
them the proper objects of such a redemption ; !
so that such, and none but such, are redeemed.
But the cause of that redemption it is not,
that being (as we have shewn) to bo sought
for elsewhere.
Now the case is much the same, where God
vouchsafes to deliver men out of temptation,
Whence is it, that, upon such trials befalling
men, some few escape, and in the issue aro j
brought off without ruin, while "thousands]
fall at their right hand and at their left?" Is!
it the extreme misery of their condition i
moving God's compassion, or the worthiness j
of their persons requiring this of his justice,
which causes their deliverance? No; these
are not, catinot be the cause, for the reasons i
before mentioned; theyare indeed the pro-j
per qualifications rendering them fit to boj
delivered, but the free mercy or good pleasure!
of God is the main, leading, impulsive cause |
that actually theyare delivered.
The thing, therefore, which is eminent from
first to last in this whole transaction is mercy;
mercy, which is its own argument ; mercy,
the first and grand motive of which is itself,
For if it were not so, what could there be in
a sinful, polluted creature to engage it? There
is indeed enough to need, but nothing to de
serve it. But the divine corapassion, where
soever it fixes, removes all obstacles, answers
all objections, and needs no other reason of
its actings, but its own sovereign, absolute,
unaccountable freedom.
2dly, The other impulsive cause of God'«
delivering the saints out of temptation, is the
intercession of Christ on their behalf. And
this does not in the least derogate from, or
contradict our firs^ assertion, ascribing this
great work and benefit only to divine mercy;
forasmuch as it is the sole effect of mercy,
that we have such an intercessor ; and thero
is no opposition in subordination.
Now the two great parts of Christ's priestly
office are his meritorious satisfaction, and
continual intercession. By the first of which j
he purchased for us all spiritual blessings, and :
by the latter he actually applies them, l^lnii
first he perfected here on earth upon thei
cross, and the latter he now performs in
heaven. And with what efficacy and success he dis-
chnrges this great work of intercession there^
sufficiently appears from that constant, neve^,|
faihng prevalence which still attended hi« [
prayers here. For he himself expressly tells
us, that "the Father always heard him,"!
(John, XI. 42.) Heaven was always open to

DELIVERANCE FROM TEMPTATION.

13

his prayers, and they could not but enter,
where he, who made them, did comraand.
There could he uo frustration or denial, where
every request had the force of a claira, and
every petition was founded in a purchase.
The divinity of Christ's person, and the
surpassing value of his raerits, put a comman
ding sovereignty into all his desires ; so that
every thing which he asked of his Father was
indeed a petition of right ; and since his divi
nity made him able to give, it was one part of
his humiliation that he vouchsafed to ask.
And for this reason, some of his requests run
stylo imperatorio, in a kingly dialect ; and we
sometimes find him not only preaching, but
also praying, as one " having authority ;"
(John, xvii. 24,) " Father, I will that those
whom thou hastgiven me be with me, to behold
my glory." It was not a mere prayer, but a
kind of compound address, made up of peti
tion and demand.
And now this way of asking, as high and
as efficacious as it is, is wholly employed by
Christ for delivering the saints out of tempta
tion. Judas, we know, was tempted, aud fell
without recovery. Peter also was terapted,
and fell, but rose again. Now, whence was
this difference in the issue of the teraptation ?
Why, those words of our Saviour will inform
us, (Luke, xxii. 31,) "Simon, Simon, Satan
hath desired to have thee, that he may sift
thee as wheat." And according to his desire
he had him, and sifted him to the utmost,
and discovered how much chaff and foul stuff
was lodged in his heart, which he himself
knew not of. Yet still for all this, the wheat
was but sifted only, not destroyed ; and Christ
gives us the reason of it in the next words,
" I have prayed that thy faith fail not." And
if Christ had not prayed for hira in that
wretched condition, it is to be feared that he
would scarce have prayed for hiraself.
For though indeed the spirit of prayer and
fervent supplication be one of the most effec
tual meaus to bring a man out of temptation,
yet sometimes the temptation is so far before
hand with a man, that it prevents him, seiz
ing and prepossessing his will and affections ;
and that to such a degree, that he has no
heart to pray against it ; but, like a thief, it
steals upon him, and then binds his hands
and stops his mouth, so that he can neither
lift up heart nor hand to call in aid from
Heaven. In which forlorn estate, if Christ
prays not in his stead, and solicits his Father
for the succours of recovering grace, the sin
ner is left remediless in the cmel grasp of his
insulting enemy, to be crushed and devoured
by him at his pleasure.
And now, what Christ did for Peter and
other of his saints, while he was here upon
earth, the same he still does, and that with
advantage, for all believers know that he is
in heaven ; where he has changed his place

indeed, but not his office ; his condition, but
not his affection.
What it was " to be tempted," our Saviour
knew of old, by the sure, but sharp convic
tions of his own experience ; and therefore
treats such as are tempted with all the sympa
thizing tenderness, that fellowship in suffering
can produce in a mind infinitely merciful of
itself; as it is expressly affirmed, (Heb. ii.
18,) " For in that he himself hath suffered,
being tempted, he is able to succour those also
who are tempted." To which we may add
those words, (Heb. vii. 26,) " that he liveth
for ever, to make intercession for us." And
from both together we have all that comfort,
that a boundless compassion, supported by an
infinite power, and au endless duration, can
afford. And this is that invaluable advantage
which we reap from having such an " High-
Priest, as can be touched with the feeling of
our infirmities." For as he who has broke a
limb, having his choice of several chirurgeons
equally skilful, would much rather choose one
who had not only cured many others, but had
also suffered the same disaster, and felt the
same pain and anguish of a broken limb him
self : for that frora such a hand he might ra
tionally expect not only a sound, but a gentle
cure ; a cure in which compassion should
combine with skill, and make one ingredient
in every application.
In like manner, it is not so much the great
ness, the power, and majesty of our inter
cessor, that should aniraate persons under a
temptation to address to him, as his " having
drank of the same cup," and passed through
the same furnace himself. From which one
endearing consideration it is, that the prayers
of such persons find stronger arguments to
enforce them in the breast of hira who hears,
than they can derive from the heart of hira
who raakes them.
For as it is commonly, and perhaps very
truly said, that none knows the heart of a
father, but he who has been a father ; so none
knows what it is to be pursued and worried
with the restless buffets of an irapure spirit,
but he who has endured the same terrible ,
conflict himself. Christ has endured it, and
his experience moves his corapassion, and his
corapassion engages his prayers : and where
he has promised us his prayers, we may pro
mise ourselves the success.
And thus I have shewn, that the great im
pulsive cause of the saints' deliverance out of
temptation, is partly the free, sovereign, dis
tinguishing mercy of God, and partly the
mediatorial intercession of Christ : that is,
they have a gracious Father, and a powerful
Advocate ; and therefore, being assaulted,
thoy are not conquered, and being tempted,
are not destroyed.
But now, by way of objection to the fore-

14

SOUTH'S SERMONS.

Sekm. LXV.

I going particulars, you will say ; Does not this
I doctrine open a door to -presumption, and
naturally encourage men to venture theiii-
! selves into temptation, by giving them such
assurances of an after-deliverance frora it?
I Does it not tend to lessen the awe and dread
they should have of their spiritual danger, by
telling them that the mercy of God and the
I intercession of Christ are engaged for their
' recovery ?
! I answer. No ; for as the persons who are
here said to be delivered are persons truly
sanctified, and regenerate by a principle of
grace, which has wrought upon and changed
their nature, (so much being implied in the
very name and character of the godly,') so it is
utterly against the very nature of such a
principle, to draw such consequences from
the mercy of God and the intercession of
Christ. For moral ingenuity could not do so,
and therefore grace much less. " The love of
God," says the apostle, (2 Cor. v. 14,) " con
straineth us." And as it is irapossible for a
principle of love to exert acts of hatred, so it
is equally irapossible for a principle of holiness
to suggest to the heart such villainous deduc
tions, as to make the very mercy of God an
argument to offend him. Every faculty or
principle is carried by its own nature, as by a
strong bias, to act suitably to itself ; and you
may as well expect that the fire should cool,
or the water dry, or a false proposition issue
from a true, as that a principle of grace shouhl
argue or discourse in this manner. " He who
is born of God," says the apostle, (1 John, iii.
9,) " cannot sin, because he is born of God."
That is, the principle which constitutes a man
"a new creature," cannot incline or induce
him to sin. And therefore, how did Joseph
answer and repel the temptation which ac
costed him ? Why, he neither pleaded the
disgrace nor danger that might ensue upon it,
but the utter inconsistency of that principle
which he both acted, and was acted by, with
the commission of so vile a fact. " How can
I do this great wickedness," says he, (Gen.
xxxix. 9.) Not only, "how shall I," but,
" how can I do it." As if he had said. There
is something within me so utterly contrary to
and so wholly averse from this wicked pro
posal, that I cannot comply with it, I cannot
frame or bring my will to it.
In like manner, for persons regenerate,
acting by that principle which makes them
so, to take confidence to venture upon a temp
tation, from an assurance of God's mercj' or
Christ's intercession, is a thing absolutely
unnatural, and consequently impossible.
But you will say. How then cau a person,
endued with this mighty and divine principle,
come ever to be prevailed upon by a tempta
tion? Why, the reason of this is, because such an
one does not always act according to this

principle, bnt sometimes, either throngh sur
prise, or neglect of his duty, or remissness in
it, or want of watchfulness over himself, the
working force and energy of this mighty
principle comes for a wliile to suspend its
actings, and to lie, as jt were, stupified, or in
a trance ; the giant is asleep, and tho " sword
of the Spirit," is not drawn, during whicli
fatal interval or cessation, the flesh and the
devil take their advant.ago to assault, and get
ground even of the best of men.
Nevertheless, the case is surely very diffe
rent, when a man, thus overtaken with a kind
of spiritual slumber, drops into a temptation;
and when, with his eyes open, and all the
powers of his soul awake, he argues and de
bates the matter with himself for and against
the temptation ; and in the issue of thnt de
bate comes at length to a formed resolution to
venture upon it, from a confidence that, after
he has took his fill of his sin, the divine mercy
will deliver him out of it : this, I say, is a
case so vastly different from the forraer, tbat
though tho former may very well consist with
a habit of piety and sincerity, yet this latter
looks so, very ill, and has in it something so
desperately wicked, that I very much question
whether it be, or can be, incident to the heart
of a person truly regenerate.
But because this is so great a mystery of
iniquity, and apt to work so fatally upon tho
minds of such as think themselves sincere and
regenerate, but indeed not so ; 1 think it may ;
be of no small use to look into and resolve |
this case of conscience, namely, whether a
regenerate, a godly, or sincere person, (which
are all but several words for the same thing,) !
can have any rational assurance, before he
enters into a temptation, that being once pre
vailed upon by it, he shall in the issue be de
livered out of it. I
To which I answerin these twopropositions;
1st, That a person under such circumstances
can have no antecedent assurance one way or
other, either that he shall or shall not be
delivered. And,
2dly, That it is more probable, and that he
has greater reason to believe, that he shall not
be delivered, than that he shall.
Of both of which propositions with as much
brevity as the thing will bear.
And first, for the first of them, I affirm,
that such an one cannot certainly and posi
tively conelude that he shall not be delivered ;
forasmuch as this would be a bold, unwar
ranted intrusion into the counsels of God, and
a limitation of that mercy, the precise mea
sures of which are determined by bounds
known only to God himself. But this, I raust
confess, is an error of such a nature, that men
need not be much cautioned against it, as
being still more apt, in all their expectations
of mercy, to conclude too much for, than at
all against themselves.

DELIVERANCE FROM TEMPTATION.

15

And therefore I affirm also on the other
side, that much less can a person thus offering
himself to temptation have any ground of
assurance, that he shall in the issue be brought
out of it.
For the clearing of which matter we must
observe, that the temptations here spoken of
are generally such as lead to great sins ; great,
I say, either for the matter of them, such as
are blasphemies, perjuries, rebellions, murders,
adulteries, thefts, extortions, and the like ; or
great for the manner of committing them, as
being committed against the clear light and
conviction of conscience, or, as the Scripture
sometimes expresses it, " presumptuously, and
with a high hand," and with full delibera
tion. All which kind of sins wound and
waste the conscience, grieve the Holy Spirit,
hazard a man's final and eternal estate, and,
in a word, make a very great and dangerous
alteration in his spiritual condition.
Those, I say, are the sins which we are now
treating of ; for such, and such only, the Devil
drives at in most of his temptations, whether
he effects them or no ; but still the raalignity
of a temptation is to be measured by the
greatness of the sin, which it designs to bring
a man to. And concerning these sins I affirm,
that when any man is tempted to them, he
can have no sufficient assurance, that, in case
he should be prevailed upon by them, God
will deliver him out of them. And the full,
serious, thorough consideration of this is that
flaming sword, which God has placed before
the door and entrance of every such tempta
tion, to warn all who value the present peace
and future happiness of their souls, to fly from
it, as they would from the regions of death
and the mansions of the damned.
But you will say ; Have there not been
several instances of persons whom God has
delivered out of temptation, after they have
been prevailed upon by it ? And if so, may
not others in following times, of the same
qualifications, and under the sarae circum
stances, antecedently assure themselves ofthe
same deliverance ?
To this I answer, first, that of all persons
whom God has at any time delivered out of
temptation, I believe it will be hard to pro
duce any one who ever entered into it with
such a presumption. But, 2dly, I add more
over, that it is hardly possible for any man to
assure himself, that his qualifications and cir
cumstances are exactly the same with those
who have been delivered. Besides that, in
the last place, there is nothing to oblige God
to vouchsafe the same mercyto persons under
the same circumstances.
But you will urge farther, that there are
not only instances and examples, but also
promises of such a performance ih several
places of the Scripture, and particularly in
the text, where, by " God's knowing how to

deliver," the apostle no doubt meant his will
and purpose to deliver the godly out of temp
tation. And if so, may not such persons be
beforehand sure of their deliverance? since
where there is a promise on God's part, there
may and ought to be an assurance on ours.
To this also I answer, — that we are still to
remember, that neither this nor ainy other the
like promises are made iramediately to any
particular person, but only in general to the
godly and regenerate ; amongst which no
man can with any rational evidence account
himself, while he is either actually committing
or at least purposing to copimit some great
sin ; as every man under the power of such
temptations (as we have mentioned) certainly
is. And consequently, while he cannot be
sure of his regeneracy, neither can he be sure,
that a proraise made only to the regenerate
does at all belong to him.
But you may yet say ; Suppose that such
an one had a former assurance of his regene
rate state, may he not now, from his reraera
brance of that, draw a present assurance that
he shall be delivered out of all teraptations ?
For the clearing of which, I observe, that
there are two sorts of assurance.
1. The first consisting in such a certain per
suasion of a raan's regenerate estate, as is sub
ject to no mistake about it.
2. The second consisting in such a persua
sion, as excludes all actual doubting of it.
Which two sorts of assurance differ as much
from one another, as a man's being sure of a
thing differs from his being only confident
of it ; which latter he may very easily be, and
yet be far enough from the former. Accord
ingly, in the case now before us, I shall not
consider that first sort of assurance, consisting
in an infallible persuasion of a man's rege
nerate estate; it being much questioned by
many, whether such an assurance be attain
able in this life, unless by the special and im
mediate gift of God : albeit all confess, that
in case he should vouchsafe to any one so high
a privilege, it would certainly be attended
with such a confirraed habit of holiness, as
would effectually keep him who had it from
all gross and deliberate sins.
But then as for the other sort of assurance,
which only excludes all actual doubting of a
man's regenerate estate, it is much another
thing ; for being raised chiefly upon the stock
of a forward confidence, and not supported
with au equal measure of grace, it may rise
and fall, ebb and flow, and in many cases,
and with several persons, come at length
totally to be lost.
Which being premised, I answer to the
foregoing question in the negative, and that
upon the ground of a double hypothesis. As,
1st, Of that which holds, that a person truly
regenerate raay fall from his regeneracy, and
through his sin cease to be what he was.

10

SOUTH'S SERMONS.

Serm. LXV.

According to which opinion the pei'son here
spoken of, who is either actually committing,
or fully proposing to commit some great sin,
has no small reason to suspect the case wholly
altered with him as to his regeneracy, and
that, whatsoever he was before, he is now
fallen from it : and consequently, notwith
standing any former assurance of it, can at
present lay no claim to a proniise, made only
to persons continuing under that estate.
2dly, The other hypothesis or opinion, upon
which I ground a farther answer to the afore
said question, holds the certain final perseve
rance of every regenerate person in a state of
regeneracy. And according to this indeed, if
a man be once truly assured that he is in
such a state, it must follow that he will be
always in the same. But then I add, that it
does not also follow that he shall always be
assured that he is so. But on the contrary,
that the truth of a man's former assurance,
ill the case of great sins committed, becomes
I very questionable, as most likely (for all his
fonner confidence) to have been taken up at
the first upon false grounds, and consequently
must needs sink and cease, though his regene
rate estate should continue. For even a true
proposition may be assented to upon a mis-
tiken ground. And as to the point now
before us : nothing is more certain, than that
former assurances (though never so free fiom
all doubts when first entertained) will vanish
upon a present great guilt; since, admitting
that it should not wholly change a man's
regenerate state, yet it will be sure to blot and
weaken (if not quite extinguish) those evi
dences which he had once built his assurances
thereof upon. David no doubt was a person
truly regenerate, and in favour with God,
and so continued to his life's end ; and as
little is it to be doubted, but th.at at raost
times he fully reckoned himself to be what
really and in truth he was : but that with a
constant, uninterrupted confidence he always
thought himself so, cannot, I am sure, v^-ith
any warrant from Scripture, be affirmed.
For though we find him sometimes with a
kind of triumphant assurance declaring, " that
God held him by his right hand," and that ho
would " both guide him with his counsel, and
after that receive him into glory," (Psalm
Ixxiii. 24,) expressions (one would think) of a
confidence too high to rise higher, and too
strong to be brought lower ; yet elsewhere we
find this mighty hero upon the very brink of
despair, or rather plunged into the depths of
it, as appears frora those terrible, desponding
outcries, (Psalra Ixxvii. 7, 8, 9,) " Will the
Lord cast off for ever? and will he be favour
able no more? Is his mercy clean gone for
ever? and does his proraise fail for evermore ?
Hath God forgotten to be gracious ? and hath
he in anger shut up his tender mercies ?"
Every verse, every sentence, and word here

speaking nothing but the horrors of a hop^
less soul, und the struggles and agonies of
one sinking under the dismal apprehensions
of the divine wrath. Nor are we so much to
wonder, that such fearful breaches should be
made upon the confidence of so emiuent a
saint, if we consider what temptations and
what sinful failings God was sometimes
pleased to suffer him to be overtaken with. |
To all which vicissitudes of confidence and '
distrust about a man's spiritual estate, we
m.ay add this farther consideration ; that ac
cording to the natural course of things, tho
insincerity of the latter part of a man's life is
a greater presumption against the sincerity of
the forraer part of it, than the sincerity of
the forraer can be a security against the insin
cerity of the latter. And therefore let a man's ;
spiritual state and condition he as safe and [
good as he would persuade hiraself that it is,
yet, if he has no certain knowledge thereof,
(as in the case of great guilt we have shewn
that it is not to be had,) he can conclude
nothing from such his coudition concerning
the final issue of a temptation. From all
which it must follow, according to either of
the forementioned hypotheses or opinions,
(without my espousing either of them for my
own,) that, whether a man really be or be
not regenerate, yet when he is actually pre
vailed upon by a temptation, he cannot as
sure hiraself that God will deliver him out
of it, and consequently, before the temptation,
can have no certain prospect of such a delive
rance. Well then ; assurance, in such a case, we
have proved that a man can have none. But
to make a step lower, though there be no
assurance, yet may there not be at least a
comfortable expectation ? and though no cer
tainty, yet a likelihood of recovery?
Why yes, I cannot deny but that in some
cases there may. But then we must distin
guish of two sorts of temptation, or rather of
two ways of entering into it. As,
1st, When a man enters into it purely by
his own free choice, no necessary business or
circumstance of his life engaging him in it,
by unh.appily casting the matter of a tempta
tion before him in the course of his lawful
occasions. 2dly, When a man meets with a tempta
tion in the pursuit of his honest cilling or
profession, or in such a condition as he is un
avoidably brought into by an overruling band
of Providence.
These, I say, are the two ways by which
men pass into teraptation. Concerning tbe
first of which I affirra, that when a man ||
enters into it by his own free choice, putting 11
himself upon needless, adventurous trials, he '
leads himself into temptation, and so has no
cause to rely upon God for a deliverance out
of it. And yet I do not, I cannot say, that

DELIVERANCE PROM TEMPTATION.

17

God will not, in the event, deliver such an
one. But this I say, that such an one has
no ground to conclude that he will ; and
withal, that for the most part he does not.
For by thus stepping out of his way, he
tempts God ; and that surely is not the like
liest course to keep the Devil from tempting
him. As for the other way by which men pass
into temptation, namely, in the course of
their honest calling or profession, or by some
overruling providence casting them under
such circumstances as may lay some tempting,
alluring object before thera ; I do not doubt
but a man, in such a case, may comfortably
and warrantibly hope for such assistances from
God, as shall carry him safe and successfully
through the temptation, be it what it will ; *
I say, he may have much greater grounds to
hope for thom in this, than in the former
cases, but can say no more ; and that a hope
so bottomed is so far from being an act of
presumption, that it is indeed a lower act of
faith, or next to it, and a justifiable depen
dence upon the power and goodness of him
who never by his sole providence brings a
good man into temptation, but that, sooner or
later, he also opens a door whereby he may
get out of it.
And it is in good earnest a matter of some
astonishment, to consider, what eminent,
what triumphant success even weak persons
have had ag.ainst such temptations as they
have been next to unavoidably entangled in ;
and on the other side, what scandalous falls
even the strongest and greatest heroes in
religion h.ive met with, by entering the lists
with their powerful and skilful enemy, before
God had called them to the combat : when
indeed God thinks fit to call them to it, the
battle is his, and the success must needs be
answerable. But God is not bound to do
miracles, as often as men are pleased to be
wanton, aud to throw themselves into dan
ger, ami thereby create to themselves a neces
sity either of a dismal fall or a miraculous
delivery. But to illustrate this matter farther, I shall
give you some instances of the different suc
cess which has attended these two ways of
entering into temptation.
And first ; how came David to fall into so
foul a sin as adultery, and Joseph to escape
it, though the temptation was rauch more
pressing and importunate upon Joseph than
it was upon David? Why, the reason is
manifest : David cast himself into it by in
dulging himself at that time in a course of
idleness and pleasure, and a gross neglect of
the duties of his royal office : for in 2 Sam.
xi. 1, 2, we find him represented first lazing
upon his couch, and then " walking upon the
^ Consult Sermon XXII. p. 178, on the Prevention of Sin.
VOL. II.

roof of his house ;" aud, in a word, tarrying
at home careless and inactive, and that at the
highest time of action, a time when the text
remarkably s.iys that " kings went out to
battle," and when his own armies were in the
field, and he himself should have been in the
head of them, as became a prince whom God
had raised to that high station for nobler
ends than to do his business by others, and
assume the glory of it to himself.
On the contrary, Joseph came under the
temptation without any precedent act or fault
of his own, being forced out of his country,
and carried as a slave into Egypt, and there
bought and sold, and at length placed in a
faniily where the Devil maliciously laid a
snare for him, and he as victoriously broke
through it. But had Joseph, out of a vain,
vagrant humour, travelled into Egypt, (as
some do into France and other places,) only
to see the country and to learn fashions, (as
the word goes,) and in the course of his
travels fallen into Potiphar's house, probably
he might have given that lewd proposal an
other kind of entertainment, and, while he
was learning fashions, not h.ave refused so
fashion:il)le a temptation.
Again, how came Moses to be s.afe amidst
¦all the ple.asures and idolatries of Pharaoh's
court, .ind Peter to deny and forswear the
Son of God and Saviour of the world in the
court of the high priest, where there was much
less danger of forgetting God and himself,
th.an there was in the Egyptian court, a place
fraught with all sorts of vice, and without the
least savour of God or goodness, virtue or
religion? Why, the sarae reason is to be
given for this also ; God by a strange provi
dence, had placed Moses there, without any
consent or concurrence of his own ; and
accordingly, having brought hira thither by
his providence, he preserved him there by his
grace. But on the other side : What reason had
Peter to thrust himself into the high priest's
hall, where he had nothing to do, and to ven
ture himself into the very mouth of that
danger which Christ himself, but a few hours
before, had so expressly warned him of?
Why, it was his foolish confidence and curi
osity, which betrayed him into that gazing,
fatal adventure, wbich had like to have
rifled his soul, and robbed him of his faith,
and, without the interposal of a singular
grace, had consigned him over to a sad and
final apostasy.
Many more such instances might be pro
duced of both sorts ; but I suppose these may
suffice to convince the sober and considerate,
that the same divine assistances which use
to be vouchsafed to men in God's way, are not
to be expected by them in the Devil's walk.
And yet so little is this considered, that I
dare avouch, that most of those deadly blows

18

SOUTH'S SERMONS.

Serm. LXV,

.-.nd falls given by the tempter and his tempta
tions to the souls of men, have been from
their bold, voluntary, unwarrantable putting
themselves upon thuso trials, which God
would otherwise never have put them upon.
And it is wonderful to consider, what ab
surd, senseless pretences some allege for their
so doing ; three of which I shall briefl}' men
tion. As,
1st, Ask some men how they dare make
themselves spectators of all th.at lewdness, and
hearers of all that ribaldry, immorality, and
profaneness, which is oftentimes seen and
heard in some places and companies, and those
in no small request neither ; and they will
tell you, that they do it (forsooth) because
tliey know themselves proof against all im
pressions from such objects. And do they
indeed find themselves so upon experience ?
Why yes, just as much as tinder uses to be
proof ag'ainst the sparks which fall upon it.
And generally such spiritual braves, upon the
first encounter and trial of their strength
this way, arc quickly taught the contrary,
full sore to their co-^t, seldom coming off but
with a baHk'il confidence and a bleeding con
science, with the shame of one and the guilt of
the other.
Sdly, Otiiers, in the like case.s, will tell you,
that they venture in this manner, to create
in tlicnibclves a greater and more lively hatred
and detestation of such practices by an actual
inspection of the ugliness and deformity of
theni. Which kind of reasoning is just as if
a man should go into a pest-house to learn a
remedy against the plague.
But wliusoever he is, who shall presume to
try the strength and leiuper of his soul by
such venturous, unhallowed courses as these,
shall find that God will leave him, aud his
own pur])Oses will fail him ; and the siu
which he would pretend to hate shall smile
in his face, iind win upon his heart, and by
secret encroaches grow upon his spirit, till at
length it has crept into and lodged itself j
within the very inmost powers of his soul.
It being usually with the heart of man and a
temptation, as it was with Esau and his
brother Jacob ; while Esau was marching
towards him, he fully propo-ed to fight him,
but as soon as he came to him, he embraced
him. It is a saying worthy to bo wrote in the
heart of every man with the pen of a diamond,
(Eccl'us. iii. 26,) that " he who loves danger
shall perish by it." And that man who can
be so sottishly ignorant of the nature of things,
as to think to learn sobriety amongst the de
bauched, chastity iu the stews, modesty at balls
and plays, and the like, will quickly come to
leave his virtue behind him, and to take the
shape and impress of that mould into which
such courses aini comp.anies have cast him. Fur
th'.re is no such thing as " gatherii!g grapes

of thorns, or figs of thistles ;"_no turning the
incentives of vice into the instruments of
virtue, or growing holy by a kind of anti-
peristasis. He who will needs fight the Devil
at his own weapon, must not wonder if he
finds him an overmatch.
Sdly and lastly. There are others again who
run themselves upon these ungodly and fool
hardy .adventures, out of an insolent con
fidence, that, in case they should happen to
be worsted and foiled iu them, they will
repent, and that shall salve all, and set them
whole and right again : than wliich confidence
nothing can be imagined more absurd and
impious ; absurd, because a man hereby ven
tures tho greatest interest he has in the world
upon something not in his own power ; re-
peiituiice being, upon sever.al accounts, most
particularly the gift of God : and surely no
man can have cause to expect a gift, n.iy,
the best of gifts, from God, while he is in;-
tually provoking him. For how can such a
wretch assure himself that God will give him
cither grace to repent by, or time to repent
in ? And yet it is certain that there can be
no repentance without both, and as certain
that a man can give himself neither.
He may perhaps for a while stop the moutli
of his crying conscience with some flattering,
fallacious promises of an after-amendment.
But as it was said to the rich sottish worldling
in the gospel, singing a requiem to his soul,
and projecting his future ease, upon a survey
of his present stores ; so may it be said to
that man who abuses himself with such false
reckonings about his spiritunl estate, "Thou
fool, this night shall thy soul be required of
thee;" and then what will become of all those
windy, abortive projects of a future repen
tance ? No doubt, a man may drop into hell
in the midst of them. And that will be asad
conviction to him, that repentance is one
thing, and a purpose to repent quite another.
And so much for the absurdity of this pre
tence. And then for the impiety of it. It is of so
peculiar a malignity and opposition to the
motions of God's Holy Spirit, that whosoever
can take heart to sin upon presumption of a
followinj; repentance, needs not be much con
cerned about the issue of any temptation ; for
he is already under the power of one of the
worst and strongest temptations that can
possibly befall a man ; and carries a heart so
utterly contrary to, and estranged from all
real sense of piety, that the utmost comrais-
siuii of the sin which he is tempted to cau
hardly estrange it more.
Such an one is certainly in the very "gall
of bitterness," and under the most binding
fctteis that the Devil can well hold him by.
For of all the Devil's engines, this imposture
of a future repentance is the chief and most
fatiilly eflicacious ; and, I dare affirm, has sent

DELIVERANCE FROM TEMPTATION.

19

nuTc souls to hell than any one thing else
whatsoever. Nay, the truth is, it is hard to
imagine how any man, with his senses about
him, could venture upon any deliberate sin
without it. For come to a sinner just as he
is entering upon the Devil's work, and ask
him whether he does not know that God has
threatened theft, murder, and uncleanness,
and the like, with damnation? and bewill
tell you, Yes. And is not God true and just?
Yes. And if so, how dare you venture to
comrait any of these sins? Then whispers
his false heart this secret encouragement in
his ear, that repentance shall step in between
him and damnation. And so the scene being
thus laid, the man goes on, and upon these
terms complies with the temptation, and
commits the sin ; and God, perhaps, in his
just judgment, never gives him grace to repent
of it. But this is a subject of so great impor
tance, that it worthily requires a just, entire
discourse by itself.
And thus having shewn, that, which way
soever a raan passes into temptation, he can
have no antecedent assurance that God will
deliver him out of it ; no, nor yet in the place,
so much as a probable expectation of such a
deliverance, unless the temptation befalls him
in the course of his lawful occasions, or by
some overruling providence casting him upon
it, and not by his own free choice and fault
stepping into it ; and lastly, since it is certain
that men fall into temptation this latter way,
at least a hundred times for once that they
fall into it upon the former account, I sup
pose there can need no farther demonstration
of the truth of that other proposition laid
down by me, namely, " That before a man's
entering into temptation, it is much more
probable, and that he has greater reason to
believe, that being once prevailed upon by it,
he shall not be delivered out of it, than that
he shall." Which one thing seriously thought
of and laid to heart, surely, one would think,
should be abundantly enough to alarm any
man in his wits, and to keep him out of those
fatal by-ways, where the entr.ance is dange
rous, the retrait is doubtful, and the end is
death. And now to sum up this whole argument
and discourse in a few words. If the foregoing
assertions or propositions be true, (as the
whole world will never be able to prove them
otherwise,) let any one of sense and reason,
from this consideration, that the mercy of Gotl
and the intercession of Christ are engaged to
deliver the godly out of temptation, draw a
rational argument to venture upon a tempta
tion, if he can.
For, first, upon a principle of comraon
gr.atitude or humanity, will or can any one
make mercy itself a motive to sin, and the
greatest kindness a provocation to the foulest
hustilities? Will a son kick against his

father's bowels, only because ho knows that
they yearn over him? And if this be mon
strous and incredible, can wo believe that
a principle of grace cau suggest or endure
such reasonings as common humanity would
abhor? Or, in the next place, will a principle of
common prudence suff'er a man under a capital
guilt to offend, grieve, and affront his advo
cate? Shall I spit in the face of him who is to
plead for my life, and I ara a dead raan if he
does not ? And if common sense will and
must explode such practices, can a principle
of grace, which enlightens the understanding
as well as purifies the heart, carry a man to
that which common sense would secure him
from ? All these are paradoxes in reason and
nature, and therefore infinitely more so in
religion. Well, but admit that the enormous strength
of a man's corruption should so far overbear
all these discourses both of reason and religion,
as to make him sin, and then presume upon
mercy in spite of them. Why, then it will
follow, that such an one has no reason in the
earth to reckon himself in the number of tho
godly and regenerate, to whom alone au
interest in those two great benefits does
belong ; and consequently, that he presumes
without any ground. In which case, it is not
this or any other gospel doctrine, but the
m.an's own ignorance and misapplication of
th.at to himself which he has no claim to,
which causes his presumption.
And, therefore, shew me that mau who can
make such cursed inferences frora those two
high privileges, and I will undertake to
demonstrate to him, that those inferences and
conclusions are much more efiectual argu
ments to evince that he has no interest at all
in that mercy and that intercession, than
they can be to prove that that mercy and that
intercession will be employed, or concerned to
deliver him ont of temptation.
For a principle of true grace ; nay, even a
probable persuasion ; nay, farther, a full
assurance of that grace, would keep any one
from arguing at such a villainous rate: foras
much as no man ever attains to such au as
surance but by a long course of piety, and a
habitual, strict communion with God, and
suoh an eminent, controlling degree of grace,
as shall render it morally impossible for a
person so qualified to make such horrid con
clusions. But the truth is, error and a wicked mind
will draw poison out of any thing, and turn
the choicest benefits and the richest cordials
of the gospel into gall and hemleck. But for
all that, " God is not mocked," though men
love to be deceived. Is or are the means of
salvation at all the less so, because some abuse
them to their destruction. I am sure we have
all cause to pray, that God would keep us

20

SOUTH'S SERMONS.

SiiUM. LXVI.

from so dangerous a delusion in so great a
soncern. To whom be rendered aud ascribed, as is
most due, all praise, might, majesty, and
dominion, both now and for evermore.
Amen.

SERMON LXVI.
DELIVERANCE FROM TEMPTATION THE
PRIVILEGE OF THE RIGHTEOUS.
PART III
" The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of tempta
tions. " — 2 Petbr, ii. 9.
I HAVE twice already discoursed upon this
text, in which, after some short explication
and account given both of the sense and de
sign ofthe words, I cast the farther prosecution
of them under these following particulars :
1st, To shew how far God delivers persons
truly pious out of temptation.
2dly, To shew what is the grand motive or
impulsive cause inducing God thus to deliver
thera. And,
3dly and lastly. To shew why and upon
what grounds this is to be reputed so great a
mercy and so transcendent a privilege.
The two first of these I have formerly
treated of, and proceed now to the third and
last, which is to shew, why and upon what
grounds deliverance out of temptation is to be
reputed so great a mercy and so transcendent
a privilege. In order to which, as all deliverance, in the
ver}' nature and notion of it, imports a rela
tion to some evil from which a m,an is
delivered, so in this deliverance out of tempta
tion, the surpassing greatness of it, and the
sovereign mercy shewn in it, will appear
from those intolerable evils and mischiefs
which are always intended by and naturally
consequent upon a prevailing temptation.
To give some account of which shall be the
bu.siness of our present discourse.
And for this we shall first in general lay
down this as a certain truth, That all the
mischief that sin can possibly do a man,
temptation designs him. All that is valuable,
either in this world or the next, it would rob
him of; and all that can be called miserj%
cither here or hereafter, it would subject him
to. All that a man can enjoy is struck at,
and all that a man can suffer is intended ;
and if the tempter allows him the quiet
enjoyment of any thing desirable in this life,
it is only to bereave him of that which is
infinitely more so in the other.

Which being so, as to that high concern iu
debate between the Devil and the souls of
men ; since his raalice is such, that he cannot
but tempt, it is an infinite mercy that he can
do no more than terapt, and that a man's
own consent raust be had to his own destruc
tion. For if the tempter could have his will
upon the person terapted, he would scorn to
court where he could corapel. He would
make directly at his head, and not come steal
ing upon his heel. He would break iu upon
him with open force, aud not stand poorly
waiting at his elbow with a temptation.
' But to come to particulars. Four things
more especially are designed, and driven at by
the tempter in all his temptations. As,
1st, To begin with tho greatest, and that
which is always first intended, though last
accomplished, the utter loss and damnation
of the soul. For this is the grand mark which
the tempter shoots at, this the beloved prize
which he contends so hard for.
And as two enemies may be really as mnch
enemies while they are treating as when they
are fighting, so the Devil bears the same ma
lice to a man while he tempts him, as when
he actually torments him. Temptation is the
way to torment, and torment the end of
temptation. When men first venture upon sinful objects,
lewd converse, and occasions of life suitable to
their corrupt humours, the face of the tempta
tion looks fair and harmless, the first pro
posals of it plausible and modest, and the
last and dismal issue of things is with great
art and care kept out of their sight ; so that
they shall not perceive that their enemy is so ;
much as about to strike, till the final and fatal
stroke is effectually given.
The Devil, perhaps, offers thee pleasure;
but, poor creature ! it is thy life whieh he
aims at, thy darling life which he is driving
a base bargain for. Or he may lay wealth
and riches before thee, but be assured that he
will have something for his money, something
of more value to thee than both the Indies,
and the whole world besides. Soraetiraes he
courts with honour and greatness, but still
expects to be well paid for both. And as
great a prince as he is, he never knights any
one, but he expects raore than knight's service
from him in return. In a word, he will have
thy conscience and thy religion by way of
earnest here, and thy soul in full payment
for it hereafter. There is not the least thing
in the world which the tempter offers a man
for nothing ; not so much as a pitiful mess or
morsel to relieve thy craving, starving ap
petites, but he will, if he can, have thy birth
right, thy immortal birthright in exchange
for it.
Could we but look into those mansions of
horror, where he has lodged so many mil
lions of lost souls, the cruel monuments of

DELIVERANCE FROM TEMPTATION.

2(

his victorious delusions, and whom almost
amongst them all might we not hear charging
his coming into that woful estate upon the
overreaching arts of this great impostor? Some
we should hear cursing those false and falla
cious pleasures which had baited and beguiled,
befooled and drawn them into those direful
pains, from which there is neither respite nor
redemption. Others we should hear raving
and crying out of those guilty gains, those ill
filled bags and deluding heaps, which served
only to treasure up wrath to the owners of
them, and at length sink them into a bottom
less pit, deeper, and more insatiable, if pos
sible, than their own covetousness. Others
again we should hear, with the height of rage
and bitterness, reflecting upon those treache
rous, dear-bought honours, the unconscionable
price of their wretched souls, by which the
terapter hooked thera into his clutches, blind
ing the judgment and blasting their innocence,
till, by several steps of guilt and greatness, he
"preferred them downwards," to the place
prepared for such forlorn grandees, "where
they are like to lie for ever, cursing themselves
as much as formerly they were cursed by
others. Thisis the result and end of all the tempter's
glossing arts and flattering addresses. Hell
is the centre of all his temptations ; for from
thence they were first drawn, there they all
meet, and in that they end.
And therefore let not that man who would
not be fooled in so vast au interest as his
salvation, fix his eye either upon the outside
or the beginning of a teraptation. Even the
beginning of a tragedy is pleasant, but the
close of it is not so. Let him not judge of
what the tempter intends by what he offers ;
for be it what it will, look it never so gay or
great, can any one, not quite abandoned by
common sense, imagine that his mortal,
avowed eneray is at all concerned for his
pleasure, profit, or preferment? Assuredly
nothing less ; in all this he is but setting his
trap ; and no raan sets a trap, but he baits it
too. He hates most implacably, while he
offers most plausibly. His drift in every one
of his temptations is to separate between the
soul and its chief good for ever, and to plunge
it into a state of misery both intolerable and
unchangeable. Farther than this he cannot go, aud short
of this, if possible, he never stops. Every
temptation not defeated, certainly destroys.
For by once casting a mau from his inno-
cence^ it carries him still downward ; and he
who falls so, falls farther and farther by a
continual rolling motion, and never leaves
falling (unless staid by a mighty intervening
grace) till he comes to the bottom, or rather
to the place that has none.
This isthe natural course, way, and method
of a temptation from first to last. In the

beginning it flatters, in the progress of it, it
domineers, and in the issue it damns ; always
concluding (if not baffled and broken off in
tirae) " in the worm that dies not, and the
fire that is not quenched."
But to proceed. There are other conse
quences of a successful, conquering tempta
tion, short of daranation, and yet sufficiently
dreadful in theraselves. As,
2dly, In the second place, loss of a man's
peace with God and his own conscience, and
the weakening, if not extinguishing all his
forraer hopes of salvation. It confounds and
casts a man infinitely backwards, as to his
spiritual accounts. It degrades him from his
assurance ; renders his title to heaven dubious
and perplexed ; draws a great and discourag
ing blot over all his evidences ; and even
shakes in pieces that confidence which was
formerly the very life and support of his soul,
with new, terrible, and amazing objections.
This is a man's condition immediately
upon the prevalence of a temptation. For
whatsoever makes a breach upon his inno
cence, in the same degree also certainly dashes
his comforts. And for a man to be thus
always in the dark, as to the greatest concern
he has in both worlds, what is it but a kind
of temporary hell, as hell itself is chiefly a
perpetual darkness ! And therefore, where
men cannot arrive to the high privilege of a
certainty, they are glad at least of a proba
bility of their salvation. But he who has
once rifled and laid open his soul to a base
compliance with a temptation, has nothing tt
relieve his tottering, shaken hopes with, but
the weak and gliramering light of God's
general mercy, which many enjoy who shall
never taste of his special favour.
Look upon David, a person represented
under as sublime and heroic a character of
piety to posterity, as any one whatsoever ; a
person signalized with that peculiar elogy, of
being " the man after God's own heart," (1
Samuel, xiii. 14.) And yet how did this
glorious and great man, by yielding to a foul
temptation, undermine and sap the very
foundation of all that comfort and confidence
in God, which by a long course of piety and
strict living, he had for many years together
been building up ; so that immediately after
that terrible blow given him, we find the
horror of his sin and the terrors of the Al
mighty always fresh and fierce upon his
spirit. " My sin," says he, " is continually
before me," (Psalra li. 3.) Nay, though he
received his pardon by a particular message
from heaven, a pardon bearing date as early as
the very confession of his sin, (for no sooner
had he said, " I have sinned," but the prophet
replies upon him imraediately from God him
self, 2 Sam. xii. 13, " The Lord also hath put
away thy sin, thou shalt not die,") j'et, not
withstanding all this, the wound hereby

SOUTH'S SERMONS.

Sbbm. LXVI.

made upon his conscience was so broad and
deep, so .angry and inflamed, that we cannot
find that it was ever perfectly cured and
closed up ; but still we have him complaining
of broken bones and noisome sores, loss of
, God's presence and decay of spiritual -strength,
j mournful days and restless nights ; sometimes
rising, and sometimes falling, with alternate
hopes and fears, even to his dying day.
The history of whose condition one would
think abundantly sufficient to set a frightful
look upon the fairest and best dressed tempta
tion. For though in such a case, God by a
sovereign restoring mercy should at the last
secure a man's eternal interest, and keep him
from a hell hereafter, jet is it not misery
enough to endure one here? to be still carrying
.about him a sick, ulcerated mind, a mind per
petually .almost harassed with the returning
paroxysms of diffidence and despair ? and to
go drooping all his days under the secret girds
and gripes of a dissatisfied, doubting, ill-bod
ing conscience ?
Is it nothing to be haunted with the dis
mal apparitions of a reviving guilt, and the
old blaok scores of our past, forgotten sins ?
Nothing to have that merciless "handwriting
of the law against us," which we thought had
been cancelled, presented anew in fresh and
flaming characters to our apprehensions ? In
a word, is it nothing to be alw.ays walking
upon the brink of damnation, like a man
looking down with horror into a deep and
black water from a slippery standing, from
which he expects trembling to fall every
minute, and frum which if he does fall, he
sees his death and his grave before him in the
bosom of the merciless element, where he is
sure to be swallowed up irrecoverably ?
A man may have tlie whole frame of his
spiritual est;ite so broken and battered by a
temptation, that he shall never be able to re
trieve upon his heart so much rational confi
dence of his future happiness, as to afford him
one cheerful day all his life after, but shall
" pass the time of his pilgrimage here" in
sadness and uncertainty, clouds and darkness,
clouds that shall make all black and lowering
over him, and intercept the view of all that is
comfortable above him.
Such, for the most part, is the case and
condition of a sinner plunged by temptation
into a great guilt ; a condition so inexpressi
bly miserable, that it is impossible for a man
under it to enjoy any thing. And that surely
is or ought to be argument enough against it,
though he should in the issue escape from it.
For a wise man would live, not only with
safety, but also with satisfaction.
And therefore, as in this temporal life it is
not the bare union of soul and body, or a
power merely to subsist and breathe, which
deserves the name of life, and much less of
enjoyment, but to have those nobler super

structures and advantages of nature, a health
ful body and a sound mind, vigorous faculties
and well-disposed organs, together with a
happy symmetry and agreement of all the
parts :
So in the spiritual and supernatural life,
will any one who has a true sense and relish
of such thiugs content himself with so poor a
proportion of grace and sincerity, as just to
keep him spiritually alive, and out of a state
of death and reprobation, and in the mean
time neglect the health, the growth, the flower
and activity of the spiritual principle ? Will
he satisfy himself in having just as much oil
in his lamp as to keep it from going out,
when he might and should have so much as
to feed it up to a brisk and glorious flame ? !
Why should a man choose to go to heaven
through sloughs and ditches, briars and thorns,
diffidence and desertion, trembling and mis
giving, and by the very borders of hell, and
death staring him in the face ; when he might
pass from comfort to comfort, and have all
his way paved with joy and assurance, and
made easy and pleasant to him by the inward,
invaluable satisfactions of a well-grounded
peace ?
He who shuns the road of temptation may
do so : but he who will needs keep in it, is at
best but like the man in the gospel, who,
travelling from Jerusalem to Jericho, "fell
amongst thieves. They stripped him, and
wounded him, and left him half dead." After
which, would any one, think we, in his right
wits, who had seen all this, have ventured
himself into the same hands, only because the
man who fell info them was uot actually des
patched by theni ? Do wise men count the
dangers and disasters of war as nothing, be
cause every one who engages in the battle is
not killed outright upon the place, but many
escape and come off wounded and maimed,
and leaving a good part of themselves behind
thein ?
Surely I should think, that not only graves,
but hospitals, not only the enemy, but the
surgeon, not only the weapons of death, but
the instruments of cure, should speak terror
enough to dissuade considering minds from
the peril of such adventures.
But much otherwise is the discourse and
arguing of those whom the tempter infatuates,
when, in defiance of common sense and expe-
rience, they would reason away the dread of |
sin and the dangerof temptation. They reason
for the commission of a sin from the bare
possibility of not being damned for it, but
overlook the certainty of being made ex
tremely wretched and miserable by it : just
like a sot, who purchases the short, worthless
pleasure of a luscious, unwholesome morsel
with a terrible surfeit, or a long sickness,
only because a man may be sick and surfeited,
and not die. These arc the wise consequences

DELIVERANCE FROM TEMPTATION.

23

which some govern their actions by ; while,
by a new, unusual art of argumentation, they
disjmte for the Devil, but conclude against
themselves. 3dly, The third consequent of a prevailing
temptation, is the exposing of a man to the
temporal judgments of God in some signal and
severe affliction. For though, in much mercy,
God may (as we have shewn) save such an
one from eternal death ; yet it rarely happens
that he frees him both from destruction and
from discipline too ; but that sometime or
other he gives him a taste of the bitter cup,
and teaches him what his sin has deserved, by
what at present it makes him feel.
When the Israelites, by that monstrous in
stance of ingratitude and idolatry, in changing
the Deity for a golden calf, (the God that
made them, for a god made by them,) had pro
voked God utterly to cut them off, and Moses
by a mighty intercession kept off the killing
blow, so that they were not then destroyed ;
yet for all that, they did not go unpunished,
as appears from that remarkable place in Ex
odus, xxxii. 34, " Nevertheless," says God,
" iu the day when I visit, I will visit their sin
upon them." And by many terrible items did
the vengeance of God remind them of it for
many succeeding generations. So that it was
a common saying, eveu to a proverb, amongst
the Jewish writers, that never any judgment
befell the children of Israel from that time
forward but there was an ounce of the golden
calf in it.
It seems there was an old score still to be
reckoned for. As the killing malignity of
many a distemper.maybe reraoved,and yet the
man not so absolutely cured of it, but that
for many years after he may find it in his
bones, and never recover the debauches of his
youth so far, but that they may leave some
thing behind them, which shall be sure to rub
up his memory in his age.
Some there are who hold, that when God
has once pardoned a sin, as to its guilt and
merit of eternal punishment, there is yet
another guilt, binding the sinner over to
temporal punishraent, which remains j'et un
pardoned, and consequently to be expiated
and cleared off, either by God's temporal
judgments inflicted upon the sinner before or
after his death, or to be satisfied for, by some
thing voluntarily undergone, or otherwise
commuted for by the sinner hiraself.
This, I say, is the doctrine of some. A
doctrine much more beneficial in its conse
quences, than true in its principles ; and such
as maintains those who hold it, much better
than it is raaintained by them. For though
it is most true, that after God has pardoned a
sin as to its eternal punishraent, he may
nevertheless afflict and chastise the sinner for
it in this world ; yet to affirm that this is in
order to the satisfaction of his justice for that

sin, is false, and inconsistent with the infinite
fulness and perfection of Christ's satisfaction.
All satisfaction iraplies recompense and an
equal compensation ; but God intends no such
thing in the calamities which he inflicts upon
a pardoned person, but he inflicts thera for
quite other ends ; as partly to give the world
fresh demonstrations of his hatred of sin, and
partly to inodiate and imbitter sin to the
chastised sinner. So that to punish, properly
taken, is one thing ; aud to afflict and chas
tise, perfectly another.
The difference, therefore, in stating the
ground or formal reason of this dispensation
is very great, though the effect of it be raate
rially the same, and the evil inflicted, whether
by way of retribution or castigation, equally
grievous. And since it is so, let no man, from
any, even the most rational, persuasion that
he can have of the main and final pardon of
his sin, conclude that there shall be no other
reckonings with him in temporal visitations.
For he who has escaped the axe or the gallows,
is not sure also to escape the lash ; and though
mercy has spared a malefactor's head, yet
justice may leave him a small token in his
hand to remember it by.
For the proof and confirmation of which,
can any thing be more apposite and express,
than that emphatical place in Psalm xcix. 8,
" Thou wast a God," says the Psalmist, " that
forgavest them, though thou tookest ven
geance of their inventions." What ! For
giveness and vengeance upon the same per
sons ? Light and darkness in the same region
and at the same time ? Who can unriddle
these obscurities, or reconcile the seeming
contradiction ? Why, the resolution is not
so very difficult, if we consider that eternal
mercy may very well consist with temporal
severities, and the pardon of the sin with the
correction of the sinner.
See this farther exemplified in the person
of David himself, (the great instance whom
we shall still have recourse to, in treating of
this subject.) Could or can any one act a
higher repentance than he did, whose repen
tance stands upon record as a pattern to the
penitents of all succeeding ages ? Or can any
one pretend to a greater assurance of his for
giveness than the same David, whose pardon
(as we have shewn) was immediately sealed
in heaven, and infallibly declared to him by
the mouth of an inspired prophet ? Yet for
all this, cast but your eyes forward, and cer
tainly from that time you will find but very
few fair days in the following part of his life.
For first of all, he hears the doora of his dar
ling child ; and then, by a strange intermix
ture of judgments and pardons together, in
the very same breath almost that the prophet
tells him, " that he should not die," he tells
him also, " that the sword should never depart
from his house." And how was his royal

24

SOUTH'S SERMONS.

SlSU.M. J..\V[.

family broken and dishonoured by strange,
infamous, and unusual villainie and disas
ters ; by incest, murder, and rebellion : one
brother ravishing his sister, another killing
his brother, and rebelling against his father.
Surely there was as sad a face of confusion
upon the house of David as ever there was,
not only upon the court of any prince, but
upon the faraily of any private person what
soever. And yet all these lamentable acci
dents were both subsequent upon and deriv
able from a sin which was fully pardoned.
Of so vast, so lasting, and so surviving an
extent is the malignity of a great guilt.
And no wonder ; for as guilt is inseparable
from sin, so sorrow and suffering are insepa
rable from guilt. " Tribulation and anguish,"
says the apostle, " upon every soul of mau
that doeth evil." The sentence is universal,
and we find no reserve or exempt case in the
execution. And therefore let that man, who
can be so far taken and transported with the
present pleasing offers of a temptation, as to
overlook those dreadful after-claps which
usually bring up the rear of it ; let him, I
say, take heed, that vengeance does not begin
with him iu this life, and mark him in the
forehead with some fearful, unlooked-for
disaster. And if this once comes to be the
case, I cannot see, but that those high blades,
who pretend to outbrave hell, and laugh at
all apprehensions of future misery, yet when
they come to feel the hand of God upon their
worldly interests, can as sadly and sharply
resent the calamity of a languishing body or
a declining family, a blasted name or a
broken estate, and bend under it as poorly
as the meanest and lowest spirited man what
soever. But lot them bear it as they can ; such for
the most part are the dolorous effects and
bitter appendages of a prevailing temptation.
After all which, if pardoning mercy should
come in, and save a man at the last, yet surely
no serious, considering person would need
any greater argument against the commission
of a sin, than to have these the circumstances
of its pardou.
4tlily, The fourth and last mischievous con
sequence of a prevailing temptation is the
disgrace, scandal, and reproach, which it natu
rally brings upon our Christian profession.
The three former consequences terminated
within the compass of the sinner's own per
son ; but this last spreads and diffuses the
mischief much farther ; nothing in nature
casting so deep a stain upon the face of Chris
tianity, as the blots which fall upon it from
the lewd and scandalous behaviour of Chris
tians. Forasmuch as every ill practice naturally
reflects a disrepute upon a man's principles,
as being still supposed either to infiuence him
to that practice, or at least not to restrain

him from it ; either of which is justly a did.
credit to them. For if the first be true, his
principles are evil and immoral ; if the latter,
they are imperfect.
From whence it is, that constant experience
has found it to be the common course and
custom of the world, to except and inveigh
against professions, offices, and things them
selves, only for the faults of persons. A way
of arguing indeed as absurd as spiteful, but
yet very easy and usual, and with gross vul
gar minds (not well able to distinguish or
discern any thing, but as it is exemplified
and embodied in persons) almost unavoid
able. And this certainly should make every wise
and good man very tender and cautious of
being drawn into those ways, which may both
bring upon him a personal guilt, and render
him a public scandal. For why in all reason
should the profession or society, the church or
religion, which a man is of, suffer by his
lewdness, or share the infamy of those crimes
which they are not in the least concerned in,
otherwise than to disown, hate, and detest
them ? Common ingenuity (one would
think) should stop the foul mouth of any
temptation with such reasonings and replies
as these.
Nay, should a man take up his religion, not
out of conscience, but design, yet surely it
would be his interest to keep it fair and credi
table : and should he (as too raany do) wear
it only as a cloak, yet prudence and common
decency would teach him to wear it clean,
and without spots. For he who is not con
cerned for the honour of his religion, may
justly be supposed to have neither honour
nor religion.
If indeed a man could be wicked and a
villain to himself alone, the mischief would
be so much the more tolerable. But the case
is much otherwise. The plague flies abroad,
and attacks the innocent neighbourhood.
The guilt of the crime lights upon one, but
the example of it sways a multitude ; espe
cially if the crirainal be of any note or emi
nence in the world. For the fall of such an
one by any teraptation (be it never so plausi
ble) is like that of a principal stone, or stately
pillar, tumbling from a lofty edifice into tbe
deep mire of the street : it does not only
plunge and sink into the black dirt itself, but
also dashes and bespatters all that are about
or near it when it falls.
Was it not thus with Samson ? who, of a
judge of Israel, and a terror to his enemies, a
raan all made up of miracle, rendered him
self both the shame of the former and the
contempt of the latter ; a scoff and a by-word
to all the nations round about him, (as every
vicious and voluptuous priuce mnst needs be;)
and all this by surrendering up his strength,
his reason, and his royal trust to the charms

DELIVERANCE FROM TEMPTATION.

25

of a brutish temptation, which quickly trans
formed and made him a more stupendous
miracle of folly and weakness than ever he
had been of strength ; and a greater disgrace
to his country than ever he had been a defence ;
or in a word, from a judge of Israel, a woful
judgment upon it.
And was it not thus also with David ? This
was the worst and most killing consequence
of the temptation which he fell by, (2 Sam.
xii. 14,) that he had, by that enormous act,
" given the enemies of God," as the prophet
told him, " great occasion to blaspheme."
And no doubt the religion he professed, as
well as the sin he had committed, was there
upon made " the song of the drunkards ;" and
many a biting jeer was obliquely cast at one,
as well as directly levelled at the other. For
to be vicious in the sight of a man's enemies,
and those not more the enemies of hiraself
than of his religion, what a bitter aggravation
is it of his guilt, and what an indelible re
proach to his person !
Yet thus it is aud ever will be in such cases ;
where the person of the criminal is public,
the infamy of the crirae can hardly be private.
It is too great and too diffiisive to be confined
to one place, or circumscribed within one
person. But the report of it shall whirl and
rattle over a whole nation, daraping the
spirits of some, and rejoicing the hearts of
others, but opening the mouths of aU ; those
of enemies in taunts and sarcasms, and those
of friends in sighs and complaints ; when it
shall be said of any person of credit and
repute, what a false or foul step he made,
eitner in point of conscience or honour, throw
ing off all obligation of one, and all sense of
the other, only through a blind, aspiring as
cent to some pitiful station of worldly wealth
and greatness, where the curse of men will be
sure to follow, and the curse of God to over
take him.
These two things therefore let every one
rest assured and persuaded of. First, that in
every temptation the tempter's design is not
only the single guilt and damnation of the
person tempted, but, if possible, to make him
a means or instrumen t to carry and convey
the infection of the crime to raany more.
And if he fails in that, so that he cannot de
file or destroy persons, he will endeavour at
least to derive a slur upon professions. This
heing most certain, that there is not a man
of remark in any religion in the world, but
has thereby got it into his power to do his
religion a great mischief. To which I shall
add one note more ; that every man living
has it in his power to do more mischief than
he can do good. And this directly introduces
that other thing, which I would have every
man fix and keep in his thoughts ; namely,
that it is the most unworthy, base, and ignoble
thing, that can be incident to human nature.

for a man to make himself a pl.igue asnd a
public calamity, a blot to a church, aud a
blemish to his religion. For what is it else,
but to make himself a tool and an under-
agent to the great enemy of God and man,
and to do that for the Devil, which the Devil,
without the help of such instruments, could
not possibly do by himself?
But such a wretch is every one, who, by
complying with a temptation in any vile or
dishonest practice, does as mnch as in him
lies to libel his very calling, to reproach his
Saviour, and to put Christianity itself to the
blush. But above all, scandalous and inex
cusable would it be for a minister of the church,
to suffer himself to be tempted to any thing
wicked or dishonourable. For such an one,
by so doing, first puts his foot into the raire,
and then traraples upon the altar.
And thus having set before you four of
the most dire and fatal consequences of a
prevailing teraptation, I suppose it will be
no hard matter to take an estimate of the
greatness of the mercy of being delivered
from it. I
For first. Is there any happiness in being
free from the cruel bites and tortures of a
perpetually accusing conscience ; a conscience
labouring under the guilt of some great sin,
which, like a remorseless vulture, shall lie
daily and hourly gnawing and preying upon
his heart ; or like a poisonous adder, rolling
in his bosom, and from thence always hissing
in his face ?
Is it a blessing to be secured from poverty
and sickness, infamy and disgrace, and all
the terrible lashes of an angry, provoked ven
geance, which are able to make life itself all
anguish, horror, and astonishment, and death,
in respect of it, a relief and a sanctuary to fly
to? It is a mercy to be kept clear and innocent,
and to be preserved from such courses and
practices, as shall render a man a public
nuisance and a common grievance, the ab
horrence of the age he lives in, and the
detestation and curse of the ages after him ?
And lastly. Is it not an act of a superlative,
divine goodness and compassion, to hinder a
man from running headlong into a state of
final and etemal perdition ? A state of judg
ment without mercy ; where there is no
repentance, and frora whence there is no
return. A state of torment and despair ;
torment, "which eye has not seen, nor ear
heard, nor has it entered into the heart of
man to conceive." I say, let a man rally up
his best attention, his severest and exactest
thoughts, and let him consider and weigh
these things, each of them in particular, and
all ofthem together, the misery of enduring,
and the felicity of escaping them ; and then
he shall be able to comprehend, or at least to
adore the height and depth, the compass and

26

SOUTH'S SERMONS.

Serm. LXVI

dimensions of that mercy, which delivers
him from temptation.
And now, to make some useful inference
and deduction from the whole foregoing dis
course : what can we so naturally and so
happily improve it into, as into this one great
important lesson ; namely, that let men's
desires, hopes, and designs, be never so big
and swelling, and their fancy for the world,
and the things of the world, never so fond and
eager ; yet that doubtless is, and ought to be
accounted by the truly pious and prudent,
the best condition and state of life, (be it what
it will,) which shall least expose them to
temptation. For if the end of any course or
condition be destructive, the way to it. cer
tainly must needsbe dangerous.
It is the general aim and desire of men to
be rich and great, and to live with ease, plentj',
and honour, and to be their own carvers for
all these things ; and when they can be so,
they think theraselves happy men. But as
the king of Israel said to his insulting enemy,
(1 Kings, XX. 11,) " Let not him who girdeth
on his armour boast as he who putteth it
off;" so say I in the case now before us : let
no present fluster of fortune, or flow of riches,
either transport the man himself with con
fidence, or the fools about him with admira
tion, till we see that it makes him better and
wiser than he was before, (which seldom
happens,) and not only makes, but steadily
keeps him so, till he has finished his course by
a well led life, and closed his eyes by an
honourable and a happy death.
Otherwise, let his first setting out be as
bright and glorious as the rising sun, raany a
black cloud may gather over him, and many
a furious storm fall upon him, which shall
bring him beaten and battered with a Non
putavi (the fool's motto) in his mouth, to asad
and a doleful journey's end ; and then he
will find, (when he has once felt it,) that it is
no such strange thing for a fair morning and
a foul evening to fall on the same day.
This is certainly true of things as well as
persons, — that perforraances rarely keep pace
with promises ; and that what flatters us
most at first, generally in the issue befriends
us least. And nothing in nature serves a
man so more than his own heart. Oh ! if I
might have such an estate ! how happy should
I be! says one: and. If I might attain to
such honour, such high place and favour, how
should I enjoy myself! says another. But,
tliou ignorant man ! dost thou know what
thou shouldest be if under such and such cir
cumstances? Dost thou carry thy heart so
absolutely in thy hand, as to be sure to keep
it firm and fixed, and faithful to thee, when
the world and the tempter shall break in upon
it, with riches to bribe, pleasure to court, and
greatness to bewitch it, and all to debauch
aud draw it from thee, so that it shall be no

longer thine, to bestow upon God or goodness, |
justice or religion ? For, alas ! there is no [
such thing as being wicked to a measure, or i
playing the knave to a certain degree, and no
farther. This being (as the comedian says) i\
" dare operam, ut cum ratione insanias." I
And therefore he who ventures upon any
unlawful or suspicious practice, or supposed
advantage, on such terras, is like a man who
goes into the water for his pleasure or refresh
raent : his design (to be sure) is to divert, not
to destroy himself, and accordingly with great
caution he enters in step by step ; but the
rapid stream presently draws him in, carries
him away, and hurries him down violently, i
and so the poor man, with all his art and
caution, is drowned. He thought to have |
been too wise and skilful for the stream, but
the stream proved too strong for him. i
In the concerns of the soul, as well as of
the body, it is a dangerous thing for a man j
to venture beyond his depth. Since it is not j
in men as it is in waters, which are alvvays as
deep as they are high. For in persons, ex
perience shews, that height and shallowness !
may consist very well together.
But to draw towards a close. If that state
or condition of life be undoubtedly the best,
which is least subject to temptation, then this
may afford us these two following directions;
1st, Let no man in his prayers peremptorily
importune God for any particular enjoyment
or state of life. That is, let him not pray and
prescribe to God in the same petition. God
alone knows what will help, and what will
hurt us. He only can discern the various
windings and turnings, the peculiar bent and
constitution of the heart, and how this or tbat
thing would affect or work upon it, and how
far such or such a condition vifould agree or
disagree with it. He knows the proper suit
ableness and unsuitableness of every state of
life to each mind and temper, which it is
hardly possible for the ablest and deepest
heads to have a perfect knowledge of. For
such very often pray for they know not what,
even for their own bane and ruin, and with
equal importunity and ignorance solicit their
own destruction. They think they " ask
for bread," but it proves " a stone ;" and
" for a fish," but they find and feel it to be "a
serpent;" and therefore it is oftentimes in
mere love to their persons that God answers
not their prayers. In a word, the wisest man
living is not wise enough to choose for him
self; and therefore we have cause to fly to an
infinite wisdom to direct our requests, as
well as to an infinite goodness to supply our
wants. 2dly, As a man is by no means positively
to request, or pray for any particular enjoy
ment or state of life, so ought he with the
greatest satisfaction of mind to accept of, and
acquiesce in that state and condition (what-

PELIVKRANCE FROM TEMPT.VTIOX.

soovov it Iv) whioh Providence shall think fit
to allot and sot out for hini. I have ;ilioady
shown, that no man living is in this oaso tit
to oluHvso for hiniself. And if we refer it to
God to choose for us, surely there is all tho
ivasou in the world tliat wo' should stand to
his choioo. Wo come all as suppliants, or
rather .nsboggjtrs, to tho throne of gr.ioo ; and
to Ivg and to ohooso too, wo know, is too
much. Is thy condition in the world poor,
thy oircunist;inoos low, aud thy fortunes, in
tho oyos of ."ill about thoo. mo.in and con-
toniptiblet Repine not at it ; for do wo not
every d;iy bog of God " not to lead us into
toniptation '" And shall wo not allow him
to judge which is the best and surest way to
kct^p us from it >. Possibly this very thing
that thou comnlainost of, "is that by whieh
God is eflwtually answering that prayer.
He denies thoo honour, but it is perhaps
lK>auise he intends theo heaven. He refuses
thee greatness, but it may be to proser\-e thy
iniHxvnoo, and perehanoi\ in long run, thy
noek tiH>. In a word, he withholds th;it frwiii
thoo, whioh lie knows thy spiritual strengths
•tre not able to be.ar. Thou affootost to bo
high and jHn\ orl'ul, and proKiblv the tempter.
who hates thoe morf,illy, would be glad to
have thoe so too. But God, who thoroughly
knows and truly loves thet\ ktiows tliat^ iii-
stoad of Iviiii; liii:h or po\\ert"ul, it is much
better for tiioe to bo hnruiloss and s;ifo.
Aud if there be an\ truth iu tho gosjol,
and all religion bo not made up of triess and
lies, it is re.nlly better and more olijiMo for a
man to keep ,a cood ovuisoioiuv, thoni;h with
;i halter about his kiuvk, or :i dagger at his
thro;it, than with the loss of it to gain all the
riohos. and glories, and kingdoms of this
world, which the touiptir herototoro so libi^
rally ott'ored our S,iviour. aud our Saviour so
rosolutoly and disdaintully threw biick in his
face. In fine, wo have nothing to do. but to
"commit ourselves to God as to a faithful
Creator ;" to reeeivo whut ho assigns us
liumWy. .and to enjoy it th-Hukluily ; kiu>wiiig,
that b\ denyhig us thoso c.iudy nothing
those giKiixi poisons, ho is doing us tho srroatest
kiuduess in the world, whieh (in answer to
tho Lord's pRivor) is •• io keep us from tenip-
t;itiou :" aud 1 y keeping us from temptcitioii.
¦• to deliver us Irom evil ;" and by " .ieiivoring
us from ovil." to projvire and lii us for all the
good that can l>o praye»l for : .and for himself.
tho ondlojs, inexhaustible lount;!!!! of it ; " in
whv>so prvscnco there is fuliioss of joy, and at
whoso right hand there are pie:ijuros for
ovonnoro." To whom, thoreforo. be rendered aud as-
oriborl, as is most due, all praise, might,
inzijosty. and douiiuiou. throughout all ages
and gouoratious. Amou.

SEEMON LXYII.
THE H.\rriXESS OF BEING KEPT FROM
THE HOUR OF TEMPT.U'ION.
PART IV.

•" Bocause thow lifts* kept the word of my patience, tliorvfoiv
will 1 keep thee trom the hour of temptation, which is eomin.;
upon all the \Torlcl, to tr>' the inhabitants of the earth." —
RsVKi-\TiON, iii. 10.
As deliverauoo out of temptation is un
doubtedly one of the greatest mercies that
God vouohs.ifes his people in this world, s.^
there is nothing that more enhances and sets
oft" the greatness of the mercy, than the criti-
o.il time of God"s vouohs:itiiig it. Tho wi^e
man assures us, that '• there is a time for
every thing and purpose under heaven ;" .i
time w hich gives it a peculiar aud proper ad-
vaiuago above what it has at other times.
And thorot'ore. since the s;iid advantage is
universal, .•uid extends to all kinds of aetiou.
we must not wonder if tho great enemy of
souls has his time also ; his pariieuiar, advim-
tageous time to tempt and destroy, as God has
his time to rescue and deliver. Ijut as, iu the
vioissia.dos of night and day, the darkness of
o'lo reoommeuds the returns of the other,
ad, ling a kind of lustre oven to light itself, so
it is the hour of d:inger which sots a price and
a N-alue upon the hour of deliverauoo, and
makes it more properly iu season. " It shall
l>e given you." s;iys onr >nviour to his dis
ciples, "ill that very hour," Matth. x. 111. in
the very point and crisis of their extreui; :y :
like a pardon intervening just as the i:itcil
arm is lilting up, a pardon sont in tho very
inst;uit of exoeutiou. And certainly next to
life from tho dead, is to be near the killing
stroke, and yet snatched away from it : to soe
desith hror.gii; to our very doors, and yet pre
vented from eoming in.
The ooe-.ision oS the won'.s is indoeil iwrii-
culiir. ;is evii'aining iu thom a ) reoietion of
the s;ul r.nd Ciilnir.uous estate of the church
under the approaching reign of Trajan the
Roman emperor ; but 1 s!.;.ll uot eonsiJer
thom under any sueh partiei;lar respect or
limitation, but as thoy ho'.d forth a general
iniportaiu h'sson or admonition, of equal and
peri^etual use to rdl mon. with refer>euce to
liieso spiritual trials, conflicts, and tempta
tions, whioh will be sure to exercise and en-
g:ige them in the eov.rse of their Christian
warfare ; and aooc^rdingly I shall o;ist tho pro-
sieoution of the worels under tlioso four p;irti-
culars: 1st, I shall show, that there i? a oortaiii

SOUTH'S SERMONS.

Sekm. LXVII,

proper season or hour, which gives a peculiar
iorce and efficacy to temptation.
2dly, I shall shew, by what means, helps,
and advantages, a temptation attains its proper
season or hour.
Sdly, I shall shew some signs,, marks, or
diagnostics, whereby we may discern when it
has actually attained it.
4thly and lastly. Draw some useful in
ferences from the whole. And,
First, for the first of these ; that there is a
certain proper season or hour, which gives a
peculiar force, strength, and efficacy to terap
tation. It is observed in all those actions or
passages which cause any great and notable
change, either in the raind or life of raan, that
they do not constantly operate at the same
rate of eflScacy, but that there is a certain
crisis, or particular season, which strangely
provokes and draws forth the activity and
force of every agent, raising it to effects much
greater and higher than the common measure
of its actings is observed to carry it to.
So that if we would take a true estimate of
the full power of any operative principle, we
must consider it under its proper advantages
of working, and in those critical seasons which
will be sure to employ, heighten, and call
forth the utmost strength and energy that it
is naturally possessed of. Every fit of a burn
ing fever is not equally dangerous to the sick
person, nor are all hours during the distemper
equally fatal. But we usually say, that if the
man passes such a day or such a turn of the
moon, the danger is over ; forasrauch as at
those particular seasons the distemper rallies
together all its malignity, and vents the
height of its rage ; after which it breaks and
declines, and nature begins to recover itself.
In like manner, there is a determinate
proper time, sometimes called in Scripture
" the day of temptation," (Psalm xcv. 8 :)
sometimes " the evil day," (Ephes. vi. 13 ;)
and sometiraes (as here iu the text, and else
where) reraarkably, " the hour of tempta
tion ;" a time in which temptation is in
finitely more fierce and daring, more urgent
and impetuous, than at other times; a time in
which with all its might it coraes rushing in
upon the soul, like the Jluctus decumanus upon
the labouring ship or vessel, which always
gives it the greatest and most dangerous
shock. We know our Saviour conversed freely and
safely with the Jews for a considerable time,
coming into the temple, and teaching in their
synagogues, and they " stretched forth no
hands against him," as he himself tells us,
(Luke, xxii. 53 ;) aud yet all this while, as
quiet as they held their hand.s, they had
malice enough working in their hearts, and
opportunity enough to have exerted that
malice in their actions. Nevertheless for that
time they touched him not.

But how then came the Devil and hig
instruments to have so much power at length,
as to apprehend, and seize, and put him to a
cruel, ignominious death ? Why, our Saviour
gives us the reason of it in the next words.
" This," says he, " is their hour, and the
power of darkness." Accordingly, (Mark,
xiv. 35,) vve have him praying, that, " if it
were possible, the hour might pass from him.'
And again, (ver. 41,) " The hour is come, and
the Son of man is betrayed into the hands of
sinners." And it is worth observing, that though our
Saviour began his great office and ipinistry
with temptations, (Matt. iv. 1,) and carried it
on under temptations, (" Ye are those," says
he to his disciples, " who have continued with
me in my temptations," Luke, xxii. 28,) yet
the Scripture records not his praying in his
own person against any temptation, but only
this last and great one, this " hour of tempta
tion," this terrible and critical hour, in which
it pleased the all-wise God to let loose all the
powers of hell upon him, and in which they
spit the utmost of their venom, and summoned
all their hellish arts and forces to give one
mighty push for all. And it was the be
haviour of Christ at this hour, upon which i
depended the eternal happiness or misery of
mankind, and the vast moments of the world's
redemption. And as it was with Christ himself, who did
and suffered every thing as a public person,
and consequently was tempted as well as
crucified for us, so it will be with every Chris
tian in the world. Christ vouchsafed to be
like us in most things, and we shall certainly
be like him in this.
And from this consideration no doubt it is,
that we raust gather the true sense and expo
sition of that noted place, Jaraes, iv. 7, in
which the apostle bids us " resist the Devil,
and he will fly frora us." But experience
sufficiently shews, that upon every act of
resistance he does not fly, but that his assaults
are frequent, and oftentiraes continue very
long ; nay, the frequency of the onset and the
length of the siege are usually some of the
principal methods by which he conquers, and
brings the soul to a surrender. And if so,
what can that particular kind of resistance be,
which proves so victorious, and sends him
going like a vanquished person? Why, no
question, it must be eminently that which
withstands and encounters him at that par
ticular hour or season, in which the tempta
tion is come to a head, and in which it has
all the helps and advantages for conquest
imaginable. For if the tempter miscarries iu this his
highest, his sharpest, and most violent attack,
it is natural to conceive, that he must surcease
the conflict, draw off, and give it over for that
time at least. For if his twenty thousands

THE HAPPINESS OF BEING KEPT FROM THE HOUR OF TEMPTATION. 29

prevail not, to what purpose can it be for
him to carry on the war with ten ? Or what
should an enemy do more, who has already
done his utmost? And thus much for the
first thing proposed ; which was to shew, that
there is a certain proper season or hour, which
gives a peculiar force, strength, and efiicacy to
temptation. I proceed now to the second,
which is to shew by what means, helps, and
advantages, a temptation attains its proper
season or hour. And for this I shall mention
seven, beginning at the more reraote, and so
proceeding to such as bring it still nearer and
nearer to a head. And,
1st, For that which is most remote, but
yet the very source and groundwork of all
the mischief which the Devil either does or
can do to the souls of men ; naraely, that
original, universal corruption of mau's nature,
thp.t fomes peccjti, containing in it the seeds
and first principles of all sins whatsoever, and
more or less disposing a man to the commis
sion of them. For it is this which admin
isters the first raaterials for the tempter to
work upon, and without which it is certain
that he could do nothing. For when he set
upon our Saviour with all his rage .and sub
tilty, yet still he was worsted, and beaten off ;
and the reason of it is assigned by our Saviour
hiraselfin those words, (John, xiv. 30,) " The
prince of this world," says he, " cometh, and
hath nothing in me ;" that is, nothing for
any of his temptations to fasten upon. The
infinite purity of his nature, free from the
least inherent filth, afforded no handle for
the tempter to lay hold of him by. He was
like pure fountain-water in a glass, which
you may shake and shake, as rauch and as
often as you will, but no shaking of it can
ever foul it. On the contrary, let a liquor in
any vessel look never so clear and transparent
upwards, yet if there be the least settlement
or heterogeneous matter in any part of it,
shake it thoroughly, aud it will be sure to
shew itself.
In like manner, when the tempter comes to
any of us, he knows that there is something
lurking in the heart of the very best of raen,
which he can make foul work with, if the
. particular grace of God does not prevent him,
as it is eertain that in many cases it does not.
Temptation first finds a man evil, and then
makes him worse.
And thus much for the first advantage
which a temptation has towards the attain
ment of its hour ; namely, the general cor
ruption of man's nature, suiting it to all the
proposals of the tempter, and rendering it
always ready both to invite him and to be
invited by him.
2dly, The next advantage is from that par
ticular corruption, or sort of sin, which a
man is most peculiarly jirone and inclined to.
And this is one step and advance beyond the

forraer. For though every man, as we have
shewn, has the root and seeds of all sins virtu
ally in him, yet, through the good providence
of God, (setting bounds to the extravagance of
nature,) no man is equally inclined or carried
out to all sorts of sin, for that would quickly
throw the whole world into confusion. But
there is a particular bent of constitution,
which derives and contracts the general
stream of natural corruption into a much
narrower channel, by that special propensity
which every raan finds in hiraself to some
one kind of vice or sinful passion raore than to
any other. Such a thing there is certainly in
all men, and being founded in nature, it sticks
closely, and operates strongly.
And so advantageous a ground does this
afford the tempter to plant his batteries upon,
when he would assault us, th.at he never over
looks it, but observes it exactly, and studies
it thoroughly, and will be sure to nick this
governing inclination (as I may so express it)
with some suitable teraptation. So that
whereas by virtue of this some men are natu
rally choleric and impatient, some proud and
ambitious, some lustful, some covetous, some
intemperate, and some revengeful, and the
like; thisthe Devil knows better than any man
knows himself. He understands the crasis
and temperament of his body, and the pecu
liar turns and motions of his raind and fancy,
better than any physician can judge of one, or
any philosopher can give an account of the
other ; and accordingly, a man shall be sure
to hear from him, and receive many a terrible
blow and buffet on his blind side.
He is not such a bungler at his art as to
use the same nets or baits indifferently for all
sorts of game. He wUl not tempt a shrewd,
designing, active, aspiring mind, with the
gross and low pleasures of wine or women ;
nor a sot or an epicure with the more refined
allurements of power or high place. But still
suiting his proposals to the temper of the
person whom he addresses them to, he strikes
for the most part home and sure, and it is
seldom but he speeds. And therefore let a
man look to it, and before he enters the com
bat with so experienced an enemy, who will^
assuredly find him out, and fig'ht him (if
possible) to his disadvantage, let him view aud
review himself all over, and consider where he
lies raost opiiortune and open to a fatal thrust,
and be sure to guard himself there, where he
is most liable to be mortally struck.
3dly, A third advantage' towards the pre
vailing hour of a temptation, is the continual
offer of alluring objects and occasions ex
tremely agreeable to a man's particular cor
ruption. Fire cannot burn without fuel ;
and the strongest incliii.'itioiis would in a
little time faint and laiigni^ii, if there were
not objects to invigorate and draw them
forth : nay, and the very faculties of the mind

30

SOUTH'S SERMONS.

Seiu:. LXVII.

Would grate and prey upon themselves, if
they found no matter from without to work
and to whet upon. Soraething there must be
to employ them ; and whatsoever employs,
will at the same rate also improve them.
And therefore the world is like a great
storehouse, full of all sorts of provisions for
men's lusts ; so that whatsoever course may
be taken to mortify or extinguish them, it is
certain that, being left to themselves, they
will never die of want. For there are riches
for the covetous, honours for the arabitious,
and ple,asures for the voluptuous. And so
keen and eager are the appetites of corrupt
n,ature towards these things, that where such
plentiful, and withal such suitable prepara
tions come before them, they will be sure
to fall to. And such, moreover, is the mutual
agreeableness between them, that they never
fail to find out one another ; either such ob
jects to find out the heart, or the heart them.
And if there could chance to be any failure
or defect upon this account, there is an old
pander (the prince of pimps) always at hand,
who makes it his great business and perpetual
study to bring them together, and will never
suffer a vicious inclination to starve for want
of a suitable object to feed it. And this in
troduces the
Fourth advantage or furtherance towards
the maturity or prevalent season of a tempta
tion ; which is, the unspeakable malice and
activity, together with the incredible skill
and boldness, of the tempter. Now malice
and envy are of all ill qualities the most
fierce, active, and indefatigable ; admitting
neither peace nor truce with their respective
objects. Aud accordingly, being much higher
and more sublimate in the Devil's nature
than they can be iu nian's, they carry him
rovingand rangingabout the world like a roar
ing, insatiable lion, night and day upon the
search" whom he may devour ;" and the more
he has devoured, the greater is his appetite to
devour more. His mouth is always opeu,
and his eyes never shut. He is restless and
unwearied ; and though idleness be a sin
which he loves to tempt men to, yet he is
never guilty of it himself.
To which we may add his profound skill
and cunning in the various arts, wiles, and
stratagems which he has to overreach and
circumvent even the wisest and mo=t watch
ful. It is enough to say of his cunning, that
it is equal to his diligence, and not inferior to
his raalice.
And then, in the last place, so intolerable
is his boldness, or rather impudence, that no
repulse sliall daunt, no defeat discourage him,
nor any degree of holiness deter hiin, from
tenipting even the best of men to the very
worst of sins. For he set upon Adam in his
innocence, and prevailed ; na_v, and he ven
tured upon our Saviour himself, and that

again and again : and thougli as often as he
spoke he was baffled, yet still, though baffled, ';
he would not be silenced : he received foil ;'
after foil, and was thrice conquered before he
would quit the field.
From all which qualifications, united in ;,
our mortal enemy, let this bo concluded npon, i
that as eertain as it is that there is such an i
evil spirit in the world, so certain is it that
every man living has a restless, implacable, j
subtle, audacious .adversary, who will infal- !
libly engage and fall upon him, and with his ¦
utmost skill and force dispute it with him fur ''
his salvation. But then, j
6thly, Over and above all this, God sonl^
times, in his wise providence and just judg
ment, commissions this implacable spirit to '¦
tempt at a rate more than ordinary. And |
this must needs be a farther advantage to
wards the ripening of a temptation, than any
of the former. I shall not presume to assign
all the reasons why God is pleased to do this. ]
But it is enough that sometimes to try and
manifest men's graces, as when he commis
sioned the Devil to try and tempt Job in that
terrible manner, (Job, i. 12 ;) and sometimes :
to reproach them for their weakness, in con- 1
junction with their absurd confidence, as
when, at the tempter's own instance, he al
lowed him to winnow and tempt Peter,
(Luke, xxii. 31 ;) and sometimes to punish
them for former great sins, as when ho em- ;
powered the evil spirit to persuade that mon
ster of wickedness, and first-born of hell,
king Ahab, to " go up and perish at Ramoth
Gilead," (1 Kings, xxii. 22,) " Thou shalt
persuade him," says God, " and prevail also.
Go forth, and do so." I say, it is enough, that,
for these and the like ends, (especially in the
way of judgment for forraer guilt,) God is
sometimes pleased to take this dreadful course
with men ; nothing being more true, than
that as temptation brings a man to sin, soshi
also brings him to temptation.
But the thing which I would chiefly observe
from hence is, that in all such cases in which
the Devil acts by commission from abovo, he
tempts (as we may say) with authority, and
consequently with morethaii usual vehemence
and success ; always using the fonner, and
seldora failing of the latter ; as indeed it is
hard to imagine how he should, when the
only thing that can stand between him and
success, (to wit, the divine grace,) in the case
here supposed by us, is withdrawn, aud the
man thereby left wholly to hiraself. And
whosoever has any experience in these mat
ters will easily acknowledge, that for a man
to be left to himself, and to be left to the
Devil, willbe found in the issue but oncand
the same thing.
6thly, A sixth advantage, by which atemp
tation approaches to its crisis" or proper hour,
is a previous, growing familiarity of the mind

THE HAPPINESS OF BEING KEPT FROM THE HOUR OF TEMPTATION. 31

with the sin which a man is tempted to ;
whereby he coraes to think of it with still
lesser and lesser abhorrences than forraerly he
was wont to do. Frequent thoughts of a
thing naturally wear off the strangeness ofit :
for by these the mind converses with its ob
jects ; and conversation breeds acquaintance
with things as well as persons.
Upon which account, when any ill thing is
suggested to the mind, whether from a man's
own corruption within, or from the Devil,
or the examples of wicked men without, if it
be not immediately rejected with a present
and particular act of abhorrence, it will leave
some small impression upon or disposition in
the mind towards that ill thing which before
it had not, and otherwise would not have.
Which irapressions or dispositions, though
sraall and inconsiderable at first, yet, by the
frequent repetition of such like thoughts or
suggestions, will in tbe issue amount to some
thing very dangerous, and either produce in
the heart a positive inclination to, or at least
extinguish its former aversation from, the
sin suggested to it : either of which will as
suredly be made use of by the terapter, aud
by degrees prepare and sraooth hira a way,
and at length open a door for the temptation
in its full force and fury to enter. The ser
pent has already got into his head, and his
whole body will not be long behind.
7thly and lastly. There is yet another way
by which a temptation arrives to its highest
pitch or proper hour ; and that is by a long
train of gradual, unperceivable encroaches of
the flesh upon the spirit. I say, unperceivable
for the present, and considered each of them
singly and by themselves ; but sufficiently
perceivable, after that some considerable space
of time, and a frequent iteration of them, has
wrought such a change in the soul, as to a
spiritual discernment will quickly shew and
discover itself.
The meaning of which, I conceive, will be
best declared and made intelligible by parti
cular instances ; having first premised this
great and certain rule, namely, that whatso
ever tends to gratify or strengthen the flesh,
in the sarae proportion or degree tends to
weaken the spirit ; and look in what degree
the spirit is weakened, in the same degree
it is prepared for and laid open to a temp
tation. Now there are several enjoyments in them
selves very lawful, and yet such as, upon a
free, unwary use of them, will by degrees cer
tainly indispose and unspiritualize the mind,
dulling its appetite, and taking off its edge and
relish to the things of God. A man's food,
his sleep, his recreations, nay, and his very
business, if not ordered by the arts and con
duct of the spirit, may prove a snare to him,
and draw off his heart by secret estrangements
from those spiritual duties and disciplines in

which the very health and life of his soul
consists. So that after some time so spent, a man shall
have lost his heart he knows not how nor
which way ; and by what dark escapes it has
slipped from him he shall hardly be able to
learn ; only he shall find, that wheu he should
make use of it, it is gone. For the reason of
which, it is enough that the flesh has got
ground of the spirit ; the rise of one being
still the fall of the other. And when after
such a course either of extreme solicitude, or
intentness upon business, on the one hand, or
of gaiety and freedom of conversation on the
other, the frame of a man's spirit comes to be
loose aud unfixed, and took off' from its usual
guard, then let him know that the evil hour
is preparing for him, and he for that. His
enemy is not far off, and it will not be long
before he hears from him in some fierce temp
tation or other.
And thus I have done with the second par
ticular proposed, and shewn the several helps
and advantages by which a temptation ripens
aud arrives to its proper hour and full ma
turity. But now, to determine how many of these
must concur to the bringing of a temptation
to such a pass, is a thing not to be done by
any one standing universal rule. For some
times two or three, sometimes more, some
tiraes all of them join and fall in, to the
working it up to this critical pitch. Never
theless, when we have said all that we can
upon this subject, that which Agiir says,
(Prov. xxx. 19,) of " the way and motion of a
serpent upon a rock," raay be much more
appositely said of the intriguing ways and
windings of this " old serpent," the terapter,
with the heart of raan, namely, that they are
in the number of those mysterious things,
which it surpasses the reason of man to give
an account of. That he is often at work is too
raanifest, though the way of his workingbe in
discernible. Pass we now therefore to the
Third particular, which is to shew sorae
signs, marks, and diagnostics, whereby we
may discern when a temptation has attained
its proper season or hour. I shall instance
only in three. As,
1. When there is a strange, peculiar, and
more than usual juncture and concurrence of
all circumstances and opportunities for the
commission of any sin, tb.at especially which
a man is most inclined to ; then, no doubt, is
the hour of temptation. When a man is to
take physic, if both the humours within arc
prepared, and the weather without proves
suitable, and the potion itself be strong, the
operation and force of it must needs be more
than ordinary. And as it is with the physic
of the body, so no question it is also with tho
poison of the soul ; the same advantages will
give the same force of operation to both.

32

SOUTH'S SERMONS.

Sehm. LXVII. !

Sometimes a man shall see the scene of
things round about him so fitly laid, and pre
pared to serve him in the gratification of his
corrupt desires, that he cannot but conclude
that there was something raore than blind
chance which brought him into that condi
tion. For when we see a net or snare curi
ously and artificially placed, we may be sure
that there is something intended to be caught,
and that the fowler is not far off', whether we
see him or no.
Judas, no doubt, had a temptation to gratify
his covetous huraour before he betrayed his
master. For Saint John has given us his
character, (John, xii. 6,) " that he was a thief,
and carried the bag," and that more to. serve
himself than any one else. But the great
hour was not come, that he should shew him
self so, till he had that opportunity of trucking
with the priests ; and then he quickly swal
lowed the sop and the treason together, sold
his conscience, and put his master's blood in
his pocket.
A corrupt principle may be strong, though
it be still ; and as strong at one time as at
another, though it does not always break out
into the same exorbitance of sin. But wheu
occasion improves and quickens it, circum
stances help and encourage it, and opportuni
ties further and push it on ; then you shall
see not only wh.at a day, but even what an
hour of temptation can bring forth. Fire has
always the same consuming quality, though it
does not alw.aj's make work for a brief. Some
times it is quenched as soon as kindled ; but
when the wind strikes in with it, and both
strengthens and spreads the flame, and the
matter upon which it seizes is more than or
dinarily catching and combustible, and all
means of extinguishing and stopping the pro
gress of it are out of the way ; then, and not
till then, it shall reign and rage with a bound
less, irresistible fury, and shew you how much
another kind of thing it is while it is 3'our
servant, and when it comes to be your mas
ter ; while it serves the occasions of the house
upon the hearth, and when it comes to lord it
upon the roof.
Now the case of a man's corruption, before
and under the crisis of a temptation, is much
after this manner. When it comes against
bim with all its recruits, all itsauxilharies, all
its peculiar advantages, then let him expect a
battle, and know that he is to combat a pre
pared enemy, who has prevented him, and
comes to fight him upon the vantage-ground.
And as it was said of " the stars fighting in
their courses against Sisera," (Judges, v. 20.)
so may it be said of a man brought into si'ch
a coudition, that all the circumstances of time,
place, person, and the like, shall jointly fight
against him, inflame his corruption, heighten
and give life to the temptation, driving it
home like so many mighty strokes upon a

wedge strong and sharp-pointed, and apt
enough to enter, and make its way of itself.
2dly, A second sign of a temptation's draw.
ing near its hour, is a strange averseness to
duty, and a backwardness to, if not a neglect t
of, the spiritual exercises of prayer, reading, j
and meditation. Now as every principle of
life has some suitable aliment or provision, by
which both its being is continued and its
strength supported ; so the forementioned
duties are the real, proper nutriment by whieh I
the spiritual life is kept up and maiutainedin •;
the vigorous exercise of its vital powers. ||
And as in all other things, when the great '<
instrument oflife, appetite to food, fails them, i[
it is an undoubted argument of some notable
disturbance or decay of nature ; so when the
soul begins to disrelish its daily nourishment
of prayer, watchfulness, and strict commnnion
with God, it is an infallible sign that it is under
some present disorder, and possibly not far
from some mortal distemper.
A man at first, perhaps, feels a kind of
grudging and uneasiness all over his body, a
deadness upon his stomach, and a drowsiness
upon his senses, and he cannot well tell what
he ails ; but after a few days these uncertain
beginnings come to rage in a burning fever,
or to strike him with an apoplexy ; and then
it appears what those symptoms foreboded
and tended to all along ; and the great ques
tion now is, not when or how soon the man
shall recover and be vvell, but whether or no
he shall live.
In like manner, when a man finds it thus
with himself, as to the state of his soul, that
his former freshness and fervour iu the service
of God is abated, and that his heart either
flies off from the duties of religion, or per
forms them with a cold, faint, languishing
indifference ; in the judgment of all those
guides of souls, who discourse raost experi-
mentallj' and knowingly of these matters,
such an one has all the reason in the world to
suspect, that there is some notable mischief
designed hira by his spiritual enemy ; and
that he is entering upon some dangerous trial,
some critical, searching temptation, which
will be sure to probe hira to the bottom, to
shake all the powers of his soul ; and from
which if the divine mercy does iu the issue
deliver him, yet it " will be so as by fire," by
smart, and difficulty, and great unlikelihoods,
and by such near approaches to, and narrow
rescues from destruction, that it will be mat- ;
ter of horror to him to reflect upon his very
deliverance, and the danger will be terrible \-
even after it is escaped. jl
Sdly, The third and last sign that I shall j
mention, of a temptation's attaining its full |
hour or maturity, is a more than usual rest- '
lessness and importunity in its enticings or
instigations. For it is the tempter's last as
sault, aud therefore will certain! v be furious}!

THE HAPPINESS OF BEING KEPT FROM THE HOUR OF TEMPTATION. 33

the last pass which he makes at the soul, and
therefore will be sure to be driven home. For
he knows that if he succeeds now, he is abso
lutely victorious ; and that if he miscarries in
this his last action, all his former arts and
attempts vanish and fall to nothing.
So that upon suoh a promising concurrence
of all those mighty advantages which we have
mentioned, nothing can remain farther to
speed his design, but that he presses on to
victory, by charging forcibly and frequently :
and this he will sometimes do with such fury,
pouring in arguments upon the mind so thick
!ind fast, that all contrary considerations and
i arguings, by which it would fence against the
power of his proposals, shall be either stifled
with the multitude, or overborne with the
; urgency and impudence, of his solicitations.
i 'There have been strange examples of men
brought into such a condition. It is reported
of Luther, that being tempted to make away
with hiraself, the temptation grew so fierce
and pressing upon him, that falling into an
agony, and, as it were, struggling for life, he
had no other way to defend himself but,
during the conflict, by frequently urging and
repeating over and over to himself the sixth
commandment ; "Thou shalt do no murder ;
Thou shalt do no murder." That so, by en
countering this fiery dart with the continually
renewed evidence of the sin offered full and
fresh to his faith, in the pereraptory, express
words of the precept, he might relieve his
labouring mind against the present violence
of that impious suggestion.
The terapter in this action behaves hiraself
just as you shall see sorae eager, ill-bred peti
tioners, who do not so properly supplicate as
hunt the person whora they address to, dog
ging him from place to place, till they eveu
extort an answer to their rude requests. So
in this case a mau shall find hiraself not only
importuned, but even invaded ; the tempta
tion shall in a manner break in upon hira,
and follow him without pause or intermis
sion, so that he shall uot be able to discharge
his raind of the irksome, incessant representa
tions of the sin which it solicits him to, but
his imagination shall be possessed, and his
thoughts so far entangled with it, that they
shall have no power to divert or pass off to
any other thing. And now when a tempta
tion has arrived to this pitch, the tempted
per.son may assure himself that it is at its
high crisis, its hour is come, and he is actually
engaged in a dispute for his soul, and nothing
less than the keeping or losing it for ever is
the thing which is contended for.
And thus I have also done with the third
particular at first proposed, and given you
three several signs or marks, by which the
spiritually wise and watchful may observe the
motions of their grand enemy, and discern the
approach of the fatal season. Of all which we
VOL. II,

may say, as Christ did of those signs that
were to portend his own coming, (Mark, xiii.
29,) "When you shall see these things come
to pass, then know that it is nigh, even at the
doors." So when a man shall find these
things come upon him, he must know, that
though he is not actually conquered and trod
den down, yet the enemy is in his quarters,
and the sword at his breast : .and if these
dangers alarm him not, he is beside the reme
dies of mercy and the admonitions of gr.ace ;
he is passing into a state of hardness and in
sensibility, and (for ought appears) under all
the sad likelihoods of a perishing condition.
And thus at length we come to our
Fourth and last particular, which was, to
draw some useful inferences from the whole
discourse ; and many such might be drawn
from thence. But I shall insist only upon
three, and that very briefly. As,
1st, That every tirae in whicha man is temp
ted, is not properly " the hour of temptation."
A man in his Christian course may meet with
several assaults audspiritual ren cou liters, which
he easily masters and breaks through ; but if
from these slight efforts or velitatious, (as we
may call them,) he shall conclude that the
tempter can do no more, and from former
success in smaller corabats shall promise him
self certain and final victory in all future con
flicts, he will find himself deceived and im
posed upon by false measures, taken from
insufficient experience. For probably the
temptation at those times raight not have got
all those helps and advantages about it, which
were necessary to give it its full strength.
Teraptation has its daily risings and fall
ings, ebbings and flowings, and a man raust
daily and of course expect thera. But the
great danger is not from hence ; but when, by
a kind of periodical revolution or return, it
coraes (as I raay so speak) to its spring-tide,
then let a man look to his spiritual banks and
mounds, that the flood break not in upon him,
and the killing waters (as the Psalmist ex
presses it) " come not in even to his soul."
The life and business of a Christian is but
too truly a warfare, and a sharp one too ;and
no warrior must think himself sufficiently in
forraed, by a few antecedent skirmishes, what
the whole body and united force of his enemy
can do in the main heat of the battle. For
after a man has been victorious in the former,
he may be, and very often is, shamefully
worsted and overthrown in the latter.
2dlv, The second thing which we shall infer
from the foregoing particulars is, that every
man living, some time or other, sooner or
later, shall assuredly meet with an hour of
temptation ; a certain critical hour, which
shall more especially try what mettle his heart
is made of, aud in which the eternal concerns
of his soul shall more particularly lie at stake.
So that if he does not quit himself like a
c

31

SOT'Tir.S SERMONS.

Sbrm. LXVU.

man, and make good his station against this
principal assault of his spiritual adversary, a
failure or miscarriage then will prove like an
oversight in the day of battle, hardly to be
recovered by any after reparation.
It is indeed called an hour, but it is such
an hour as has an eternity depending on it,
and consequently makes a whole life little
enough to prepare for it. The advice of the
son of Sirach is excellent, and home to the
ease, (Eccl'us. ii. 1,) " My son, if thou come to
serve the Lord, prepare thy soul for terapta
tion." And great reason, doubtless, has a
iiinn to prepare for that which will assuredly
be prepared for him, and from which no
privilege of Christianity does or can exempt
the very holiest and perfectest of men. For
gold itself must be tried, and must pass the
furnace for that purpose.
Now the two great ways of trial, by which
men are generally brought to a dividing point,
are by their hopes and their fears. And for
the most part the tempter uses to accost men
first by their hopes, and to bid fair and high,
to seo what they will t;iko for their souls ;
and if he finds that tliey will come to no
bargain with him, but that his off'ers are re
jected, and so this course succeeds not, then
he will see what he can do upon their fears,
and try whether he can fright or disgrace,
beggar or kill men out of their consciences.
Thesc, I say, are the two old stated metliods,
by which his temptations aro usually wrought
up to a pitch ; and if the tempter cannot pre
vail one way, let not men flatter themselves,
but rest assured that he will take the other ;
if he cannot speed as a merchant, he will try
what he can do as a warrior.
What our Saviour says of ofl'euccs, (Matt.
xviii. 7,) holds equally true of temptations,
" that it must needs be that thej- will come."
And accordingly, that declaration of his runs
absolute and positive, (Luke, xiv. 26,) "If
any man come to me, and hate not his father
and mother, wife and children, brethren and
sisters, and his own life also, he cannot be my
disciple." This is the terrible decree and
sentence of Christianity. And that critical,
.searching hour (which we have been hitherto
discoursing of) is the great instrument of
Providence to draw forth, and place those two
commanding motives of men's actions, and
rivals for their choice, duty and interest, one
against the other ; and to set tho off'ers of this
world and the promises of the next, the en
joyments of one and the hopes of the other,
in their full competition. And when, after
a thorough debate on both sides, the deciding
cast and issue of the whole matter comes to
this ; Either jiart with your conscience or
your [ileasures ; your conscience or your in
terest ; your conscience or your estate ; nay,
your conscience or your very life ; then let a
man know that the hour of temptation has

overtaken him ; and God and his holy angels
sit as spectators in heaven, looking down, anil
observing how ho will behave and govern
himself in this great crisis ; in tho whole
carriage of which, as he is most particularly
and directly under God's eye, so it will be a
vast help and advantage to hitn to place God
immovably before his.
In the mean tirae, let this he fixed and j
concluded upon, that such a season, such an
hour will come ; and that when it is come, i!
every man must expect to fare in it according j
as he has prepared himself for it. And this !
directly brings us to the J
Third and last inference which I shall make
from the words ; namely, that the surest way ]
to carry us safe and successful through this
great and searching hour of probation, is a
strict, steady, conscientious living up to the
rules ofour religion, which the text here calls
" a keeping the word of Christ's patience ;"
a denomination given to the gospel, from that
peculiar distinguishing grace, which the great
author ofthe gospel was pleased to signalize
it for, above aiiother religions and institution!
in tho world, and that both by his precept
and example. And therefore we must not;
ta\!ie patience he.Te in the new and lately cur
rent sense of tho word, for patience perforci,
(though a most useful quality, I confess, iu
tho case of madness ;) nor, which is much the
same, for a willingness of disposition to suifer,
only where a man has no power to resist;
according to the republican divinity of some
scandalous exploders of the doctrine of passive |
obedience: a doctrine which shines with as '
high and flaming an evidence throughout the
whole New Testament, as the very history of
our .Saviour's life does, which was a kind of
comment upon it. For the Christian religion, |
both in itself and in its author, is a suffering
religion ; a religion te.aching suffering, enjoin
ing suffering, and rewarding suffering; and
to express all in a word, it was Christ's pas- 1
sive obedience which redeemed the world;
and for any one who wears the name of .i
Christian to scoff at or write against it,_ ami
at tho same time to look to be saved by it, i»
certainly very strange and preposterous, and
too much in all conscience for any, but such
professors of Christianity as live and practise
in a direct defiance of their profession.
But to pass to that which 1 principally in
tend ; I say it is a steady, uniform practia
of tho common, constant duties of Christian
ity, which is the Christian's surest preserjra-
tive against this great and critical day of trial.
It is not any one or more strange, superlative
act or .acts of mortification, nor any 'high strain
of discipline or severity upon ourselves,
(though of excellent use doubtless in their
proper place,) but it is the coiivtjmt, evtn
tenor of a good life, which will be fouud the
best security against the tempter ; as no ont

THE HAPPINESS OF BEING KEPT FROM THE HOUR OF TEMPTATION. 35

blow, how great soever, discharged upon an
enemy, is so certain a protection against him,
as a continual posture of defence. And such
a thing is a good life against all the arts and
assaults of our subtle, watchful aggressor.
Great disputes there are about religion, and
great reason there is that men should be
zealous for the truth ; nevertheless, be a man's
belief never so true, and his religion never so
good, an ill life will certainly send him to the
Devil. And it is really a very senseless and
ridiculous thing for an ill liver to be zealous
about any religion ; it being much the same
case as if one who had a rotten, pocky carcass
should be extremely solicitous about the
colour of his clothes. For suppose a mau a
murderer, an adulterer, or a perjured, false
person, can any religion in the world do such
iin one any good 1 No, it is impossible ; for if
his religion be false, it will further his damna
tion ; and if true, it will aggi-avate it.
Nothing but " the word of Christ's patience,"
derived into practice, and digested into a good
life, can keep a man firm and tight in the
terrible, shaking day of temptation ; a day
which every one who knows the true value of
a sonl will be always providing against. And
that he may do it effectually, let him follow
the course which I shall here briefly mention
and mark out to him, and so conclude.
As first, let him be frequent and fervent in
prayer, and iu his devotions to God, both
i public and private, assuring himself that God
v,alues not one without the other. In the
next place, let him be exact and impartial in
the great work of self-examination, looking
ofteu and narrowly into the state of his soul,
and clearing all accounts and old scores between
God and his conscience. Moreover, let him be
much and serious in considering the extreme
vanity, emptiness, and shortness of all those
worldly enjoyraents which the generality of
men do so much dote upon. Aud lastly, above
all, let him daily and hourly, and with the
closest intention of mind, meditate of death
and judgment, of the certainty aud horror of
theu, and the intolerable misery of such as
shall be overtaken by them in their sins.
And wheu a man shall have inured and
beaten himself to such thoughts as these for
some considerable time, the allurements of
the flesh and the world *ill be bnt dry, taste
less, insipid things to him ; and if the tempter
comes, all the avenues and passages to such a
soul will be found shut .and bolted against
his temptations, so that he must withdraw
and be gone ; for where he finds a man so
doing, he will find nothing to do himself.
In a word, such a course of living will
make that which is generally one of the
greatest hours of temptation, even the hour
of death itself, neither terrible nor strange ; so
that although it should be sudden, yet it shall
not be surprising, aa having nothing more to

do with such an one, but only to take him
out of this world, which in mind aud desire
hc has left already, and to carry him to
heaven, where his conversation was before.
To which God of his niercy vouchsafe to
bring us all ; to whom be rendered and as
cribed, as is most due, all praise, might, ma
jesty, and dominion, both now aud for ever
more. Amen.

SERMON LXYIII.
HOW, AND BY WHAT WAYS, GOD DELI
VERS US FROM TEMPTATION.
PART V.
" God is &jthfiil, who will not suffer you to be tempted above
that >e are able ; but wiU Tvith the temptation also make a
way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it." — 1 Colt. x. 13.
There is nothing in itself more irrational,
nor yet (jis the state of nature now is) more
natural, thau for men to govern their hopes
and their fears wholly by their present appre
hensions ; so that where they see a danger
manifestly threatening them, there they will
fear ; and where, on the other hand, the means
of their deliverance are obvious to the view of
sense, there they will hope ; that is, in other
words, they will hope and fear just as far as
they can see, and trust God so far as they can
trust their eyes, and no farther.
A temper of mind utterly contrary to that
heroic nature of faith, the noblest property of i
which is to give light aud evidence to things !
not seen, and being and subsistence to things
before they are ; aud by so doing, to render
its object then more credible, when most in
visible, and this (if thoroughly considered) i
with the highest reason imaginable ; for as
such a short and Hmited faith, as ties itself
wholly to the measm-es of sense, eau proceed
from nothing else but a man's not considering
how many ways he may be attacked and
ruined, even in his highest security ; and liow
many ways again he may be delivered, even
in his deepest distress, which he cannot pos
sibly comprehend nor pierce into, and upon
that account presumes in one case, and de
spairs in another ; aud this only from a pe
remptory persuasion founded upon a gross
ignorance of both ; so, on the contrary, that
generous confidence of faith, which carries it
above all these low phenomena of sense and
matter,isbottomedupon the truestand strictest
philosophy discoursing about God's wisdom
and power ; which being confessedly infinite,
must needs upon that score, even in the very
judgment of bare reason, have inconceivably

38

SOUTH'.S SERMONS.

Serm. LXVIII.

more ways to deliver from temptation, than
there can be temptations for any one to be
delivered from. And therefore, where the
utmost reach of created wit and power ends,
then and there these two mighty attributes
begin ; this being the proper, eminent, and
peculiar season for their working wonders ;
that so by tbis means a man may see his
pitiful, narrow reason nonplused and out
done, before he sees his wants answered ; and
the proud nothing own himself baffled,
while, in spite of his despair, he finds himself
delivered. Now of all the evils incident to man, there
is none from which an escape is both so diffi
cult aud so desirable as from temptations.
For as all escape, in the very notion and nature
of it, imports in it these three things ; 1st,
Some precedent dangerlhreatening ; and, 2dly,
The difficulty of getting through it ; and yet,
Odly, A final deliverance from it ; so in this
business of temptation, the danger threatening
is no less than damnation ; the difficulty of
escaping it is founded partly upon the impor
tunity, vigilance, and power of a spirit inex
pressibly strong, subtle, and malicious, and
]iartly upon a furious, inbred inclination to
sin ill the tempted person himself; and this
both heightened by inveterate custom, and
inflamed by circumstances continually push
ing it ou to action. All which represents to
us such a scene of opposition, such a combina
tion of craft and force together, as laust
needs overmatch all the strength of nature,
all the poor auxiliaries which flesh and blood
can bring into the field against so mighty an
enemy. And therefore nothing less than a Being
infinitely wise, and thereby able to sound all
the depths, and to outreach and defeat all the
finesses and intrigues of this tenipting spirit ;
and withal, of an infinite, irresistible power,
to support the weaknesses and supply the
defects of a poor silly raortal engaged !ig;iinst
him, and ready to fall under him ; nothing, I
say, but that almighty Being which can do
all this, can break the bonds and loose the
cords which the tempter holds the tempted
jierson by, and so give him a full and absolute
deliverance. Now how and by what ways God does this,
shall be our present business to inquire. In
which, though (as I shew before) it would be
a great vanity, and as great an absurdity, to
ofter to reduce omniscience to our metliods,
or to confine omnipotence to our measures,
and consequently to give a full and distinct
account of those innumerable ways by which
the great ruler of the world brings about his
designs, especially in his de.aling with the
souls of men, (which ever was and will be
strange, secret, and unaccountable,) yet I shall
venture to assign four several ways, and thoso
very intelligible to any considering mind, by

vvhich God is pleased, in the course of ms
providence, to deliver men out of temptation.
As, 1st, If the force of the temptation he chiefly
from the vehement, restless, and incessani
importunities of the evil spirit, God often puts
an issue to the temptation by rebuking and
commanding down the tempter himself. For
we must know, that although the Devil, In
his dealings with men, acts the part of an
enemy, )'et still, in respect of God, he does
the work of a servant, even in his greatest
fury, and operates but as an instrument ; that
is, both with dependence and limitation. He
is in a chain, and that chain is in God's hand; j
and consequently, notwithstanding his utmost
spite, he cannot be more malicious than hc
is obnoxious. And therefore, being under
such an absolute control, all that he does
must be by address and art ; he must persuade
us to be damned, cajole and court us to de
struction. He must use tricks aud strata
gems, urge us with importunity, surprise us ]
with subtilty, till at length we enter upon
death by choice, and by our own act put our- :!
selves into the fatal noose.
For certain it is, that God has not put it
into the power of any created being to make
a man do an ill thing against his will, but
has committed the great portal and passage
into his soul, to wit, the freedom of his will,
to his own keeping ; and it is not all that the
Devil can do, that can force the key of it out
of his hands. But he must first be a tempter,
before he can be a destroyer.
Nevertheless, though he cannot compel to ,
sin, yet he can urge, and press, and follow a
man with vehement and continual solicitations j
to it. And though his malice can go no
farther, yet certainly it is a real torture and
a great misery to a well disposed mind, that
he should go so far, and to find itself inces- il
santly iraportuned to any vile thing or action; ¦[
indeed as great and vexatious as blows or ;
bastinadoes can be to the body ; for during j
the solicitation, the spiritual part is all the
time struggling and fencing, and consequently j
in the same degree suff'ering and oppressed ;
and for any one to be always in a laborious,
hazardous posture of defence, without inter
mission or relief, raust needs be intolerable.
For admitting that none of the "fiery darts
of the Devil" should actually kill and destroy,
yet certainly it is next to death to be always
warding off deadly blows, and to be held up
on the rack of a constant, anxious, unintcr-
mi tted fear about the dreadful issues of a man's
eternal condition. And that man who is not
sped with a raortal wound, yet if he is con
tinually pulling arrows out "of his flesh, and
hearing bullets hissing about his ears, and
death passing by him but at the distance
of a hair's-breadth, has surely all that fear,
aud danger, and destruction, in the nearest

HOW, AND BY WHAT WAYS, GOD DELIVERS US FROM TEMPTATION,

37

approach of it, can contribute to make him
miserable. It is hard indeed, if not impossible, to as
sign exactly how one spirit may operate upon
and afflict another. But thus much it is very
agreeable to reason to suppose, to wit, that a
stronger spirit may proportionably make the
afflictive impression upon a weaker, which a
stronger body is able to make upon a body of
less strength than itself. And two waj's .we
have ground to conclude thattheevil spirit does
this by ; one by raising strange and unac
countable horrors in the mind ; and the other
by rude and boisterous impulses to something
contrary to the judgment of conscience. The
former of which might easily be made out
both from reason and experience ; and the
latter is what we are now discoursing of.
And a very wretched, dangerous, and dubious
condition is the soul very often cast into by
this means : and being brought thereby to
the very brink of destruction, God is then
pleased to step in to its assistance ; and when
the terapter grows restless, and next to violent,
and, instead of persuading, atterapts even to
ravish the consent, God stops his foul mouth,
aud commands him to hold his peace, as
formerly, in Job's case, he coramanded him to
hold his hand.
For his devilish method in tempting is
commonly this. First to begin the tempta
tion with " a still voice" and a gentle breath,
and all the sly and fawning applications that
can be ; but when that will not do, then he
raises his voice, and the temptation blows
rough and high like a tempest, and would
shake down where it cannot insinuate. It
raises a storm amongst all the powers and
faculties of the soul, and like the rolling
billows of a troubled sea, dashes them one
against another, judgment against appetite,
and appetite against judgment, till the poor
man, as it were, broken hetween both, is ready
to sink and perish, and make " shipwreck of
his faith," did not a merciful and powerful
voice from above rebuke the winds, and com
pose the waves, and chide down the rage and
blusterings of so impetuous an adversary.
And this God often does out of mere com
passion to a sonl labouring and languishing,
and even wearied out with the frequent and
foul instigations of a tempting spirit. For
all importunity is a kind of violence to the
raind. This was the course which our Saviour
himself took with him in the like case. The
Devil seemed to pour in his teraptations upon
hira without any pause or intermission ; and
accordingly our Saviour answers his first and
second temptations with fit scriptures, calmly
and rationally applied to both ; but when he
grew impudent and audacious in his third
temptation, our Saviour not only confounds
him with scripture, butalso cuts him short with
a word of authority, aud bids him give over

and begone. And as afterwards he once took
up Peter speaking like Satan, so at this time
he turns off Satan speaking like himself, with
an "Xitayt 2«t«i'«, " Get thee behind me."
And a most proper and efficacious way it is
certainly to repel the encroachment of a bold
and troublesome proposal, to be rough and
peremptory with it, to strike it down, and to
answer it with scorn and indignation ; and so
to silence the pressing insolence of a saucy
sophister, not so much by confuting the argu
ment, as by countermanding the opponent.
And this is one way by which God gives de
liverance and escape out of temptation ; he
controls and reprimands the tempter, and
takes off the evil spirit before he can be able
to fasten.
2dly, If the force of a temptation be from
the weakness of a man's mind, rendering it
unable of itself to withstand and bear up
against the assaults of the terapter, God often
times delivers from it by mighty, inward,
unaccountable supplies of strength, conveyed
to the soul immediately from himself. "The
former waj' God delivers a man by removing
his enemy, but this latter by giving him
wherewithal to conquer him. And this is as
certain a way of deliverance as the other can
be. For surely a man is equally safe,
whether his enemy flies frora hira or falls be
fore hira. It seems to be with the soul, with
reference to some teraptations, as with one of
a weak and a tender sight, with reference to
the sunbeams beating upon it : if you divert
or keep off the beam, you relieve the man ;
but if you give him an eagle's eye, he will
look the sun in the face, endure the light, and
defy the impression. So if God, instead of
silencing and coraraanding off' the terapter,
suffers him to proceed and press home the
temptation, yet if at the sarae tirae also he
gives in a proportion of strength superior to
the assault, and an assistance greater than the
opposition, the man is as much delivered as if
he had no enemy at all ; the manner indeed
of his deliverance is infinitely more noble,
and as much preferable to the other, as the
trophies of a conqueror surpass the poor in
glorious safeties of an escape.
Thus it was with that holy and great raan
Saint Paul. He was not only accosted,
but even worried with a " messenger from
Satan ;" a messenger sent not only to chal
lenge, but actually to duel hira ; and so sharp
was the encounter, that it passed frora solici
tations to downright blows ; for in 2 Cor. xii.
7, he tells us he was " buff'eted." And so
near was he to an utter despair of the main
issue of the conflict, that he cries out like a
man vanquished, and with the sword of a
prevailing eneray at his throat, "O wretched
man ! who shall deliver me ?" Delivered (we
all know) he was at length, and that it was
God who delivered him. But howl Why,

|l

38

SOUTH'S SERMONS.

Sehm. LXVIH.

not by taking off the tempter, not by stop
ping his mouth that he should not solicit,
nor, lastly, by tying up his hands that he
should not buffet, (which yet was the thing
which Paul so much desired, and accor
dingly so earnestly prayed for;) "Thrice,"
says he, " I besought the Lord, that it might
depart from me," ver. 8. But God designed
him another, .and a nobler kind of deliverance,
even by a sufficiency of his grace, ver. 9, " My
grace," says he, " is sufficient for thee." God
himself (as 1 may so speak) undertook the
quarrel, and fought his battles, and that
brought him off, not only safe, but triumphant,
which surely was as much more honourable
than to have the combat ended by parting
the combatants, as it is for a generous and
brave enemy to have his quarrel decided by
the verdict of a victorious sword, than took up
and compromised by the mean expedients of
reference and arbitration.
But this kind of deliverance by such mighty
inward conveyances of strength, was never
so signal and illustrious as in that " noble
army of raartyrs," which fought Christ's
battles in the primitive ages of the church.
For what could raake men go laughing to
the stake, singing to the rack, to the saw and
the gridiron, to the wild beast .and the lions,
with a courage vastly greater than theirs, but
an invincible principle, of which the world
saw the manifest effects indeed, but could
not see the cause? What, I say, could make
nature thus triumph over nature in the cause
of religion 1 Some heathen philosophers, I
confess, did, and some heathenish Christians
(who have neither religion nor philosophy)
still do ascribe all this to the peculiar strength
and sturdiness of sorae tempers.
But, in answer to these, in the first place, I
ask, where such a strength and sturdiness of
temper ever yet was, or elsewhere to be found
in any great and considerable multitude of
men? Flesh and blood was and will be the
same in all places and ages. But is flesh and
blood, left to itself, an equal match to all the
arts and inventions, all the tortures and ty
rannies, which the will, power, and malice of
persecution coukl or can encounter it with 1
No, assuredly the courage, which rises and
reaches up to martyrdom, is infinitely another
thing from thatwhich exerts itself in all other
cases whatsoever. Nor can every hold man,
who in hot blood can meet his enemy in the
field, upon the stock of the same courage fry
at the stake, or with a fixed, deliberate firm
ness of mind endure to have his flesh torn off
with burning pincers piece by piece before his
eyes. No, there are few hearts so strongly
and stoutly hard, but are quickly melted
down before such fires.
All this is most undeniably true. But then,
by way of fartlier answer to the foreraen
tioned allegation, that the natural sturdiness

ofsome tempers might be sufficient to enable
some persons to endure such exquisite tor
ments as we have been speaking of, I add
moreover, that the endurance of them has
been in none more eminent and glorious than
in persons of a quite contrary temper, of a
weak and tender constitution, and of a nice
and delicate education. Nay (and which is yet
more) in such as have been extreraely dif6-
dent and suspicious of themselves, lest upon
the terrible approach of the fiery trial they
should fly oft; and apostatize, .and deny the
truth. And yet when God has brought these
poor diffident, self-distrusting souls to grapple
(as it were) hand to haud with the enemy
whom they so much dreaded, they have found
something within them greater and mightier
than any thing which they feared without
them ; something which equally triumphed
over the torment itself, and their own more
torraenting fears of it. All which could
spring from nothing else but those secret, in
ward supplies and assistances of the divine
Spirit, which raised and inspired their blessed
souls to such an ecstasy of fortitude, as not
only exceeded the very powers, but almost
overflowed the very capacities of nature.
For the truth is, nature at best is but a poor
and a feeble thing, " the flesh is weak," and
the heart fallacious ; purposes are frail, and
resolutions changeable, and grace itself in
this life is j-et but begun. But thanks be to
God, our principal strength lies in none of all
those, but in those auxiliaries which shall
flow in upon us from the Almighty God,
while we are actually engaged for God, in
those hidden, ineffable satisfactions, which
are able to work a man up to a pitch of doing
and suffering incredibly above and beyond
himself. For still as God brings his servants into
different states and conditions, he fails not to
measure out to them a different spirit, suited
and proportioned to their respective exigencies
of each condition. For this is a most certain
truth, and worthy of our best observation ;
that the sarae alraighty and creative power,
which has given to one man greater strength
of mind than to another, can, aud undoubtedly
very often does, vouchsafe to ths same man
greater strength of mind at some times than
he does at others. Without which consider
ation it is impossible to give .any satisfactory
account of the cause and reason of that mir
aculous passive fortitude (may our triumphant
whigs pardon the word) which shined forth
in the primitive Christians ; which yet all
the records of antiquity, and historians of
the church, are unanimously witnesses, and
equally admirers of. From all which it
follows, that no man living, though never so
humble, so distrustful and suspicious of him
self, can, from any thing which he finds or
feels in his heart in the tirae of his prosperity.

HOW, AND BY WHAT WAYS, GOD DELIVERS US FROM TEMPTATION. KO

I

certainly know, what a daring, invincible
spirit may enter into hira, when God shall
call hira forth as his charapion to own and
assert an oppressed truth, to act and to suffer,
to fight and perhaps die, in his despised cause.
And therefore, if a day of trial should come
upon us, (as God knows how near it may be,
and how terrible it may prove,) let us so pre
pare for it before it comes, as uot to despond
under it when it does come. For when I
consider that vast load of national guilt, which
has been growing upon us ever since the year
forty-one, and never yet to any considerable
degree accounted for to public justice ; I can
not persuade myself, that either the judg
ments of God or the malice of men have done
with us yet : especially since the same faction,
which overturned the church and monarchy
then, is, with all its republican guilt, strong
and in heart now ; and gnashing its teeth at
the monarchy, and at the church of England
for the sake of the monarchy, every day. And
it is but a melancholy reflection, I confess, to
all honest minds to consider, what so daring a
combination may in a short tirae arrive to.
Nevertheless, as I said before, let us not
despond, but only make this our care, that
though we suffer by their spite, we may not
share in their guilt. And then we may be
confident, that our main strengths will be
found in better keeping than our own ; as
being neither deposited in our own hands, nor
to be measured by our owu knowledge. We
shall find those inward comforts and supports
of mind, whieh all the malice of men and
devils shall never be able to suspend us from
or deprive us of. " All my fresh springs are
in thee," says David, (Psalm Ixxxvii. 7.) We
shall find a fulness in the stream to answer all
our needs, though the spring perhaps, which
feeds it, may escape our eye.
When our Saviour Christ had set before his
disciples a full and lively draught of all those
barbarous and cruel usages which they should
meet with after his death, from synagogues
and councils, from kings and potentates,
before whom they should be arraigned, and
brought to plead their cause against all the
disadvantages which the wit and eloquence,
the power and malice of their persecutors
could put them to, he well knew that this
would create in them great anxiety of
thoughts and solicitous forecast, how they,
who were men of an unskilled, unlearned sim
plicity, and withal of none of the greatest
courage, should be able to manage their own
defence so as to acquit themselves at the bar
of the learned, and in the face of princes.
All this, I say, he foresaw and knew, and
therefore, (Luke, xxi. 14, IS,) he lays in this
sovereign and peculiar antidote against all
such disheartening apprehensions. " Settle
it," says he, " in your hearts, not to meditate
beforehand what ye shall answer ; for I will |

give you a mouth and wisdora, whieh all youi
adversaries shall not be able to gainsay nor
resist." And in Matt. x. 19, it is emphati
cally remarked, "that it should be given them
in that same hour what they should speak."
Which undeniably proves, that they should
receive that ability by immediate and divine
infusion ; as coming in upon them just in the
season, in the very hour and critical instant
of their necessity.
This example, I confess, is particular, per
sonal, and miraculous ; but the reason of it is
universal and perpetual, as being founded iu
this. That as nature in things natural, so grace
in things supernatural, is never defieient or
wanting to men in necessities. And as
necessary as it was for the first founding of a
church, that Christ should vouchsafe his dis
ciples those miraculous assistances in point of
ratiocination and elocution, so necessary is it
at this very day, and will be so as long as the
world lasts, for God to vouchsafe men under
some teraptations such extraordinary supplies
of supporting grace, as otherwise are not
commonly dealt forth to thera. For still (as
we observed before in Saint Paul's case) God
intends us a sufficiency of grace. But where
the trial is extraordinary, unless the grace
afforded be so too, it neither is nor can be
accounted sufficient. Let this therefore be the
second way by which God delivers out of
temptation. Sdly, If the force of a temptation springs
chiefly from the unhappy circumstances of a
raan's life continually exposing him to terapt
ing objects and occasions of sin, God fre
quently delivers such an one by a providen
tial change of the whole course of his life and
the circumstances of his condition. And this
he may do either by a general public change
and revolution of affairs, which always carries
with it the rise and fall of a vast number of
particular interests, whereby some perhaps,
whose greatness had been a snare to them
selves, as well as a burden to others, are happily
thrown down into such a condition, as may
serve to mortify and fit thera for another
world, from such an one, as had before made
them intolerable in this.
And sometimes God does this by a personal
change, affecting a raan only in his own per
son and his private concerns. So that, where
as his former conversation, interests, and
acquaintance might enslave him to some sort
of objects and occasions, which have such a
strange and powerful ascendant over his
temper and affections, that he is never as
saulted by them, but he is still foiled in the
encounter, and always comes off from them
a worse man than they found him ; iu this
case, God, by a sovereign turn of his provi
dence, alters and new-models the whole state
and course of such an one's affairs, and thereby
breaks the snare, and unties the several bonds

40

SOUTH'S SERMONS.

Serm. LXVrri.

and ligaments of the fatal knot, and so un
ravels the whole temptation.
And this is as much God's prerogative, and
the act of a divine power, as that to which a
man owes his very being and creation. For
as no man "can add one cubit to his stature,"
so neither can he add one span, one hand's-
breadth to his fortune. For that a man
should bo either high or low, rich or poor,
strong or weak, healthful or sickly, or the like,
is wholh^ from the disposal of a superior
power ; and yet upon these very things de
pends the result and issue of all temptations.
-\ccordingly, if God shall think fit to strip
p. voluptuous person of his riches and interest,
and thereby transplant hira from an idle and
delicate way of living into a life of hardship,
service, and severe action ; from the softness
of a court to the disciplines of a camp, to long
inarches, short sleeps, and shorter meals, there
is no question but those temptations which
drew their main force and prevalence from the
plenties of his former condition, will attack
him bnt very faintly under the penuries of
the quite contrary ; and the combustible
matter being thus removed, the flame must
quickly abate and languish, expire, and at
length go out of itself.
Nevertheless there is, I confess, such an
iinpregn.able strength, such an exuberant ful
ness of corruption in some natures, as to baffle
and disappoint all these methods and applica
tions of Providence, and even where objects
.and occ'a^iuns of sin aro wanting, to supply
the w.ant of them by an inexhaustible, over
flowing pravity and concupiscence from with
in. So that such an one can be proud and
insolent, though Providence clothes him with
rags, and seats him upon a dunghill ; he can
be an epicure eveu with the bread and water
of affliction ; nor cau hardship and hunger
itself cure him of his sensuality, the fury of
his appetites remaining still fierce and un
mortified, in spite of the failure of his stores
and the scantiness of his condition : in a word,
the man is his own tempter, and so is always
sure of a tenipt.itioii.
All this we must own to be very true ; but
then this is also as true, that these and the
like hard and severe jiassages of Providence
have in them a natural fitness to work upon
the heart of man, though some hearts are
never actually wrought upon by them. For
no doubt there are monsters and anomalies,
not only iu the course of nature, but also in
that of grace and raorality ; and some sort of
tempers are not to be altered, and much less
bettered by any or all of those disciplines, by
which yet God reclaims and effectually re
duces millions of souls to himself. God strikes
many in their temporal concerns to promote
and further them in their spiritual ; and if
this way fails of its designed effect, it is not
from the unfitness of the remedy, but the in

vincible indisposition of the patient. God ,
knows how to reach the soul through the
body, and commonly does so ; and so do the !
laws of all the Aviso nations in the world;
though our new-fashioned politics, I coufess, j
contrary to them all, have cried down the fit- i
ness of all temporal inflictions, to reduce men
to a sober sense and judgraent in matters of
religion. .1
Nevertheless tho sacred story assures us,
that this was still the course which God took i
with his own people. They were the sius and '
apostasies of their souls, for the reformation ;|
of which he plagued them in their bodies and
estates ; and when profaneness or idolatry was j
the malady, Ciiptivity and the sword were
generally the cure. 'This was God's method; '
and by this he put a stop to the sin, aud an
end to the temptation. Nor do we find that
the Jews ever threw it in the prophets' teeth,
when they denounced God's judgments against
them, that sword aud famine, and such like
tempor.al miseries and calamities, were things
wholly improper, and unable to work upon
the conscience : for their conscience knew and
told them the quite contrary. And much less
do we find, that God ever thought it suitable
to his wisdom to secure the authority of those
laws by which he meant to govern the world,
by proclairaing impunity and indulgence to
the bold violators of them.
And thus much for the third way by which
God delivers out of temptation ; namely, by
altering the circumstances of a nian's life,
when tho temptation is principally founded
in them, and arises from them. So that if
riches debauch a man, poverty shall reform
him. If honour and high place turns his head,
a lower condition shall settle it. If his table
becomes his snare, God will remove it, and
diet him into a more temperate and severe
course of living. In a word, God will cut
him short in his very conveniences, rather
thau suffer him in his extravagances ; and to
prevent his surfeits, abridge him even in his
lawful satisfactions.
4thly and lastly. If the force and strength
of a temptation be chiefly frora the powerful
sway and solicitation of some unruly and co^
rupt affection, God delivers from it by the '
overpowering influence and operation of his |
Holy Spirit gradually weakening, and at
length totally subduing it. The strength of
a temptation lies generally in the strength of
a man's corruption. And the tempter, for
the most part, prevails not so much by what
he suggests to a man, as by what he finds in
him ; for what hold caii he have of that man,
in whom he finds nothing to take hold of him
by ? They are our lusts, our depraved appe
tites, and corrupt aftections, which give the
tempter such a mighty power and advantage
over us. Otherwise, if these were thoroughly
mortified and extinguished, the temptation,

HOW, AND BY WHAT WAYS, GOD DELIVERS US FROM TEMPTATION. 41

must of necessity fail, and sink, and vanish
into nothing, for want of matter to work
upon. It is said of Archimedes, that he
would undertake to turn about the whole
earth, if he could but have some place beside
the earth to fix his feet upon. In like manner,
as skilful an engineer as the Devil is, he will
never be able to play his engines to any pur
pose, unless he finds something to fasten them
to. If indeed he finds a m.an naturally
choleric and passionate, he has numberless
ways and arts to work upon his choler, and
transport him to a rage ; if he finds him lust
ful, he will quickly blow up his lewd heats
into a flame ; and if luxurious and sensual, he
can lay a thousand trains to betray him to
excess and intemperance. But still in all these
cases, aud many more, it is the corrupt
humour within us, wherein his great strength
lies. It being with the soul in such instances
as with some impregnable fort or castle,
nothing but treachery within itself can deliver
it up to the enemy.
"I withheld thee from sinning against me,"
says God to Abimelech, (Gen. xx. 6,) and no
doubt God has innumerable ways by which
he does this : though still, by the way, barely
to withhold a man from sin, and to cure him
of it, are things extremely different ; the
proper effect of this latter being to bring a
man to heaven, but of the former without
this, only to suffer hira to pass on in a clean
lier way to hell. God raay withhold a man
from sin, by plucking away the baneful object
that would have ensnared him ; as likewise by
diverting the course of his thoughts, and the
bent of his desires, by sundry cross accidents
cast in his way. And lastly, after a full
purpose of sin conceived, he may by many
intervening impediments disable him frora
the execution of it : with several other ways
of restraint, which we are not aware of, and
all of them, uo question, very great mercies,
as giving a man some check at least in his full
career to destruction.
But when, over and above all this, God, by
the powerful impressions of his almighty
Spirit shall make a raan, of angry and pas
sionate, meek and patient ; of lustful, chaste ;
of luxurious, teraperate and abstemious; that
is, when he shall subdue, break, and mortify
the sinful appetite and inclination itself, and
plant a mighty contrary bias and propensity
of will in the room of it, (all which God (!an
do, and sometimes has done,) this is a greater,
a nobler, and a surer deliverance outof temp
tation, than either the removal of the enticing
object, or the cutting off the occasion ; nay,
than the very prevention of the sinful act it
self. It is undoubtedly one of the greatest
and the best things which God does for a
man in this world ; and without which a man
lives in continual danger of being ruined by
every retumuig temptation. For certain it

is, that he cannot be secure from the retums,
nay, the frequent violent returns of it. In a
word, as long as the old ferment remains un-
thrown out, a man cannot be safe ; nor cau
he assure himself, that, after a very long
cessation, it shall not break out and rage
afresh, as occasion may give life and motion
to his corruption.
But you will say, perhaps. Where are there
any instances of such a mighty change wrought
upon men ? I confess there are but very few ;
and I must confess also, that this, upon sup
posal of the necessity of such a change, is a
very dreadful consideration. Nevertheless,
some such instances there are : for both the
Scripture asserts it, (1 Cor. vi. 9, 10, 11 ;) and
those known expressions of regeneration and
the new creature do evidently import it, (John,
iii. 3 — 7 ;) and the experience of many good
men now in heaven, who were far from hav
ing been always such while they lived upon
earth, does fully confirm it. Howbeit we must
still acknowledge thus much, that whereso
ever such mighty changes are fouud, they are
(as I may so express it) the very trophies and
magnalia of grace, the peculiar triumphs of
the Spirit over the corruption of nature, and
the gr.and instances of its invincible, control
ling power over the hearts of men. But still,
I say, for all the rarity and fewness of such
examples, God will have the world know,
(maugre all our flourishing Socinians and
Pelagians,) that under the gospel economy
there is such athing, such a gratia vorticordia,
as we have been speaking of. And I fully
believe frora the authority of much learnedcr
men than either Pelagius or Socinus, or any
of their preferred disciples, as well as from
the authority of holy Scripture, (paramount
to all other authorities whatsoever,) that none
ever yet did, or ever shall, go to heaven, whom
God does not vouchsafe these heart-changing
irapressions of his Spirit more or less to. And
indeed, if we do but grant the general cor
ruption of human nature through original
sin, it is infinitely sottish, as well as irapious,
to assert the contrary.
And as to the present subject now before
us, I doubt not to affirra, that these extraor
dinary workings of the Spirit in the sanctifi
cation and change of raen's hearts, are so much
the very masterpiece of God's power, and the
greatest (as well as last) efforts of his mercy,
in ridding men out of temptation, that all
other ways (though confessedly great in them
selves) are yet as nothing iu comparison of
this. For they are all of them but the divert
ing of a blow, not the conquest of an enemy,
but like the dealing with a man under a fever
or an ague, in which there maybe raany ways
both to lessen and to put off a fit, (and those
of singular use too,) but nothing but the re
raoval of the feverish and morbific matter
within can carry off the disteraper.

42

SOUTH'S SERMONS.

Serm. LXVIH.

Let this therefore be the fourth and last
way which we shall raention, whereby God
gives escape out of temptation ; namely, by
the inward, overpowering influences of his
Spirit, working such a mighty change upon
the will and the affections, that a man's de
sires shall becorae cold and dead to those
things which before were so extremely apt to
captivate and command them ; than which
there cannot be a greater baulk to the terapter,
nor a more effectual defeat to all his tempta
tions. But now, besides all these four ways of
deliverance, there are no doubt (as I shew at
first) innumerable others, which no human
understanding is able to comprehend or look
into. Nevertheless, so much I shall venture
to say, that there is hardly any sort or degree
of temptation which man is subject to, but,
by some one or other of those four mentioned
ways, God has actually given men a full and
a complete deliverance from it.
Now there are several inferences naturally
flowing from the foregoing particulars, and
those of no small use ; but being too many to
be fully treated of now, and therefore reserving
them to a distinct discourse by themselves, as
I have already laid before you some of the
principal ways and methods by which God
delivers out of temptation, so I shall now
rnark out to you some ofthe principal tempta
tions also which do most threaten and en
danger the souls of men, and which God
principally magnifies his goodness by deliver
ing them from. As, 1. A public, declared
impunity to sin is one of the greatest tempta
tions to it, which it is possible for human
nature to be brought under. For if laws be
intended by God and man for some of the
principal preventives of sin, and the sin-pre
venting strength of the law lies chiefly in the
cocrci-ve force it has over the transgressors of
it, it is raanifest, that when these coercions
are taken from it, the law is disarmed, feeble,
and precarious, and sin, like a mighty torrent,
when the banks are cut down, must break
in and pour itself upon the lives and manners
of men without resistance or control. And I
need say no more than this, that laws, with
out power to affect or reach the transgressors
of thera, are but imperii et justitice ludibria,
the mockeries of justice, the reproaches of
government, and the invincible encourage
ments of sin ; for whatsoever weakens the
law, in the same degree also invites the trans
gression. Some, I know, talk of politics and reason
of state ; but there is no such thing as policy
against comraon sense and experience, nor
any true reason of state against religion. For
since the propensity of man's nature to most
things forbidden is so mighty and outrageous
that nothing can check or overawe it, but the
dread and terror of the law, it is evident, that

when the law is strijiped of that by which
alone it can strike terror into the despisers of
it, it is, in effect, to bid vice and profaneness
do their worst, and to bid virtue and religion
shift for themselves ; the grand rule hy which
some politicians (as they would be thought,
forsooth) govern their counsels.
2dly, The wicked, vicious, and scandalous
examples of persons in place and power are
strong temptations to sin. For amongst the
prime motive of human actions, next to laws
raost reckon exaraples, and some place ex
amples above them. For though indeed there
may be a greater authority in laws, yet there '
is a greater force (because a greater suitable
ness) in examples ; and then experience shews,
that it is not so much what commands as
what agrees, which gains upon the affections;
and the affections, we all know, are the grand
springs and principles of action.
So that if a prince, for instance, gives him
self up to lewdness and uncleanness, there is
no doubt but whoring will soon come into
fashion, and that he will quickly find more,
by a great many, to follow him in his lusts,
than to obey him in his laws. If a prince be
a breaker of his word, his oath, or his soleran
promise, it may prove a shrewd temptation to
others to do the like by him. And then he
may thank his otvn example, if he suffers by
the" imitation. Likewise, if a clergyman be
noted for sensuality, covetousness, or ambition,
he may preach his heart out in the behalf of
the contrary virtues, and all to no purpose;
for still his example will be a stronger temp
tation to the sin, thau his doctrine can be an
enforcement of the duty.
The sins of princes and priests are of a
spreadingandareigning contagion; and though
naturally they are no more than the acts of
particular persons, yet virtually and conse
quently they are ofteu the sins of a whole
community. And if so, good God I what
huge heaps of foul guilt must lie at such sin
ners' doors ! For every person of note, power,
and place, living in an open violation of any
one of God's laws, holds up a flag of defiance
against Heaven, and calls in all about him to
fight under his lewd banner against God and
his express commands, and so, as it were, by
a kind of homage and obedience, to be as vile
and wicked as himself. And when it once
comes to this, then all the villainies whicb
were coramitted by others in the strength and
encouragement of his devilish exaraple, will j
be personally charged upon his account, aud,
as a just debt, exacted of him to the utmost
farthing. Sdly and lastly. Great, cruel, and vexatious ;
oppressions of men in their persons, liberties,
and estate, are strong and powerful tempt*-
tions to sin ; and that indeed to sorae of the
worst of sins, such as are murmuring and re
pining at Providence, and perhaps questioning.

HOW, AND BY WHAT WAYS. GOD DELIVERS US FROM TEMPTATION. 43

nay, and possibly sometimes absolutely deny
ing it ; besides those sinister and unlawful
courses, which they may tempt and drive men
to for their deliverance. For as the great
master of wisdom tells us, " oppression will
make even a wise man mad," (Eccles. vii. 7.)
And whatsoever robs a man of his reason,
must needs also give a terrible shake to his
religion. Such impressions has it sometimes
made upon some of the wisest and holiest men
living ; and no wonder, since the wisest of men
have their weak side, and the holiest some
mixture of corruption. Job, David, Jeremy,
and Habakkuk found it so ; the last of which
debates the case with God in these reraarkable
words, (Habakkuk, i. 13,) "Wherefore," says
he, "dost thou hold thy tongue when the
wicked devours the man that is more righteous
than himself?" From which, and such like
staggering passages about God's governraent
of the world, we may safely and certainly
conclude thus much at least, that that which
has been a temptation to the best of men
sometimes to dispute it with Providence, will
effectually bring ill men to deny it.
The truth is, one grand oppressor (the more
is the pity) is able to make many blasphemers ;
and one French Nero or Dioclesian, prospering
in all his cruelties and barbarities, is like to
make many more converts to atheism and
scepticism than ever he did to his own false
religion. ¦Though, by the way, one would think that
such oppressing Nimrods should have a little
wit in their cruelty, and take heed how they
bear too hard upon their poor subjects, whom
God has placed nnder their government, not
under their feet ; and that they should find
but little temptation to oppression, when
others have found oppression so strong a
temptation to rebellion.
And thus I have given you three great and
notable instances of temptation, and those
indeed so groat, that thousands have perished
by them ; and nothing but an infinite power,
under the conduct of an infinite mercy, can
carry a man safe through them, or victorious
over thera. Nevertheless these two things
must still be considered by us :
1st, That the strongest teraptations to sin
are no warrants to sin.
2dly, That God delivers those only ont of
them, who do their lawful utmost to deliver
themselves. Accordingly, to resume and run over the
three forementioned particulars. As ifa man,
for instance, finds himself tempted to any
unlawful coarse upon a declared impunity to
the thing which he is tempted to ; let him
soberly and seriously consider with himself,
that the obligation of a law is the same, though
no punishment ever follows the transgression
or breach of it ; and that a liberty of sin
(christen it by the name of what liberty you

will) is yet one of the greatest and dreaJfullest
judgments which can befall any person or
people, and a certain cause as well as sign of
an approaching destruction. Again, if a man
be tempted to any wicked or vile act by the
example of some great, powerful, or illustri
ous sinner, let him learn, instead of admiring
and following the greatness of the person, to
abhor the baseness of the practice, as know
ing that the man can never authorize the
sin, but the sin will be sure to embase the
man. And lastly, if a man finds himself tempted
to raurrauring and repining at Providence,
by his being oppressed in his just rights and
estate, as tbe greatest part of Europe now is,
let him satisfy and compose his mind with
this consideration, that no oppression can go
a step farther or last a minute longer than its
commission ; and that God, who gave it its
coraraission, never did nor will suff'er a good
raan to be oppressed beyond what he is able
to endure.
Which, and the like considerations, pressed
home upon the heart, will wonderfully blunt
the edge and break the force of any tempta
tion. And when a man shall thus acquit
himself, and do his part, by fencing in this
manner against the assaults and buffets of
the tempter, then, and then only may he be
properly said to depend upon God ; and while
men do so, be the temptation never so great
and pressing, such as faithfully depend upon
him shall be certainly delivered by hira.
To whom, therefore, be rendered and as
cribed, as is most due, all praise, might, ma
jesty, and dominion, both now and for ever
more. Amen,

SERMON LXIX.
HOW, AND BY WHAT WAYS, GOD DE
LIVERS US FROM TEMPTATION.
PART VI.
"But God is faithful, who win not suffer you to be tempted
above that ye are able ; but wiU with the temptation also
make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it."
1 Cob. X. 13.
I HAVE discoursed several tiraes, from seve
ral texts of Scripture, upon this great subject
of temptation.
And that branch of it which I last treated
of from this Scripture, was about the several
ways whereby God delivers men from it.
Concerning which we are to observe in
general, that the said deliverances are of two
sdrts, —

44

SOUTH'S SERMONS.

Serm. LXlX.

1st, Those whereby God delivers men out
of temptation immediately by himself and his
own act, without the concurrence or inter
posal of any act of the tempted person. And,
2dly, Those wherein God makes use of the
endeavours of the tempted person himself, in
subordination to the workings of his own
grace. And these are two, watchfulness and
prayer ; which I intend for the subject of my
next discourse upon that portion of Scripture,
(Matth. xxvi. 41,)" Watch and pray, that ye
enter not into teraptation."
Now for the first of these two sorts, namely,
that wherein God acts immediately by him
self, I shew the instances thereof were innu
merable, and such as it was impossible for any
human understanding to have a full and a
distinct comprehension of. However in par
ticular I then instanced in four ; the heads of
which, for the better representing the connec
tion of what went before with tliat which is
to follow, I shall briefly repeat, and so go on.
As, 1st, I shew, that if the force and strength
of a teraptation be chiefly from the veheraent,
restless, and incessant importunities of the
evil spirit, God often puts au issue to the
temptation, by rebuking and commanding
down the tempter himself.
2dly, If the force of a teraptation be from
the weakness of a man's mind, rendering it
unable of itself to withstand and bear up
against the assaults ofthe tempter, God often
times delivers from it by mighty, inward,
unacountable supplies of strength, conveyed
to the soul immediately from himself.
3dly, If the force of a teraptation springs
chiefly from the unhappy circumstances of a
nian's life, continually exposing him to tempt
ing objects and occasions of sin, God fre
quently delivers such au one by a providen
tial change of the whole course of his life and
the circumstances of his condition.
4tlily and lastly. If the force and strength
of a temptation be chiefly from the powerful
sway and solicitation of some unruly and
corrupt affection, God delivers from it by the
overpowering influence and operation of his
Holy Spirit, gradually weakening, and at
length totally subduing it.
These four ways in particular I assigned,
whereby God was pleased to deliver men out
of temptation ; and though I shew that he
had infinite other ways to effect the same,
known only to hiraself; yet 1 shew withal,
that there was hardly any sort or degree of
teraptation which man is subject to, but, by
some or other of these four forementioned
ways, God has actually given men a full and
complete deliverance from it.
Upon the whole raatter, the design of the
apostle in the text seems to be the convincing
of the persons hc wrote to, of these two
things, —

1st, That it is not man himself, bnt God,
who does and must deliver him out of temp
tation. 2dly, That tho ways by which God does
this are certainly above man's power, and for
the most part hnyond his knowledge too.
Now these two are very great considera.
tions ; great indeed in themselves, hut greater
in the practical consequences naturally dedn-
cible from them. And the business I then
proposed to rayself was, to draw forth and lay
before you some of the usefullest and most
iraportant of thora.
Accordingly I undertook to insist upon
these five. As,
1st, That the only true estiraate of an escape
frora temptation, is to be taken from the final
issue and result of it. From whence these
two things naturally follow. First, that an
escape from a temptation may consist witha
very long continuance under it ; indeed so
long, that God may put an end to the temp
tation and a man's life together ; so that he
shall not have striven his last, till he has
bre.athed his last too. And the other infe
rence is, that a final escape and deliverance
frora temptation may very well consist with!
several foils under a temptation. Both which
considerations are of vast raoment to satisfy
and instruct tho conscience in so important a
case, as affording an equal antidote against
presumption on the one hand, and despair on
the other.
For neither is a foil given or received a
conquest. The tempter may be foiled and
worsted in raany a conflict, and yet make head
again, aud come oft' victorious at last, as we
have already shewn. It is true, tho Scripture
tells us, that if we resist the tempter, he will
fly from us. Nevertheless, we are not sure
that, after that flight, he will not return ; but
that he who flies at one time may face about,
and fight it out sharply, and carry all before
him at another. And therefore let no man
flatter himself too much upon some little suc
cesses against the tempter and his temptations;
for it is not every skirmish which determines
the victory. Has a man borne up with
courage against a first, second, and third as
sault, whether of pride, lust, intemperance, or
whatsoever other vice it be, which the Devil
is apt to attack the souls of men by ; let such
an ono be joyful, aud bless God for it, but
still let him be humble too, and prepare fora
fourth and fifth encounter, .and God knows
how many more after thera : for he only con
quers, who gives the last stroke. Ou the con
trary, has a man received many a foil and
wound in the combats between hira and his
spiritual enemy, yet let him not despond ; for
God may deliver him for all this: only let
him continue the combat still ; for as long M,
a man dares dispute it with his enemy, though |
with his blood about his ears, he is not con-

HOW, AND BV Wll.vr WAVS, GOD DELIVKKS IS I'ltOM I'KMPTATUn'. 4.->
queretl. God can turn tho fortune of the day I
when ho will ; ivnd whore the tomptod persoii
is not wautiiiij to himself, ho alwavs does. I
But I do not Mty that ho always does this pro- j
svutly ; for l>oii may try ;i uinn sovonil years, \
and not deliver him till tho I, ist ; as a man [
nisy stnis;>;lo with a distonipor tlio greatest '
p:irt of bis life, and yet rooovor, and Vot- tho
tull mastery of it in tho is-^uo ; aud uot only
so. but live mauy a fair aiul oouifortablo vear
after it.
Nothing should make us give up our hope, ;
till it forces us to s;ivo up the gliost too. Ami it
is only moil's beiuu: slavishly tied to tho piv-
sent, and fixing tlioir tiioughts wholly upon
wliat thoy aotually Siv and oouvorso with,
«hich disables ihem from doing any thing ;
that is gn^it, or oiuhiriii!;- any thing that is
dilVioiilt. Tlio gi-i-atost objtaoios to a r^-ligious
oourso aro iiion's ungovoriKxi passions aud af- 1
I'lVtious ; and it is iinpossiblo to eouquor or
overrule thoso. but by o;iuyiiig tho jiulginoiit
of ri-.'vson beyond the apinvhoiisioiis of souse : |
for tho ivissions aro all foinulod npon tho pro- '
s^-nt sight aud souse of thing-s. And it is this
which svi wn-tohedly abuses and mnsports
nuMi, that thoy think thatall tho gvod and
ovil which is ooiisidoniblo in tho world lies
within that pitiful ovunpass of visible objects
whioh thoy havo bofon.' thouv. I'his, I s;iy, is '
that wliikh niiikos thoui soil otornity fora song, I
give away thoir souls for a tritlo, and turn !
their K-ioks upon glory and immortality, and \
Gt.Hl hiiusolf. uii.lor the pinch of any prosoiu
iv»in, or tho Ivw itohory of some pri^sont plo:i-
snro. In a won), tho main strength of alnuvst
every toinpt.uion lies in tliis, that monasoribo
all to tho pt>L'*t>nt, w hich is short and ovuitonip-
tiblo. and nothing to the future, which is
inliiiito ."uul invahiahio.
But .-KS ri\'usou is of itself able to look much
farther than soiiso, so faith is able to hnik .-is
much Ivyoud roastui : and thorot'ore, if my
rv-ason tolls n.o that there is soniothing in the
nature? of things which oscipi-sand tninsotMuis
roy view. Ijiith (,1 am surx-'> will take yet a
fsrthor flight and a nobler prwsjwt, ar.d assurx^
mo, that though I am bi-.t an inhabitant of
tills world, yet 1 am heir of a bettor, aud
ivnsovjuontly ought to bo govorne^t by my
highest iiitores!, and to pr\-portioi> mv ostivm
to the measuroof my couoorn, w^hieh isiiuvm-
p-wablv gn-.-itor in tho next lito than it oan
ho Itl tliis.
A man j^orhaps is prosstM h.'U\l and sort^ hy
a temptation, and he Ivgs as hsrd of Gvvl to
deliver hira from it : r,ovort!ioU-ss tho ioiii[^
tsition gO(-s on. au.i ho is i;ot prx>sini!iy vii^
livor»\l. Hut sh.-iU now tliis pitiful tairg
^•;iiU\< uirn pntsorilH* to bis Maker. :!r.d^«hio!i
is yet worst''' to his IViivor^T* Ho, 1 soy,
w:io eui d;iiuv att^ndanw from d.Hy to d;>y.
and somotinu^ ftvun yor.r to yo.-jr. upon suoii
another pitiful thing ;is hiiiisd''. possibly a

treasurer, duvneellor, or some ohicf officer of
stato, (who maybe, and often is. stripped and
kicked out i.f his preoariousgroatiioss tho next
day ;") aud shall this proud nothing think
nnu'li to attend tho unoonti-ollablo ploiisuro of
tho .Vluiighty God about tho inestimable cou-
corns of his novor-dyingsoul i
But lot mon sjitisfy fhouiselves that God
will Inive thom wait his leisure, and that thoro
is a ripeness for uieroy as well as for judgnioiu.
and oonsoquently that thoro must boa fulness
of time for tho former, sis well as for the hitter.
But it hits over boon ono of the prime arts of
the tempter to iiiaUo suoh an atteudanee
tislious, iiauso<.nis, and uneasy to mon under
any pn.\sont pressure, and thereby to frustrate
the wise and leisurely mothoils of the divino
grtu'o for thoir doliveranoo. From all whioh
wo may with groat rotison eoneludo, th.at no
thing o:>n*bo so fiital and luisohiovous to a
person uiulortoinpt.-uion, as that weakness and
instability of sinrit, which so naturally botniys
him to (woof the worst andnioauest affect ions
inoidont to the mind of man, impatiouoo aud
dosp.'iir. idly. No way out of any oahuuity. (what
soever temptation it may subioot tho attiiotixl
person to.'* if brought about by his own sin,
is or ousjht to be ;u'ivunti\l a way made or
allowtNl by God for his escape oither out of
that calamity, or the temptation springing
from it. But on the contrary, so fiir is it
from Iving so, that it is truly and properly a
provonting of ono death by another, a tem
poral by an otonial, a seeking to cure the
iMirnings of a fever by tho infections of a
l^Uiguo : and in a worx), a tiying frvmi tho
Oevil as a touiptor, and running imo his hands
as a dost^^yor. For though indeed his ]vwor
and nialioo K^ such, as may and does enable
him to trouble and distress us, pvhicli is the
most that ho cau do.'* vot nothing but sin oan
y us. Ho may lay
gives firo to it, it ctm do
110 exivution.
Tl.e touiptritions whioh mou gouorally
attompt to rid thcmsolvj-s of this way, aro
cither touiptations from sitiToring. or trom
tho plausible protcuvvs of CvMn]\'issiiig some
Croat and public cw^i bv :in action in itself
ludtYil evil': bttt yc: sucii tts slutll be \-sstly
oxiwd^i aud overb:i!:utv.va i^as thoy imtigiue)
by tho good br\.itght to fviss thereby. Bttt
this is ;i wri'tchcd' I'alhicy t aud the procur>L^
mont of tho grotitcs: go^M i;t tlio werl.t vs-.nno:
wi'.rrant a ntan to eonimit the Ktist ovil. nor
the s;i;'ety of a king\iotii oomuuito for t!te loss
o! his personal iuuoeettiv. -\f.,i thorofon? let
tts stttp^^s<-, tltat a man stvs'.iis country rx'a.ty
to siiik under tho \ioictti-e of a brittisSi
tvniisiiv : yet for till t'.ttit. lol him take he^xl
;li.-«t he ehvs uct rc'oc;. and that Ite o.ocs iter,
to proven; it, VatHo and aistinguish Ittmself
eut ot his dutv : for lot his grievances and his

give him power to do^tro
tho train, but till sin

46

SOUTH'S SERMONS.

Serm. LXIX.

i fears be what they will, the fifth command
ment is still where it was, and binds as fast
as it did or can do in times of the greatest
I justice and prosperity ; and it is not in the
power ofthe mightiest sinners, and the most
successful sins, to dissolve or lessen the oblig
ing force of any of God's laws. Or does a
: man, in the next place, see religion and the
church ready to be overrun with fooleries and
superstition, or (which is worse) overturned
with sacrilege and separation, this will not
authorize him to step beyond the compass of
a private man, whose business is to honour
and preserve religion only by a sincere prac
tice of the duties of it, and for the rest let
hira leave it to that God who governs the
world, to protect his church, the best part of
it, and not think to minister to his providence
by a violation of the least of his precepts.
For no such pretence, how specious soever,
will allow a man to leap over the bounds of
his profession, nor justify Saint Peter himself
in taking up the sword, though for the defence
and rescue of his master : the greatest and the
warmest zeal being but a weak and a cold
plea for one who acts without a commission.
Uzzah, we know, was struck dead for but
offering to take hold of the ark, then shaking
and tottering, though out of a pious concern
to keep it from falling. But, it seems, the
act was unwarrantable ; and being so, the
purpose of the heart could not excuse the
error of the hand. He went beyond his duty,
and God needed not his help.
And so we may be sure it is in all God's
other coraraands. The infinitely wise la-w-
giver foresaw and weighed all possible emer
gent cases, which might any ways he alleged
in exception to the binding power of any of
his laws. That is to say, God, by a full, clear,
and comprehensive grasp of his iramense, all-
knowing wisdom, perfectly foreknew and
considered all the good which men could pre
tend to compass or bring about by disobeying
his laws, and all the evil which they were
capable of suffering for obeying them, and
yet, notwithstanding both, he thought fit
to fix his laws absolute and peremptory,
and without any limitations, exceptions, or
reserves ; an evident demonstration, doubtless,
that God intended that our obedience should
be every whit as absolute as his laws, and
that when he gives a command, he does by
no means allow us to assign the measures of
its obligation.
But the truth is, be the case how and what
it will, men care not for suffering, (which is
the only grand and unanswerable argument
against passive obedience that I know of,)
and from hence alone it is, that while men
fly from suffering, they are so fatally apt to
take sanctuary in sin ; that is, in other words,
to go to the Devil to deliver them out of
temptation. For so men certainly do, where

suffering is the temptation, and sin must bc
the deliverance.
Sdly, To choose or submit to the commis
sion of a lesser sin to avoid the commission
of a greater, (which a raan finds himself
terapted to,) ought by no means to be reck
oned amongst those ways, whereby God
delivers raen from temptation. This parti
cular head may seem at first to coincide with
the former, but is in truth very different from
it. Forasmuch as the former considered sin
as sometimes made use of for an escape outof
a temptation, founded in and springing from
some teraporal suffering, which a man would
rather sin than fall into or continue under;
whereas here we consider it as a means to
defeat a temptation, by our choosing to com
mit one sin rather than another. But this
also, howsoever it may possibly carry with it
something more of art and finesse than the
other, yet, as we shall now shew, has no more
to justify or ple.ad for it than that has; it
being nothing else but a leaving of the brond ''
way to hell for a narrower, and perhaps a
smoother, but still leading to the same place.
And the reason, that uo sin, though never
so sniall, can be a warrantable and allowed
means to prevent the commission of a greater,
is because no man can be brought into such a
condition as shall or can put him under any
necessity of sinning at all. That the case
indeed may be such, that it shall render it
very difficult for a man to come off without
sin, is and must be readily granted ; but for
all that, no difficulty of any duty can takeoff |
the obligation to it, how many soever it may j
fright from the practice of it. !
I have heard it reported (and it is a story i
not unknown) of a certain monk or prelate, :
who for ;i long time together was continually \
urged and solicited, or rather worried and
pursued, with three foul and horrid tempta
tions, namely, to commit murder, or incest, or [
to be drunk, till at length, quite wearied out
with the restless, vexatious importunity ol j
the terapter, he pitches upon the sin ot i
drunkenness, as the least of the three, to avoid
his solicitation to the other two. This was
the course he took to rid himself of a vehement [
temptation . But the terapter, who was much ;
the better artist of the two, knew how to j
make the very same course he took to decline ;
it, an effectual means to push it on and enforce !
it. For having once prevailed and carried
his point so far as to bring him to be drunk,
he quickly brought hira in the strength thereof
to commit both the other sius too. Such are
we, when God abandons us to ourselves and
our own deluded and deluding judgments.
Whereas had this poor wretch, (if this story
of him bo real, and not a parable only,) under
his unhappy circumstances, betook himself to
frequent prayer and fasting, with a vigilant
and severe shunning all occasions of sin, such

HOW, AND BY WHAT WAYS, GOD DELIVERS US FROM TEMPTATION. 47

especially as either his natural temjier or his
inactive way of living put him in most
danger of ; I dare undertake, that, following
such a course, he should neither have worn
out his kuees with praying, nor his body with
fasting before God would have given him an
answer of peace, and a full conquest over his
temptations. To which method raay be added
one instruction raore, and that of no less
sovereign influence in the case now before us
than all of them together ; namely, that we
should upon no terms account any sin small ;
for whatsoever it may be reckoned, if com
pared with others of a higher guilt and
malignity, yet still, considered absolutely in
itself, it is not so small, but that it is au act
of rebellion against the supreme Lord and
Governor of the universe, by a direct viola-
I tion of his law ; not so small, but that by the
same law it merits damnation to the sinner
; in the eternal destruction of his soul and
I body ; nor, lastly, so small, but that as it
merits, so it would actually and infallibly
I inflict the same upon him, had not the Son
' of God himself shed his blood and laid down
! his very life, both as a satisfaction for the sin,
'. and a ransom for the sinner. And if all this
i must be owned and submitted to ns uncon-
' trollable truth, from what topic of reason or
¦ religion can the most acute disputant argue
; for the smallness of any sin 1 Nevertheless,
admitting (without granting) that a sin were
, never so small, yet certain it is, that the
¦ greatest and the foulest sins, which the cor-
' rupt nature of man is capable of committing,
generally enter upon the soul by very small
and scarce observable instances at first. So
that of all the courses which a man in such a
case can take, this of capitulating, and, as it
I were, making terras with the Devil, is the
I most senseless and dangerous ; no man having
': ever yet driven a saving bargain with this
great trucker for souls, by exchanging guilts,
or bartering one sin for another.
It is too well known, how it was with a
most virtuous and excellent prince, (if we
may be suffered to pay a due honour to that
glorious name, which to the astonishment and
scandal of all good men has been so vilified and
run down of late ;) it is known, I say, what a
struggle his pious and truly tender conscience
had with itself, when he was urged to sign
the death of a faithful and great minister,
and how far his heart was from going along
with his hand in signing that fatal act.
Nevertheless thus pressed, (as he was on all
sides,) he was prevailed upon at last to throw
an innocent life overboard, to secure the whole
government from that terrible national storm,
which seemed at that time to threaten all.
But what was the issue and result of this wo
ful expedient? (which yet none more deeply
j regretted and repented of than that blessed
j prince himself.) Why, the result and natural

effect of it was, that the flame (intended
thereby to be stifled and extinguished) broke
out and raged thereupon ten times more vio
lently, and the Devil and his faction took
their advantage, and carried all before them
more and more audaciously ; never ceasing,
till they had brought his royal head to the
block, overturned both church and .state, and
laid our laws and liberties, with every thing
that was great, honourable, or sacred through
out the whole kingdom, in the dust.
This was the consequence of an unjustifi
able act for preventing a greater mischief, (as
some judged :) which, no doubt, had it not
been taken, but instead thereof innocence
had been resolutely protected, and Providence
humbly relied upon, things could never have
come to that deplorable issue, which they
were brought to, and which it is to be feared
that we and our posterity may for some ages
rue. For according to the course of God's jus
tice in his government of the world, there is
but too much ground to think, that so horrid
a rebellion and regicide have not yet been so
fully accounted for, but that there remains a
long and a black score still to be paid off: it
being so usual as well as just with God,
where the guilt of a people is high and clam
orous, to revenge the practices of the fathers
upon the children, succeeding into and avow
edly persisting in the sarae principles which
produced them. God has owned it for his
rule, and that for more generations than one ;
and it is not to be presumed that he will balk
an established rule for our sakes.
Such, we see, have been the false and falla
cious methods, whereby some have so wretch
edly deceived themselves : besides which it
has been likewise observed of some others,
who have been so unfortunate as to have their
dependance upon persons as much wickeder
as greater than themselves, that they have
complied with them in lesser irregularities to
induce the grandee, out of raere good nature
forsooth, not to press his poor dependant to
fouler and more frightful enormities. But,
alas ! this is a way which never takes : for
such great ones in all their debauches will be
attended upon through thick and thin, and
care not for any but a thoroughpaced com
panion in their vices ; since no other can give
them any countenance in their lewdness, which
is the chief thing they drive at and desire.
And therefore this also will be found as sense
less and absurd a project to elude the terapter
as any of the forraer, and seldom or never
succeeds, but to an effect quite contrary to
what was designed. For frora lesser to greater
has been ever accounted a very easy and na
tural passage, especially in sin. And he who
suffers the Devil to be his rider, must not think
alwavs to jog on softly and slowly even in the
dirtiest road, but must expect to he some
tiraes put upon his full career, and neither be

48

SOUTH'S SERMONS.

Serm. LXl.X.

suffered to choose his own waj'' or his own pace.
In a word, he who ventures deliberately to
commit a less sin in order to his avoidance of a
greater, does certainly bring himself under
the guilt of one, and puts himself in the next
disposition to the other. And therefore this
can be none of those ways by which God
delivers men out of temptation,
4thly, If it be the prerogative and proper
work of God to deliver and bring men out of
temptation, let no man, when the temptation
is founded in suffering, (how careful soever
he may and ought to be of entering into it,)
be so solicitous how to get out of it, as how
to behave hiraself under it. For the former
being God's work, may be best left to his
care ; it is the latter only which belongs to
the man himself, and let him but make
good his own part, and he may rest assured
that God will not fail in his.
And to this purpose, and for tho comfort of
every one under temptation, let this be ob
served as a great truth ; that no man's suffering
is properly and formally his sin (how much
soever it might be occasioned by it,) and
withal, that the whole time a raan is under a
temptation without consenting to it, he is
really and truly a sufferer by it. The terapter
indeed dogs and pursues hira close, and con
sequently must needs vex and afflict him pro
portionably ; but still no man is ruined by
being pursued by his enemy, but by being
taken ; and the huntsman (as hard as he may
follow the chase) does not always carry his
game. It is the terapted person's duty (no
doubt) to fence, and strive, and oppose the
temptation with all the art, as well as resolu
tion, that he can ; but nevertheless it is not
his sin, if he cannot wholly rid himself of it.
A sturdy beggar may weary me, but he can
not force me. He may importune my charity,
but he cannot command my purse.' And if
in all our spiritual corabats with our great
enemy the terapter, this one rule were but
impartially considered, and as strictly fol
lowed, it is incredible to imagine what a vast
deal of guilt and mischief it would prevent in
the world. It would prevent all that can
arise from rashness and impatience, from a
man's confidence in himself, and his diffidence
in God ; qualities that would advance the
creature to the prerogative of God, and bring
down God to the level of the creature. In a
word, it would keep men from daring to
snatch God's work out of his hand, from
audaciously carving for themselves, or expect
ing God's mercies upon any but his own terms.
It would keep them quiet even upon the rack'
silent and patient under all the arts and en
gines of cruelty, and iu the sorest distresses
they can groan under; fearful how thev
witched at a deliverance, before God (who
alone knows the proper seasons of niercy,
and understands m.en better than they can '.

themselves) saw them fit for it. In fine,
according to that of the prophet, (Isaiah,
xxviii. 16,) " ho who believeth will not make
haste ;" that is, he who founds his belief in
his reason will not sacrifice it to the transports
of his piission ; but rather (as Moses bade
the Israelites, in a condition they thotigbt
desperate) " stand still and see the salvation
of God," than fly to such false methods of
escape, as shall both assure and hasten his
destruction. Nothing so much entitles a
tempted person to relief from above, as a
steady, coraposed, and unwearied looking up
for it ; a qualification always attended with
such a peculiar greatness and firmness of
mind, as the goodness of God never yet did,
nor will, nor indeed can desert. In every
arduous and difficult enterprise, action, all ,
own, must begin the work, and courage carry
it on ; but it is perseverance only which gives
the finishing stroke. If a city be besieged by \
an enemy, a bold and brisk sally now and i
then may give a present repulse to the be- 1
siegers, but it is constancy and continuance j
that must raise the siege ; and consequently,
in such cases, where the assault is frequent,
and the opposition long, he who stands it out,
bids as fair for victory as he who fights it out;
and nothing can be more pusillanimous or
more fatal than a hasty surrender. Promises
of succour (if not too long delayed) often in
spire courage, even where they find none.
And therefore no man of judgment, if but
with a competent supply of spirit to second it,
would in so high a concern as that of his soul,
part with his hope before his life, having so \
particular a promise to support the one, and
only the common protections of Providence
to guard the other. But then, on the other
side, if his strength lie here, and this be his
case, must it not be inexpressibly senseless
and irrational for one who owns a depend
ance upon God for his deliverance, to have
recourse to the Devil for the way and means
of it ? That man, no doubt, who makes his
duty to God the sole measure of his depend
ance upon him, can never (be his straits what
they will) be so much enslaved and insulted
over, as to think it worth his while to pur
chase his liberty with the sale of his con
science, or to quit his passive obedience (with
the inward comforts always accompanying
an oppressed innocence) for the most active,
thriving, and successful rebellion. For let a
temporal suffering be never so sharp, whoso
ever will needs be his own deliverer, aud that
in his own time, and his own way also, that
man first distrusts God, and then defies him,
and not only throws off his yoke, hut throws
it at him too. For the great Lord and Gov
ernor of the world will be as much obeyed,
trusted, and relied upon, while he visits and
afflicts, as while he embraces and supports us ;
while his rod is upon us, as while his staff is

HOW, AND BY WHAT WAYS, GOD DELIVERS US FROM TEIVIPTATION. 49

under us. And in the very worst circum
stances which we can be iu, it will be hard to
prove that our allegiance to the King of kings
(according to the new, modish, whig-doctrine
relating to our teraporal kings) is only condi
tional. Sthly, The fifth and last corollary or conclu
sion deducible frora the foregoing particulars,
is, that there can be no suffering or calamity
whatsoever, though never so terrible and
grievous to humaii nature, but may be
endured without sin ; and if so, may be like
wise made a means whereby God brings a
man out of temptation.
As to the first part of which proposition,
the Christian martyrs were a glorious and
irrefragable proof of it, as has been before
observed ; the torments they endured were as
horrid and exquisite as the wit of man could
then invent, or now comprehend ; nor were
they more for their peculiar strangeness unac
countable, than for the variety of their kinds
innumerable. The whole history of the
primitive church is but a continued martyr
ology ; in a word, this noble army of martyrs
were (as the apostle tells us, Heb. xi. 35 —
37 ) " cruelly mocked and scourged, racked
and tortured, slain with the sword, or rather
butchered, burnt, and sawn asunder ;" and
in a word, what not ? All this, I say, and a
great deal more, they undauntedly suffered,
and triumphed over ; and the same grace
which enabled them to bear such barbarities,
enabled them also to bear them without sin ;
the fire indeed consumed them, but the smoke
could not blacken them. All which being as
to matter of fact unquestionable, it must needs
be an argument of the clearest and most
allowed consequence, that if such inhuma
nities actually have been borne, it is certain
that they may be borne. Experience (which
answers, or rather annihilates all objections)
has made good the antecedent, and nothing
can keep off the consequent. In the mean
time, for my own part, I must confess myself
wholly unable to believe, that such monstrous
cruelties could ever have been endured, but
in the strength of something supernatural and
diviue, something which raised and bore
human nature above itself, something which
gave it a kind of inward armour of proof ;
mere flesh and blood (God knows) being but
a pitiful weak thing, and by uo means a
raatch equal to such encounters.
From all which we see and learn, how
wholly different tbe wise and gracious me
thods of God are from those of poor silly
mortals. The way of the world is for raen to
rush into sin, to keep or bring themselves
outof raisery ; but God's method is, sometimes
to bring men into worldly misery, to keep
them from sin, and thereby rescue them from
damnation. And this is most certainly true,
that no evil, how afflictive soever, is or ought
VOL. II.

to be accounted intolerable, which may be
made a direct means to escape one intolerably
greater. For as there is no sort of enjoyment
upon earth, but may and often does, become
the ground and scene of a temptation, so
neither is there any sort of teraporal misery,
but may be a reraedy against it. Poverty is
indeed a bitter pill, but often used by the
great physician of souls as a sovereign anti
dote against pride, profuseness, and sensuality.
Nothing sinks deeper into an ingenuous mind
than disgrace, and yet God frequently makes
it an effectual cure of vainglory, arrogance,
and ambition. Sickness is a tedious and vex
atious trial, eating up and consuraing the
vigour and spirit both of body and mind, and
yet the surest and best course, by which God
beats down the rage of lust, and the brutish
furies of intemperance. And lastly, death
itself, which nature fears and flies from, as its
dreadfulest and greatest eneray, is yet the
grand instruraent in the hand of mercy to
put an end to sin and sorrow, and a final
period to all teraptations.
And thus at length I am come near a close
of what I had to discourse upon this great and
important subject of temptation ; indeed so
important, that, whereas that best of prayers
prescribed and left us by our Saviour (as the
standing form and pattern for his church to
pray by for ever) consists in all but of six
petitions, this against temptation makes one
of that small nuraber ; a clear demonstration,
doubtless, of what infinite concern it is to all
who know how to value their eternal state
and condition, to guard against it, and to be
delivered from it. For so much I dare aver
may with great truth be affirmed of the raa
lignity of it, (and more and worse can hardly
be said,) that greater numbers have been de
stroyed by it than repentance ever saved. For
it is this'which has peopled hell, and made
the Devil's dominions large and populous;
this which has carried the trophies of his
black conquests as far and wide as the corrup
tion of man's nature has spread itself, and the
sin of Adam extended its contagion ; this,
whereby that avowed enemy of God and man
has done such terrible execution upon souls :
for were it not for his art and skill to insin
uate, his power could do nothing to destroy ;
that being his sure and long tried method for
getting hold of the will, and seizing the affec
tions, and so drawing the whole man after
him, which by downright force he could never
do. In short, (according to the poet's ex
pression,) populo dat jura volenti, he brings
men to obey and serve him spontaneously,
aud farther than this he cannot go, nor lead
any into the bottomless pit, but such as areas
willing to follow as he to letid ; a woful way of
perishing certainly, and tho very sting, not
of death only, but even of damnation itself.
Nor is this all whereby he carries on his

C'J

SOUTH'S SERMONS.

Serm. LX.X.

work, but he has yet this farther advantage
over men, that, being a spirit, he can convey
himself into and possess hiraself of the chief in
struraents of the soul's operations, the spirits,
and this without the man's discerning that he
does so. For though, indeed, when God per
mits him to exert his raischievous power upon
the bodies of men, (as he did upon many in
the days of our Saviour,) it must needs in that
case be discernible enough where and of whom
the evil spirit has taken possession : yet where
he employs his malice only in a spiritual wa)%
by secret but powerful instigations of their
corrupt nature to wicked actions, (as for the
most part he does now-a-days,) it is hard, if
possible, to distinguish truly and exactly what
proceeds from bare inherent corruption, and
what from diabolical impulse and infusion ;
but no doubt in many instances it proceeds
from both, and from the latter more espe
cially, that being always more impetuous, and
hurrying the soul with a more violent bias to
the commission of sin, than, if left merely to
its own inclinations, it would probably have
been carried out to. And thus it is with men
frequently ; they find within themselves a
motion both sensible and forcible, while the
spring of it is invisible, and so run on vio
lently, not aware, in the mean time, who it
is that drives them, or what it is that he
drives at.
These and many more are the advantages
which the tempter has over the sons of men,
partly from the spirituality of his own nature,
' and partly from the grossness and imbecility
i of theirs : to which if we join his incredible
I sagacity to spy out every the least opportunity
' offered him, and his implacable malice to
pursue and make use of it, to the utter sup
planting us, and that in no less an interest
than that of our immortal souls, (in compa
rison of which the whole world is but a trifle)
it must needs hold all thoughtful minds nnder
such continual agonies and misgiving reflec-
i tions, that although we may escape hell here-
; after, he will be sure, if he can, to give us a
I severe taste of it here.
But what? Must all advantages then lie
like a dead, or rather like a killing weight,
wholly on the tempter's side, andno remedies
to encounter them be found on ours? God
forbid ; for then we must look upon our case
uot only as dangerous, but desperate, and give
over the conflict as absurd, where all resistance
is vain, and the conquest impossible. But, on
the contrary, as God of his great wisdom has
not been wanting to forewarn and assure men
that temptations will attend them, so neither
has he been failing of his equal goodness to
prescribe the proper ways, means, and me
thods, whereby to fence against them ; which,
as in the several particulars thereof, (each of
them severally adapted to the several states,
tempers, and conditions of men,) are for their

vast variety (upon the matter) innuraerable,
so they are nevertheless every one of them
directly reducible to, and fully comprehen
sible under these two grand general heads,
(prescribed by the best and surest guide ol
souls, our Saviour himself,) watchfulness and
prayer ; and accordingly (as I hinted before)
I shall treat of them distinctly by themselves,
as the proper materials of my following dis
course upon the same subject, (though from
another text,) with which I shall conclude all
that I had proposed to deliver upon tins
weighty, useful, and highly concerning point
of temptation.
Now to God the Father, God the Son, and
God the Holy Ghost, &c. be rendered and
ascribed, as is most due, all praise, might,
majesty, and dominion, both now and fot
evermore. Amen.

SEKMON LXX.
WATCHFULNESS AND PRAYER, A SECU
RITY FROM TEMPTATION.
PART VII. AND LAST.
*' Watch and pray, tbat ye enter not into temptation."
Matth. xxvi 41.
As the life and business of a Christian in
this world is certainly to flesh and blood a
thing of great diflSculty, and, considering the
opposition which it is sure to meet with, of
equal danger, so this appears in nothing mote
than in its being represented by ono of the
most difficult and dangerous things in humaii
life, which is war; (1 Tim. i. 18,) "This
charge I comrait unto thee," says Paul to
Timothy, " that thou mightest war a good
warfare." And as the difficulty and danger j
of war is to be measured partly by the high
worth of the thing fought for, and partly by
the power and policy of the enemy to be
fought with ; so the eternal, invaluable inte
rest of an immortal soul on the one side, and
the arts and strength of a mighty, subtle, and
implacable spirit on the other, are but too full
a demonstration with what difficulty and
danger the soul is to manage and maintain
this spiritual conflict.
And therefore as all war is to be carried on
partly by our own strength, and partly by
that of allies and auxiliaries called in to our
aid and assistance ; so in this Christian wa^
fare the things which properly answer those
two are watchfulness and prayer ; forastnucn
as by watchfulness we exert and employ our
own strength, and by prayer we engage Gods;
and if ever victory and success attend u? '"
these encounters, these two must join force*.

WATCHFULNESS AND PRAYER A SECURITY FROM TEMPTATION. 51

heaven and earth must be confederate, and
when they are so, the Devil himself, as strong
as he is, and as invincible a monarch as he
would be thought to be, may yet be forced to
go off with a pluribus impar, and to quit the
field with frustration and a baflle.
In the first place, then, we will speak of
watchfulness as the first of the two great de
fensatives against temptation, here prescribed
in the text, " Watch and pray.' ' In giving an
account of which, as the foundation of the
expression is a metaphor, so the prosecution
and farther illustration of it must (in a great
measure at least) be metaphorical also. And
consequently, as it relates to the soul waging
and carrying on this spiritual war with the
tempter and his temptations, it iraports in it
these five followiug particulars. As,
1. Fii^t of all, watching iraports a strong,
lively, abiding sense and persuasion of the
exceeding greatness of the evil which we
watch and contend against. Sense of danger
is the first step to safety, and no raan watches
but to secure and defend himself. Watching
is a troublesome and severe work, and wise
men would not willingly trouble themselves
to no purpose. A combatant must first know
and dread the mischief of a blow, before he
will fence against it : he mnst see it coming
with his eye, before he will ward it off with
his hand.
To be always upon the guard, hungry and
restless, expecting the enemy, and liable to
be killed every minute, only to secure the life
of others, must needs be a very afflicting dis
cipline ; and no raan would spend the night
upon the sentry, who knew that he might
spend it as safely in his bed. " Had the good
man ofthe house known ofthe thief s coming,"
{as our Saviour observes. Matt. xxiv. 43,) '' he
would have watched ;" he would have kept
his eyes open, and his doors shut ; for though
to break one's sleep, when nature importu
nately calls for it, be something grievous, yet
to have one's house broke open, and to be
spoiled of one's goods, and perhaps of one's
life too, is mnch worse. The sight of danger
is stronger than the strongest inclinations to
rest ; and no man could with any heart go to
sleep, who fully believed that he should wake
in another world.
Accordingly, let a man in every temptation
consider the evil which is designed him, and
is certainly coming towards hira, and that (if
reason governs) will raake him readily digest
a less pain to secure himself from an infinitely
greater. But raen slight and dally with
temptation, because they are not really per
suaded that there can be so much evil at the
bottom of that which looks so fair at top.
But the evil which lies lurking under a temp
tation is intolerable aud inexpressible. The
design of it is, by leading thee from sin to
sin, to harden thy heart, to debauch thy con

science, and seal thee up under a reprobate
sense ; and when the tempter has brought
things to this pass, he knows he has a man
sure enough ; he has the sinner in chains,
whensoever maybe the time of his execution.
A temptation presents itself to thee dressed
and painted, and set off according to thy own
false heart's desire ; and the evil spirit is
pressing thee to a coraplianee with it, and the
good Spirit of God and thy own conscience
would keep thee off from it ; God is urgent
on the one side, aud the tempter busy on the
other, and thy heart is warmly solicited on
both : now consider, in this critical push,
which way it inclines, and what the issue
may be, if the tempter should carry thy
choice. Possibly, if the blessed motions of
God's Spirit dissuading thee from sin be re
fused now, this raay be the last address the
Spirit may make to thee, the last time it may
ever knock at the door of thy heart. Aud
then what follows? why, blindness of mind,
stupidity of conscience, deadness of affection
to all that is good, and a daring boldness in
sin ; which are as certain forerunners of the
soul's destruction, as buds and blossoms are
the foretellers of fruit, or the sentence of con
demnation the harbinger of death.
Now if a man would have these terrible
effects always fresh upon his spirit, it is im
possible but he should be willing to he at any
pains to intrench and fortify himself against
such invasions. I have heard of a criminal
who endured the bitterest torraents of the
rack with incomparable resolution, which if
a malefactor endures without confessing his
crime, (according to the custom of those
countries where this trial is used,) he escapes
death. And being asked, how he could
strengthen his spirit to eudure such horrid
pains. Why, says he, before I was to ascend
the rack, I caused the picture of a gibbet to
be drawn upon my foot, and still, as my pains
grew higher, I fixed my eye upon that ; and
so the fear and abhorrence of dying at the
gibbet, if I confessed, enabled me with silence
to master and overcome the tortures of the
rack without confession. In like manner,
when a man is at any time accosted with a
temptation, a sly, pleasing, insinuating temp
tation, so that to tum away frora it is ex
treraely irksome to corrupt nature, and to
oppose and defy it resolutely much more, so
let him, while he is thus casting one eye
upon the difficulty of resisting it, cast the
other upon the dismal consequences of being
overcome by it. Let him look upon the
slavery and the vassalage which it will sub
ject him to here, and the ruin, the dreadful
and never-ending torments, which it will in
fallibly bring him to hereafter. And then
let but common sense be his counsellor, and
it will quickly reconcile him to all the fatigues
of watching and striving, imd all the rigours

L

SOUTH'S SERMONS.

Serm. LXX.

of mortification ; and even self-love itself will
make him with both arms embrace all these
austerities, and ten thousand more, rather
than give up the combat, and lie down in
eternal sorrow. Let him but once come to
this positive, decretory result with himself :
Either I must watch, and strive, and fence
against this detestable sin and temptation, or
I am lost ; I must fight, or I must .die ; resist
and stand it out, or perish and sink for ever.
I say, let the case be but thus impartially put,
and driven home, and we may safely venture
the greatest epicure and the most profligate
tinner in the world, indeed any thing that
wears the name of a man, to judge and choose
for himself.
2dly, Watching imports a diligent conside
ration and survey of our own strengths and
weaknesses, compared with thoseof our enemy.
Let a man know himself strong, before he
ventures to fight ; and if he finds himself
weak, it will concern him either to fence or
fly. Wise combatants will measure swords
before they engage. And a discreet person
will learn his own weaknesses rather by self-
reHection than by experience. For to know
one's self we.ak only by being conquered, is
doubtless tlie worst sort of conviction.
Tlie greatest and most fat<al miscarriages in
all war are from these two things, weakness
and treachery ; and a subtle enemy will cer
tainly serve his turn by one or both of them.
And as it is too evident th.at weakness, as
such, can be no match for strength, so strength
itself must become a prey to weakness, where
treachery has the management of it. Now
let a man know, that he carries both theso
about him, and that in a very deplorable
degree. And,
1st, For weakness ; his heart is extremely
unable to withstand or repel a sinful object
suitably proposed. For so much as there is of
corruption, whether natural or moral, in any
one, so much there is of weakness. " Since
thou doest these things, how weak is thy
heart !" says the prophet Ezekiel, xvi. 30.
Sin is the greatest weakness in the world ;
and what a pitiful thing docs it render the
stoutest heart upon the assault of a mighty
temptation ! just like " a reed shaken with
the wind," or like a bulrush yielding and
bending itself under the torrent of a mighty
stream ; so far from being able to stem or
conquer it, that it is not so much as able to
shew its head.
This therefore let a man always think up
on ; let hira still consider his weakness, and
compare it with the wit and strength of him
who comes .against him ; and if he duly weighs
and considers this, he will find that weakness
can have no other support in nature but
watchfulness. He who is not strong enough
to beat back a blow, ought to be quicksighted
enough to decline it. But,

2dly, This is not all ; there is not only weak. ''
ness, but also treachery in the case ; (Jer.
xvii. 9,) " The heart of man is deceitful above
all things ;" and so great is the deceitfulness
of it, that the tempter never assails a man,
but he is sure of a party within him. The
poor man has not only one arm too feeble to
resist his enemy, but (which is worse) he ha
the other ready to embrace him. And then,
as it falls out in a siege, if weakness abandons
the walls and treachery opens the gates, the
enemy must needs enter, aud carry all before
him. Let a man therefore, in his spiritual war
fare, draw another arguraent for vigilance
from hence, that he carries something about
him, which is like to do him moro mischief!
than any thing that can annoy him from I
without ; that he has a close, domestic, bosom
enemy, more dangerous than the bitterest and
most avowed adversai-}', whose open and pro
fessed defiances may pass for liumanity and
fair play, in comparison of the sly, hollow,
and fallacious arts of the corresponding traitor
within. The truth is, in most of the transactions of
humaii life, the cruellest and most killing
blows, given both to persons and societies^
have been from some amongst themselves;
hardly any goveriinient or constitution couieS
to confusion, but by sorae hungry vipers
which were conceived and bred in her om
bowels, and afterwards gnawed their way
througli them : hardly any church (thoughil
never so flourishing a condition) is destroyed,
but by the help of some wretches, who first
" eat her bread," (and perhaps wear her hon
ours,) "and then lift up their heel against
her ;" suck themselves fat with her milk, and
then stab her to the heart through the breast
which gave it. Such oftentimes has been the
fato of the greatest things. They have been
ruined from within, which no force from
abroad could shake. A bullet from an enemy
often goes beside a man, and so spares him;
but an iraposthume in his head, or an apo
plexy, strikes him dead. j
Now what I have here remarked by way [
of illustration, from such cases as these, let a
man be assured that he is in danger of finding 11
fatally verified upon himself iu the spiritual
war carried on by the tempter against bim.
For it is his own heart, his own false and base !
heart, which ho is chiefly to watch against.
The very instruments of watching (if d"'
looked to) may sometimes betray him ; and
one eye had need to keep a watch over the
other. And therefore, " God defend me from i
myself," ever was and is, and will be a mo*' 1
wise and excellent petition. !
Every man (as I may so speak) has a wolf !
in his breast, which (if not prevented) "i" ,
be sure to devour him. Let him therefore |
take heed and be wakeful ; let him "neither

W^VTCHFULNESS AND PRAYER A SECURITY FROM TEMPTATIO.V.

give rest to his eyes, nor slumber to his eye
lids ;" for as they shut, so the tempter takes
him, still directiug his arrows rather by our
eyes than by his own. This is our case ; and
surely if ever it concerns us to watch, it should
be agaiust an enemy, whose malice is such,
that he will not, aud whose nature is such,
that he cannot sleep.
Sdly, Watchfulness implies a close aud
thorough consideration of the several ways
by which temptation h;isat anytime actually
prevailed either upon ourselves or others. He
who would encounter his enemy successfully,
should acquaint himself with his way of fight
ing, which he cannot do but by observation
and experience. Great captains should be
good historians ; that so, by recollecting the
various issues and events of battles, they may
see in sever.al instances by what arts and
methods the victory lias been gained on one
side, and by what failures and miscarriages
it has been lost on the other. As for instance,
such .an army perished by ambuscade ; such
a battle was lost by sucb an oversight or fault
in conduct ; such a strong place, for want of
men or courage, was took by assault and
storm ; sueh a castle was surprised by such a
stratagem ; and such an one was undermined,
and had its walls laid flat with the grouud,
and delivered, but not given up ; aud lastly,
another, by a surer way than all, sold.
In like manner, in- this spiritual warfare,
let the soul watch against an assault, against
a surprise, and against the close, subteri-ane-
ous actings of its restless eneray ; for ruin and
destruction has entered by every one of these
ways ; and therefore take heed, that, whilst
thou art expecting an .assault, the enemy
steals not upon thee with a stratagem, or over
reaches thee by a parley, when he cannot
overmatch thee by force. And thus a saga
cious reflection upon what has been done, is
the surest way to establish solid and certain
rules what to do. For though persons vary,
yet cases are generally the same, as being
founded in the nature of thiugs ; and it is
eternally true, that the same method will be
always applicable to perfectly the same case,
as things that are cast into the same mould
will certainly take the same figure. There
fore, I say, let the watchful Christian consider
what has been the issue and effect of the
tempter's arts and methods both upon hira
self and others.
1st, And first for himself ; every man does
or should know the plagues of his own heart,
aud what false steps he has made in the
several turns aud periods of his Christian
course; by what means he fell, and upon what
rocks he split. I say, every rational, think
ing, reflecting man must needs know this : for
he who has the mind of a man must remem
ber, aud he who reraembers what has fallen
out, will be watchful against what may. He

will carry his eye backward and forward, and
on every side, when he knows that the
danger moves so too. For though possibly in
dealing with friends it may uot always be
thought so commodious to look backwards,
(the rule of a great prince, one really great,)
yet iu dealing with enemies one would think
it the concern of the stoutest soldiers to look
backwards sometimes, for fear an old, sly
enemy should come behind him, and knock
out his brains before he is aware ; and it is
certain that he will hardly be the wiser for
that : for it will be too late to watch when
his head is low, or to make use of his sword
when he has no hand to hold it.
He who shall make true and accurate re
flections upon his past life, and observe by
what secret avenues and passes the temptation
has entered and broke in upon him, shall find
that there have been some sorts of things,
persons, companies, and actions, which per
haps he never ventured upon in all his life,
but he brought away matter of repentance
from them, aud it was well if God gave him
the gr.ace of it too.
Now let such an one look upon all these as
so many engines planted against bim by the
Devil, and accordingly let him fly from them,
as he would from the mouth of a cannon, or
the breath of a pest-house, assuring himself
that the same poison will still have the same
operation, and that the same stone which gave
him so desperate a fall once, if he stumbles at
it again, will be as apt to give him another ;
but then, if, notwithstanding such frequent
and fatal trials, he will still run himself upon
the same mischief which he has so terribly
felt and fatally fallen by, he must know, th.at
though his old enemy the Devil terapted him
the first time, yet his worse enemy, himself,
tempts him the second. And will that man
pretend to watch, whom neither sense, smart,
nor experience can awaken ? who, while he
feels blow after blow, will not be persuaded
that heis struck ? But when it coraes to this,
destruction must couvince, where danger can
not admonish. But then,
2d, In the next place ; let the watchful
Christian carry his eye from himself to othere,
and observe with w"hat trick and artifice the
tempter has practised upon them. And for
this how many tnagical stories and doleful
complaints may you hear of persons, some
times of great hope aud reputation, yet after
a while utterly fallen from both, and plunged
into the very sink and dregs of all debauchery !
And whataccountdomengive us of so wretched
a change? Why, of some you shall be told,
that while they were under the eye .and wing
of their parents, they were modest, tractable,
aud ingenuous, sober in their morals, and j
serious in their religion. But, alas! either I
they were first unhappily planted in some j
place of ill and vicious education, where the i

54

SOUTH'S SERMONS.

Serm. LXX

Devil Kid his agents infused^such diabolical
filth and poison into their hearts, that no dis
cipline or advice, no sermons or sacraments,
could ever after antidote or work it out.
Or if, through the singular mercy of Provi
dence, such persons escape the first taint and
venom of ill-breeding, and so thereby make
one farther step into the world, with all the
advantages of a fair carriage and a fair esteem,
yet generally not long after, by the insinua
tions of that old pander and trepanner of
souls, it is odds but you shall hear, that some
of theni either fall into villainous and lewd
company, or light into loose and debauched
families, or take to some ensnaring employ
ments, which quickly wear off tho first
tenderness of their hearts, and bring them to
a callous hardness and sturdiness in vice, till
at length, stripped even of common civility,
as well as abandoned by morality, they corae
to Launch out into the deeps of sin, to drink
and whore, and scoff at religion ; and so by
an uncontrolled progress through all the
several stages and degrees of vice, commence
at last fashionable and complete sinners.
Now when the watchful Christian shall
stand by, and observe this dismal catastrophe
of things, when he shall see that proximus
ardet Ucalegon, surely it will be high tirae for
hira to look about hiin, .and to conclude that
the fire which has already burnt down his
next neighbour's house will assuredly catch at
his. Let him therefore watch, and stand upon
his guard against all those forementioned en
croaching mischiefs, whieh have made such a
woful havoc of souls even before his eyes. Let
him neither send son nor friend to the stews
or the play-house banditti, to Sodom or
Gomorrah for education. Let him raake no
friendships or acquaintance with those, whom
nothing will satisfy but to go to hell with
them for company ; let him have nothing to
do with any house or family (though never
so great and so rauch in power) where the
Devil is major-domo, and governs all; and
lastly, let him not follow any employment or
course of life which may work immoderately
upon any of his passions, which m.ay swell
his hopes, feed his lust, or heighten his ambi
tion. In a word, let hira look with horror
upon all these high roads to hell, as the man
did upon the passage to the lions' den, where
he beheld with trembling the footsteps of
innumerable who had gone in, but of none
who had returned from thence. And this is
truly to be watchful, for a man thus to secure
and raake good his own standing, by consider
ing how and whereby others have fallen ; no
wisdom being so sure, and so much a man's
own, as that which is bought ; and none so
cheap, and yet withal so beneficial, as that
which is bought at another's cost.
4thly, Watchfulness implies a continual,
actual intention of raind upon the high con

cern and danger which is before us, in oppo-
sition to sloth, idleness, and remissness,
"Stand," says tho apostle, "having your
loins girt about," (Eph. vi. 14.) The grand
security of a warrior is to 'be always ready.
While the bow is bent, it is still fit for execu
tion ; but if the enemy comes and finds that
unbent, and the arraour off, the man is des
troyed and run down before he cau either \
bend the one or put on the other ; and then i
it will be to little purpose to cry out,
Who would have thought this ! For the j
fool's thought comes always too late to rescue, 1
though time enough to reproach him. There
is ever some gross neglect in an army, when
they come to have their quarters beaten up;
for an enemy rarely ventures at this, but
where he knows his advantage, and that one
enemy can never take, till the other is fool
enough to give.
Wo have a notable, but sad instance, of a
supine, carelesss people, immersed iu sloth and
ease, and of the terrible fate which attended
them in that condition. For in Judges, xviii,
7, it is said of the inhabitants of Laish, that
" they dwelt careless, and after the manne>.9f
the Zidonians, quiet and secure, and had no
business with any man." But what follows?
Why, some, it seems, were resolved to have
business with them, though they wonld have
none with others ; for the children of Dan,
we read, came, and in the midst of this pro
found quiet and security fell upon them,
burnt down their city, and put them all to the
sword. The text says expressly of them in
two several places, that they were secure; but
the event shews that they were far from being
safe. In like manner, when David and Abishai
came and found Saul with his troops round
about him all asleep, (a most warlike and lit
condition, j'ou will say, for one upon the pur
suit of an enemy, 1 Sam. xxvi. 7, 8,) Abishai
thereupon thus bespeaks David ; " This day
hath God delivered thine eneray into thy \
hands: let me therefore smite him with the j|
spear to the earth at once, and I will not i|
smite him twice." See here the danger ot ;
a drowsy warrior ; but it was well for his j
royal drowsiness that he found him his trae i|
friend, whom he pursued as his raortal enemy!
for had his old back-friends the Philistine!
found hira in such a posture, they would J
hardly have left him so ; but David would do ji
as became David, though never so ill used by
Saul. Another instance I have met with in stoiT
not much unlike this, of a certain geneia,
who, going about his carap in the night, and
finding tho watch fast asleep upon the groun^
nails him down to the place where he lay with
his own sword, using this expression withal,
" I found him dead, and I left him so." So
that sleep, it seems, in such cases is something !

WATCHFULNESS AND PRAYER A SECURITY FROM TEMPTATION. 55

more than the image of death, and closes the
eyes too fast ever to be opened again.
Accordingly in this spiritual warfare let us
take heed, that our vigilant, active enemy
find us not idle and unemployed. The soul's
play-day is always the Devil's working-day,
and the idler the man, still the busier the
tempter. The truth is, idleness offers up the
soul as a blank to the Devil, for him to write
what he will upon it. Idleness is the empti
ness, and business the fulness of the soul ; and
we all know that we may infuse what we will
into an empty vessel, but a full one has no
room for a farther infusion. In a word, idle
ness is that which sets all the capacities of the
soul wide open, to let in the evil spirit, and
to give both him and all the villainies he can
bring along with him a free reception and a
full possession ; whereas on the contrary,
laboriousness shuts the doors and stops all the
avenues of the mind whereby a temptation
would enter, and (which is yet more) leaves no
void room for it to dwell there, if by any acci
dent it^hould chance to creep in ; so that let but
the course a raan takes be just and lawful, and
then the more active still the more innocent ;
t fM. action both perfects nature and ministers
f 9 grace; whereas idleness, like the rust of the
soul, by its long lying still, first soils the
beauty, and then eats out the strength of it.
In like manner the industry of the person
tempted ever supersedes that of the tempter ;
so that as long as the former is employed, (as
we hinted before,) the other can have but
little to do, and consequently will be hardly
brought to address himself to one, whose head
and heart, whose eyes and ears, and all the
faculties of his soul, are actually taken up, and
nothing at leisure to receive him ; for few
make visits where they are sure neither to be
entertained nor let in.
Now the first, and generally the most fatal
way, by which the tempter accosts a raan, is
by the suggestion of evil thoughts ; for when
the temptation is once lodged in the imagina
tion, he knows it is in the next neighbour
hood to the affections, and from the affections
that it is usually no long step to the actions,
and that when it once reaches them, he is
pretty sure that his work is then done. But
now when the mind is thus intent upon
greater and better objects, and the thoughts
wholly taken up with uo less a concern than
that last and grand one of life and death,
surely it is scarce possible for his impertinent
stuff (and his temptations are no better) to
find either audience or admittance ; for the
soul thus employed is really too busy to re
gard what he says, any more than a man who
is contriving, studying, and beating his brain
how to save his head, can be presumed to
mind powdering his hair, or while he knows
he is eating his last meal, to play the critic
upon tastes ; no doubt whosoever is so wholly
i

taken up, can neither attend making nor
receiving invitations, though the tempter, we
own, is so much a courtier as to be always
ready for both.
Let the wary Christian therefore remember,
that he is hoc agere, that he is to keep all his
hours, and, if possible, his very minutes filled
up with business, and that grace abhors a
vacuum in time, as much as nature does in
place : aud happy beyond expression is that
wise and good Christian, whom " when the
tempter comes he shall find so doing ;" foras
much as he who is thus prepared to receive the
tempter, cannot be unprepared to receive his
Saviour ; since, next to his soul, his time is
certainly the most precious thing he has in
the world, and the right spending of the one,
the surest and most unfailing way to save the
other. But,
5thly and lastly. Watching implies a con
stant and severe teraperance, in opposition to
all the jollities of revelling and intemperance.
We havo before observed the great analogy
and resemblance between the carrying on the
spiritual and the temporal warfare ; and
accordingly, as to this latter, we may observe
farther, how whole arraies have been routed
and overthrown, and the greatest cities and
the strongest garrisons surprised and sacked,
while those who should have been watching
the raotion of the enemy were sotting it at
their cups, equally unmindful both of their
danger and defence ; for such debauches
seldom happen either in camps or besieged
towns, but their wakeful enemies quickly
getting intelligence of the disorder, come upon
them on a sudden, and find them, as the poet
describes such, somno vinoque sepultos, that is
to say, buried, in a manner, before dead, or
rather already dead to their hands, and so
scarce worthy to receive another and a nobler
death from their enemies' sword ; for when
men have once drank themselves down, the
enemy can have nothing more to do but to
traraple upon them.
How came Ahab, with a handful of men
in comparison, to overthrow the vast, insult
ing army of Benhadad, the king of Syria?
Why, we have an account of it (1 Kings xx.
"he and two-and-thirty ki.igs his confede
rates were drinking themselves drunk in tbeir
pavilions," (ver. 16,) as if he had drawn
together such a numerous and mighty army,
headed by so many princes, only for the
glorious and warlike expedition of carousing
in their tents, or to fight it out hand to hand
in the cruel and bloody encounters of drink
ing healths : but their success was answer
able ; they fell like grass before the mower,
cut down and slaughtered without resistance ;
and happy were those who had their brains
so much in their heels, as to be sober enough
to run away.
Accordingly, in the management of our

56

SOUTH'S SERMONS.

Serm. LXX.

Christian warfare, so much resembling the
other, (as I shew before,) it is remarkable,
watching and sobriety are still joined together
in the same precept; as (Luke, xxi. 34,)
"Take heed to yourselves," says our Saviour,
" lest at any time your hearts be overcharged
with surfeiting and drunkenness, and so that
day corae upon you unawares ;" which if it
should, and chance to find men iu such a con
dition, it would prove a sad conviction, that
" men may eat and drink their own damna
tion" more ways than one. And the same
injunction is repeated over and over by the
apostles; as, " Let us watch and be sober,"
says Saint Paul, (I Thess. v. 6.) " And be
ye sober, and watch uuto prayer," says Saint
Peter, (I Pet. iv. 7.) And again, " Be sober,
be vigilant, because your adversary the Devil,
like a roaring lion, goes about, seeking whom
he may devour," (1 Pet. v. 8.) Of so peculiar
a force is temperance agaiust the fiercest
assaults of the Devil, and so unfit a match is a
soaking, swilling swine to encounter this roar
ing lion. Concerning which it is farther
worth our observing, that, as we read of no
other creature but the swine which our
Saviour commissioned the Devil to enter into,
so of all other brute animals there are none
so remarkable for intemperance as they, did
not some, I confess, of a higher species very
often outdo them.
In short, he who has an enemy must watch ;
but there can be no such thing as watching,
unless sobriety holds up the head, forasmuch
as without it sleeping is not only the easiest,
but tho best thing that such an one can do,
as being for the time of his debauch like other
beasts, always most innocent when asleep,
though for the same reason also, I confess,
more in danger of being caught and destroyed
before he wakes.
Let that wise and circumspect Christian
therefore, who would always have a watchful
eye upon his enemy, with a particular caution
take heed of all intemperance ; and I account
that intemperance, which immediately after
eating and drinking unfits a man for business,
whether it be that of the body or that of the
mind ; it renders a man equ.ally useless to
others and mischievous to himself; and we
need say no more nor no worse of intemper
ance than this, that it lays him wretchedly
open, even as opeu to throw out as to pour
in, a kind of common shore for both ; it
makes his own tongue his executioner, some
times by scandalous words, aud sometimes
by dangerous truths, and that which is the
certain consequent of both, by procuring him
dangerous enemies, unless possibly sometimes,
to prevent a greater mischief, the brute cries
Peccavi, arraigns himself, makes his folly his
apology, and so forsooth proves himself no
criminal, by pleading that he was a sot. But
this is but one mischief of a thousand which

intemperance exposes its miserable slaves to;
for I look upon this vice as a kind of mother
vice, and the producing cause of infinitely
more, and sensuality (which is but another
name for the same thing) as the very throat
of hell, or rather that broad way, by which
three parts of the world, at least, go to the
Devil. And therefore, as the pious and prudent
Christian warrior will be sure to keep himself
far enough from such a traitor as downright
excess, so to this purpose let him, as much as
possible, shun all jovial entertainments, ban-
quetings, and merry-meetings, (as they aro
called,) if they may deserve that name, which
seldom fail to bring so sad an account after
them ; an account which will be sure to
remain, when all bills are cleared, and ali
reckonings at the tavern paid off; so that
every experienced guide of souls may truly
pronounce of all such jollities what the best
guides of health observe of some meats, that
it is possible indeed with great care and nice
ness to order and use them so, that they shall
do a man no hurt, but it is certain that they
can never do him good.
And we maj' as confidently affir% that no
wise or truly great man ever delighted in such
things. The truth is, wise men slight them,
as the hinderances of business, aud good men
dread thera, as dangerous to the soul. In a
word, temperance is a virtue which casts the
truest lustre upon the person it is lodged in,
and has the raost general influence upon all
other particular virtues of any that the soul
of man is capable of; indeed so general, that
there is hardly any noble quality or endow
ment of the mind, but must own temperance
either for its parent or its nurse ; it is the
greatest strengthener and clearer of reason,
and the best preparer of it for religion, the
sister of prudence, and the handmaid to devo
tion. But we need no farther proof of the
sovereign value of a strict and severe temper
ance than this, that the temperate man is
always himself ; his temperance gives him
the constant command of his reason, and,
which is yet better, keeps hira under the com
mand of his religion ; it makes him always lit
to converse with his God, and always fit and
ready to answer the Devil, for it takes away
the very matter of the temptation, and so |
eludes the tempter's design, for want of
materials to work upon. And for this cause '
no doubt it was that our Saviour, (Matth.
xvii. 21,) told his disciples, that there were ,1
"some evil spirits not to be dispossessed but |l
by fasting" as well as prayer ; and I think we •
may rationally enough conclude, that what- II
soever fasting casts out, temperance must at
least keep from entering in. It is seldom that
a temptation fastens upon a man to any pur
pose, but in the strength of some one or other
of his passions ; and this is a sure observation.

WATCHFULNESS AND PRAYER A SECURITY FROM TEMPTATION. 57

.hat where temperance overrulesthe appetites,
there reason is ablest to comraand the pas
sions ; and that till the former be done, the
latter will be impracticable.
And thus I have shewn what is implied
in the grand duty of watchfulness, the first
thing prescribed in the text, to guard us
against teraptation ; and many more parti
culars might (no question) be assigned as
belonging to it ; but I have singled out and
insisted upon only five, which, for memory's
sake, I shall briefly repeat and sum up in a
few words.
As, first of all, let a man thoroughly possess
his mind with a full and settled persuasion of
the devilish and intolerable mischief designed
hira by teraptation ; for unless he believes it
to be such, he neither will nor rationally can
watch against it.
In the next place, let him narrowly survey
and inform himself of his owu spiritual
strength and weakness, and compare them
with the forces and advantages of his enemy,
and accordingly, by supporting weakness
with watchfulness, let him be sure to fortify
the weak side, and the stronger will be the
better able to defend itself.
And then, thirdly, let him wisely reflect
both upon his own experience and that of
others ; and so observing by what arts,
methods, and stratagems the tempter has
heretofore prevailed upon either, let him
apply what is past to what is present, and so
judging of one by the other, use his utmost
vigilance, that the same trick be not trumped
upon him more than once.
And to this purpose, let him, in the fourth
place, have his raind continually intent upon
the great and pressing danger he is surrounded
with, that no sloth, negligence, or remissness
of spirit, open a passage to the tempter, and
so betray him like a fool, between sleeping
and waking, into the hands of his cruel
enemy ; but let him have his danger still in
his eye, and still look his enemy in the face,
and that is the likeliest way to look him out
of countenance.
And, fifthly and lastly, above all, let him
practise the strictest teraperance against all
kind of excess in the use of any of God's
creatures, which generally proves fatal and
pernicious to the soul, frequently destroying,
but always wounding it.
And to enforce these two last particulars
more especially, I shall only add this one true
and important remark, to wit, that of all the
sins and enormities which the soul of man is
capable of being ensnared by, I hardly know
any (except those two of covetousness and
ambition) but directly rush iu upon it through
those two broad, open, hellish gates of idle
ness and intemperance.
And thus from watchfulness pass we now
to the other great preservative and remedy

against temptation prescribed in the text,
which is prayer ; " watch and pray, that ye
enter not into teraptation ;" the reason and
necessity of which duty is founded upon the
supposition of this great truth, that it is not
in the power of raan to secure or defend hira
self against teraptation, but that soraething
above him must do it for him, as well as very
often by hira; and prayer is that blessed mes
senger between heaven and earth, holding a
correspondence with both worlds, and by a
happy intercourse and sure conveyance carry
ing up the necessities of the one, and bringing
down the bounties of the other. This is the
high prerogative of prayer, and by virtue of
it every tempted person has it in his power
to engage omnipotence itself, and every one
of the divine attributes, in his defence ; and
whosoever enters the lists upon these terms,
having the Almighty for his second, (let the
combatants be never so unequal,) cannot but
corae off a conqueror. A sta,te of teraptation
is a state of war, and as often as a man is
tempted, he is put to fight for his all : danger
both provokes and teaches to praj', .and prayer
(if any thing can) certainly will deliver from
it. And to convince men, how infinitely it
concerns them to fence against the danger
threatened, by persevering in the duty en
joined, let them assure themselves, that there
is not any condition whatsoever allotted to
men in this world, but has its peculiar temp-
taion attending it, and hardly separable from
it ; for whether it be wealth or poverty,
health or sickness, honour or disgrace, or the
like, there is soraething deadly in every one
of thera, and not at all the less so for not
killing the sarae way. Wealth and plenty
may surfeit a man, and poverty starve him ;
but still the man dies as surely by the one
as by the other. God indeed sends us nothing
but what is naturally wholesome, and fit to
nourish us, but if the Devil has the cooking
of it, it may destroy us ; and therefore the
divine goodness has prescribed prayer as a
universal preservative against the poison of
all conditions, extracting what is healing and
salutary in them from what is baneful and
pernicious, and so making the very poison of
one condition a specific antidote against that
of another. In fine, let none wonder, that
prayer has so powerful an ascendant over the
tempter (as mighty as he is) when God him
self is not only willing, but pleased to be over
come by it ; for still it is the man of prayer,
who " takes heaven by force," who lays siege
to the throne of grace, and who, in a word, is
thereby said to " wrestle with God ;" and
surely if prayer can raise a poor mortal so
much above himself as to be able to wrestle
with his Maker, it may very well enable him
to foil the tempter. And therefore, since
both our Saviour himself, and his great
apostle Saint Paul, represent "prayer with-

68

SOUTH'S SERMONS.

Serm. LXX.

out ceasing" as so eminent a duty and so
opportune a succour, we must needs own,
that there cannot be a more pressing argu
ment for a never-ceasing prayer than never-
ceasing temptations ; and therefore, whatso
ever our personal strengths are, (as at best
they can be but little,) it is certain, that our
auxiliary forces and supplies must corae in
from prayer : in a word, I know no one
blessing so sraall, which can be rationally
expected without it, nor any so great, but
maybe obtained by it.
But then, to render it thus prevalent and
effectual, there are required to it these two
qualifications :
1. Fervency, or iraportunity.
2. Constancy or perseverance.
1. And first, for fervency. Let a man be
but as earnest in praying against a tempta
tion as the tempter is in pressing it, and he
needs not proceed by a surer measure. He
who prays against it coldly and indifferently
gives too shrewd a sign that he neither fears
nor hates it ; for coldness is, and always will
be, a syraptora of deadness, especially in
prayer, where life and heat are the same
thing. The prayers of the saints are set forth in
scripture at much another rate, not only by
calls but cries, cries even to a roaring and
vociferation, (Psalm xxxviii. 8 ;) and sorae
tiraes by " strong cries with tears," Heb. v.
7;) sometiraes again by " groanings not to be
uttered," (Rom. viii. 26 ;) things too big for
vent, too high for expression. In fine, he
who prays against his spiritual eneray as he
ought to do, is like a man fighting agaiust him
upon his knees ; and he who fights so, by the
very posture of his fighting shews, that he
neither will nor can run away.
Lip-devotion will not serve the turn ; it
undervalues the very things it prays for. It
is indeed the begging of a denial, and shall
certainly be answered in what it begs :
but he who truly and sensibly knows the
invaluable happiness of being delivered from
temptation, and the unspeakable misery
of sinking under it, will pray against it, as a
man ready to starve would beg for bread, or
a mau sentenced to die would entreat for
life. Every period, every word, every tittle of
such a prayer is all spirit and life, flame and
ecstasy ; it shoots from one heart into another,
from the heart of him who utters, to the
heart of him who hears it.
And then well may that powerful thing
vanquish the tempter, which binds the hands
of justice, and opens the hands of mercy, and,
in a word, overcomes and prevails over Omni
potence itself ; for, " Let me go," says God to
Jacob,( Gen. xxxii. 26 ;) and, "Let me alone,"
says God to Moses, (Exodus, xxxii. 10.) One
would think that there was a kind of trial of
strength between the Almighty and thera ;

but whatsoever it was, it shews that there was
and is something in prayer, which he, who
made heaven and earth, neither could nor
can resist ; and if this be that holy violence
which heaven itself (as has been shewn) can
not stand out against, no wonder if all the
powers of hell must fall before it. But,
2dly, To fervency must be added also con
stancy, or perseverance. For this indeed is
the crowning qualification which renders
prayer effectual and victorious, and that npon
great reason, as being the surest test and
mark of its sincerity ; for, as Job observes,
(Job, xxvii. 10,) " Will the hypocrite call
always upon God ?" No, he does it only by
fits and starts, and consequently his devotional
fervours are but as the returning paroxysms
of a fever, not as theconstant, kindly w.armths
of a vital heat : they may work high for a
tirae, but they cannot last ; for no fit ever yet
held a man for his whole life.
Discontinuance of prayer by long broken
intervals is the very bane of the soul, expos
ing it to all the sleights and practices of the
tempter. For a teraptation may withdraw
for a while, and return again ; the tempter
may cease urging, and yet continue plotting;
the temptation is not dead, but sleeps ; and
when it comes on afresh, we shall find it the
stronger for having slept.
And therefore our Saviour casts the whole
stress of our safety upon continual prayer, by a
notable parable, intended, as Saint Luke tells
us, (Luke, xviii. 1,) to shew that "men ought
always to pray, and not to faint ;" nothing
being more fatally common than for men, uot
receiving immediate answers to their prayers,
to despond and give over, and to conclude
with themselves, Ag good not at aU as to no
purpose. A man perhaps labours under the
tyranny of some vexatious lust or corruption,
and being bitterly sensible of it, he sets upon
it with watching and striving, reading and
hearing, fasting and praying, and after all
thinks be has got but little or no ground of it.
And now what shall such an one do ? Why,
nothing else must or can be done in the case,
but resolutely to keep on praying ; for no
man of sense who sows one day expects to
reap the next : this is certain, that while
any one prays sincerely against a temptation,
he fights against it ; and so long as a man
continues fighting, though with his limbs
all battered, and his flesh torn and broken,
he is not vanquished : it is conquest, in the
account of God, not to be overcome. God
perhaps intends that there shall be war be
tween thee and thy corruption all thy days :
thou shalt live fighting and warring, but for
all that, mayest die in peace ; and if so, God
has answered thy prayers, I say, answered
thera enough to save thy soul, though not
always enough to comfort and compose thy
mind. God fully made good his promise to

WATCHFULNESS AND PRAYER A SECURITY FROM TEMPTATION. 59

the Israelites, and they really conquered the
Canaanites, though they never wholly dis
possessed and drove them out.
And therefore, since God will still have
something remain, to exercise the very best
of men in this life, if thou wouldst have thy
prayer against thy sin successful, in spite of
all discouragements, let it be continual ; let
the plaster be kept on till the sore be cured.
For prayer is no otherwise a remedy against
teraptation, than as it is coramensurate to it,
and keeps pace with it : but if we leave off
praying before the Devil leaves off tempting,
we cannot be safe ; we throw off our armour
in the midst of the battle, and so raust not
wonder at the worst that follows.
In a word, present prayer is a certain guard
against present temptation ; but as to what
may corae, we cannot be assured that it will
keep us from it, or support us under it.
And thus much briefly for that other great
preservative against temptation, p>-ayer, to
gether with its two prevailing properties, fer
vency, and perseverance, from which all its
success must come ; for it is fervency in prayer
which must charge the eneray, and perseve
rance in prayer which must conquer him.
And now, from the foregoing particulars
thus discoursed of, we may learn the true
cause (and it is worth our learning) why so
many men, who doubtless at some times of
their lives resist and make head against temp
tation, and have many a hard struggle and
conflict with their sins, yet in the issue are
worsted by them, and so live and die under
the power of them ; and this is not from any
insufficiency in watching and prayer, as means
uuiible to compass the end they are pre
scribed for, but from this, that men divide
between watching and prayer, and so use and
rely upon these duties separately, which can
do nothing but in conjunction. For watch
fulness without prayer is presumption, and
prayer without watchfulness is a mockery ;
by the first a man invades God's part in this
great work, and by the latter he neglects his
own. Prayer not assisted by practice is
laziness, and contradicted by practice is hypo
crisy ; it is indeed of mighty force and use
within its proper compass, but it was never
designed to supply the room of watchfulness,
or to make wish instead of endeavour.
God generally gives spiritual blessings and
deliverances as he does teraporal, that is, by
the mediation of an active and a vigorous in
dustry. The fruits of the earth are the gift
ofGod, and we pray for them as such ; but
yet we plant, and we sow, and we plough,
for all that ; and the hands which are some
times lift up in prayer, must at other times
be put to the plough, or the husbandraan
must expect no crop. Every thing must be
effected in the way proper to its nature, with
the concurrent influence of the divine grace.

not to supersede the means, but to prosper
and make them effectual.
And upon this account men deceive thera
selves most grossly and wretchedly, when
they expect that from prayer which God
never intended it for. He who hopes to be
delivered frora temptation raerely by praying
against it, affronts God, and deludes hiraself,
and raight to as much purpose fall asleep
in the midst of his prayers, as do nothing but
sleep after thera. Some ruin their souls by
neglecting prayer, and some perhaps do them
as rauch mischief by adoring it, while, by
placing their whole entire confidence in it,
they commit an odd piece of idolatry, and
make a god of their very devotions, I
have heard of one, (and him none of the
strictest livers,) who yet would be sure to say
his prayers every morning, and when he had
done, he would bid the Devil do his worst,
thus using prayer as a kind of spell or charm :
but the old serpent was not to be charmed
thus ; and so no wonder if the Devil took him
at his word, and used him accordingly.
And therefore, to disabuse and deliver men
from so killing a mistake, I shall point out
two general cases or instances, in which
praying against temptation will be of little
or no avail to secure men from it. As,
1st, When a man prays against any sin or
temptation, and in the meantirae indulges
hiraself in such things or courses as are natu
rally apt to promote an inclination to that
sin, such an one prays against it to no purpose.
Every sin is founded in some particular appe
tite or inclination, and every such appetite
or inclination has sorae particular objects,
actions, or courses, by which it is fed and
kept in heart. Now let no man think that
he has prayed heartily against any sin, who
does not do all that he can, who does not use
his utmost diligence, nay, his best art and
skill, to undermine and weaken his inclina
tion to that sin. To water an ill plant every
day, and to pray against the growth of it,
would be very absurd and preposterous.
Saint Paul, we know, complained of " a body
of death," and of " a thorn in the flesh," and
he prayed heartily against it. But was that
all ? 5fo, he also '' kept under his body, and
brought it into subjection," (1 Cor. ix. 27 ;)
being well assured, that unless the soul keeps
under the body, the body will quickly get
above the soul. If you would destroy a well
intrenched eneray, cut off his provisions ; and
if you starve hira in his strong holds, you
conquer hira as effectually as if you beat him
in the field. But then again,
2dly, When a man prays against any sin or
temptation, and yet ventures upon those occa
sions which usually induce men to it, he
must not expect to find any success in his
prayers. For would any man in his wits,
who dreaded a catching distemper, converse

60

SOUTH'S SERMONS.

Serm. LXXI.

freely with such as had it? that is, would he
fly from the disease, and yet run into the in
fection ? In like manner, do not occasions of
sin generally end in the commission of sin ?
And if they generally end in it, must they
not naturally tend to it ? And if so, can men
think that God ever designed prayer as an
engine to counterwork or control nature, to
reverse its laws, and alter the course of the
I universe, by suspending the natural efficiency
of things, in compliance with some men's
' senseless and irrational petitions?
I None trifle with God, .and make a sport of
sin, so much as those whose way of living
interferes with their prayers ; who pray for
such or such a virtue, and then put themselves
under circumstances which render the practice
j of it next to irapossible : who pray perhaps
for the grace of sobriety, and then wait daily
: for an answer to that prayer at a merry-meet
ing or the tavern. But the spirit of prayer is
a spirit of prudence, a spirit of caution and
conduct, and never pursues the thing it prays
for in a way contrary to the nature of the
thing itself.
Does a man therefore pray, for instance,
against the temptation of pride or ambition ?
Let him not thrust himself into high places
and employments, which he is neither worthy
of nor fit for. Or does he beg of God to free
him from the sin and slavery of intemperance?
Let him break oft' from company ; let him not
give up his reason, his credit, his time, and
his very soul, out of coraplaisance, (as fools
call it ;) but let hira make his own conscience,
and not other men's humours, the rule he lives
by, and let him stick close to it. In a word,
let him resolve against all the false pleasures
of luxury, and then let him keep his resolu
tion, and his resolution shall assuredly keep
him. Aud this is a plain, natural, and sure course,
directly leading to the thing he prays for;
but the contrary is both a paradox in reason,
and an imposture in religion. And believe
it, we shall one day give but an ill and lame
account of our watching and praying, if, by
an odd inversion of the command, all that
we do is first to pray against a temptation,
and afterwards to watch for it.
And thus I have given you two notable
instances in which men pray against tempta
tion without any success. In short, if a man
cherishes and keeps up a sinful principle or
inclination within, and shuns not the occa
sions of sin without, his prayers and his ac
tions supplant and overthrow one another,
and God will be sure to answer hira according
to what he does, and not according to what
he prays.
And therefore let us take heed of putting a
cheat or fallacy upon ourselves, a fallacy, a
bene conjunctis ad male ditjisa, b.y dividing be
tween these two great duties ; and dividing.

we know, in some cases, is in effect destroy
ing, and it will prove so in this. Watchful
ness and prayer are indeed principal duties,
and 01 principal acceptance with God; but
God accepts them only as he coraraands them,
and that is, both together. God has joined
them by an absolute, irreversible sanction;
and what God himself has so joined, let not
the Devil, or our own false hearts, presume
to put asunder. But let us take this both for
our direction and our comfort, that propor
tionably as we watch, God will answer us
when we pray.
To whora be rendered and ascribed, as is
most due, all praise, might, majesty, and do
minion, both now and for evermore. Amen.

SERMON LXXI.
THE FOLLY OF TRUSTING IN OUR CWN
HEARTS.
" He that trusteth in hi3 own heart isa fool."
Prov. xxviii. 26.
The great instrument and engine for the
carrying on of the commerce and mutual in
tercourses of the world is trust, without which
there can be no correspondence maintained
either between societies or particular persons.
And accordingly, being a thing of such general
and immediate influence upon the affairs of
niankind, there is nothing in the management
of which men give such great experiments
either of their wisdom or their folly ; tbe
whole measure of these being taken by the
world, according as it sees men more or less
deceived in their transacting with others.
Certain it is, that credulity lays a man infi
nitely opeu to the abuses and injuries of crafty
persons. And though a strong belief best
secures the felicity of the future life, yet it is
usually the great bane and supplanter of our
happiness in this ; there being scarce any man
who arrives to any sound understanding of
himself or his own interest, till he comes to
be once or twice notably deceived by such an
one, of whom he was apt to say and think,
according to the common phrase, " I would
trust rny very life with him." And for this
cause it is, that that nation, which sepms
justly of the greatest reputation for wisdom
in the western world, has vouched it for a
raaxira, and lived by it as a rule, " to trust no
body :" whether in so doing they deal honestly
and ingenuously they seem not much to care,
being contented that it is safe.
But of all the fallacies and scurvy cheats
put upon men by their trusting others, there
are none so shameful, and indeed pernicious.

THE FOLLY OF TRUSTING IN OUR OWN HEARTS.

61

as the baffles which men sustain by trusting
themselves ; which gives them but too frequent
and sad an experience, that the nearest neigh
bours are not always the best friends. For
none surely can be nearer to a man than him
self, or be supposed so true and faithful to all
his concerns, as the heart which beats in his
own breast ; yet Solomon, and a greater than
Solomon, which is, experience, gives us infal
lible demonstrations that it is much other
wise ; and that the heart, of all things in the
world, is least to be confided in, else certainly
a man's trusting of it could not thus denomi
nate him a fool.
The words contain in them a caution or
admonition against men's trusting their own
hearts, upon the account of that disgraceful
imputation which such a trust or confidence
t will in the issue bring upon them ; and con
sequently they very naturally present these
two thiugs to our inquiry :
I. What is meant by a man's " trusting his
heart." II. Wherein the folly of it consists.
As for the first of these. For a man to
j trust his own heart, is, in short, for him to
i commit and resign up the entire conduct of
; his life and actions to the directions of it,
as of a guide, the most able and the raost
faithful, to direct hira in all the most impor-
¦ tant raatters which relate either to his tempo
ral or his spiritual estate. For whosoever
trusts another for his guide, must do it upon
; the account of these two qualifications to be
found iu him :
1st, That he is able to direct and lead him.
So that in this case a man must look upon
every dictate of his heart as an oracle ; he
must look upon it as speaking to him from an
infallible chair, incapable of error or mistake
in any thing which it proposes to him to be
followed. In a word, he must take it for the
unerring measure of truth, and the most
certain reporter of the mind of God.
2dly, A guide must be such an one as not
only certainly can, but also faithfully will
give the best directions. For let a man know
the way never so well, yet if he has a design
not to impart that knowledge, but perhaps
has raore windings and turnings than the way
I itself, such an one is far frora being a compe
tent guide, and fit to be trusted, especially in
a man's journey to eternity. So that for a
mau to " trust his heart," is to take it for his
best, his surest, and most unfailing friend, that
will deal openly, clearly, and impartially with
him in every thing, and give him faithful in
telligence in all his aft'airs.
Having thus seen what is imported in a
man's " trusting his heart," we come now, in
the next place, to see wherein the foolishness
of it consists. For the making out of which,
we are to observe, that there are two things
which render a trust foolish, both of them to

be considered with mutual relation to one
auother in this particular :
1st, The value of the thing which we com
mit to a trust.
2dly, The undue qualifications of the person
to whose trust we commit it.
In both of which respects the confidence
reposed by men in their own hearts will, in
the procedure of this discourse, appear to be
inexcusably foolish.
First of all, then, as for the thing which we
commit to a trust. We do, in a word, trust
all that to our hearts which is the consequent
of our actions, either in reference to this world
or the other. But to explicate and draw forth
this general into the several particulars wrapt
up and included in it ; while we rely upon
the guidance of our heart, we commit these
three things to the mercy of its trust. 1. The
honour of God. 2. Our own felicity here.
3. The eternal concernments of our souls here
after. All of them certainly, either jointly or
severally, things too great, too high, and too
concerning, to be ventured upon the rotten
bottom of a false and a deceiving heart.
We shall speak of each of thera distinctly.
1st, First of all then, the honour of God is
intrusted with tbe heart. So far as the raani
festation of God's honour depends upon the
horaage of his obedient creature, so far it is
at the niercy of our actions, which are at the
command of the heart, as the motion of the
wheels follows the disposition of the spring.
God is never disobeyed, but he is also dis
honoured. In every act of sin, dust and ashes
flings itself in the face of the Almighty, and
defies him so far, that it puts him to the exer
cise of his vindictive justice, to prove his sove
reignty and dorainion over the bold offender.
Now God is capable of being honoured or
dishonoured by us in three several respects : —
1st, As he is our Creator. And is it not
infinitely reasonable for clay to comply with
the will of the potter ? for such frail vessels as
men are, to be subject to their almighty arti
ficer? For did God make us, that we might
spit in his face, and give us a being, that we
might employ it to the dishonour of him who
gave it ? "While a man sins, he seems to be
his own creator, and to own an absolute in
dependency, as to any superior productive
cause. For no understanding, judging ration
ally, would imagine, that a creature durst act
against him, who first raised hira into a capa
city of acting, and that even out of nothing, |
and could crush him into nothing again every
rainute. So that the honour, by which we ,
vouch and own God for a Creator, is a result i
of our actions, and the conduct of thera is
coramitted to the heart.
2dly, God is capable of being honoured by
us as a Lord and Governor. " If I ara a mas
ter," says God, " where is my honour ?' But
can the rebellion of the subject declare the

62

SOUTH'S SERMONS.

Serm. LXXI.

sovereignty of his priuce ? And is not every
act of sin a blowing of a trumpet against
Heaven, and a lifting up of a standard against
the Almighty? Is it not the language of
every offence, " We will not have God reign
over us?" Does it not trample upon his laws,
and puff at the power which should revenge
the violation of them ? And, ou the contrary,
is not the piety and obedience of our lives a
proclaiming of God to be our King, and a re
cognizing of him for our great Master ?
For this is an obvious and easy maxim of
reason, " that his servants we are to whom we
obey." Obedience is but a clearer comment
upon our allegiance. Why does God call upon
us " to let our light shine before men," did
not the shining of that by reflection cast a
shine and a lustre upon his own glory ? When
" raen see our good works," they are apt to
glorify and acknowledge the supreraacy and
ruling hand of our Lord and Master in heaven.
Well it is, that it is not in the power of the
most rebellious creature, by any sin and mis
behaviour of his, to take away the power and
prerogative of God, though it may for the
present be able to eclipse, slur, and so obscure
it. For surely this is done, in a great mea
sure, by every broad violation of the divine
law, which seeras to attempt to persuade the
rest of the world, that God is not so great and
so mighty a potentate as he bears himself for ;
since the boldness of an offender, for the most
part, speaks the weakness of the governor.
To advance the clearness of which by
instance. Pray how did David own God in
the relation of a king, when by his two great
sins he caused the enemies of God to blas
pherae ? How did the sons of Eli own hira in
that respect, when by the insolence and im
purity of their behaviour they caused all
" Israel to loathe the offerings of the Lord ?"
All these actions were a deposing of God from
his throne, .so far as his throne was placed in
the heart and awful esteem of his creatures.
In this respect therefore is the heart intrusted
with God's honour.
Sdly, The honour of God also, considered as
our Saviour and gracious Father, is trusted to
the behaviour of the heart. For does not
every sin defy, and every act of obedience
honour God in this capacity? Would any one
take him for a son, who lifts up his heel
against him, to whom he should bend the
knee ? Or can any raan be thought to own
God for his Saviour, while he treats hira with
all the acts of hatred and hostility ? By the
behaviour of sinners towards God, one would
think that they took hira for an iraplacable
tyrant and an eneray, for one who hated and
maligned them, and consequently that the
whole tenor of their life was but the acting of
a continual revenge upon him for it. Natural
ingenuity abhors the recompensing of a friend
with all the indignities and contempts that

exasperated nature ])asses upon an enemy.
Every unworthy, sinful deportment therefore
tends to beget and foment unbeseeming ap
prehensions of God in the mind of his crea
ture. Now since the actions are governed by
the heart, as the great dictator and commatidcr
in chief of all that a man either does or
desires ; it follows, that the heart has tbat
great trust reposed iu it, how far God shall
receive the glory due to him, as he bears these
three grancl relations to us, of a Creator, a
Governor, and a Saviour.
2dly, The second thing a man trusts his
heart with, is his happiness in this world.
And this is twofold : 1st, Temporal. 2dly,
Spiritual. 1st, And first, he trusts it with all his tem
poral comforts and felicities. It is a most
known truth, that most of the miseries and
calamities which befall a man in this life,
break in upon him through the door of sin ;
frequent experience shewing us, how easily
men sin themselves into disgrace, jioverty,
sickness, loss of friends, and the like ; they
are the direct consequents of a nian's personal
misdemeanours. David's adultery and mur
der raade his enemies scorn, and his friends
desert him, (Psalm xxxviii. 11.) It is said
of them, " that they stood aloof off ;" tbey
flew from him as from a living, walking con
tagion. Intemperance ends in poverty, and
a full belly makes an empty purse. Luxury
enters upon and spoils the soul through the
ruins of the body, and the bed of uncleanness
prepares for the bed of sickness.
But now in all these instances of sin which
maul the sinner with these teraporal disasters,
the heart is the first moving spring aud prin
ciple : they all flow from the prevarications
of this. It is this that is the source and the
fruitful womb of all the mischiefs that render
this life miserable, were there uo after-reckon
ings in another.
How cautious is every man almost of trust
ing his neighbour with his mind or with his
estate ; because he knows how much such an
one thereby gets the command, andthe disposal
of his happiness ; for he fears lest he may by
this means betray his honour, and disgrace
hira, or undermine his estate, and ruiu him ;
not considering how much greater a suspicion
he ought to have of his own heart and temper,
which may, through the unhappy beut aud
propensity of it, push him on upon those
courses which shall irrecoverably dash him
ill all his outward enjoyments ; and then that
shall sound fortli his infamy, and trumpet
out his disgrace louder than the tongue of the
most merciless reviler can ; that shall betray
hira into captivity to some expensive vice,
which shall grind his fortunes to powder, and
leave him as bare as the oppression of a do
mestic tyrant, or the invasion of a foreign
enemv.

II II

THE FOLLY OF TRUSTING IN OUR OWN HEARTS.

63

Such an one ventures into lewd company,
and perhaps is thereby surprised into the dis
honours of intemperance, and so departs with
a wound upon his reputation. Another is
confident, and steps into the occasion of sin,
which perhaps by degrees entangles, and at
length draws him into the paths of vice and
I uncleanness, and that sullies the clearness of
' his fame, and withal makes a breach upon the
j serenity and content of his mind, so that he
I is brought to taste but little eveu of these
I temporal felicities.
Now, how comes this to pass? Why, all
j through the treachery of his heart, which
! persuaded him of those strengths which he
never really had ; which told him what
command he had of hiraself under those cir-
¦ cumstances of temptation, which yet upon
trial he was unable to contest with ; and which
would needs make him believe, that he might
" touch pitch, and yet not be defiled," venture
' upon the occasions of sin, and yet stand secure
from the sin itself. These fraudulent dealings
of the heart are those impostures which
plunge men into infinite calamities and in
conveniencies, such as imbitter the enjoyment
even of comraon life itself.
2dly, There is yet another part of a man's
happiness in this world, which is spiritual,
which his heart is also intrusted with, and
that is, the peace of his conscience ; a thing,
the enjoyment of which is so valuable, and
the loss so dreadful, that though it stands here
reckoned but for a part of a man's felicity, yet
it is of that nature, that it may well pass for
the whole : for what can a man truly enjoy
while he wants it? and what can he much
feel the want of, while he enjoys it? It is in
effect a man's whole, entire happiness ; such
i a spreading universal influence has it upon all
his thoughts, actions, and affections. For
while a man carries his acquitting, absolving
sentence within him, and a transcript of the
pardons of Heaven deposited in his own
breast, what storm can shake, what terror
can amaze, what calamities can confound
! him ? It is he alone who can look death and
danger in the face with a rational unconcern
raent ; for he has that which enables him to
look him, who is infinitely more terrible than
all these together, even a just, a holy, and
sin-revenging God, in the face.
On the other side, when the glass of a man's
conscience shall shew him a God frowning, a
law cursing, wrath and vengeance preparing,
and all the artillery of heaven and earth
making ready against him, what can he think,
say, or enjoy, in this condition? Even as
much as Cain enjoyed, who lived a vagabond,
and a terror to himself; or as Belshazzar,
whose joints loosed, and whose knees smote
together with horror and consternation. But
now, what is this which puts the scourge into
the hand of conscience, thus to lash and tor

ment a man ? Why, what is it, but the guilt
of sin, which arras and envenoms it against the
sinner ! And is not sin the product of the
sinner's heart ? Is not this the dunghill where
that snake is bred, and which gives warmth
to the cockatrice's egg, till it be hatched and
brought forth to the sinner's confusion ? It
is the heart which sows dissention between a
man and his conscience, by enticing and en
snaring him into those sins, the guilt of which
lies grating and gnawing upon his mind per
petually ; so that he lives with pain, and dies
with horror, passes his days ill, and ends them
worse. In every thing that a man's heart
prompts him to, it casts the die, whether he
shall be happy or miserable for ever after.
An unwholesorae draught or an unwholesome
morsel may make mau a pining, languishing
person all his days. And it is the treachery
of his appetite which inveigles him into the
mischief, which cheats, and abuses, and by
deceitful overtures trepans him into a perpe
tual calamity.
Sdly and lastly. The other great thing
which a man intrusts his heart with, is the
eternal concernment of his soul hereafter.
For as a man's heart guides hira, so he lives ;
and as he has lived in this world, so he must
be rewarded in the other ; and the state a raan
passes into there is eternal and unchangeable ;
there is neither retreat from misery, nor fall
from happiness. And if so, how vast an ac
quisition is future glory, and how invalu.able
a loss goes along with damnation ! Better is
it that a man had never been born than that
he should miscarry in that his grand and last
concern. But it is the behaviour of his heart,
which raust decide whether he shall or no;
for if his heart deceives and seduces him into
the fatal ways of sin, upon promise of plea
sure, it is a thousand to one but the man
holds on his course with his life, till those
present pleasures determine in everlasting
pains. How many are now in hell, who have
nothing to charge their coining into that woful
place upon, but a hard heart, a voluptuous
heart, a vain, seducing, and deluding heart,
which failed thera in all the specious shows
and proraises it raade thera, which varnished
over the ways of sin and death, which spread
the paths of destruction with roses, and made
them venture an immortal soul upon an ap
pearance, and build eternity upon a fallacy.
This has been that which has kindled the un
quenchable flames about their ears, which has
tied those millstones, those loads of wrath,
abont their necks, which have sunk them into
endless destruction.
" Keep thy heart with all diligence," says
the wise man. Why ? Because, says he, "out
of it are the issues of life," (Prov. iv. 23.) It
is that in which a man's life is bound up. It
is the portal of heaven and hell ; and a man
passes to either of them through his own

64

SOUTH'S SERMONS.

Serm. LXXI.

breast. For what think we of murders,
adulteries, thefts, blasphemies, and the like ?
Are not these the sins which have filled the
mansions of the damned, and slain so many
millions of souls? and whence come they, but
from the heart? (Matt. xv. 19.) This is the
puteus inexhaustus ; here are the provisions
made for the place of torment, here is laid in
the fuel for the " everlasting burnings ;" one
bottomless pit emptying and discharging itself
into the other.
And thus I have shewn these things, which
a man intrusts his heart with ; namely, the
honour of God, his happiness in this world,
the peace of his conscience, and his eternal
happiness hereafter ; things, one would think,
too great to be trusted with any one, since in
all trust there is something of venture ; and
these things are of too high a value to be ven
tured any where, but where it is impossible a
raan should be deceived. God only, who
made the soul, is fit to be trusted with it.
For if a man is deceived here, where shall he
have reparation ? or what ean a man gain,
when he has once lost himself?
But, however, if we should trust these great
things in such hands as were liable to a possi
bility of failing, yet surely we should secure
the next degree, that at least there raight be
no probability of it ; and that we would re
pose our confidence in one who was infinitely
unlikely to deceive or put a trick upon us; so
that our confidence might be prudent atleast,
though not certain and infallible. But now
we shall find the heart far from being such a
thing, but, on the contrary, so unfit to be
trusted, that it is ten thousand lo one but it
betrays its trust ; so that as the folly of such
a trust has been seen in the first ingredient,
namely, the high and inestimable worth of
the thing committed to a trust; so the same
will appear yet more abundantly frora the
next, which is the undue qualifications of the
party who is trusted : and the heart of man
will be found to have erainently these two ill
qualities utterly unfitting it for any trust :
1. That it is weak, and so cannot raake
good a trust. 2. That it is deceitful, and so
will not.
As for its weakness, this is twofold :
1st, In point of apprehension ; it cannot per
ceive and understand certainly what is good.
2dly, In point of election; it cannot choose
and erabrace it.
1st, And first, for the weakness of the heart,
in respect of its inability to apprehend and
judge what is good. This it is deplorably
defective in. For though it must be confessed,
that there are these common notions concern
ing good and evil writ in the hearts of men
by the finger of God and nature ; yet these
are blurred, and much eclipsed by the fall of
man from his original integrity : and if they
were not impaired that way, yet they arrived

not to their full natural perfection, but as they
are iraproved and heightened by virtuous
practices. Upon which .account the apostle
ascribes not a discerning of good and evil to
every one having the natural sense of it, but
to such only as " have their senses exercised,"
(Heb. V. 14.) Every man has an innate
principle of reason ; but it is use and cultiva
tion of reason, that must enable it actually to
do that, which nature gives it only a remote
power of doing.
This being so, it is farther evident, that all
men may, and most do, neglect to improve
those notions naturally implanted in them,
whereupon they can with no raore certainty
trust to their direction, than they can rely
upon an illiterate ploughraan to be instrncted
by hira in philosophy. The " light within is
darkness" in many, and but as the dusk and
twilight in all ; and consequently its directions
are but imperfect and insufficient, and dange
rous to be relied upon.
2dlj', The heart of man labours under as
great weakness in point of election : it cannot
choose what the judgraent has rightly pitched
upon. For, supposing that the understanding
has done its part, and given the heart a faith
ful information of its duty, yet how unable is I
the heart, after all, actually to engage iu the
thing so clearly laid before it ? It may indeed
see the beauty, the lustre, and the excellency
of an action, but still it is so much a slave
to base, inferior desires, that it cannot prac
tise in any proportion to what it approves,
" Video meliora proboque, deteriora sequor."
That excellent description of a good judgment
enslaved to a vile appetite, is an exact account
of the movings of man's heart .in most of its
choices. It cannot look its fawning affections iu the
face, aud deny them any thing : but like a
man captivated with the sottish love of a :
woman, he is ready to sacrifice his reason, his [
interest, and all that he is worth, to her im- '
perious will. When the affections come
clamouring about the heart, that presently
yields, and is not able to stand out against
their assaults, to frown upon their demands,
and behave itself boldly and severely in the
behalf of virtue and reason. Most men in the
world, who perish eternally, perish for pre
varicating with themselves, and not living up
to the judgment and resolves of their own
knowledge ; they miss of their way to heaven,
not because they do not know it, but because
they know it, and will not choose it. The
heart is "as unstable as water," and therefore
"it cannot excel." It hardly bears up against
its corruptions so far, as to dare to purpose
what is good ; but if it does, inconstancy
quickly melts down its strongest purposis,
and the next temptation scatters its best reso
lutions, as the sun chases away the morning
clouds, and drinks up the early dew.

THE FOLLY OF TRUSTING IN OUR OWN HEARTS.

66

It is the just shame and blush ofthe frailty
of our condition, to consider how hardly we
come to fix upon good, and then how quickly
we are unfixed ; how weak we are to intend,
and how rauch weaker to perform. Impo
tence and change, like a spiritual palsy, have
so seized all the faculties of our souls, that
when we reach forth our hand to duty, and
endeavour to apply the rule to practice, it
trembles and shakes, and is utterly at a loss
how to do any thing steadily and exactly, and
reach the nice measures of Christian morality.
The rule serves only to upbraid the action,
which always comes short of it. " Since thou
doest these things," says God, (Ezek. xvi. SO,)
" how weak is thy heart !" how unable to
resist a flattering mischief and a tempting
destruction ! It resigns up itself upon every
summons of great desire. It quits its throne,
lays aside its sceptre, forgets its sovereignty,
takes the bit into its mouth, and is willing to
be rid.
And thus much for the first ill quality un
fitting the heart of man to be trusted, namely,
its weakness ; and that both in apprehension,
that it cannot understand, and also in election,
that it cannot choose and embrace what is
good. 2. The other ill quality rendering the heart
unfit to be trusted, is its deceitfulness, which
does so abound in the breasts of all men, that
it would pose the acutest head to draw forth
and discover what is lodged in the heart. For
who can tell all the windings and turnings,
all the depths, the hollownesses, aud dark
corners of the mind of man ! He who enters
upon this scrutiny, enters into a labyrinth or a
wilderness, where he has no guide but chance
or industry to direct his inquiries, or to put
an end to his search. It is a wilderness, in
which a man may wander more than forty
' yeai'S ; a wilderness, through which few have
I passed into the promised land. If we should
1 endeavour to recount all the cheats and falla-
' cies of it, no arithmetic can number, or logic
resolve thera ; their multitude is so vast, and
their contexture so intricate.
i Yet, to discover and give us some acquain
tance at least with the treachery and unfaith
fulness ofour hearts, I shall endeavour to lay
open and set before you some of those tricks
and delusions, which may convince us how
unlikely the heart is to raake good any trust
which we can repose in it, in relation to our
spiritual affairs.
And these delusions shall be reduced to
these three sorts:
1. Such as relate to the coramission of sin.
2. Such as relate to the perforraance of duty.
3. Such as relate to a raan's conversion, or
change of his spiritual estate.
1. And first, for those which relate to a
raan's committing of sin ; of this sort there
iire three : —

1st, First of all, a man's heart will drill him
on to sin, by persuading hira that it is in his
power to give bounds to hiraself, as to the
measure of his engaging in that sin, according
as he shall think fit. If his conscience is
affrighted, when a great and a foul sin shall
offer itself to his consideration, his heart will
tell him, though the coraraission of it be
indeed dangerous, yet he may at least indulge
hiraself in the thought of it, act it upon the
scene of his fancy, and so reap the fantastic
pleasure of it in conceit and iraagination.
And if it comes to be listened to in this its
first crafty and seemingly modest proposal, it
will advance a little farther, and tell him,
that he may also please himself with the
desires of it ; and so, by letting his desires
work, his corruption grows at length so
inflamed, that the man is troublesome and
uneasy to himself, till it breaks out into
actual commission : and when he is wrought
up to such an eagerness and impatience, his
heart will then enlarge his commission, aud
tell him that it is no great matter if he ven
tures to comrait the siu he so rauch desires for
once, since it is in his power to retreat and
give over when he pleases, and so is in no
danger of being forced to continue in it, which
alone proves damnable. But noWj being
brought thus far, sin has a greater interest in
his desires than before, and easily persuades
the man to act it yet once raore, and then
again and again, till he is insensibly brought
under the power of his sin, and held captive
in a sinful course ; from which he is not able,
by all the poor reraainders of his own reason,
to redeem and disentangle himself ; he has
brought himself into the snare which holds
and commands hira. So that if the free pre
venting grace of God (which yet no raan can
certainly proraise to hiraself in such a con
dition) does not interpose, and knock off his
bolts and shackles, the raan raust die a
prisoner and a slave to his sin, which will
provide hira but a sad entertainment in the
other world.
And now, when a man is thus disposed of
into his eternal state, with what sadness raust
he needs reflect upon the cursed artifices of
his deluding heart? He little imagined that
his destruction could have entered upon him
through the narrow passage of sinful thoughts
and desires. But had he considered the spread
ing, insinuating, and encroaching nature of
sin, how that by every step it makes into the
soul it gets a new degree of possession, and
thereby a proportionable power ; had he con
sidered also how few men are destroyed at
once, but by gradual underminings, and that
tbe greatest mischiefs find it necessary to use
art and fallacy to make their approach indis
cernible by the smallness of their beginnings ;
I say, had he considered all these things by
an early caution, (which his false heart would
E

66

SOUTH'S SERMONS.

Serm. LXXI.

be sure never to prompt him to,) he might
have prevented his fatal doom, and avoided
the blow by suspecting the hand that de
signed it.
2dly, The heart of man will betray him
into sin by drawing him into the occasions of
it. Certain it is, that every thing may be the
occasion of a sin to man, if it be abused ; but
some things have a more direct and natural
connection with sin than others, so that a man
is under a greater danger of being surprised
when he falls under such circumstances, than
under others. For surely sorae companies
and some ways of living are such, that, upon
the frailty of corrupt nature, a man may as
well expect to come dry out of a river, as to
come clear and unpolluted out of them. Let
a man accustom hiraself to converse with the
intemperate, the profane, and the lascivious,
and something of the venom and contagion of
these sins will rub itself upon him, do what
he can. The very breath of infected and
polluted persons is itself infectious.
But there is one notable way above the rest,
by which the hearts of most men supplant
them, and that is in drawing them on to
something unlawful, by causing them to take
their utmost scope and liberty in things law
ful. The difference between lawful and un
lawful is ofteu very nice, and it is hard to
cut the hair in assigning the precise limits of
each of them.
But surely it cannot be safe for any man
still to walk upon a precipice, to stand upon
an indivisible point, and to he always upon
the very border of destruction. It is true,
indeed, that he who stands upon the very
brink of the sea, stands as really upon the
land, as he who is raany railes off; but yet
he is not like to stand there so long as the
other. There are raany companies, sports,
and recreations, (I shall not mention parti
culars,) no dou'bt in themselves very lawful ;
but yet they may chance to prove the bane of
the bold user of them. For, alas ! the heart
is unable to bear them without warping.
Sin is not in the house, but it lies at the door ;
and it is hard for so near a neighbourhood not
to occasion a visit. There are some diversions
now-a-days much in request to gratify the
palate, the eating of which it is possible a
man may time and regulate so, that they
shall do hira no hurt, but it is certain that
they can never do him any good. Though in
the diet of the soul, I am afraid the observa
tion is much stricter, and that it is hard to
assign any thing, which should only not do
us good, without also doing us some hurt.
And therefore let no man trust his glozing
heart, when it tells him, what hurt is there
in such and such pleasures, such and such
recreations? for this very discourse of his
heart is a shrewd sign, that they are like to
prove hurtful and pernicious to him. And I

shall venture to state and lay down this for a
rule, that be an action or recreation never
so lawful in itself, yet if a man engages in it
merely upon a design of pleasure, (as I believe
most do,) it is ten to one but it becomes a
snare to that person, and that he comes off
from it with a wound upon his conscience,
whether he is always sensible of it or no,
Let a man's heart say what it will, I am sure
the Spirit of God in these cases recommends
to every pious person caution, diffidence, and
suspicion. It bids him secure hiraself by
keeping out of harm's way. He that escapes
a danger is fortunate, but he that comes not
into it is wise.
Sdly, The heart of man will betray him
into sin, by lessening and extenuating it in
his esteem. Than which fallacious way of
dealing, there is nothing more usual to the
corruption of nian's nature. In the judgment
of which, great sins shall pass for little sins,
and little sins for no sins at all. For moats
raay enter, where bearas cannot ; and small
offences find admittance, where great and
clamorous crimes fright the soul to a standing
upon its guard, to prevent the invasion.
Now the heart, if it does not find sins small,
has this notable faculty, that it can make
them so ; for it has many arts to take off
frora, and to dirainish the guilt of them. As
either by calling them infirmities, such as
creep upon men by daily and unavoidable
surprise, and such as human weakness cannot
possibly protect itself against. When the
truth is, the heart is willing to excuse itself
from performing duty, and from resisting sin,
by representing difficulties for impossibilities,
and accounting many things difficult, because
it never so much as went about them ; where
as a vigorous endeavour would reraove not
only the supposed impossibility, but even
the difficulty also of raany actions and duties,
which mere laziness has represented to the
mind as impracticable.
Certain it is, that the blow given by ori
ginal sin to man's nature has left a great
weakness upon it, much disabling it as to the
prosecution of wliat is good ; but yet many
impotencies, or rather averseness to good, are
charged upon a natural account, which indeed
are the effects only of habitual sins ; sins tbat
by frequent practice have got such firm hold
of the will, that it can very hardly advance
itself into any action of duty. Some haw
accustomed themselves to swear so often, that
they cannot forbear it upon every ligW
occasion. Some have lived intemperately w
long, that they cannot refrain from their
whore and their cups ; and then if either
their conscience checks them, or others re
prove them, presently their answer is, God
forgive them, it is their infirmity, they cannot
help it.
But in this they are wretchedly deceived;

THE FOLLY OF TRUSTING IN OUR OWN HEARTS.

67

for it is not infirmity, but custom, custom
took up, and continued by great presumption
and audaciousness in sin, inducing them to
trample upon a clear command, for the grati
fying of a lust or a base desire.
Temptation also is another topic, from
which the heart will draw a plausible argu
ment for the extenuation of sin. Men will
confess that they sin ; but how can they for
bear, say they, when the Devil pushes them
on headlong into the commission of what is
evil ? And the Devil being so much stronger
than they, how can such weak creatures resist
so mighty an adversary ? But in this also the
heart plays the sophister, and shews itself
like the Devil, while it pleads against him :
for God himself assures us, that the Devil may
be resisted, and that so far as to be put to
flight : and besides this, the freedom of man's
will is a castle that he cannot storm, a fort
that he cannot take. If indeed it will snr-
render itself upon vain and treacherous pro
posals, its destruction is from itself, and it is
deceived, but not forced into sin.
Now so long as a man's heart can possess
him with an opinion of the smalluess of any
sin, it will certainly have these two most
pernicious effects upon hira : —
Ist, Antecedently, he will very easily be
induced to commit it ; nor will he think the
eternal happiness of his soul concerned to
watch against it.; for he cannot imagine but
that it will he as soon pardoned as committed,
or that it can make any great breach between
God and hira. His conscience he finds not
much startled or alarmed at it, and so he con
cludes that it must needsbe fair weather with
out doors, because he finds it so within.
2dly, The other raalignant effect it will
have upon a raan consequently to sin, is,
¦that he will scarce repent of it, scarce think
it worthy of a tear. By which means he is
actually under the wrath of God, which
abides upon every man during his impeni
tence. The consequence of which to him,
who has a spiritual sense of things, must
needs be very dreadful. For every sin unre
pented of may provoke God by withdrawing
his grace to lay the sinner open to the com
mission of grosser ; which how far they may
waste his conscience, and where they may
end, he knows not, but has cause at the
thought of it to tremble.
It is incredible to consider what ground sin
gets of the soul, by the heart's extenuating
and undervaluing of it, and that in the very
least and most inconsiderable instance. For
by this means it is easily let into the soul,
and seldora thrown out. No caution is applied
beforehand, nor repentance after. And surely
it cannot but be dangerous to leave the world
with any one sin unrepented of.
And thu9<much for that first sort of fallacies,
which the heart of man is apt to put upon

him, namely, such as relate to the coraraission
of sin.
2. The second sort is of those that relate
to the performance of duty; of which kind
are these two :
1st, A raan's heart will persuade him that
he has performed a duty, when perhaps it is
only some circumstance of it that has been
performed by him. Prayer is one of the prime
and most sovereign duties of a Christian ; and
many there are, whose consciences will by no
means suffer them to omit it. But how few
are there who perforra it spiritually, and ac
cording to the exact raeasures of Christian
piety ! For some do it " to be seen of men,"
and to approve themselves to the eye of the
world, that they are not altogether heathens,
and destitute of all sense of religion. Sorae
use to pray, as the Athenian -orators made
harangues before the people, for applause and
ostentation of parts, styling a readiness of
speech, and a great flow of words, " the in
spirations of the Spirit."
The corrupt heart of man naturally rests in
the opus operatum of every duty ; and the
conscience having lost much of its first tender
ness and sagacity, is willing to take up with
the outside and superficies of things ; to feed
upon husks, and to he contented with the
mere show and pageantry of duty. There is
no doubt, but the Pharisee, who raade that
boasting prayer, or rather bravado before
God, (Luke, 'xviii. 14,) went home abun
dantly satisfied in hiraself, though not at all
justified before the Seer of hearts. And it is
as little to be doubted, but that the rest of his
brethren, who did their alras in the concourse
of the multitude, and proclairaed their charity
with trurapets, were full of an opinion of
their own piety ; though all that they gave
was but a sacrifice to their own pride, and a
slavish service to the designs and huraours of
au insatiable ambition ; yet still their flatter
ing hearts echoed back to them all those ac
clamations of the ignorant, deceived rabble,
and questionless told them, that they were
the most pious, liberal, and generous persons
in the world.
The like instances may be given in tho
fastings and mortifications used by many
people ; which, uo question, rightly managed,
are huge helps to piety, great weakeners of
sin, and furtherances to a man in his Chris
tian course. But every man who is driven
from his meat by a proclamation, does not
therefore keep a fast in the sight of God„
whatsoever his foolish heart may persuade
hira. Every man who wears sackcloth, and
uses himself coarsely, does not therefore per
forra any one true act of mortification upon
his sin. The man catches at the shadow, but
misses of the substance of the duty. His
heart raisreckons him ; and therefore, when
he comes to rectify his account by the mea-

63

SOUTH'S SERMONS.

Serm. LXXI.

sure God takes of things, he finds that in all
his fastings and corporal austerities, he has
done indeed a great deal of work, but little
duty. '
2dly, A man's heart will make him presume
to sin with greater confidence, upon the ac
count of duty performed. I have heard of
some, who, after they had discharged their
consciences in confession, used to rush with
.so much quicker an appetite into sin ; as if
former scores being cleared, they were now
let loose to sin upon a fresh account : and ex
perience shews, that many take heart to sin,
after" they have perforraed some strict duty,
thinking that that has set them so much be
forehand with Heaven, that they may well be
borne with, if they make some little excur
sions in the indulgence of their sinful and
voluptuous appetites. If they have been for
any time in the school of virtue, tied up
under its severe disciplines, they think they
m.ay well claim some tirae for play, and then
vice shall be their recreation.
This is the corrupt, perverse reasoning of
most hearts ; this they insist upon as a satis
factory argument to themselves, though infi
nitely sottish and contradictory to the very
nature and design of religion. For as the
apostle most justly aud rationally upbraids
the Galatians in that significant reproof of
thera, (^Gal. iii. 3,) " What ! having begun in
the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the
flesh?" Can piety fit a man for that which
crosses and destroys piety ? Can any man
make this an argument why he should be
vicious, because he has been virtuous ? or
loose and voluptuous, because he lias been
sometime strict and absteraious? Yet this is
the brutish discourse of raost men's minds ;
who think it all the reason in the world, that
they should relax and unbend, after they have
for some time abridged themselves by the
severe courses of religion.
Though the truth is, upon a right and due
estimation of things, such persons never per
formed any one truly pious and religious
action, who had such principles and persua
sions habitually resting upon their hearts, but
were utterly void of the very notion, much
more of " the power of godliness." This is
evident ; for he who performs a duty from a
principle of true piety, is so far from beiug
weary of going ou in the same course, that
he finds his desires thereby quickened, and
his strength increased, for a more vigorous
prosecution of it ; and no raan changes his
course, and passes into contrary practices, but
because he finds in himself a loathing and a
dislike of his forraer ; than which there is
not a more certain and infallible sign of a
false, rotten, hypocritical heart, a heart ab
horred and detested by God ; for if we loathe
God's commands, we may be sure that God as
much loathes our performances, as being the

forced effects of compulsion, not the natural,
genuine, and free eraanations of the will.
He therefore who thinks the merit of any
pious action performed by him raay compound
for a future licentiousness, abuses himself and
his religion ; for he makes a liberty to sin the
reward of piety, than which there cannot be
a greater and a more pestilent delusion. Aud
thus much for the fallacies of the heart re
lating to the performance of duty.
3. The third sort relate to a man's conver
sion, and the change of his spiritual estate ; of
which I shall mention two : —
1. A man's heart will persuade him that he
is converted from a state of sin, wheu perhaps
he is only converted from one sin to another;
and that he has changed his heart, when
has only changed his vice. This is another
of its fallacies, and that none of tbe least
fatal and pernicious. A man has perhaps for
a long time took the full swing of his volup
tuous humour, wallowed in all the pleasures
of sensuality ; but at last, either by age or
design, or by some cro.ss accident turning him
out of his old way, he coraes to alter his course,
and to pursue riches as insatiably as formerly
he_ did his pleasures, so that from a sensual
epicure he is become a covetous miser ; a
worthy change and conversion indeed. But
as a river cannot be said to be dried up, be
cause it alters its channel ; so neither is a
man's corruption extinguished, though it
ceases to vent itself in one kind of vice, so
long as it runs with as full and as impetuous
a course in another.
Suppose, amongst the Jew-s, a man had
passed from the society of riotous and de
bauched livers, from the corapany of publicans
and sinners, to the strictness and profession of
the pharisees, this man indeed might have
been terraed a new sinner, but not a new ma
ture ; he had changed his intemperance or his
extortion for the more refined sins of vain
glory and hypocrisy ; he had changed a dirty
path for one more cleanly, but still for one in
the same road. One man perhaps goes to a
town or a city through the fields, another
through the highway, yet both of them in
tend and arrive at the s.ame place, and meet
and shake hands at the same market. In
like manner, a man may pass as surely to
hell by a sin of less noise and infamy, as by
one more flaming and notorious. An'd there
fore he that changes only from one sin to
another, is but the Devil's convert ; aud the
whole business of such a conversion is but
a mail's altering of the methods of his ruin,
and the casting of his damnation into another
model. 2. A man's heart will persuade him, that a
cessation from sin is a plenary conquest and
mortification of sin. But a king is a king
even while he is asleep, as well as when he is
awake, and is possessed of a regal power even

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T.HE FOLLY OF TRUSTING IN OUR OWN HEARTS.

69

then when he does not exercise it. So sin
may truly reign where it does not actually
rage, and pour itself forth in continual gross
eruptions. There are intervals of operation, vicissi
tudes of rest and motion, in all finite agents
whatsoever ; and therefore it is not to be ex
pected, but that the sinner may have some
relaxation from the drudgery of his sin, and
not be put every minute to " obey the flesh in
the lusts thereof."
Nay, there may be a very long forbearance ;
and yet as there may be a truce with an
enemy, with whora there is no peace : so no
man can conclude his corruption vanquished,
because for the present it is quiet. For such a
quietness there may be upon several accounts.
As partly mere lassitude and weariness ; for
what epicure can be always plying his palate ?
what drunkard always pouring in ? Nature
is not sufficient for the commands of sin with
out some respite and breathing time. Partly
also may sin be quiet out of design ; for sin
must still bait its hook with pleasure, and
pleasure consists in the interchanges of absti
nence with enjoyment, without which it
would quickly pass into loathing and satiety.
And the Devil knows that these interposals
of forbearance do but whet the appetite to a
greater keenness of desire, when the object
shall corae again before it.
How raiserably then does that man's heart
deceive him, when it tells him that his sin
lies wholly prostrate and dead, when it only
lies still, and stirs not for some time ! But
alas ! " it is not dead, but sleepeth ;" for
when the soul is hereby raade so confident as
to quit its guard, sin will quickly step forth
and take advantage to act a sorer and a sharper
mischief upon it than ever.
And thus I have given an account of some
of those deceits and fallacies which the heart
of man is apt to circumvent him by; and
God knows that it is but some of raany. For
infinite are the impostures that lie couched in
the depths and recesses of this hollow and
fallacious thing. So that all that I have said
is but a paraphrase, and that a very imper
fect one, upon that full text of the prophet
Jeremy, (xvii. 9,) " That the heart of man is
deceitful above all things, and desperately
wicked, who can know it?" It is a depth
not to be fathomed, and a mystery never
thoroughly to be understood. And being so, I
suppose it appears by this time how unavoid
able that consequence and deduction is made
by Solomon here in the text, " that whoso
ever trusts it is inexcusably a fool." For
what principles of ordinary prudence can
warrant a man to trust a notorious cheat, and
that also such an one as he himself has been
cheated and deceived by? There is no man
whose experience does not tell him to his face
that his heart has deceived him ; and no wise

man will be deceived so much as twice by the
same person.
Now, the imputation of being a fool, is a
thing which mankind of all others is the most
impatient of, it being a blot upon the prime
and specific perfection of huraan nature,
which is reason, a perfection which both
governs and adorns all the rest. For so far as
a man is a fool, he is defective in that very
faculty which discriminates hira from a brute.
Upon which account, one would think, that
this very charge of folly should make men
cautious how they listen to the treacherous ;
proposals coming out of their own bosom, lest
they perish with a load of dishonour added to
that of their destruction. For if it is imagin
able that there can be any misery greater than
damnation, it is this, to be damned for being
a fool. But this needs not be our lot, if we can but
prevail with ourselves to take that conduct
which God has provided us for our passage to
our eternal state ; a conduct which ean neither
impose upon us, nor be imposed upon itself,
eveu the holy and eternal Spirit of God, the
great legacy which our dying Saviour left to
his church, whose glorious oftice and business
it is to lead such as will be led by him into
all truth.
To whora, therefore, with the Father and
the Son, be ascribed, as is most due, all praise,
might, majesty, and dominion, both now and
for evermore. Amen.

SERMON LXXII.
THE HOPE OF FUTURE GLORY AN
EXCITEMENT TO PURITY OF LIFE.
" Every roan that hath this hope in him purifieth himself,
even as he is pure. " — I John, iii. 3.
The apostle in this chapter endeavours to
comfort the saints from a consideration of the
transcendent greatness of God's love, which
appeared in those excellent privileges that
accrued to them from it. The first of which
the saints enjoy even in this life, namely, to
be " the sous of God," the adopted children of
the Alraighty, to be admitted into the nearest
and dearest relation to the great Creator and
Lord of heaven and earth. " Behold, what
manner of love the Father hath bestowed
upon us, that we should be called the sons of
God !" The second great privilege is to be
enjoyed by the saints in the life to come, and
that is no less than a likeness to Christ him
self in glory ; a participation of those grand,
sublime prerogatives that Christ is endowed

70

SOUTH'S SERMONS.

Serm. LXXII,

withal. " We know that when he shall ap
pear, we shall be like him in glory," (ver. 2.)
Now, because this great enjoyment was as yet
future, and so visible but at a distance, and
consequently not so pregnant and bright an
argument of comfort, he tells them, that the
saints could view it as present in the glass of
their hopes, by which they could draw from
it a real comfort, with an actual fruition.
It is indeed the nature of earthly comforts
to afford more delight in their hopes than in
their enjoyment. But it is much otherwise in
heavenly things, whioh are of that solid and
substantial perfection, as always to satisfy,
yet never to satiate ; and therefore the delight
that springs from the fruition of those is still
fresh and verdant ; nay, we may add this yet
farther, that the very expectation of heavenly
things, if rational and well grounded, affords
more comfort than the possession and enjoy
ment of the greatest earthly contents whatso
ever. The apostle having thus told them of their
hope, and what a real hold it took of the
things hoped for, that he might prevent rais
take, aud dash presuraption, tells thera also,
that an assured hope of future glory did not
at all lead raen to present security, but was so
far from ministering to sloth, that it did rather
quicken and excite thera to duty ; so that
"he that has this hope in him purifieth him
self;" he does not lie still, and acquiesce in
this, that he shall be happy and glorious in
the world to corae, and therefore in the raean
tirae forgets to be virtuous in this ; but it
raises hira to a pursuit of a raore than ordi
nary strain of duty and perfection ; " he puri
fies himself, even as Christ is pure ;" this is
his hope, this is his design ; he expects to be
like Christ in the brightness of his glory, and
therefore he exerts his utmost diligence to
resemble him in the purity of his life too.
Now, before we proceed any farther, there
are two things that offer themselves in the
very entrance of the words, and require some
resolution. As,
1st, Is it possible for any man to " purify
himself?" Is it not the Spirit of God that
must work in us " both to will and to do ?"
For are we not naturally " dead in trespasses
and sins?" And "who can bring a clean
thing out of an unclean ?" How then can so
great a work be ascribed to us ?
To this I answer, that we must distinguish
of a twofold work of purification :
1. The first is, the infusing of the habit of
purity or holiuess into the soul, which is done
in regeneration or conversion ; and in this
respect no man living can be said to "purify
himself." For in this he is only passive, and
merely recipient of that grace, that the Spirit
of God, the sole agent, infuses into him ; ante
cedently to which we are said to be " dead in
trespasses and sins," and consequently in this

condition can by no means contribute to this
work, so as "to purify ourselves."
2. The other work of purification is the
exercising of that habit or grace of purity
which a man received in conversion ; by the
acting or exercising of which grace he grows
actually more pure and holy. And in this
respect a man may be said in some sense to
purify himself, yet not so as if he were either
the sole or the prime agent in this work ; for
God is the principal agent, who first moves
us, and then we act and move, and are said
to be co-workers with God ; and so are these
words to be understood. God, without any
help or procurement of our own, first gave us
a talent, which afterwards we improve, yet
not that entirely by our own strength, but by
his assistance. In short, that which has been
said in explication of this thing, amounts to
no more than that known and true saying,
That God who made, and since converted.
that is, new raade us, without ourselves, will
not yet save us without ourselves. And thus
much for the first query.
2dly, But, admitting that a man may purify
himself in the sense mentioned, yet can he
do it to that degree as to equal the purity
of Christ himself ? " to purify hiraself, even
as he is pure?" of whom it is expressly said,
that " he is fairer," that is, holier and purer,
" than the sons of men," and that the Spirit
has " anointed him with the oil of gladness,"
that is, with all divine graces, above bis
fellows. To this also I answer, that this term "even
as," denotes here only a similitude of kind, not
an equality of degree ; that is, he that hopes
for glory, gets his heart purified with the
same kind of holiness that is in Christ, though
he neither does nor can reach it in the same
measure of perfection ; he gets the sarae meek
ness, the same spiritual-mindedness and love
to the divine precepts, that is, the same for
kind ; forasrauch as there is no perfection in
Christ's huraanity, but the very same for
kind is also to be found in his members,
though, we confess, in a much lower degree;
as the same kind of blood that runs in the
head runs also iu tho hand and in the foot,
though as it is in the head, it is attended and
heightened with quicker and finer spirits,
than as it is diffused into the inferior mem
bers. But yet farther, though we should
grant that he that has this hope iu him pur
sues not only after the same kind, but also
after the same degree of purity that is in
Christ, yet it follows uot hence that he ever
attains to the same ; for we must distinguish of
holiness as itis absolutely perfect in the pattern,
and as it is imperfect in our iraitation.
These things being thus cleared off, I can
not perceive any thing more of difficulty in
the words ; the prosecution of which shall He
in the discussion of these two things : —

FUTURE GLORY AN EXCITEMENT TO PURITY OF LIFE.

71

I. To shew what is implied and included in
a man's " purifying of himself," here spoken
of in the text.
II. To shew how the hopes of heaven come
to have such an influence upon the effecting of
this work.
And first for the first of these. To purify
is a term of alteration, and imports the re
moval of the filth or pollution of any thing,
by introducing the contrary qualities of purity
or cleanness. Now that which a man is to
remove, and to purify himself from, is sin, in
which there are two things to be carried off by
a thorough purification :
1. The power of sin. 2. The guilt of sin.
As for the first, the purifying of ourselves
from the power of sin, I shall shew,
1. Wherein it consists.
2. By what means it is to be effected.
It consists of these three things :
1. A most serious and hearty bewailing of
all the past acts of sin, by a continually re
newed repentance. Every day, ffvery hour,
will afford fresh matter for a penitential sor
row ; for sin will still increase and multiply ;
so that Christ has taught us a daily prayer for
the forgiveness of sins ; and the very nature
of the thing will teach us to mingle prayer
with humiliation ; since to pray God to for
give that for which we are not humbled, is
but farther to provoke him, and to procure a
penalty instead of a pardon. We are told
that " the righteous man falls seven times a
day ;" and I am sure if he falls by so often
sinning, he cannot rise but by as often repent
ing. Some are apt to deceive themselves, and to
think that once repenting is sufficient for all
their sins ; so that when this is done, they
think themselves beforehand with God for all
the sins that they shall commit for the future ;
but such must know, that repentance is still
to follow sin, and he that does not repent
continually, never repented so much as once
truly. What needed the prophet Jeremiah to
have wished his " head a fountain" in order
to his weeping for sin, did not that require
such a stream as was to follow without inter
mission ? A fountain of sin may well requiro
a fountain of sorrow. For repentance cannot
he effectual, but as it bears some proportion to
sin ; and unless one be as continual as the
other, there is no proportion between them.
It is an excellent thing so to manage our
spiritual accounts as not to let our debts run
on too far. That soul that is careful to
make scores even between God and itself by
a daily fresh repentance, has a mighty advan
tage over its corruption, and will by degrees
weary it ont ; the very thought of a subse
quent humiliation is enough to imbitter and
discommend the sweetest offers of sin.
Repentance has a purifying power, and
every tear is of a cleansing virtue ; but these

penitential clouds must be still kept dropping,
one shower will not suffice, for repentance is
not one single action, but a course. We may
here compare the soul to a linen cloth ; it
must be first washed, to take off its native hue
and colour, and to make it white ; and after
wards it must be ever and anon washed, to
preserve and to keep it white. In like man
ner, the soul must be cleansed first from a state
of sin by a converting repentance, and so made
pure, and afterwards, by a daily repentance,
it must be purged from those actual stains that
it contracts, and so be kept pure. It is an
enjoyment and a privilege reserved for heaven,
" not to need repentance," and the reason of
this is, because the cause of it will then be
taken away. But here this pitch of perfec
tion is not to be hoped for. We cannot
expect that God should totally wipe these
tears from our eyes, till he has taken all sin
out of our hearts. Till it be our power and
privilege not to sin, it is still our duty to
repent. 2. The purifying ourselves from the power
of sin consists in a vigilant prevention of the
acts of sin for the future. If we would keep
our garment clean, it is not sufficient to wash
it only, unless we have also a continual care
to keep it up from draggling in the dirt. After
the use of healing physic, by which we are
freed from our distemper for the present, we
must also use preventing physic, to secure us
from the returns of it hereafter. Repentance
bewails those sins that a man has committed,
and bewares of those which as yet he has not ;
it has a double aspect, looking upon things
past with a weeping eye, and upon the future
with a watchful. I know the bare suppress
ing of sin from breaking out into act is not
able to mortify or extinguish the power ; yet
in this sense, at least, it may be said to weaken
it, that it hinders it from growing stronger.
For a restraint of ourselves from the corarait
ting of sin bereaves the power of sin of that
strength that it would certainly have acquired
by those coramissions. Sin, indeed, while it
lies quiet, still is sin, but when it rages in out
ward actions, it is more sinful. While a beast
is kept in, and shut up, he still retains his
wild nature ; but when he breaks out and gets
loose, his wildness is much more hurtful and
outrageous. Now for the keeping of sin from an actual
breaking out, a man should observe what
objects and occasions are apt to draw it forth,
and accordingly avoid them. When there are
some irapressions of holiness made upon the
heart, if we yet venture it amongst the allure
ments of enticing objects, those will quickly
again deface them. As when we have stamped
a piece of wax with the print of a seal, if we
put the wax to the fire again, that will pre
sently melt out the impression.
He that would keep the power of sin from

SOUTH'S SERMONS.

Serm. LXXII.

running out into act, raust restrain it from
conversing with tho object. For when that
has once cast the bait before the heart, so that
the heart begins to look upon it, and by de
grees to delight in it, and to feed its imagina
tion with pleasure, then let a man beware, for
the tempter is then hammering and framing
out a sinful action ; sin is then conceiving,
and if we do not fright it by humili.ation, so
far as to make it prove .abortive, it will cer
tainly bring forth ; and we know that when
tho he.art has brought forth sin, sin will be
sure to bring forth death.
In vain therefore is any endeavour 1;o purify
the heart unless we watch. A Christian should
be always in a posture of caution. If the for
mer part of our life has been stained, let us
endeavour to keep that, at least, that is to
come, pure and unpolluted. And then, though
abstinence frora sin cannot of itself take away
the power of it, yet it will put the heart in a
good preparedness for grace to take it away.
On the contrary, every new actual transgres
sion exceedingly heightens our account. For
this is raost certainly true, that whatsoever
adds to the guilt of sin, increases also the
power. The purifying ourselves from the power of
sin consists in a continual mortifying and
we.ikoning tho very root and principle of in
herent corruption. The power of sin is pro
perly the root, and the actual commission of
it are the branched ; and our purifying work
cannot bo perfect, unless, as we lop off the
branches, so we also strike at the root. There
is a principio of sin conveyed to us from our
very being, and it continues with us as long
as our being, that is, in this state of mortality.
And there is no man living but has wrapt up
in his nature the seeds of all impurity ; so
that, in this respect, we are said to have " a
body of sin," (Rom. vi. 6.) Sin is not only a
scar or a sore, cleaving to one part or member,
but it has incorporated itself into the whole
man. In respect of which also it is said,
" How can he be clean that is born of a
woman ?" (Job, xxv. 4.) A ra,an draws so
much filth from his very conception and na
tivity, that it is now made almost as natural
and essential to hiiu to be a sinner, as to be a
man. Now the chief work of purification lies iu
thedisabling and mortify ing this sin ful faculty.
The power of godliness must be brought into
the room of the power of sin. A man must
plant all his endeavours for the battering down
of this stronghold. A man must be perpetu
ally striving as for his life, and for eternity,
ta get the conquest over his inbred enemy.
All ways and courses must be taken to pluck
out this core, or the wound cannot be cured.
All endeavours to purify ourselves from actual
sins, unless we also work out the principle of
sin, is only to wash and scour the outside of

the vessel, while the inside is full of all kind
of filth and noisoraeness. As long as this re
mains in us, it will bo fighting ; and if it bo
not mortified, it will be victorious. It is con
tinual and restless in all its workings, "like
the troubled sea, continually casting fortli
mire and dirt." Every day it casts now
defilements upon the soul, fresh pollutions
upon the conscience. Justly therefore are we
to direct our purifying work^ against this, for
asrauch as this is the cause, and, as it were,
the parent of all those actual abominations
that swann in our lives.
Having thus shewn the particulars of which
this wprk of purifying ourselves from the
power of sin does consist, I come now to the
next thing, which is, to show the means by
which it is to be effected : three I shall men
tion as having a most sovereign force and
influence for the compassing of this great
work. 1. The first is, with all possible might and
speed to oppose the very first risings nnd
movings of the heart to sin ; for these aro the
buds that produce that bitter fruit ; aud if sin
be not nipped in the very bud, it is not ima
ginable how quickly it will shoot forth. There
be sudden sallies out of inherent corruption
in these first motions, which, though at first
they aro not so easily prevented, yet maybe
easily suppressed ; and theso raay be workiug
in the heart, when there is no noise of any
outward enormity in the actions. The tire
may burn strongly and vehemently, though
it does not flame. The bees may be at work,
and very busy within, though we see none of
thera fly abroad.
Now these sins, though they may seem small
in theraselves, yet are exceedingly pernicious
in their eff'ects. These little foxes destroy the
grapes as much or more than the greater, and
therefore are to be diligently sought ont,
hunted, and killed by us, if we wouhl keep
our hearts fruitful. We should deal with these
first streamings out of sin, as the Psalmist
would have the people of God deal with the
brats of Babylon ; " happy shall he bo who
taketh and dasheth those little ones against
the stones." And without doubt most happy
and successful will that man prove in his
spiritual warfare, who puts on no bowels of
pity even to his infant corruptions, but slays
the sraall as well as the great ; and so not
only conquers his enemies by opposing their
present force, but also by extinguishing their
future race. The sraallest children, if they
live, will be grown men ; and the first mOr
tions of sin, if they are let alone, will spi
into great, open, and audacious presumptions,
But if a man is always upon his guard, anfl»
as it were, stands perdue at his heart, to spy
when sin begins to peep out in these first in
clinations, and thon with much force and
courage beats them back again ; the very

FUTURE GLORY AN EXCITEMENT TO PURITY OF LIFE.

73

power of sin will by degrees languish ; for as
frequent working improves the power, so a
long disuse and intermission of working will
insensibly weaken it. The first motions of
siu lie nearest to the faculty itself ; where
upon he who vigorously fights against these,
must by consequence also wound that ; as he
that strikes that part that is next to the root,
by the sarae blow weakens also the root
itself. As often therefore as a man finds his cor
ruption renewing its assaults, let him set upon
it with a renewed opposition. As often as
that stirs let him strike, at no hand suffering
it to get ground of him ; for every motion of
it not resisted gives it an advance. And we
know, that after it has made some progress,
it is then harder to be subdued, than at the
first repulsed. When an enemy is but rising,
it is easy to knock him to the ground again,
but when he is up, and stands upon his legs,
he is not then so easily thrown down. It is
less difficult to hinder and prevent, than to
stop and restrain, the course of sin.
2dly, A second way to purify ourselves from
the power of sin, is to be frequent iu severe,
mortifying duties, such as watching and fast
ings, the use of which directly tends to
weaken the very vitals of our corruption.
For they are most properly contrary to the
flesh ; and ¦whatsoever opposes that, propor
tionably weakens sin. "Yet still I recommend
not these practices as if they were any ways
raeritorious, or of themselves able to subdue
sin, but only as spiritual instruments which
God sanctifies, and the Spirit often employs
and makes successful about this great work.
And so far as, under God, they are instru
mental and conducing to the taming of the
flesh, they have been of singular use to the
saints of God in all ages : and those who are
not in some measure acquainted with the ex
ercise of such austerities, it is to be feared,
are but novices in piety, and strangers to the
arts of mortification. He that would lay the
axe to the root of his sin must use it coarsely,
and strike it boldly. Courtship to an enemy is
but cruelty to ourselves. Better were it for
a man to restrain an unruly appetite, and to
stint himself in the measures of his very food
and his sleep, than by a full indulgence of
himself in these, to pamper up his corruption,
and give it strength and activity to cast off all
bonds, till at length it becomes unconquerable.
Sin has now so insinuated itself into our
nature, that we cannot freely cherish that,
hut we must by unhappy consequence nourish
and feed our sin too. For which cause it is,
that such as have had experience what it is to
walk with God, and what are the chief im
pediments to such a course, have been always
fearful of pleasing the flesh, though iu things
lawful or indifferent. And every mau's con
science can best resolve him, whether or no a

full allowance of himself, even in things not
forbid, has not indisposed him to a more near
and spiritual converse with God. He that
would maintain such a strict communion
with himself, must bind that excellent advice
of the apostle upon his heart, (Gal. v. 13,)
" not to use liberty for an occasion to the
flesh." For did but men well consider how
apt the flesh is to encroach upon the spirit,
and how ready to turn every thing into an
occasion of sin,' they would keep it under
with the severest discipline, and deny it in
all its importunate cravings, as knowing that
they have to deal with a rebel, who is rather
bound up and restrained than thoroughly sub
dued and conquered ; and therefore, when he
has opportunity, wants not will to renew his
rebellion. It is not in vain, therefore, that
the apostle, (Rom. xiii. 14,) warns men " not
to raake provision for the flesh." For God
knows that is too apt to provide for itself,
and to prog and purvey for the satisfaction of
its vile desires.
There are two things in the body, both of
which contend to have its service, and the
interest of both is totally different, naraely,
sin and the soul. And if we would break the
dorainion that sin usurps over it, and make
it subservient to the operations of the soul,
and the spiritual commands of the under
standing, we must be sure to rule and feed it
like a sturdy slave, inure and accustora it to
flesh-displeasing performances. And a con
stant faithful practice of this will at length
enfeeble the forces of sin, and keep them from
making an insurrection against the spirit.
Our bodies are unhappily made the weapons
of sin ; and therefore, if we would overcome
that, we must, by an austere course of duty,
first wring these weapons out of its hands.
Sdly, A third way to purify ourselves from
the power of sin, is to be frequent and fervent
in prayer to God for fresh supplies of sancti
fying grace. There is no conquest to be had
over sin but by grace, nor is grace any way
so effectually to be procured as by prayer.
For surely if we would obtain any thing from
a prince, it must be by way of petition.
We find a defiling power of sin within us ;
and perhaps we strive against it, but still it
is strong ; we contend with it, but still it pre
vails. Aud now what should we do, but
call in help and assistance from above?
" Come unto me," says Christ, " all ye that
are heavy laden, and I will give you ease."
Christ calls upon us to come, and I am sure
the best way is to come upon our knees ; we
cannot make our addresses to him more ac
ceptably than by humble, frequent, and im
portunate supplications.
It is a truth both clear from Scripture, and
ratified by the experience of all believers,
that there was never any one, were his en
tanglements in sin never so great, his corrup-

74

SOUTH'S SERMONS.

Serm LXXII

tions never so raging, but if he was enabled
to wait upon mercy in an earnest, constant
use of prayer for the removal of his sin, be
came in the end a conqueror, the issue was
glorious, and the success comfortable. Prayer
is the only expedient that we have always in
readiness to procure help in the time of
spiritual distress. To describe the virtue,
efficacy, and excellency of this duty, is not
the business of the present discourse ; bnt
thus much I shall say of it, that it is that which
enables every believer like a prince to pre
vail with God. It has (as I may speak
with reverence) a kind of omnipotence ; for
it even overpowers him that is alraighty. It
is this that has often tied God's hands from
the inflicting of judgments, aud opeued them
for the bestowing of blessings.
And now, if this be the force and energy of
prayer, when we find the power of sin to
grow violent, and the workings of it, by any
strength of our own, irresistible, why do we
not fly to this remedy, and cry mightily to
God, that he would " create clean hearts, and
renew right spirits within us ?" Why do we
not make that request to our Saviour that the
leper did; "Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst
make me clean ?" It is but one word of his
power dispensing out purifying grace, and
we shall be pure. And surely Christ could
not but vouchsafe a gracious answer to every
such petition. For if he was of such tender
ness and compassion as to heal the leprosy
and distemper of the body upon asking, do we
not think that he will be much readiersto com
miserate and heal the dangerous, loathsome
leprosy of the soul, which is sin, upon the
veheraent entreaties of a sincere heart ? Cer
tainly he that was so tender to the bodies of
men, raust needs be much more compassionate
to their souls.
Now we are to observe yet farther, that as
prayer is of such sovereign force to procure
sanctifying grace from God, so there is a cer
tain cleansing, purifying power in the very
duty itself. And we may appeal to the ex
perience of any pious person, who has accus
tomed himself to be earnest and spiritual in
prayer, whether he has not found his heart in
a very different frame and posture after the
perforraance of it, frora what it used to be at
other tiraes. How have his inclinations to
sin been, as it were, stupified, the dislike of
his corruption renewed? How has his love
to holiness been inflamed? How much stronger
has he found himself to encounter a tempta
tion ? I believe there is none who ever kneeled
down to this duty with a good heart, and per
formed it well, but rose up with a better. If he
came to it with desires against his sin, he went
away with strength added to his desires.
Whosoever, therefore, would give a speedy
despatch to his corruption, let him continually
engage his prayers against the power of it.

It is reported of Alexander, that when he
was beset round by his enemies, and sorely
wounded, he yet bore up his spirit, and
fought upon his knees. So a Christian, when
all the powers of darkness do encompass him,
and his sin has given him many wounds, yet
if he can but hold out praying and fighting
against it upon his knees, he may in the end
vanquish and overcome it. A praying heart
naturally turns into a purified heart.
And thus much for the first thing from
which we are to purify ourselves, namely, the
power of sin, as also for the ways and means
by which it is to be effected. From all which
we gather how vain and successless that
method of purifying the heart from sin must
needs prove, which is used by two sorts of
men :
1. Such as direct their humiliations and
penitential cleansings only to some great
actual sin that has broke out in their lives,
but in the meantime never to the power and
root of sin, which is the cause of all these
actual rebellions. These, indeed, are most
conspicuous in our lives, but the other is the
most dangerous and hurtful to our souls.
For this is that spring-head that lies under
ground, and sends forth all those streams of
impurity that flow in our actions. Now, that
should most humble us that most provokes
God ; but it is the sinful frame of the heart,
the inclination and disposition of the whole
man to wickedness, that renders us so loath
some in the pure eyes of God. We indeed
take more notice of a sinful action than of a
sinful heart, because that does more vex and
disquiet us, and is more visible to ourselves
and others. But when repentance is sincere
and effectual, where it resolves to kill sin, it
gives the first stab to the heart. Thus David,
an excellent pattern of true penitence, when
he would hurable hiraself for those actual sins
of murder and adultery, he pursues them to
their first cause, which was his sinful nature,
(Psalm li. 6,) " In sin," says he, " was I con
ceived ;" and (ver. 10,) he cries out for "a clean
heart." Those actual sins he made only occa
sions to discover to him the sin of his nature.
They indeed made a greater noise and clamour
in the world, and procured him more trouble
and shame from men ; but he knew that the
power of sin in his heart was most odious,
and consequently most deserved his sorrow.
From whence we may take an excellent
infallible note of difference between a forced,
insincere, and a true spiritual repentance;
that the first humbles us chiefly for actual
sins, and that because they are the most
troublesome ; the latter humbles us chiefly lOf
the sin of our hearts and natures, and that
because it is the most sinful. For that it is so,
is clear from this consideration ; because the
sin of our natures makes our state and con
dition sinful, which a bare actual transgKS-

FUTURE GLORY AN EXCITEMENT TO PURITY OF LIFE.

sion does not. No wonder, therefore, if many
poor deluded persons, who spend much time
and labour to purify themselves from sin,
yet after all are not purified. For they fasten
their repentance upon some one actual sin,
but overlook the power. But certainly this
is to take the wrong way, and to labour in the
fire ; this is to plaster a pimple upon the
cheek or face, while a malignant humour is
to be purged out of the whole body. For still
it is the body of sin, and not so much this or
that particular sin, that is like to be the sin
ner's destruction. It is not a sore or a bruise
upon his haud or arm, though perhaps that
may pain him most, but it is his consumption,
though it does not so much pain him, that
endangers his life. Whosoever, therefore,
wonld be thoroughly purified, must begin the
work here, strike at the foundation, stop the
fountain, block up that place from whence sin
receives all its supplies ; otherwise all labour,
all sorrow and humiliation, will avail nothing.
For after it has beat back sin from one place,
it will break out in auother ; when one actual
sin disappears in a man's life, another will
presently start forth. The only sure and in
fallible way of destroying the effect, is first to
remove the cause.
2dly, The other ineffectual course to purify
the heart from sin is, when men rest only in
complaints of the evil of their natures, with
ont a vigorous endeavour to amend the parti
cular enormities and misdemeanours of their
actions. This couree is directly contrary to
the former, which pursues the reformation of
particular actions, without regarding the
purification of the heart. Both ways are
equally unsuccessful. For to purge the ac
tions before the heart, is preposterous ; and to
complain of the heart without reforming of
the actions, is vain and superfluous. Many
complain and cry out very tragically of the
wretchedness of their hearts, their total indis
position to all good, and exceeding propensity
to all sin. All which may be very tme. But
while they are complaining of their hearts,
perhaps they freely allow themselves in some
known course of disobedience, they frequently
renew wounds upon their consciences by the
repeated commission of actual sin ; and this
' surely is not the way ever to get themselves
i purified, thus to complain of sin and to com-
i mit sin ; to confute their complaints by their
practices ; to cry out of the body of sin, and
yet to take no notice of actual impieties ; this
is both a provocation of God, and an abuse to
themselves. Their business is to tum com
plaint into endeavour, words into action, and
vigorously to oppose every particular tempta
tion, to stifle every sinful suggestion. For
cert»nly none ever traly bated the sinfulness
of his heart, who did not in some measure
reform the sinfulness of his actions.
I proceed now to the other thing from whieh

we are to purify ourselves, and that is, the
guilt of siu. In speaking of which I shall
shew, —
1. Negatively, what cannot purify us frora
the guilt of sin. 2. Positively, what alone
can. 1. For the first of these. No duty or work
within the power and performance of man, as
such, is able to expiate and take away the
guilt of sin. In this matter we must put our
hands upori our mouths, and be silent for ever.
He that thinks and attempts by his owu
gooduess to satisfy God's justice, does by this
the more incense it ; and by endeavouring to
remove his guilt, does indeed increase it. His
works of satisfaction for sin are the greatest
sins, and stand most iu need of the satisfaction
of Christ.
We know how miserably the deluded
Papists err in this point, how they wander in
the maze of their own inventions about works
of penance, deeds of charity, pilgrimages, and
many other such vain ways, found out by
them to purge and purify guilty consciences.
A man, perhaps, has committed some gross
sin, the guilt of which lies hard and heavy
upon his conscience ; and how shall he remove
it ? why, peradventure by a blind devotion ;
he says over so many prayers, goes so many
miles barefoot, gives so much to holy uses, and
now he is rectus in curia, free and absolved in
the court of heaven. But certainly the folly
of those that practise these things is to be
pitied ; and the blasphemy of those that teach
them to be detested. For do they know and
consider what sin is ? and whom it strikes at ?
Is it not the breach of the law? Is it not
against the infinite justice and sovereignty of
the great God ? And can the poor, imperfect,
finite services of a sinful creature ever make
np such a breach ? Can our pitiful, broken
mite discharge the debt of ten thousand
talents ? Those that can imagine the removal
of the guilt of the least sin feasible, by the
choicest and most religious of their own works,
never as yet knew God truly, nor themselves,
nor their sins ; they never understood the fiery
strictness of the law, nor the spirituality of
the gospel.
Now, though this error is most gross and
notorious amongst the Papists, yet there is
something of the same spirit that leavens and
infects the duties of most professors ; who, in
all their works of repentance, sorrow, and
humiliation for sin, are too, too apt secretly
to think in their hearts that they make God
some amends for their sins. And the reason
of this is, because it is natural to all men to
be self-justiciaries, and to place a justifying
power in themselves, and to conceive a more
than ordinary value and excellency in their
own works, but especially such works as are
religious. But this conception is of all others the

76

SOUTH'S SERMONS.

-KUM. LXXII

most dangerous to the soul, and dishonourable
to God, as being absolutely and diametrically
opposite to the tenor of the gospel, and that
which evacuates the death and satisfaction of
Christ; for it causes us, while we acknowledge
a Christ, tacitly to deny the Saviour. And
herein is the art and policy of the Devil seen,
who will keep back the sinner as long as he
can from the duties of repentance and humi
liation ; and when he can do this no longer,
he will endeavour to make him trust and con
fide in thera. And so he circumvents us by
this dilemma ; he will either raake us neglect
our repentance, or adore it ; throw away our
salvation by omission of duty, or place it in
our duties ; but let this persuasion still remain
fixed upon our spirits, that repentance was
enjoined the sinner as a duty, not as a recora
pense ; and that the raost that we can do for
God cannot countervail the least that we have
done against him.
2. In the next place, therefore, positively,
that course which alone is able to purify us
frora the guilt of sin, is by applying the vir
tue of the blood of Christ to the soul by
renewed acts of faith. We hold, indeed, that
justification, as it is the act of God, is perfect
and entire at once, and justifies the soul from
all sins, both past and future ; yet justification
and pardoning mercy is not actually dealt
forth to us after particular sius, till we repair
to the death and blood of Christ by particular
actings of faith upon it ; which actings also of
themselves cleanse not away the guilt of siu,
but the virtue of Christ's blood conveyed by
them to the soul ; for it is that alone that is
able to wash away this deep stain, and to
change the hue of the spiritual Ethiopian ;
nothing can cleanse the sonl but that blood
that redeemed the soul.
The invalidity of whatsoever we can do in
order to this thing is sufliciently deraonstrated
in many places of Scripture, (Job, ix. 30, 31,)
" If I wash myself with snow water, and
make my hands never so clean ; yet shalt thou
plunge me in the ditch, and mine own clothes
shall abhor me." He that has nothing to
rinse his polluted soul with but his owij peni
tential tears, endeavours only to purify him
self in muddy water, which does not purge,
but increase the stain. In Christ alone is
that "fountain that is opened for sin and for
uncleanness ;" and in this only we must wash
and bathe our defiled souls, if ever we would
have them pure, (1 John, i. 7,) "The blood
of Christ cleanseth us from all sin." It is
from his crucified side that there must issue
both blood to expiate, and water to cleanse
our impieties. Faith also is said to " purify
the heart," (Acts, xv. 9,) but how ? Why,
certainly as it is instrumental to bring into
the soul that purifying virtue that is in Christ.
iaith purifies, not as the water itself, but as
the conduit that conveys the water. Again

(Rev. i. 5,) Christ is said " to have washed us
from our sins in his own blood." There is no
cleansing without this. So that we may use
the words of the Jews, aud convert au impre.
cation into a blessing, and pray, that "hig
blood may be upon us, and upon our souls-"
for it is certain that it will be one way upon
us, either to purge or to condemn us. Every
soul is polluted with the loathsome, defiling
leprosy of sin. And now, for the purging off
of this leprosy, if the Spirit of God bids us go
and wash in the blood of Christ, that spiritual
Jordan, and assures us, that upon such wash
ing our innocence shall revive and grow anew
and our original lost purity return again '
upon us, shall we now, in a huff of spiritual
pride and self-love, run to our own endea
vours, our own humiliations, and say, as
Naaraan did, " Are not the rivers of Damascus
better than all the waters of Israel ? may I not
wash in them, and be clean ?" Are not my
tears, my groans, and my penitential sorrows,
of more efficacy to cleanse rae, than the blood
and death of Christ ? raay I not use these, and
be clean, and purified from sin? I answer,
No ; and after we have tried them, we shall ;
experimentally find their utter insufficiency, I
We may sooner drown than cleanse ourselvea i
with our own tears.
I have now finished the first general thing :
proposed for the handling of the words, which
was, to shew what is implied in "the purify- '
ing of ourselves" here spoken of in the text.
I proceed now to the other, —
II. Which is, to shew how the hope of
heaven and a future glory coraesto have such
a sovereign influence upon this work.
It has so upon a double account, natural
and moral.
1st, And first upon a natural account; this
hope purifies, as being a special grace infused
into the heart by the Holy Ghost ; and in ils
nature and operation directly contrary to sin ;
as heat is a quality both in nature and work
ing, contrary to, and destructive of cold. All
grace is naturally of a sin-purging virtue; as
soon as ever it is infused into the soul, it is
not idle, but immediately operative. And its
operation is to change and transform the sonl
into its own nature ; for the effecting of which
it must work out that principle of corrup
tion that does intimately possess it. "When
leaven is cast into the lump, it presently
begins to work and to ferment, till by degrees
it has thoroughly changed the whole mass. In
like raanner every grace will be incessantly
working, till it has wrought over the heart to
its own likeness.
Now, hope is one of the principal graces of
the Spirit, so that we have it marshalled with
faith and charity, and placed immediately
after faith, in regard of the method of its
operation, which is imraediately consequent
upon that of faith. For what faith looks

FUTURE GLORY AN EXCITEMENT TO PURITY OF LIFE.

upon as present in the promise, that hope
looks upon as future in the event. Faith
I properly views the promise, hope eyes the
performance. But the Scripture tells us, that
" faith purifies the heart," and casts out the
filth and corruption naturally inherent in it ;
and if these are the effects of faith, they must
needs be ascribed also to hope, which is sown
in the heart by the siime eternal Spirit, and
consequently is of the same quality and ope
ration with that. For that it springs uot
from mere nature, but from a higher principle,
is most manifest. Since it is the Spirit of
God alone that proposes to the soul the
grounds of hope, and lays before it the object
of hope, and then, by an immediate, almighty
power, enables the soul fiducially to close
with and rest upon that object, upon those
grounds. Flesh and blood cannot rise so
high; bare reason cannot furnish the heart
with such a support. It may indeed cause us
to presume, but it can never cause us truly to
hope. 2dly, The hope of future glory has an in
fluence upon this work of purifying ourselves
upon a moral account ; that is, by suggesting
to the soul such arguments, as have in them
a persuasive force to engage it iu this work.
Of which sort I shall reckon four :
1. And the first shall be drawn from the
necessary relation that this work has to the
attainment of heaven, as the use of the means
to the acquisition of the end. Our way to
happiness does indispensably lie through
holiness ; and God has so ordered things, that
we cannot arrive at one, but through the
other. Now when the purification of our
hearts is the proper way and means appointed,
and consigned by God's own institution, for
our obtaining of everlasting felicity with
himself ; is it not the highest strain of folly
and madness that is imaginable, for a raan to
pretend that he does earnestly hope for this
happiness, and yet in the meantime totally
neglects that course by which alone it is at
tainable? Should we take such a course in
worldly things, how cheap, how unreasonable,
and ridiculous would our hope appear ! For
does any one hope to reap, when he never
sows, and expect treasure from a far country,
with which he holds no traffic or commerce ?
Certainly, notwithstanding all words and
protestations, wc should conclude that such
persons did not really hope for the things they
pretended ; or if they did hope for them, that
they were incurably mad and besotted, and
past all hope, at least as to the recovery of
their reason. The apostle most rationally
warns men in Gal. vi. 7, 8, not to think that
they can mock God because they can deceive
themselves. "For whatsoever a m.an soweth,
that shall he also reap. He that soweth to
his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption ;
but he that soweth to the Spirit, shall of the

Spirit reap life everlasting." For as it is
absurd to hope to reap, and yet not to sow,
so it is equally unreasonable to sow one kind
of grain, and to expect a crop of auother;
to sow tares, and yet hope to reap wheat.
There is no " reaping of life everlasting," (as
the apostle's phrase is,) but " by sowing to the
Spirit ;" this is the only proper way to attain
it. For this is an eternal truth, that the
works of the Spirit have a necessary subordi
nation to the rewards of the Spirit.
2. The second argument by which the hope
of future glory persuades the soul to purify
itself, shall be taken from this consideration,
that it is purity alone that can fit and qualify
the soul for so holy a place. He that is
clothed in filth and rags, is not a fit person to
converse iind live in a court ; nor is there any
one who designs the course of his life in such
a place, but will adorn and dress hiraself ac
cordingly. David proposes and resolves the
question in Psalm xxiv. 3, 4, " Who shall
ascend into thy holy hill? Even he that
hath clean hands and a pure heart." And
again in Psalm xciii. 5, " Holiness becoraeth
thine house, O Lord, for ever." And there
fore as God said to Moses, " Pull off thy shoes,
for the place on which thou standest is holy
ground ;" so may we say to every one that
hopes for heaven, Take away that filth, that
enormity and corruption, that cleaves to thy
life ; for the place whither thou art going is
holy, and therefore requires and adraits of
none but holy inhabitants. In Revel, xxi.
27, it is said, that "nothing shall enter into
the new Jerusalem that is polluted, or that
raaketh a lie." It is with the " new Jeru
salem" as it was heretofore with the old,
where all the filth, the officourings, and what
soever was noisome in the city, was carried to a
place without, and there burnt. And we all
know, that there is a deep and disraal pLace
without the new Jerusalem, where every
noisome, wicked, and polluted thing shall be
cast and burnt with everlasting flames.
Nay fartlier, purity and holiness does not
only fit us for heaven, so that without it we
can have uo entrance or admittance there;
but it also so fits us, that if it were possible
for us to enter into heaven void of it, heaven
would be no place of happiness to us in that i
condition, but a place of trouble, torment, and
vexation. As for instance, it is impossible for
a beggar in his rags to be adraitted to the
society and converse of princes and noblemen ;
but put the case that he were, yet his beggarly
condition would never suffer him to enjoy
himself in that corapany, in which he could
be nothing but a mock and a derision. In
like manner, heaven bears no suitableness to
an impure, unsanctified person. For a siuful
heart must have sinful delights and sinful
corapany, aud where it meets not with such,
in the very midst of comforts and company.

78

SOUTH'S SERMONS.

Skrm. LXXII. ji

it finds a solitude and a dissatisfaction. The
business we shall be put to in heaven, is for
ever to praise and admire the great God for
the infinite beauty of his holiness, and the
glorious perfections of his nature ; but this
surely is an employment no ways either fit for,
or desirable to a sinner. It is indeed a blessed
thing " to see God," but it is so only to " the
pure in heart ;" for to the wicked and irapure,
the vision ofGod himself could not be beati
fical. Those tluat live in any country must
conform to the habit of the country. Those
that are citizens of the new Jerusalem, must
have the clothing and the garb of such citizens
even the long " white robes" of a pure, un
spotted righteousness. In a word, no hope
can give us a title to heaven, but such an one
as also gives us a fitness for it.
3. The third argument, by which the hope
of heaven persuades the soul to purify itself,
shall be drawn from the obligation of grati
tude. For surely if I expect so great a gift at
God's hands as eternal happiness, even huma
nity and reason cannot but constrain me to
pay him at least a temporary, short obedience.
For shall I hope to he saved by him, whom I
strike at and defy? Or can I expect that he
should own me in another world, when I
reject, despise, and trample upon his com
mands in this?
God gives us righteous precepts, and en
dears them to us by glorious proraises ; and
now, can it stand with the principles, not of
piety only, but of common ingenuity, to balk
the duty, and yet to snatch at the reward ?
to expect the highest favours from God's
mercy, and to offer the greatest indignities to
his holiness? When Christ had promised
paradise to the thief upon the cross, would it
not have been a prodigious piece of ingrati
tude for hira to have joined with his fellow
thief in cursing and reviling hira, by whose
favour he expected presently to exchange his
cross for a crown ?
God proraises to us a kingdom, and makes
the condition of our passage to it, only the
"cleansing ourselves from .all filthiness of
flesh and spirit." A work that is our privi
lege as well as our duty ; and shall we not
obey him in this one command ? A com
raand so reasonable for him to enjoin, and so
advantageous for us to perform ? For shall
he be willing to njake us glorious, and we
grudge to make ourselves pure? Shall he
hold forth such vast wages, and wo not find
in our hearts to set about the work? These
things are absurd and disingenuous, and such
as the world would cry out of in common con
verse. And therefore let no man think, that
that disposition can commend him to God,
that would justly make him abhorred by men.
4thly and lastly. The fourth argument, by

whicli the hope of heaven persuades the soul
to purify itself, shall be taken from this con
sideration ; that purity is the only thing tlial
can evidence to us our right and interest in
those glorious things that we profess ourselves
to hope for. It is infinitely fond and pre.
sumptuous for a man to hope to inherit that
estate, to which he can shew no title. The
reasonableness of our hopes of heaven dependi
upon the sure right and claim that we have to
it ; and prove this we cannot in tho court of
our own conscience, much less in the court of
heaven, but only by the obedience and purity
of our lives, and their strict conformity to the
excellent precepts of the gospel. No man can
ascertain himself that he is an heir of glory,
unless he can prove himself to be a son ; and
he shall never be able to find that ho is ason,
till holiness makes him like his heavenly
Father; for where there is this relation, there
will be also some reserablance.
And now, I suppose, that from what has
been discoursed upon this subject, everyone
does, or at least may, gather a certain mark
or criterion, by which to judge of his hopes
and pretences as to the happiness of his future
estate. It is grace only that ends in glorv.
And he that hopes for heaven in earnest, will
be as active in his repentance as he is serious
in his hopes. Who almost is there tbat does
not own hiniself a candidate and an expec
tant of future glory, nay, even amongst those
whoso present " glory is only in their shame 1"
But if such persons did not wretchedly preva
ricate with themselves, how could there be so
inuch of heaven in their hopes, and yet so
little of it in their conversation ? How comes
their heart to be in one place, and their trea
sure in another ?
It is evident that the very hope and religion
of every profane and vicious liver is but
mockery and pretence. For can any one of
common sense really expect to be saved in
theconstant practiceof those enormities, for
which the God of truth himself assures bim
he shall bo damned ? It is infinitely vain for
a man to talk of heaven while he trades for
hell, or to look upwards while he lives down
wards ; yet thousands do so, nnd it is tho
comraon practiceof the deluded world ; which
shews how much men trifle in the grand busi
ness of their eternal condition. They profess
a hope of that, of which thoy have scarce a
thought ; and expect to enjoy God hereafter,
though they live wholly without him here.
But the issue will be accordingly ; neithei
they nor their hopes can ever stand before the
pure eyes of him, " with whom live only the
spirits of just men made perfect."
To whom be rendered and ascribed, as il
most due, all praise, might, majesty, and
dominion, both now and for evermore. Amen.

SOUTH'S

POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

SERMON I.
" He that descended fs the same also that ascended far above
aU heavens, that he might fUl all things." — Ephes. iv. 10.
Ip religion were not to bear only upon the
unshakeable bottom of divine authority, but
we might propose to ourselves in idea what
could be fittest to answer and employ those
faculties of raan's raind that are capable of
religious obligation, reason would contrive
such a religion as should afford both sad and
solemn objects to amuse and affect the pen
sive part of the soul, and also such glorious
niatter and bright representations as might
feed its admiration, and entertain its more
sprightly apprehensions : for the temper of all
men in the world is either sad and composed,
or joyful and serene ; and even the sarae
man will find that he is wholly acted, in the
general tenor of his life, by the vicissitude and
interchange of these dispositions.
Accordingly Christianity, in those great
matters of fact upon which it is founded,
happily complies with man's mind by this
variety of its subject. For we have both the
sorrows and the glories of Christianity, the
depressions and the triumphs, the mournings
and the hosannahs : we have the affecting
sadnesses of Christ's fasting, his bloody agony,
his crucifixion, and the bitter scene of his
whole passion in its several parts and appen
dages ; on the other side, we gaze at his
miracles, admire his transfiguration, joy at his
supernatural resurrection, and (that which
is the great complement and consummation
of all) his glorious ascension.
The first sort of these naturally suit with
tho composed, fixed, and monastic disposition

of some minds, averse from all complacency
and freedom ; the second invite the joys of
serener minds, happier constitutions, and
brisker meditations.
Nay, such a divine chequer-work shall we
find in the whole contexture of the story of
our religion, that we have the light still with
the advantage of the shade, and things exhi
bited with the recommending vicinity of their
contraries ; so that it is observed, that in the
whole narrative of our Saviour's life, no pas
sage is related of hira low or weak, but it is
imraediately seconded, and as it were correc
ted by another high and miraculous.
No sooner was Christ humbled to a manger,
but the contempt of the place was took off
with the glory of the attendance, in the
ministration of angels. His submission to
that mean and coarse ceremony of circumci
sion was ennobled with the public attestation
of Simeon concerning him ; his fasting and
temptation attended with another service of
angels ; his baptisra with a glorious recog
nition by a voice from heaven. When he
seeraed to shew weakness in seeking fruit
upon that fig-tree that had none, he raani
fested his power by cursing it to deadness with
a word. When he seeraed to be overpowered
at his attachments, he then exerted his
mightiness, in causing his armed adversaries
to fall backwards, and healing Malchus's ear
with a touch. When he underwent the lash
and violent infamy of crucifixion and death,
then did the universal frame of nature give
testiraony to his divinity ; the temple rend
ing, the sun darkening, and the earth quaking,
the whole creation seemed to sympathize with
his passion. And when afterwards he seemed
to be ill the very kingdom and dominions of
death, by descending into the grave, he
quickly confuted the dishonour of that, by an
astonishing resurrection, and by an argument

60

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Serm. I.

ex abundanti, proved the divinity of his person
over and over, in an equally miraculous as
cension. Which great and crowning passage of all
that went before it, however it is most true,
and therefore most worthily to be assented to,
yet still it affords scope for the nobler and
higher actings of faitii : for reason certainly
would now very hardly be induced to believe
that upon bare testimony and report, which
even those who then saw it with their eyes,
that is, with the greatest instruraents of evi
dence, scarcely gave credit to.
For it is expressly reraarked (Matt, xxviii.
17,) that of those who stood and beheld his
ascension, though " some worshipped," yet
"others doubted."
It seems things were not so clear as to an
swer all the objections of their eyes, or at
least of their incredulity. But he ascended
" in a cloud," as it is said ; there was some
darkness, something of mists and obscurity
that did attend him. Yet a lively potent
faith will scatter all such clouds, dispel such
mists, conquer this and rauch greater difficul
ties : which faith, since it raust rest itself
upon a divine word, such •& word we have
here ; and that a full, a pregnant, and a satis-
I fying word, which, from the pen of a person
infallibly inspired, assures us, that " he who
descended is the same also that ascended far
above all heavens, that he might fill all
things." In the words we have these four things con
siderable : —
I. Christ's humiliation intimated and im
plied in those words ; " he that descended."
II. His glorious advancement and exalta
tion ; " he ascended far above all heavens."
III. The qualification and state of his per
son in reference to both these conditions ; he
was the sarae. " He that descended is the
same also that ascended."
I'V. The end of his exaltation and ascen
sion ; " that he might fill all things."
Of all which in their order. And when I
shall have traversed each of these distinctly, I
hope I shall have reached both the full sense
of the text and the business of the day.
I. And first of all, for Christ's humiliation
and descension. As every motion is bounded
with two periods and terms, the one relin
quished, the other to be acquired by it ; so in
Christ's descension we are to consider both
the place frora which it did comraence, and
the place to which it did proceed. The place
frora whence, we are told, was heaven.
But the difficulty is, how Christ could de
scend from thence : according to his divine
nature he could not ; for, as God, he filled the
universe; and all motion supposes the mover
to be sometimes out of the place to which he
moves, and successively to acquire a presence
to it ; so that nothing that adequately fills a

place, can move in that place, unless it moves
circularly; but progressively, or in a direct
line, it is irapossible. Whither then should
the divine nature move where it is not pre-
vented by its own ubiquity ? whither should
it go where it is not already? And as for
Christ's human nature, that could uot descend
from heaven, forasmuch as it was not first in
heaven, but received its first being and exis
tence here upon earth.
This arguraentation, we see, is clear and
undeniable ; how then shall we make ont
Christ's descension ?
The Socinians, who allow Christ nothing
but a human nature, affirm, that he is said
to " descend from heaven" only in respect of
the divinity of his original and production;
as it is elsewhere said, that "every good and
perfect gift descends from above," namely,
because it is derived from a divine principle.
But his " descending" being here in the text
opposed to his "ascending," clearly shews, that
there is a farther and more literal meaning
imported in the word.
I answer, therefore, that Christ descended
according to his divine nature, not indeed by
a proper and local motion, as the former argu
ments sufficiently demonstrate, but because
it united itself to a nature here below ; in
respect of which union to an earthly uature,
it might metaphorically be said to descend to
the place where that nature did reside : and
thus much for the way and manner how
Christ did descend.
We are now to direct our next inquiry to
the place whither he descended ; and for this
we are to reflect an eye upon the former
verse of this chapter, which tells us, that
it was into the " lower parts of the earth ;"
but what those " lower parts of the earth"
are, here lies the doubt, and here must be the
explication. There are several opinions to be passed
through before we can come to the truth. I
shall propose thera all, that every one maybe
his own judge which of thera carries in it the
greatest probability.
1. Some understand it simply of the earth,
as being the lowermost part of the world.
But why then could not the apostle have
said, that Christ descended s/f tk x-aruTipnTiH
x,6r!ft.ov, and not rvn y^j, to the lower parts of
the world, not of the earth ? but to call the
earth the lower part of itself, is an apparent
violence to the naturalness of the expression,
and indeed not more forced than ridiculous,
2. Some understand it of the grave, which
is called the heart of the earth in Matt. xii. 40.
" The Son of man shall be three days and
three nights in the heart of the eartli." Now
the heart or middle of the earth is the
lowest part of it, forasmuch as every progres
sion beyond that is an access nearer to
heaven, which encloses and surrouuds the

ON EPHESIANS, iv. 10.

81

whole earth, and the nearer we come to
heaven, the higher we are said to go ; but
this exposition is more artificial than natu
ral, more ingenious than solid, and only to
be valued as we do those things that are far
fetched. 3. Some understand it of hell itself, the
place of the damned ; and our Creed tells us,
that Christ descended into hell ; but to this I
answer, that it relates not at all to our present
purpose, whether Christ descended into hell or
no ; but the thing to be proved is, that hell,
or the place of the damned, is the lower parts
of the earth ; which we deny, as being con
trary both to the judgment of the church and
of reason ; it being hard to conceive what
capacity there can be within the earth for the
reception not only of the souls, but of the
bodies of all the persons that for six thou
sand years shall have peopled the world, the
number only of those who shall be saved
(which we are told are very few) being ex
cepted. 4. But, 4thly, the quicksighted Roraanists,
(forsooth,) who can see fartlier into the earth
than other men, have, by the help of this text,
spied in it a place called purgatory, or rather
the pope's kitchen, for certain it is that no
thing so much feeds his table. Now here, they
say, are those " lower parts of the earth,"
whither Christ descended : but before they
prove that Christ came down hither, I would
have thera prove that there is such a place.
They say they prove it frora 1 Pet. iii. 19,
where it is said, " that Christ by his spirit
went and preached to the spirits in prison ;"
the words in the Greek are, h a x.al toi; lu
?ii/?iaxij imifiitai ¦trnpivM; 'ix.'/ipiii,iii. But do
these words iraply that those spirits were in
prison at that time that he preached to them ?
Not at all ; but the entire sense of them is
this : " He preached to the spirits in prison ;"
that is, Christ in the days of Noah, by his
spirit, preached to and strove with those diso
bedient spirits, which spirits are now " in
prison," or in hold, for so l> (pv'Ka.x.ri signifies ;"
that is, they are, " held in chains of darkness
to the judgment of the great day :" as, sup
pose I should say, that Christ preached to
many hundred souls in hell, does it follow
hence, that they were in hell while he
preached to them ? No, but it raust be took
in a divided sense, that raany hundreds, who
are now in hell, were once preached to by
Christ. And thus having shewn the nullity of this
argument, I think it is clear that Christ de
scended not into purgatory, for that which is
not cannot be descended into. But I won
der why men should be so solicitous in find
ing out a purgatory ; for if they go not to
heaven, they need not doubt but that there
is room enough in hell, without providing
themselves of a third place.
VOL. 11.

5. In the fifth and last place, therefore, I
conceive these words in the text to bear the
same sense with, and perhaps to have re
ference to, those in Psalm cxxxix. 16, where
David, speaking of his conception in his
mother's womb, says, that he " was framed
and fashioned in the lowest parts of the
earth." In like manner Christ's descending
into the lowest parts of the earth may very
properly be taken for his incarnation and
conception in the womb of the blessed virgin.
That this is so, yet with submission to
better judgraents, I judge upon these grounds :
1. Because the former expositions have been
clearly shewn to be, sorae of thera, unnatural
and forced, and others impertinent ; but those
four being removed, there is no other besides
this assignable.
2. It is usual for the apostles to transcribe
and use the Hebrew phrases of the Old Testa
raent : and since Paul here uses David's very
words, it is most probable that he used them
in David's sense.
3. I add, that these words of Christ's de
scending and ascending, are so put together in
the text, that they seem to intend us a sum
mary account of Christ's whole transaction of
that great work of man's redemption from
first to last ; which being begun in his con
ception, and consummate in his ascension, by
what better can his descending be explained,
th.an by his conception, the first part and in-
stauce of this great work, as his ascension was
the last. So that by this explication the
apostle's words are cast into this easy and
proper sense, that the sarae Christ, and eter
nal Son of God, who first condescended and
debased himself so far as to be incarnate and
conceived in the flesh, was he who afterwards
ascended into heaven, and was advanced to
that pitch of sublime honour and dignity, far
above the principalities and powers of raen
and angels.
And thus much for the first thing, Christ's
humiliation and descension, both as to the
manner how, and the place whither he did
descend. II. I come now, in the next place, to con
sider his exaltation and ascension. For shall
he so leave his glory, as never to re-assume
it ? Shall such a sunbeam strike the earth,
and not rebound ?
As for the way and manner how he ascend
ed, I affirm, that it was according to his human
nature, properiy and by local motion ; but
according to his divine, only by communica
tion of properties, the aotion of one nature
being ascribed to both, by virtue of their union
in the same person.
As for the place to which he advanced, it
is, says the apostle, "far above all heavens."
In the exposition of whioh words it is strange
to consider the puerile fondness of some ex
positors, who will needs have the sense of

82

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Seem. I,

j them to be, that Christ ascended above the
] empyrean heaven, the highest of all the rest,
i and there sits enthroned in the convexity and
i outside of it, like a man sitting upon a globe :
for, say they, otherwise how could Christ be
said to have ascended "above the heavens?"
But if they will stick to this term above, let
them also stick to the other, far above, and
then they must not place him just upon the
empyrean heaven, but imagine him strangely
pendulous in those spatia extramundana, those
empty spaces that are supposed to be beyond
the world. How improper, and indeed ro
mantic, these conceits are, you easily discern.
But the words of the text have something
of figure, of hyperbole, aud latitude in them ;
and signify not according to their literal nice
ness, a going " above the heavens" by a local
superiority, but an advance to the most erai
nent place of dignity and glory in the highest
heaven. Besides, the very comraon use of the word
does not of necessity enforce the former inter
pretation ; for we think we say properly
enough, that a man is upon the top of a house
or tower, if he be but in one of the uppermost
parts of it, without his standing upon the
weather-cock : but it is the usualfate of such
over-scrupulous adherers to words and letters,
to be narrow men and bad interpreters.
I have nothing else to add for explication of
Christ's ascension, but only to observe and
adore God's gre.at and wise methods of exalt
ing, exemplified to us by an instance in his
dearest Son. Hc, we see, is depressed before
advanced, crucified before enthroned, and led
through the vale of tears to the region of
eucharist and hallelujahs. He was punished
with one crown before he was rewarded with
another, and disciplined by the hardships
of shame and servitude to the glories of a
kingdom. And do we now think to have our whole
course spun in one even thread ? to live de
liciously in one world, as well as gloriously
in another? to tread softly, and to walk upon
paths of roses to the mansions of eternal
felicities ?
No, it is the measure of our happiness, and
ought to be so of our wish too, to be but like
Christ. The preferments of heaven will be
sure to meet us only in the state of an afflicted
abject humility. Christ preached upon the
mountain, but he lived and acted his sermons
in the valley.
The way of salvation must needs be opposite
to that of damnation. We must (as I may so
speak) descend to heaven ; for it was Adam's
aspiring that brought him down, and Lucifer's
fall was but the consequent of his ascension.
III. I come now to the third thing, which
is the qualification and state of Christ's person,
in reference to both these conditions : he was
the same ; " He that descended is the same

also that ascended." Whicb to me seems s
full argument to evince the unity of the two
natures in the same person ; since two several
actions are ascribed to the same person, both
of which, it is evident, could not be performed
by the same nature.
As for Christ's descending, I shew that it
could not be by his human nature, for that
received its first existence on earth, and there
fore could not come down from heaven ; but
is was to be understood of his divine nature,
though improperly, and only so, as it became
united to a nature here below : but as for his
" ascending," it is clear that Christ did this
by his human nature, and that properly and
literally ; and yet it is here affirmed, "that it
was the same Christ who both ascended and
descended ;" a great proof of that mysterious
economy of two natures in one hypostasis.
The school of Socinus, we have heard,
affirms Christ to have descended from heaven,
only in respect of his divine and heavenly
origination : but how, according to theu:
opinion, can they make it out that it was the
same Christ who ascended? for they affirm
concerning the body which he had before his
death, and after his resurrection here upon
earth, that he did not carry that with him
into heaven, but that was left here behind,
whether by annihilation, or some secret cou-
veyance of it into the eartii by the power of
God, they tell us not, nor indeed know them«
selves ; but in the roora of it, they say, he
had a spiritual, ethereal body, with which be
ascended into heaveii ; a body without flesh
and bones, a refined, sublimated, angelical
body ; which are words enough, I confess,
but where the sense is, we raay go seek. I
wonder they do not farther explain their
subtile notion, and say, that it is a certain
body without corporeity.
But though they will not allow the union
of two complete natures in the same person;
yet they aud all the world must grant, that
two distinct substances, the soul and the body;
go to compound and integrate the man : and
I know, according to their usual appellation |
of him, they will allow him to be " the man '
Christ Jesus."
Now I demand of them upon what princi
ples of reason or philosophy they will prove
that to be the same compound, when one
entire half, that goes to the making of it, is
wholly another thing. When we take whit^
and mingling it with red, make a third distinct
colour ; if we could now separate that white
from the red, and join it to a blue, do we
think that this conjunction would make the
same kind of colour that the former mixture
did ? In like manner, can I affirm, that the
same soul, successively united to two several
bodies of a kind wholly diverse, if not op- \
posite, makes the very sarae compend ? u
the whole be nothing else but its parts united,

ON' EPHESIANS, iv. 10.

83

essential parts totally changed, I am sure,
cannot be the same whole.
Neither let them reply, that this argument
savours too much of philosophy ; for by say
ing so, they say only that it savours too much
of reason.
I confess there are some passages that fell
out after Christ's resurrection, that seem to
persuade us that the body he then appeared
in was not of the same nature with our bodies
now-a-days, nor with that which he himself
had before his death ; for we read that " he
vanished out of some of the disciples' sight,"
and " that he came into them, the doors being
shut." Which considerations, I suppose, drove
Origen to assert, that Christ's soul had such a
command over his body, and his body such a
ductility to comply with those commands, that
the soul could fcontract or expand it into what
compass, or transfigure it into what shape it
pleased ; so as to comraand it through a chink,
or crevice, or represent it soraetiraes under one
forra, sometimes under another.
But to this I answer, that however Christ's
body, as every body else, is capable of con
tinuing the same, notwithstanding the alter
ation of its qualities and outward forra ; yet,
that a body of such a diraension should be
contracted to sueh athinness, as to pass through
a chink or crevice, cannot be effected without
a penetration of the parts, and a mutual sink
ing into one another ; which those who under
stand the nature of bod}' know to be a con
tradiction, and consequently impossible.
As for those scriptures which seera to give
colour to the opinion, that Christ, after his
resurrection, had such an aerial fantastic body,
before I answer them, I shall premise that
great instance and affirmation that Christ gave
of the reality of his body to his disciples, being
frighted at his presence, and supposing they
had seen a spirit or apparition, (Luke,'xxiv. 88,
39.) "Why," says he, "do such thoughts
arise in your hearts ? Behold my hands and
my feet, that it is I myself ; handle rae, and
see ; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as
ye see rae have." What could be more plain
aud positive for the clearing of this particular?
Certain it is, therefore, that he had the very
same body, be the explication of other places
that seem to iraply the contrary never so
difficult. The first is in Luke, xxiv. 31 , " He vanished
out of their sight." To which I answer, that
it is not at all absurd, to affirm, that Christ,
hy his divine power, might cast a mist before
their eyes ; or suspend the actings of their
¦visive faculty in reference to himself, while
he conveyed himself in the meantirae away ;
or possibly he might depart with so quick a
motion, that it was alraost instantaneous, and
so indiscernible : foreithertheexeeedingquick-
ness or slowness of motion makes the succes

sive progress of it not observable to the eye,
as is manifest from a hundred daily experi
ments. For the second place, in John, xx. 19, where
it is said, that " he came amongst his disciples,
the doors being shut ;" this is capable of an
explication that is obvious, and removes all
difficulty. For it is not to be understood of
the doors being shut in the very act of his
entrance, but just antecedently to it ; that is,
Christ coming to the place found the doors
shut ; yet notwithstanding, by his immediate
power, he caused them to fly open, as the
angel did the prison doors at the release of
Peter, (Acts, xii.) and theu he entered. Thus
we read, that the " lame walk," the " blind
see ;" not indeed while they continued lame
and blind, but the lame and blind were first
cured of those infirmities, and so made to walk
and see.
So Christ did not enter, the doors continu
ing shut, but the doors that he found fast
shut, he by a strange power opened, and so
came amongst his disciples, which was enough
to affright and amaze thera.
But to reduce this to a farailiar instance :
Suppose a stranger or suspicious person should
corae into a house, and the master of the
house should ask his servant, whether the
doors were shut or open when he came in ?
Surely his meaning is not, did he pass ihrough
the door while it was shut ? But his sense is,
did he find the door shut, and so broke it open,
or did he find the door standing open, and so
entered ? This exposition is natural, and so
clears the doubt, that the difficulty itself
vanishes, and is but an apparition ; and so |
much for the third thing.
IV. I proceed now to the fourth and last
thing ; which is, the end of Christ's ascension,
" that he might fill all things."
This also is capable of various interpreta
tion, for the term, " all things," may refer,
1. Either to the scripture, that he might
fill, or rather fulfil, (for the Greek ttAujow sig
nifies both,) all those prophecies and predic
tions recorded of him in the books of the
prophets. 2. Or, secondly, it may refer to the church,
that he might fill all things belonging to that
with his gifts and giaces ; for it is subjoined,
that " he gave sorae, apostles ; some, pro
phets ; some, evangelists ; and some, pastors
and teachers ; for the perfecting of the saints,
and for the edifying of the body of Christ."
Both these expositions, I confess, are probable.
But, 3. In the third place, it may relate to " all
things" in the worid, within the whole com
pass of heaven and earth ; aud since the words
so taken afford us an eminent proof, both of
Christ's essential deity, as also the power with
which he was endued as mediator ; we shall
not let so great a prize slip out of our hands.

84

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Serm. I.

out prefer and follow this as the most genuine
interpretation. Now Christ may be said thus to " fill all
things" in a double respect :
1. In respect of the omnipresence of his
nature and universal diffusion of his godhead.
The schools, in stating the manner how one
thing is iu another, whereas they make bodies
present by circumscription, finite spirits de
finitive, that is, by being so here, as at the
same time not to be there ; not improperly, I
think, make God to be in all things by reple
tion ; that is, he is so in them, that they are
rather in hiin ; spreading such an immense
fulness over all things, as in a manner swallows
and folds them up within himself.
Such a fulness has Christ as God, by which
he fills, or rather overflows the universe, et ad
omnia prcesentialiter se habet. Could there be
a more full and apposite proof of this th.an
that place, John, iii. 13. " No mau hath as
cended up to heaven, but he that came down
from heaven, eveu the Son of man, which is
in heaven." He came down from heaven, and
at that time was walking with Nicoderaus upon
earth; and yet even then he was still in heaven.
How, but by the omnipresence of his divine
nature, that scorned the poor limitations of
place, diffused an immense presence every
where, and could be in heaven without ascend
ing thither?
But what I say of Christ, as to his divine
nature, should I assert the same of his human,
it would be both an error in divinity, and a
prodigious paradox in philosophy.
Yet the Romanist will have Christ's whole
body to be in ten thousand places together,
•and at once ; namely, wheresoever their host
is celebrated, and in every particle of that
host ; which certainly is the greatest absurdity
and raost portentous piece of nonsense that
ever was owned in the face of the rational
world. And the Lutherans, who, by a dough-baked
reforraation, striking off frora the Romish
errors, have rather changed than corrected
this grand absurdity, they assert a consub-
stantiation, and the consequent of it, the ubi
quity of Christ's human nature.
But certainly they have some unanswerable
arguments that force their assent to such un
couth propositions. What they are, we shall
hear. They argue thus : —
Christ, in respect of his human nature, sits
at God's right hand ; but God's right hand is
everywhere, and consequentlv Christ's human
nature must be so too.
If I might answer a foolish argument
according to its folly, I might deraand of
them, if God's right hand be everywhere,
where then will they place his left ? But do
not they know that Christ's sitting at God's
right hand is not taken in a metaphysical
sense, for his co-existence with it ; but is only

a phrase, importing God's advancing him to
high dignity and honour, as princes use to
place their favourites at their right hand ?
But they proceed. If Christ's human na
ture be united to the whole divine uature
then, wheresoever his divine nature is present'
there must be also his huraan. But supposing
that his huraan nature is not everywhere, and
that his divine is, then in those places where
the humaii nature is not, the divine is there
without it ; and so consequently iu those
places it is not united to it : for things inti
mately united must be present together in the
same places.
But what pitiful, thin sophistry is this!
whatever at the first sight it may appear : for
they distinguish not a spiritual union from
that which is corporeal, and between thiugs
having quantity. If indeed Christ's human
nature were united to his divine by way of
adequate commensuration one to the other, it
would then follow, that if one was where the
other is not, the union so far would cease;
but the union between these two natures is
only by intimate, indissolvable relation one
to the other ; so that wheresoever the divine
nature of Christ is present, though his human
is not there present too, yet it still holds the
same relation to it, as to a thing joined with
it in one and the same subsistence. And so
much in answer to a sophistical argument
brought to defend a mis-shapen, monstrous
assertion. We see here the first way how Christ fills
all things in the world ; namely, by the
essential omnipresence of his divine nature.'
But yet this is not the " filling all thiugs"
directly intended in the text ; for that was to
be consequent to his ascension ; " he ascended
that he might fill all things ;" it accrued to
hira upon and after his ascension, not be
fore ; but his omnipresential filling all things
being an inseparable property of his divine
nature, always agreed to him, and was not
then at length to be conferred on him.
2. In the second place, therefore, Christmay
be said to " fill all things" in respect of the
universal rule and government of all things in
heaven and earth committed to him as media
tor upon his ascension. This is the only
" filling all things" that the school of Socinns
will allow him ; forasmuch as they make him
to be God only by office, not by nature; and
that his full deity bears date from his ascen
sion ; at which time he took possession of tbe
government of the world.
But in this, I must confess, they are so
much the less injurious to Christ, since they i
allow the Father hiraself to fill all things no
otherwise : they acknowledge him indeed to
have such an extent of power as to reach all
places, persons, and things ; but his omni- ij
presence they deny, and confine his being to. j
a circumscribed residence within the highest

ON EPHESIANS, iv. 10.

85

heaven ; aa we may see in Crellius's book de
Attributis Dei, chap. 1. So little ought we to
wonder at their denying the deity of the Son,
when they have even toyn the fairest perfec
tions out of, the godhead of the Father.
But to look back upon Christ, now enjoying
i.».e end of his ascension, even the sovereignty
of all things. This is he, that is now King
of kings, and Lord of lords ; who wields the
sceptre of heaven and earth, and wears the
imperial crown of the universe. Heaven is
his throne, and the thrones of kings his foot
stool. He now shines in the head of that glorious
army of martyrs, and, wearing the trophies
of conquered sin and death, possesses the king
dom of the world by the two unquestionable
titles of conquest and inheritance. The angels,
those immediate retainers to the Almighty,
and ministers of Providence, are his atten
dants ; they hear his will, and execute his
commands with a quick and a winged alacrity.
All the elements, the whole traiii and
retinue of nature, are subservient to his
pleasure, and instruraents of his purposes.
The stars fight in their courses under his
banner, and subordinate their powers to the
dictates of his will. The heavens rule all
below them by their influences, but them
selves are governed by his. He can command
nature out of its course, and reverse the great
ordinances of the creation.
The government, the stress and burden of
all things, lies upon his hands. The blind
heathen have been told of an Atlas that
shoulders up the heavens ; but we know that
he who supports the heavens is not under
them, but above them.
And to give you yet a greater instance of
his sovereignty, he extends his dominion even
to man's will, that great seat of freedom, that,
with a kind of autocracy and supreraacy
within itself, coraraands its own actions,
laughs at all compulsion, scorns restraint, and
defies the bondage of human laws or external
obligations. Yet this, even this absolute principle, bends
io the overpowering insinuations of Christ's
spirit ; nay, with a certain event, and yet with
a reserve to its own inviolate liberty, when he
Balls, it cannot but be willing. My earthly
prince may comraand ray estate, my body,
and the services of my hand, but it is Christ
only that can coramand my will ; this is his
peculiar and prerogative.
It remains now that we transcribe this
article of our creed into our lives, express his
sovereignty in our subjection, and, by being
the most obedient of servants, declare him to
be the greatest of masters ; even " the blessed
and only Potentate, who only hath iraraor
tality, dwelling in the light which no man
can approach unto."
To whom, with the Father and the Holy

Spirit, be rendered and ascribed, as is most
due, all praise, might, majesty, and dominion,
both now and for evermore. Amen.

SERMON II.
" That he might fill aU things."— Eph. iv. 10.
These words exhibit to us the great end j
and design of Christ's ascension, and, without j
any strain or force laid upon them, are capable ,
of a threefold interpretation ; a distinct survey j
of each of which shall be the business of the j
present exercise. |
1. In the first place, then, this term "all
things," may refer to the whole series of pro
phecies and predictions recorded of Christ in
the Scriptures ; which he raight be said to fill,
or rather to fulfll by his ascension ; which
signification, as it is most proper to the force
of the Greek word, (forasmuch as all other
places which we translate /m(/?^, are expressed
by this word irXyi^ou,) so it is most agreeable
to the method of the Scriptures, speaking of
Christ ; of whom we never find any great
action recorded, which was before pointed at
by some prophecy, but it is immediatelyadded,
that it was done h» irM^ciiri " that" such or
such a scripture " might be fulfilled." And
for Christ's ascension, and the consequent of
it, his diffusion of the gifts of the Spirit, we
have an eminent prediction of that in Psalm
Ixviii. 18, here referred to by the apostle
" He ascended up on high, he led captivity
captive, and gave gifts unto men."
Concerning which place it must be con
fessed, that both the Hebrew and the Septua
gint from the Hebrew render it, not " he gave
gifts unto men," but " he^ received gifts
amongst men," ai/cSuj £'? iS^os, x.ix.1 thaZii
8o>«T« h aui^axair- and for this the Jews
who- at all hands lie upon the catch, charge
Paul as a perverter of the prophet's meaning,
in a false rendition of the sense of the place.
But to repel their calumny, and to salve the
credit of our apostle, there may be a double
answer applied to this :
1. That the apostle did not precisely tie
himself to the very words, but followed only
the design and sense of the text ; and this was
the same in both those different words, eXssSs
y.a.\ 'ihoxi, he " received" and he " gave." For
the prophet, speaking of it as of a thing at
that time future, says, that Christ " received
gifts," naraely, frora his Father ; which gifts
he was afterwards, in the fulness of tirae, to
pour forth upon raen. But the apostle, speak
ing of it as of a thing in his time past anc*
fulfilled, mentions only his giving and actua

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Serm. R.

bestowing those gifts, which indeed was the
end for which he first received them of his
Father. 2. But, secondly, if the Hebrew be rendered,
not he received gifts for men, but from, or
amongst thera, as the Jews contend that it
ought ; forasmuch as the prophet, in that
psalm, relates the conquest God gave his
people over their enemies ; whereupon he is
said to have received gifts from them ; as it is
the custora fon conquerors to set apart and
consecrate some of their spoils to their god ; I
say, if this be admitted, as the plea is very
plausible, we afiirm then, that it was not
Paul's design to use these words, "he g.avc
gifts unto men," by way of citation out of
David ; but having by a kind of transumption
aud accommodation borrowed those former
words of his, " he ascended up on high, he led
captivity captive," to shew how great a
triumph God raade over those greater eneraies,
sin and death, in the ascension of Christ, that
he raight now also express how much this
spiritual triumph did exceed those temporal
ones that God wrought for his people over
their temporal enemies ; whereas the psalmist
says, that upon thoso triumphs he " received
gifts frora men." Paul here adds these words
of his own, that upon this greater triumph in
the ascension of Christ, " he gave gifts unto
men ;" according to which sense the words
carry in them an elegant antithesis, designed
to set forth the excellency of one above the
other, by how much it is more excellent to
give than to receive. And thus we have a full
vindication of the apostle.
But here, for the farther illustration of
Christ's "filling all things" in this sense, I
cannot pass over that useful observation of
Grotius about the word ¦z'Knpia, that it does
not signify only a bare giving an event to a
prophecy, many of which, though applied to
Christ by the apostles, yet indeed ivere ful
filled before him ; as particularly that place in
Matt. ii. " I have called my son out of Egypt,"
was fulfilled in the children of Israel, of whom
it was first spoke. But because those pro
phecies had not only a literal and historical,
bnt also a farther and a mystical intention,
therefore this word ¦Tr'Xnpoa signifies a comple
tion even to a redundancy, a fulfilling thera
over and above ; naraely, such a one, as not
only reaches their first and historical event,
but also verifies their mystical and more
remote sense.
And such a filling or fulfilling of the old
prophecies and predictions was proper and
peculiar to Christ, to whom they all pointed,
and in whom they all ended, as in their
utraost period, their only centre, their great
and last design. And thus much for the first
interpretation. 2. But, 2dly, the term "all things" mav
refer to the church ; which sense 1 shall mos't

insist upon, as carrying in it the subject-
matter of this day's coramemoration.
Now Christ, it seeras, would not have the
fabric of his church inferior to that of the
universe ; it being itself, indeed, a lesser world
picked or rather sifted out ofthe greater, where
mankind is brought into a narrower compass,
but refined to a greater perfection. And as in
the constitution of the world, the old philo
sophy strongly asserts that nature htis with
much care filled every little space and corner
of it with body, there being nothing that it so
much abhors as a vacuity ; so Christ, as it )
were, following the methods of n.ature in the
works of grace, has so advantageously framed i
the whole systeni of the church ; first, by an ;
infinite power raaking in it capacities, and
then b\- an equal goodness filling them.
Chasras and emptinesses are the infelicities
of the work, but the disgrace of the workman. ¦
Capacity unfilled is the opportuuity of misery,
the very nature and definition of want. Every
vacuity is, as it were, the hunger of the crea
tion, both an indecency and a torment.
Christ, therefore, would have his body the
church not meagre and contemptible, but
replenished and borne up with sufficiency,
displayed to the world with the beauties of j
fulness and the most ennobling perfections.
Now, the church being a society of men
combined together in the profession of Chris
tian religion, it has unavoidably a double need
or necessity emergent from its very nature
and constitution. That is, one of government,
the other of instruction ; the first agreeing to
it simply as a society, the second as it is sueh
a society. And it isChrist's great prerogative
to fill it in both these respects.
1. And first, iu respect of its government,
of which excellent and diviue thing in gene
ral we may say this, that, as at first it could
be nothing else but the invention of the in
finite, eternal mind ; so now it is the vital
support, and very sinew that holds together
all the parts of society. And being of such
universal necessity, there must be a policy in
church as well as' state. The church indeed
is a spiritual body, but governmeut is the
very spirit of that.
Hereupon it follo-n-s in the next verse, that
" Chi'ist gave some, apostles ; some, evan
gelists ; sorae, prophets ; some, pastors and j
teachers ;" part of which are names importing
rule and jurisdiction. . ;
But yet in all this catalogue of ecclesiastical
officers we find no lay-elders, no chu^ch-alde^ j
men, no spiritual furs ; nor vet in the whole
current of antiquity, till they dropped from
the invention of a late impostor, who, being
first expelled by the popular rout, became
afterwards obnoxious to it, and so h.ad no way
to make himself chief in the government, bnt
by allowing them a share.
But Geneva certainly is not the mother-

ON EPHESIANS, iv. 10.

87 II

iL.

church of the world, nor are Master Calvin
aud Master Beza fit correctors of antiquity
or prescribers to posterity ; nor ought this
new fashion in church-governraent to be
therefore authentic, because derived to us
from France.
2dly, The church being thus fr.araed into
the economy of a governed body, stands
equally in need of instruction. For inas
much as the doctrine it professes grows not
upon the stock of natural principles, so as to
be deducible from thence by the strength of
reason and discourse, but comes derived from
immediate aud divine revelation ; it requires
the helps and assistances of frequent inculca
tion, to water and keep it alive upon the
understanding and the will, where nature
gives it no footing from any notions within,
but what it receives from the force and arts
of external impression.
Now for this also, Christ made a full and
glorious provision by that miraculous diffu
sion of the Holy Ghost, after his ascension,
upon those great pastors and representatives
of his church, the apostles.
In which notable passage of his conferring
the Holy Ghost, we have these two things
observable :
I. The time when.
II. The manner how it was given.
As for the time iu which it was conferred,
this is remarkable in a double respect :
1. In respect of Christian religion itself, it
being about its first soleran promulgation ;
which though it was a doctrine most true and
excellent, yet certainly it was also very
strange and unusual. And this we may ob
serve, that thereis no strange institution that
can ever he of long continuance in the world,
but that which first enters and ingratiates
itself by something signal and prodigious.
The beginning of every thing has a strange
and potent influence upon its duration : and
the first appearances usually determine men
either in their acceptance or dislike. No
thing stamps itself so deep in the meraory as
that w-hich is fresh and new, and not raade
contemptible by a former acquaintance ; and
the freshness of every thing is its beginning.
Had not Christ therefore ushered in his re
ligion by miracle and wonder, and arrested
men's first apprehensions of it by something
grand and supernatural, he had hindered its
progress by a disadvantageous setting forth,
exposed it naked to infidelity, and so rendered
it first disputable, aud then despised. It had
been like the betraying a sublime and noble
composition by a low and creeping prologue,
which blasts the reputation of the ensuing
discourse, and shuts up the auditors' approba
tion with prejudice and contempt.
Moses, therefore, by the appointment of
God, bringing iu a new religion, did it with
signs and wonders, the mountain burning.

and the trumpet sounding ; so that it was
not so much the divine matter of the law,
as the strange manner of its delivery, that
took such hold of the obstinate Jews ; and
possibly Moses should never have convinced,
had he uot first frighted their belief.
And this is so necessary upon the very
principles of nature, that even those impos
tors who have introduced false religions into
the world, have yet endeavoured to do it by
the same methods by which the true was
established. Thus Numa Pompilius settled a
religion amongst the old Romans, by feigning
strange and supernatural converse with their
supposed goddess Egeria. Apollonius Tya-
nteus, who endeavoured to retrieve gentilism
in opposition to Christianity, attempted it by
such strange and seemingly miraculous actions.
And Mahomet is reported to have planted his
impostures by the same way of recommenda
tion. Though in all these, the sober and judi
cious observer will easily perceive that their
miracles were as false as their religions.
But, however, this shews how the mind of
mau is naturally to be prevailed upon ; and
that in the proposal of so great a thing to it
as a new religion, the natural openness and
meeting fervours of men's first acceptance are
by all raeans to be secured aud possessed ;
which is more successfully done by a sudden
breaking in upon their faculties, with amaze
ment aud wonder, than by courting their
reason with argument and persuasion.
2. But, secondly, the time of Christ's send
ing the Spirit is very remarkable in respect of
the apostles themselves. It was when they
entered upon the full execution of their apos
tolic office, and from followers of Christ
became the great leaders of the world.
During the tirae of their discipleship, aud
Christ's converse with them upon earth, we
read of no such wonderful endowments, such
variety of tongues, such profound penetration
into the raysteries of the gospel. But, on the
contrary, with many instances of very thick
ignorance, childishness of speech, and stupi
dity of conception, as appeal's from their
many weak and insignificant questions pro
posed to Christ ; their gross dulness to appre
hend many of his speeches, in themselves very
plain and intelligible : so that Christ is alraost ,
perpetually upbraiding them upon this ac
count, as (Luke, ix. 41.) " How long shaU I I
be with you, and suffer you ?" and (Matt. xv. I
16,) " Are ye also vet without understanding?" '•
and (Luke, xxiv." 25.) " 0 fools, and slow of
heart to believe all that the prophets have
said ;" with raany other such increpations ;
which shews, that -n-hile they were yet under
Christ's wing, and, as it were, in the nonage
and minority of their apostleship, they were
not the most seraphic doctors in the world.
But when Christ brings them forth upon
the stage of a public office, to act as his com-

88

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Serm. II.

mi.ssioners and arabassadors, to gather aud to
govern a church in his name ; immediately,
like Saul upon his being auointed king, they
step fortli men of another spirit, great lin
guists, powerful disputants, able to cope with
the Jewish sanhedrim, to baffle their pro
foundest rabbles, and to out-reason the very
Athenians. With their faculties strangely
enlarged, their apprehensions heightened, and
their whole mind furnished with that stock of
endowments and rare abilities, that in others
are the late and dear-bought acquisitions of
large parts, long time, and severe study.
I confess there is something in office and
authority that of itself raises a man's abili
ties ; and the very air and genius of govern
ment does, as it were, inspire him with that
largeness and reach of mind, that never ap
peared in the same person yet in the state of
privacy and subjection : so that governraent
oftentimes does not only indicare virum, but
facere ; insensibly mould and frame the man
that has it, to a fitness for it ; and at length
equals him to his employment ; raising him
aboye all the personal defects and littlenesses
of his former condition ; sublimating his parts,
changing his thoughts, aud wideniug his de
signs. The reason and philosophy of which
I shall not inquire into, the thing itself being
clear from experience.
Now that the apostles felt these natural
influences from their apostolic employment,
we have no reason to deny. Yet certainly
these could not work in them such a stupen
dous change. This could be ascribed to no
thing, but to those omnipotent assistances of
the Spirit descending upon thera from heaven,
and investing thera in their office by so mag
nificent and miraculous an installation.
And here I cannot but reflect upon the
erutish folly aud absurd impudence of the
late fanatic decriers of the necessity of human
learning, in order to the rainisterial function,
drawing an argument frora this, that the first
and greatest ministers of the church were per
sons illiterate, and not acquainted with the
academy, but utterly ignorant of the arts and
sciences, the study of which takes up so much
of our time, and draws after it so much of our
estimation. 'Which arguraent, though they vaunt in as
their greatest and most plausible, yet there is
none that so directly strikes at the very throat
of their cause. For whereas God found the
apostles upon their first access to the ministry
thus naked of those endowments, he by a
miracle supplies what their opportunities per
mitted thera not to learn, and by inimediate
power creates in them those abilities which
others by their industry acquire.
Had not the knowledge of tongues and the
force of disputation been necessary to a divine,
would God have put himself to a miracle to
furuish the apostles with such endowments.

in themselves so useless, and in these men's
jurlgment also pernicious? But such persons
are below a confutation, and made only to
credit what they disapprove.
Now concerning the time of the effusion of
the Holy Ghost, upon coraparing one Scrip
ture with another, there seeras to rae a very con-
siderable doubt, very near a contradiction, and
therefore worthily deserving our explication.
The giving of the Holy Ghost is, by many
clear Scriptures, affirmed to be after Christ's
ascension : nay, his ascension is made not
only antecedent, but also causal to it, (John,
vii. 39,) "The Holy Ghost was not yet given,
because that Jesus was not yet glorified."
And yet in John, xx. it is said, that Christ,
a little before his ascension, conferred the
Holy Ghost upon his disciples, (ver. 22.)
" And he breathed upon them, and said, Re
ceive ye the Holy Ghost." Now these places
seem directly contradictory.
To which I answer, that if the giving of
the Holy Ghost be in both places to be under
stood for one and the same thing, they cer
tainly contradict one another. Wherefore, to
avoid this, we must allow a double giving of
the Holy Ghost : one, in which Christ con
veys the ministerial power, the other, in
which he confers rainisterial gifts and abilities.
Now it was the first of these that happened
before Christ's ascension, as is clear from tho
following words in ver. 23, "Whosesoever
sins ye remit, theyare remitted." Which we
know is the great instance of ministerial
power and authority. And this, by the way,
excellently explains the sense of our church,
as it uses the same words in the ordination of
priests, " Receive ye the Holy Ghost." 'Where
by she does not profess to convey to the person
ordained ministerial gifts and abilities, but
only rainisterial power.
But this solemn giving of the Holy Ghost
after Christ's ascension, was a conferring gifts,
graces, and abilities upon the apostles, to fit
them for the discharge of their miuisterial
office and power, which had been conveyed to
them by the former giving ofthe Holy Ghost
before Christ's ascension. And thus we have
given a fair accommodation to these places of
Scripture. And so having considered the first thing
observable in Christ's giving the Holy Ghost,
namely, the time when ; I pass now to the
Second ; which is, the manner how it was
conferred. And here the more brevity is re
quired, the thing being so eminently known
to us all upon that full description of it iu
Acts, ii. 2, 3 ; as, " That the Holy Ghost
descended and sat upon the apostles in the
form of cloven fiery tongues, ushered in with
the sound of a rushing mighty wind." Tbe
various significancy of which circumstances
would furnish out matter for a year's discourse.
And as for the popish writers and comnien-
=~-  J

ON EPHESIANS, iv. 10.

89

tators, they are almost endless in this parti
cular, so anatomizing the miracle into all
its minute particles, and spinning out every
circumstance into infinite allusions and me
taphors : which indeed is their custom, in
treating of most of the grand passages of the
gospel, till they have even made their religion
itself but a metaphor, that is, something like
a religion, but not a religion.
But the design of this great action being to
signify and to transmit spiritual notices by
sensible conveyances, it must not wholly be
passed over in silence.
Briefly, therefore, it exhibits to the world
the great means chosen bj' God for the propa
gation ofthe kingdom ofChrist. The apostles,
heating upon that general misconceit of the
Jews about the kingdom of the Messiah, in
the preceding chapter, (ver. 6,) asked Christ,
" Whether he would at that time restore the
kingdom to Israel ?" and questionless, in the
strength of that prejudice, they expected here
some strange appearance of angels that should
conquer the world before them, and bring all
nations to the Jewish yoke and subjection.
But suddenly, by a new kind of warlike
preparation, they receive no other weapons
but tongues!, the proper badges of him that is
the eternal Word, weapons that draw no
blood, break no bones ; their only armour
aud artillery was variety of languages, that
fitted them more to travel over than to con
quer the world : and thus was that first cause
of the world's confusion made the great in
strument of its salvation.
And as these tongues were a proper repre
sentation of the gospel, so the peculiar nature
aud efficacy of this gospel was eraphatically
set forth by those attending circurastances of
the fire and the mighty wind, both of which
are notable for these two effects :
1. To cleanse. 2. To consume and destroy.
The gospel came like a great and mighty wind,
to dry and cleanse a dirty and polluted world ;
like afire, to purge and carry off that dross
that had spread and settled itself in the in
most regions of our nature. The design of
Christianity .was nothing else but to make
virtue as universal and as natural to men as
vice, as desirable to their thoughts, and as
suitable to their affections. Christ's intent
was not so much to amuse raen's reason with
the belief of strange propositions, but to re
fine their manners, to correct their tempers,
to turn vultures into doves, goats into sheep ;
to make the drunkard once for all vomit up
his sin ; to bring the wanton only in love
with purity, and to see no beauty but in holi
ness ; to raake men, of covetous, cruel, and
intemperate, to become liberal, courteous, and
sober ; in a word, to be new creatures and
excellent persons.
And therefore, he that, in the profession of
so pure and noble a religion, thinks not of the

design of it, but only hears, and never feels
the word ; to whom it comes Only in the
sound of the wind, but not in the force and
efficacy of the fire ; who, in the midst of all
spiritual helps, of the several methods of
amendment and renovation, — as, seasonable
serraons, continual prayers, frequent sacra
raents, and the like, yet carries his old base
inclinations fresh and lively about him, and
cannot say that he ever conquered so rauch
as one habitual sin, nor got the better of any
one vile appetite, but remains sordidly ob
noxious, and a slave to all its motions and
returns, so that, by a desperate vicissitude of
sin and duty, he hears and sius, prays and
sins, partakes and sins, and that perhaps with
a better stomach than before, till, by such a
continual mockery of God, he comes at length
to have finished the fatal round of reproba
tion ; such a one will find, that that Word
which could not cleanse hira will be a wiud
to blast, and a fire to consume him ; and that
the same Spirit, that only breathed in gentle,
but neglected persuasions, will at length, like
a resisted terapest, rage in the sad effects of
incurable breaches and a final confusion.

SERMON III.
" The night cometh, when no man can work." — John, ix. 4.
These words, as they lie in the context, are
a general raaxira or assertion, assigned as a
reason of Christ's constancy and assiduity in
the particular discharge of those works, which,
as mediator, he was to perform while he was
yet conversant in the world. And for the
figurative scheme of the words, there is no
thing more usual in the dialect of scripture,
than to set forth and express the tirae allotted
for this life by day ; and the time and state
after life, which is death, by night ; the reasous
of which similitude being very natural and
obvious, to be exact and particular in recoun
ting them would be but to tell men what they
know already, and consequently a work both
precise and superfluous.
The sense of the text seems most naturally
to lay itself forth in these three propositions :
I. That there is a work allotted, begun, cut
out, and appointed to every man, to be per
formed by him while he lives in the world.
II. That the time of this life being once ex
pired, there is no farther opportunity or pos
sibility of perforraing that work.
III. That the consideration of this ought to
be the highest and the raost pressing argument
to every man, to use his utmost diligence in
discharging the work incumbent upon him in
this life.

90

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Serm. m

I. For the first of these. That there is a
work cut out, &c., we must observe, that every
man raay be considered under a double capa
city or relation :
1. As he is a part or member of the body
politic, and so is not his own, but stands in
cluded iu and possessed by the coraraunity.
In which capacity he is obliged to contribute
his proportion of help to the public ; as shar
ing frora thence with others the benefits of
society, and so being accountable to make it
some retribution in his particular station and
condition. 2. A man may be considered as he is a
member and subject of a spiritual and higher
kingdom. And in this capacity he is to pur
sue the personal, yet great interest of his own
salvation. He is sent into this world to make
sure of a better ; to glorify his Maker by
studying to save hiraself ; and, in a word, to
aim at enjoyments divine aud supernatural,
and higher than this aniraal life can aspire
unto. Now these two capacities are very different ;
by tho former, a man is to approve hiraself a
good citizen ; by the latter, a good Christian ;
and though these relations have their precise
liraits aud distinctions, yet we are not to be
ignorant of the subordihation of the one to
the other, as its superior. So that if they
chance to clash and thwart, the inferior raust
give way ; nor raust a man do any thing to
preserve a civil interest that is contrary to a
spiritual, and the greater obligations lying
upon him with reference to the good of his
soul, and the invaluable concerns of felicity in
the other world. The distinction of a politic
.and a private conscience is a thing that true
reason explodes, and religion abhors, as plac
ing the matter of duty under a contradiction,
and consequently can be nothing but anart to
give a man satisfaction in the midst of his sin.
We have seen then how every man sustains
a double capacity ; according to which he has
also a double work or calling:
1. A temporal one, by which he is to fill up
sorae place in the coraraonwealth by the ex
ercise of sorae useful profession, whether as
a divine, lawyer, or physician ; a raerchant,
soldier, mariner, or any inferior handicraft ;
by all which, as by so many greater and less
wheels, the business of the vast body of the
public is carried on, its necessities served, and
its state upheld.
And God, who has ordained both society
and order, accounts himself so much served by
each man's diligent pursuit, though of the
raeanest trade, that his stepping out of the
bounds of it to sorae other work (as he pre
sumes) more excellent, is but a bold and
thankless presumption, by which the man
puts himself out of the comraon way and
guard of Providence. For God requires no
man to be praying or reading when the exi

gence ofhis profession calls him to his hammer
or his needle ; nor commands any one from
his shop to go hear a sermon in the church
much less to preach one in the pulpit.
God, as tbe lord and great raaster of the
family of the universe, is still calling upon all
his servants to work and labour ; a thing so
much disdained by the gallant and the epicure,
is yet that general standing price that God and
nature has set upon every enjoyraent on this
side heaven ; and he that invades the posses
sion of any thing, but upon this claim, is an
intruder and a usurper. I have given order,
says the apostle, (2 Thess. iii. 10,) "that if
any one refuse to labour, neither should lie
eat." It is'-the active arm and the busy hand
that must both purvey for the mouth, and
withal give it a right to every morsel that is
put into it.
Some, perhaps, think they are uot born to
labour, because they are born to estates. But
the sentence that God passed upon Adam is
universal ; we find in it no exception or pro
viso for any noble or illustrious drone; no
greatness can privilege a man to lie basking
in sloth and idleness ; and to eat the labours
of the husbandman's hand, and drink the
sweat of his brow ; to wallow and sleep in
ease only, as a useless lump of well clothed,
well descended earth : earth for heaviness
only, but not for fruitfulness, serves uo other
end of society, but only to make one in a
number. But it may be replied. Shall those whom
God has blessed in the world, and, as it were,
by a particular raark of his providential favour
exempted frora the general curse of toil and
labour, be obliged to work in a trade, or to
be of such or such a laborious profession ? No,
I answer, that they need not, nor is this the
thing contended for, but simply that they
should labour and fill up all the hours of their
time by eraploying theraselves usefully for
the public ; and there are superior and more
noble employments in which this labour may
be sufficiently exerted. For is any one so
rich or high as to he above the labour of doing
good to a whole neighbourhood, of compos- :
ing differences, studying the customs of his |
country, reading histories, and learning such
arts as may render him both erainent and
useful, serviceable to the public hoth in peace
and war.
If it be answered, that he stands in need of |
none of all these, as being already abundantly i]
supplied with all the plenties and supports of
life : to this also I rejoin, that they are not
only a raan's own personal needs, but the
general needs of society, that coramand a i
supply and relief from his labour ; add to this
also, in the second place, that the obligation ;!
to labour, lying upon men, is not founded ^
upon their needs and necessities, bnt upon f
God's comraand, as its proper reason ; which |

ON JOHN, ix. 4.

91

oummand he has laid uuiversallj' and impar
tially upon all ; and he that excuses himself
from all labour, the common lot of mankind,
by loading it with the odious name of ser
vility, should do well to consider whether the
custom of a place, the vogue of his dependants,
and his own little arts of evasion, will be
able to bear him out in so broad a contempt
of an express command ; aud to rescue him
from that thundering sentence levelled so
directly at him in M.att. xxv. 30, " Cast ye
the unprofitable servant into outer darkness,
there shall be weeping and amashing of
teeth." 2. Correspondent to a Christian's other,
that is, his spiritual capacity, he has also a
spiritual calling or profession ; and the work
that this engages him to, is that grand one of
working out his salvation ; a work that a life
is too little for, had a man any thing more
than a life to bestow upon it ; a work that
runs out into eternity, and upon which de
pends the wo or welfare of an immortal soul.
Now this work is threefold :
1. To raake our peace with God.
2. To get our sins raortified.
3. To get our hearts purified with the con
trary graces.
1. And first, for the first of these, the mak
ing our peace with God. We know how
tedious a work it is to reconcile or appease a
potent enemy amongst men ; frequent ad-
drrases must be made, great and irksome sub
missions must be digested. Days must be
spent in attending, and nights in projecting
how to assuage, and qualify, and remove the
swelling disgust, and recover a place in that
breast that has been boiling with rancour and
enmity, and designs of mischiefs. Many
years perhaps go over a man's head, before he
gets any ground upon such an one, if, per
adventure, he succeeds at last; so hard, so
troublesome, and discouraging a task it is, to
win back a lost affection. Now every man
must know, that, upon his very first coming
into the world, he has this huge task upon
him, to appease and pacify a great enemy ; an
enemy so much the harder to be pacified, be
cause once a friend. This enemy is God, and
therefore his enmities must be commensurate
to his person, that is, infinite and unlimited.
Aud it has this property also, that it is an
enmity not commencing upon a mere grudge,
bnt upon an injurious violation of his justice,
and consequently not to be laid down without
satisfaction. This satisfaction was to be in
finite, and so impossible to be exhibited by a
finite nature. 'The case being thus, Christ,
the etemal Son of that offended God, was
pleased to offer himself as a surety and a ran
som in our behalf ; so as to answer and satisfy
all the demands of offended justice.
A satisfaction therefore there is made for
us, but so made, that there are conditions re

quired on our parts, before there can be any
application of it to our persons ; and if these
conditions are not reached, we may die with
pardons in our Bibles, but not at all belonging
to us. Now these conditions are faith and
repentance ; words quickly uttered, but things
not so easily effected. There must pass such
a change upon our natures, such a renovation
of the very spirit of our minds, as may
amount to the verification of this of us, that
we are " new creatures." The new creature
is the subject of justification. And being
once "justified," the apostle tells us, (Rom. v.
1,) " we have peace with God."
But how is it possible to establish a peace be
tween natures of the widest distance and the
fiercest opposition ? such as is the most holy,
pure, and just nature of God, and the nature
of man, polluted and envenomed by original
corruption. Can fire and stubble strike a
league together, and be friends? Can guilt
and justice unite and embrace? No, nothing
of any reconcilement was to be expected, till
such time as repentance shonld cleanse this
Augean stable, and the Spirit of God infuse
into the soul a new principle called faith ;
which principle shall really translate a man
into auother family, advance him to the privi
lege of adoption, and so make him a son and
an heir to the God of heaven, by the merits of
the second Adam, who was an outlaw and a
traitor by the first.
2. The second work that we are to do, is to
get our sins mortified. For after we are
transplauted from the state of nature into a
state of grace, we are not presently to think
that our work is wholly done. For after the
Israelites were possessed of Canaan, they had
many of the Amorites and other eneraies to
conquer and drive out before thera. Every
raan has corrupt, sinful habits that have over
spread, and, as it were, engarrisoned them
selves in the most inward parts of his sonl ;
habits deeply fixed, and not easily dispos
sessed. These are the adversaries that he is to
encounter and to wage war with ; adversaries
that have all the advantages against him
imaginable ; such as he must make his way to
through his own heart, and open his bosom,
that the weapon raay reach them.
The sharpest, the most afflicting, and yet
the most conceming part of a Christian's
duty, is the raortification of his sin. For it is,
as it were, a man's weeding of his heart ; he
shall find it a growing evil ; an evil, that, by
a cursed fertility, will sprout out after the
cutting. For scarce any weed is fetched up
at once; the gardener's h'and and hook must be
continually watching over it ; and he accounts
his ground preserved, if it is not overrun. •
Let a man make experiment in any one
vice ; only let it be such an one .as is agreeable
and incident to the several ages of man ; as
for instance, be it pride ; for the extirpation

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

of which, we will suppose a man, by the
influences of a preventing grace, very early in
his attempts against it, and laying the axe to
tho root of this towering vice in his very
youth. Yet, does it fall before him suddenly
and easily? does the first foil or blow make
him victorious, and enable him to set his foot
upon the neck of his conquered enemy? No,
there are many vicissitudes in the combat ;
soraetiraes he seems to get that under, some
times that seems to be above him. And what
through the strength of its hold, and the
treachery of its working, a man finds enough
to exercise and humble his old age ; and per
haps, after all his conflicts with it, goes out of
the world only with this half-trophy, (enough
indeed to save him,) that he was not over
come. Now, what I say of this is equally true of
all other ¦vices ; and he that h.as a voluptuous,
au intemperate, or a covetous heart to deal
with, will find work enough laid out for him
for this life. And let him beware thiit he
ply his spiritual warfare so, that after forty,
fifty, or threescore years, his vice is not as
lively in his aged bones, and under his hoary
hairs, as ever it was ; aud he die a decrepit,
aged sinner, but yet in the youth and vigour
of his siu.
3. The third work incumbent upon every
man frora his Christian calling, is to get his
heart purified and replenished with the proper
graces and virtues of a Christian. Christianity
ends not in negatives. No man clears his
g.arden of weeds, but in order to the planting
of flowers or useful herbs in their room. God
calls upon us to dispossess our corruptions, but
it is for the reception of new inhabitants. A
room may be clean, and yet empty ; but it is
not enough that our hearts be .iirept, unless
they be .also garnished ; and that wo lay aside
our pride, our luxury, our covetousness, unless
humility, temperance, and liberality, rise up
and shine in their places. Tho design of
religion would be very poor and short, should
it look no farther than oni}' to keep men from
being swine, and goats, and tigers, without
improving the principles of humanity into
positive aid Iiigher perfections. Tho soul
may be cleansed from all blots, .and yet still
be left but a blank.
But Christianity that is of a thriving,
aspiring nature, requires us to proceed from
grace to grace ; to " virtue adding patience, to
patience temperance, to temper.anco meek
ness, to meekness brotherly kindness," .and
the like ; thus ascending by degrees, till .at
length the top of the ladder reaches heaven,
and conveys the soul so qualified into tho
mansions of glory.
1 shewed before the difficulty of mortifica
tion, and we aro not to think that it is at all
less difficult to make a depraved heart vir
tuous, to force the soil of an ill temper, and.

_ Skrm. III. '
! as it were, to graft virtuous habits npon tht
3toek of a vicious nature. AN'o see those that
learn a trade, and the habit of any ineohaDio
art, must yet bestow time and toil in the
acquiring of it ; though perhaps they have
also a natural propensity to the art they aro
in pursuit of. Which being so, with how
much more difficulty may we imagine a man
to get humility or heavenly-niiiidednees,
while all the appetites, aud the very nervei
of his soul, strive against it, and endeavour to
pull down as fast as he can build np.
True it is, therefore, tiiat there is not one
virtue th.at is produced iu the soul of fiUlen
man, but is infused into it by tho operation
of God's Spirit. Aud if any one should here
upon except, first. To what purpose, thon, is
our endeavour in this niatter, if the Spiritof
God works all ? And seeondly, Wheira is it
that theso virtues are not iu an instant con
veyed into the heart in their full perfection,
but appear and show themselves ouly gradu
ally, and by certain stejis nnd increases?
'To both these doubts this ono answer >yill
give full satisfaction, namely, that habits, \
though they aro infused, do vot como after
tho manner of such as .'ire acquired. Though
our working produces not those habits, yet m
Spirit infuses thom into us while wo are
working ; and th.at in thoso gradual propo^
tions, that in tho whole notion it still main
tains an imitation of tho course of nature, that
passes from less profit to more, till at length
it arrives at the utniost perfection that it first
intended. And thus 1 h.'ivo finished the first proposi
tion, and shown thnt there is a work appointed
to every man, to be performed by him while j
ho lives iu the world ; as also the several parts
of that work. I come now,
II. To the second ]U'oposilioii, uainoly,tll«t
tho time of this life being onco expired, there
reraains no farther opportunity or possibility
of performing this work.
'riiero is no repenting when wo aro once
nailed up iu our coffins ; no believing iu the
grave ; no doing tho works of chanty and
temperance in the dust, or growing now croa-
tures amongst the worms ; life is the adequate
space allotted by the wisdom of Heaveii for
these matters, whieh being ended, there is uo
.'il'ter-ganie, or retrieving of a bad choico.
And so much seems couched under that one
word, by which the time of this life is ex
pressed, namely, a day, which, as it is applied
to life, mav emphatically denote three things:
1 . The shortness of it. What is a day, but
a few minutes' sunshino ; ono of tho most m-
eoiisiderablo proportions of time ; such an one,
as we never grudge to bestow upon any thing:!
an indiscernible shred of that life that is itself
but a span. Yet in these reckonings, God is
jilea.sed to rate it by a narrower aud a more
contemptible measure. God will not dally

ON JOHN, ix. 4.

93

with us in the great affairs of eternity. He
allows us our day, and but our day, to choose
whether or no we will be happy for ever.
Which shews what a value God puts upon
these opportunities, by dispensing them so
sparingly, that though we have enough to use,
yet we have none to lavish or to lend. We
are hurried through the world ; our whole life
is but, as it were, a day's journey ; and there
fore certainly it concerns us to manage it so,
that we may have comfort at our journey's
end. 2. A day, as it denotes the shortness, so it
implies also the sufficiency of our time. A
day, as short as it is, yet it equals the business
of the day. God, that knows the exact pro
portions of things, took the measure of both,
and found that the compass of our lives would
fully grasp and take in all our occasions.
" Are there not twelve hours in the day ?"
says our Saviour ; implying that there was
time enough for any man to discharge all the
work, that God, and nature, and his profession
could, for that space, impose upon him.
And if any one here object the shortness of
the time allotted for a Christian's work against
the sufficiency of it ; though it raust be con
fessed, that, should we live never so long, we
could not have too much time to do the works
of repentance, and to honour God in ; yet,
according to the economy and raeasures of
the gospel, in which God accepts our services
according to their truth, not their bulk, we
have space enough assigned us, even in this
short life, to do all that is necessary to bring
us to a better.
And he that repents not and turns to God
in the space of fifty, threescore, or perhaps
seventy years, would, for any thing that is in
him, live and persevere in the same impeni
tence, should God add five hundred years to
his life. And it is not to be doubted, but
God prolongs the life of raany here on earth,
not with any expectation of their repentance
and conversion, as knowing them to be in
corrigible, but to serve other ends of his
providence in carrying on the affairs of the
worlil. Sdly and lastly. By a day is denoted to us
the determinate stint and limitation of our
tirae. For none must think that the great
and wise Governor of the world has left a
niatter of so high concernment, and of so
direct an influence upon the business of the
world, as the life of man is, loose and unfixed.
God has concluded all under a certain and
unchangeable decree ; and we have our bounds,
beyond which we shall not pass. For as,
after such a number of hours, it will una
voidably be night, and there is no stopping of
the setting sun ; so, after we have passed such
a measure of time, onr season has its period ;
we are benighted, and we must bid adieu to
all our opportunities.

It is not in the power of man to carve out
a longer life to hiraself. The disposal of times
and seasons is part of the divine prerogative :
and we know not whether God will allow the
fig tree to grow one, or two, or three years in
his vineyard ; but sure it is, that, when its
appointed tirae is come, it must cumber the
ground no longer. God has allotted to men
talents of tirae, as well as of other things ; to
sorae ten, to sorae five, to sorae one. But still
we see each man's proportion is set. And he
that has but five, must not think to traffick
at the rate of him that has ten.
And thus we have taken some survey of
the second proposition, namely, that the time
of this life being once expired, there remains
no farther opportunity or possibility of per
forming the great work incumbent upon us.
I descend now to the third and last,
III. Which is, that the consideration of
this ought to be the highest and the most
pressing argument to every man to use his
utmost diligence in the discharge of this work.
The enforcing reason of diligence in the
undertaking of any work, is the difficulty of
the performance of that work. Which diffi
culty here in our case will appear by corapar
ing of the work to be done, with the tirae
allowed for the doing of it. The tirae, I
shewed, was both short and liraited, so, on the
other side, the work to be done is both diffi
cult and necessary.
1. And first, for its difficulty: though this
has been sufficiently intiraated in what was
discoursed of before, yet, for the farther de
claration of it, it is observable, that there is
no action of raankind that carries any thing
of hardship with it, but the Scripture ex
presses the work and duty of a Christian by
it. It calls it "a warfare ;" and is there any
thing so hard and uneasy as what befalls raen
in the wars ? It calls it " a wrestling with
principalities and powers :" and is there any
thing that employs and distends every joint
and fibre of the body so rauch as wrestling
does ? It calls it " a resisting of the Devil,"
and, what is more, " a resisting unto blood :"
and do raen shed their blood and expose their
lives to the poiut of the rapier, and the fury
of the eneray, with so much pastime?
But no expressions are so emphatical as
those of our S.aviour, who calls this work " a
taking up of one's cross ;" a severe task indeed,
whether a man bear ttie cross or the cross hira.
It seeras to be our Saviour's design all along
to possess men with a true and impartial re
presentation of those afflicting parts of duty,
that will be indispensably required of such as
shall give up their names to Christianity.
But above all, there is a place in Luke, xiii.
24, which I wonder any considerate person
can read without trembling : " Strive," says
our Saviour, " to enter in at the strait gate ;
for many, I say unto you, shall seek to enter

94

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.  Serm. HI.

in, and shall not be able." What ! seek to
enter, and yet find no entrance? Good God !
What then will become of those numberless
numbers of raen, who never so much as sought,
who never were at the expense of a hearty
endeavour to get themselves into these narrow
paths of felicity ? If those that come " cry
ing. Lord, Lord," and "striving," shall yet
have the door shut upon thera, what shall
the lewd, the slothful, and the sottish epicure
build the hopes of his salvation upon ?
And now, when we have seen the work to
be done so highly difficult, and thetirae to do it
in so very short, can there be a more cogent
argument, to induce a raan to be covetous
of every raoment, and to make his industry
piece out the scantiness of his opportunities ?
He that has far to go, and much to do, surely
is concerned to rise very early ; to count not
only hours but minutes, to make his work
keep pace with his time ; and, in a word, to
mate the difficulty of the business with the
diligence of the prosecution.
2. Next to the difficulty of the work, let us
take an argument from its necessity. So far
as it is necessary for a man to be saved, so far
this work is necessary. Which argument
will be heightened by comparing this neces
sity with the stinted, fixed limitation of the
time allotted for the work. There is no de
ferring it beyond our day : there is uo suoh
thing as a to-morrow in the Christian's cal
endar. And yet, are there any almost that
lay this so important a consideration to heart?
Men, especially in the flower and freshness of
their youth, are infinitely careless : while they
think they spend upon a full stock, and
have the supplies of nature, the treasures
of strength, and opportunity open before
thera. They know not the value of those
precious, never-returning hours, that they
quaff, and revel, and trifle away, when as the
revocation of the least minute is not to be
purchased with all the Persian treasures, or
the mines of both the Indies.
But when a man coraes at hist to reflect
upon his past days, and the little sand that
is left him to run ; when " his feet are stum
bling upon the dark mountains," and the sha
dows of his long night have overtaken him,
j he never asks the question then, how to pass
¦ away time, and to spend the day. None of
I his hours then lie upon his hands.
! Now, when amidst all this, his great ac-
1 counts shall also press hard upon him, and
the terror of past sins lie heavy ufion his con
science ; it is worth considering his behaviour
, iu this condition. None, surely, ever heard
such a one calling religion pedantry, deriding
adivine, or jesting upon the Scriptures. How
much soever a wretch and a scoffer he was
before, his note is changed now ; and we may
hear him withthe most earnest, humble, and
lamentable outcries plying his offended God.

Lord, spare mo for a while : Lord, respite
me but for a month, a week, or but a day, to
make my peace with thee. Set the long and
the dark night back for a few hours, that I
may put my accounts in sorae better order
for my appearance before thy dreadful tri
bunal. I
And then for this spiritual guide, whom, |
perhaps, not long since, he could scoff out of
his company with disdain, he can now be- !
speak in a more abject and entreating dialect.
Sir, do you think that there is any mercy,
any hope for such a one as I? Have I not
outsinned the line of grace? Do you not :
perceive any mortal symptoms upon my sins?
Do you think that my repentance is sincere,
that it reaches the conditions of the covenant,
and that I raay venture my salvation upon j|
the reality of it? Can you give me any i
solid argument from Scripture, or the judg
ment of divines, that the promises of. niercy
can extend to a man that has committed such
and such sins, and that under such and such
circurastances ? And that I do not all this
while abuse and fl.atter myself, and only pre
pare for an eternal disappointment? Never
did any client, with so much scruple and
solicitousness, inquire of his counsel about tbe
strength or weakness of his title, when he
was to go to law for all his estate, and to see
his whole fortune canvassed at tho bar, as
a man in this condition will dispute his title to
heaven, and argue his several doubts aud mis
givings with his spiritual guide or confessor.
No shiner, be he never so hardy and re
solved, must think to keep up the same stout
ness of heart, when he is just a stepping into
the other world. No, these are usually the
sad accents and language of the dying siuner,
when he perceives his tirae spent, and, in the
prospect of his approaching end, lies farther
bemoaning himself, —
Oh that I were to live over my former days
again ! that I could command back some of
those portions of time that I sacrificed to my
vice, to the huraour of my companions, and
to those vanities that now serve ouly to re
mind me of mv folly, and to upbraid me to
my face ! Oh," that I had employed myself
in those severities, that I then laughed at as
the needless, affected practices of brainsick,
melancholy persons ! mv work had not been
now to do, when my time of working is ex
pired. I shall close up all with that excellent
counsel of the preacher, Ecclesiastes, ix. 10,
" Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it
with all thy might : for there is no work,
nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, (and
I may add also, nor working out a raan's sal
vation,) " in the grave whither thou goest."
And going thither we all are apace : where
fore, since after a few days comes death, and
after death judgment, and after judgment an

ON JOHN, ix. 4.

93

etemal, unchangeable condition ; surely it
concerns us all so to acquit ourselves iu the
several parts of our Christian profession, that
we may be able to leave the world with that
saying of the blessed apostle, " I have fought
a good fight, I have finished my course, I
have kept the faith : henceforth there is
laid up for me a crown of righteousness."
Which God of his mercy at last bestow
upon as all : to whom be rendered and .as
cribed, as is most due, all praise, niight,
majesty, aud dominion, both now and for
evermore. Amen.

SERMON lY.
PREACHED AT THE CONSECRATION' OF
DR SETH WAUD. BISHOP OF OXON.
" I will make thee unto this people a fenced brasen wall : and
they shall Sglit against thoe, but the.v shall not prei^l agaiust
thee : f.^r 1 am wiOl thee fo save thee and dcUver tliee, saith
the Lord." — Jkr. xv. 20.
I SH.4U, not pretend to derive espiscopacy
from the Old Testament, as some do presby
tery from Jethro, in his humble petition and
advice to Moses concerning the governuuiit of
the Jews. Which presbytery," though some
call the rod of A.aron, yet it more resembles
those rods of Jacob, as being desiaiied to mid-
wive a piebald, mixed, riugstraked progeny of
church governors iuto the world. However,
it is well that we see from whence it first
came, even from Midian, a heathenish place,
aud unacquainted with the true worship of
God, then confined only to the Jews.
But it is pity that the Old Test^iment does
uot describe the office of those elders, as well
as mention the name : we reading scarce any
thing of them there, but that sorae of them
scuffleii with Moses :ind Aaron iu the chssis
of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram. As .also of
their idolatry, (Ezekiel, vi.) And of their pri
vate exaraination of Susanna in the story of
Daniel ; which book, though it be apocryphal,
yet the practice remains authentic and can
onical. I say, I shall not derive episcop.acy from
the Jewish model ; though, if I would take
their liberty to use allusions for arguments, I
might argue a superintendency of bishops
over presbyters from the superiority of the
priests over the Levites, much better than they-
cau found their discipline upon the word
dder, catching at the bare letter, .and, accord
mg to their custom, stripping the word from
the sense : and also with rauch more pirobabi-
lity thau their coryphees in Queen Elizabeth's
time .argued their discipline from Psalm
cxxii. 5, that iu Jerusalem " there are set

thrones of judgment." By which it seems
they would be kings as well as priests, and
reigu as well as rule, dashing the princes of
the earth like a potter's vessel, (au expression
which they much delight in,) till, at length,
they crouched to the holy discipline, kissed
the rod of Aaron, and so acknowledged their
elders for their betters.
But surely this I may .argue solidly ; that
if God instituted such a' standing superiority
and jurisdiction ofthe priests over the Levites,
then these two things follow :
1. That such a superiority is not in itself
absolutely irregular and unlawful.
2. Th.at neither does it carry in it an .anti
pathy aud eontnu'icty to the power of godli
ness. And yet upon these two suppositions, as
upou two standing truths, all their ealumnies
are commenced ; as if there were something
in the very vital constitution of such a subor
dination, that was irreconcileable to the power
of godliness. As in respect of the civil power,
Calvin, in his commentary upon Daniel, chap
V. 21, that it is coiniiion to all kings to jostle
out God from his government ; a good plea
for his abetting the ejection of the lawful
prince of Geneva from his governmeut and
prerogiitive. But to come yet closer to the matter : I do
not s.-iy that Jeremy was a bishop, nor, with
an exact parallel, argue from oue to the other.
But we know, that, iu things of a most diffe
rent nature, we may yet so sever their peculiar
determining differences, as to leave some one
general reason iu which they raay unite aud
agree ; so here, setting aside the peculiar dif
ferences of the Jewish .and the Christian
economy, there is a general nature of govern
ment in which both correspond. And there
fore, what concerned Jeremy, as a church-
governor, may with good logic be applied to
a bishop. Though indeed the correspondence here
may extend to more peculiar and personal re
semblances : for might not our bishops lately
take up aud appropriate to themselves that
complaiut of Jeremy, (in chaji. xv. 10,) " I
have wronged no man, I have neither lent
on usury, nor have raen lent to nie ou usury,
and yet every man curses me?'" Were thoy
not also, like Jeremy, persecuted from prison
to prison, and, like him, traduced .as secret
friends .and parties with Babylon, .and put
iuto the dungeon for their impartial speaking
their eonseieiiees ? Aud. lastly, notwithstand
ing their piety, hospitality, and moderation,
have they not, with Jeremy, seen a sad and
uncomfortable issue of all their ministerial
labours, and been forced to secoud their pro
phecies with lamentations ?
But now to enter upon the words ; wc have
in them these three thiugs considerable : i
I. God's qualification of Jeremy to be au

ee

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Serm. IV.

overseer in his church ; " I will make thee a
fenced brazen wall."
II. The entertainment that he should meet
with in the adrainistration of his office, " they
shall fight against thee."
HI. The issue and success of this opposi
tion, that, through God's eminent and pecu-
; liar assistance, "they should not prevail
against him."
I. And first, for the first ofthese, God's qua
lification of Jeremy to his charge, " I will
make thee a brazen fenced wall." Now a
wall imports these two things :
1. Enclosure.
2. Fortification.
1. It implies enclosure. God did not think
fit to leave his church without enclosure,
open, like a coraraon, for every beast to feed
upon and devour it. Commons are always
bare, pilled, and shorn as the sheep that feed
upon thera. And our experience has shewn
us, as soon as the enclosures of our church
were plucked up, what a herd of cattle of all
sorts invaded it. It contained, as comraons
usually do, both multitude and mixture.
God said to Moses, " Pull off thy shoes, for
the place upon which thou standest is holy
ground ;" which coraraand would have been
but of little force araongst us, where the
ground has been therefore counted common
because holy ; church-lands have been every
one's claim, free and comraon to all but to
churchraen ; even as coramon as the church
yard itself ; one to be possessed by the living,
the other by the dead.
And the offices of the church were as pros
titute as her revenues ; every one would be a
labourer in that field from whence thev ex
pected so fair a harvest. Here a brewer,
here a cobbler, there a butcher ; a fair tran
slation from the killing of one flock to the
feeding of another.
We have Christ comparing the kingdom of
heaven, that is, the church, to traffic, to mer
chandise : but we raight compare ours to a
fair, in which there was a general confluence
and appearance of all tradesmen ; and he that
had broke in any, presently set up in divinity.
Wherefore to stave oft' the profane intru
sions of the rabble for the future, we must
have an enclosure, and a hedge will not
serve the tu rn . So man y rotten stakes of lay-
governors will not raise a fence ; a hedge
th.at surrouuds an orchard may harbour those
thieves that intend to rob it.
No ; one brazen wall, one diocesan bishop,
will better defend this enclosed garden of the
church, than a junto of five hundred shrubs
than all the quicksets of Geneva, all the
thorns and brambles of presbytery.
2. A wall imports fortification. No city
can be secure without it. It is, as it were, a
standing inanimate army ; a continual de
fence without the help of defenders.

There is no robbery, but the wall is first
broke ; no invasion, but it enters through the
ruins of this. And therefore David puts up
this for Sion, (Psalm cxxii. 7,) " Peace be
within thy walls, and prosperity within thy
bulwarks." Indeed it had therefore "peace
and prosperity," because it had " walls and
bulwarks." Soraething must encircle the church that
will both discriminate and protect it. And
the altar raust be railed in, not only for dis
tinction but defence.
And such a thing is a church-governor, a
i well-qualified bishop. It is he that must
secure the church, and not the little inferior
pastors about hira. There is as much dif
ference between his protection and theirs,
as there is between being encompassed by
one continued wall, and by a rank of little
hills. It was Moses, and not the elders of Israel,
that stood in the gap ; and for our own parts,
if we would deterraine upon whom to place
our governraent, certainly, of all others, those
persons are raost unfit to stand in the gap
that first made it.
We have seen now what is imported in this
metaphor of a wall, as applied to a church-
governor. Which title that he may make
good and verify, there are required in him
these three qualifications :
1. Courage, which leads the way to all the
rest ; a wall, nay, a brazen wall, will not
sometimes prove a defence, if it is not well
manned. Every churchman should have the
spirit of a soldier. And pray let us make an
exchange ; the soldiers have sufficiently in
vaded the ministers' offices; let rainisters now
borrow a little of the soldiers' courage.
Peter was a resolute and a bold man, and
therefore fit to feed Christ's larabs. But be
that is tiraorous and flexible, apt to decline
opposition when he can, and, when he can
not, to yield to it, will be jaded and rid like
an ass ; and, like a pitcher, he will be took
and emptied by his own handle, to the ruin
of the church and the reproach of his function.
He will be used, instead of being obeyed ; and
men will make him their instrument, instead
of their governor.
He that does not find in himself a courage
to withstand the boldness and violence of a
proud seducer or a popular schismatic, betrays
his charge in the very undertaking it. A ser
vile temper in any one is unworthy ; but a
spirit of servitude in the place of government
is unnatural : and he that fears does something
more than serve : he wears his white in his
timorous face, and therefore deserves not to
wear it in his sleeves.
The greatest attempts in the' worid that
have failed, have miscarried by the treachery
of this one quality, irresolution. Fear is a
base thing, it enslaves a man's reason to his

0\ JEREMIAH, XV. -20.

97

fancy ; and for tbe most part proceeds from,
but always looks like guilt.
Aud it agrees to no man living so ill, ns to
a prelate of tt.e church ¦, of whose qualities if
we take a survey, we shall find that, though
learning be his ornament, piety a necessary
property, yet resolution is his very essence ;
and now, especially, is the want of it inex
cusable, when the ground is firm under you,
nnd the heavens, as yet, fair above you ; and
all the prudent and judicious for you, that
are about you.
Shall those be able to nose and outbrave
you, who take all their courage from guilt
aud from despair ? They deride and tax you
for bowing and cringing ; pray therefore,
whatsoever you do, do not bow and cringe to
them. 2. There is required innocence aud integ
rity. A br.azen wall admits of no cracks and
flaws; but that which is made of the baser
materials of mud and mortar, of a corrupt
conscience, and a corrupter convers;ition, it
gapes into chinks and holes, and quickly tot-
tersj being weak and obnoxious.
Hic mums alieneus esto.
Nil conscire sibi.
Let our governors expect reproaches and
calumnies, but being tlirown at brass, they
will never stick, upon mud they will ; clay
cannot mingle with brass or iron. And if
men throw dirt, it will not fasten till it meets
with dirt.
.\ bishop's integrity is the best way to
silence a factious minister. Let men first
wash their hands in innocency, and then let
them compass the altar.
In these stars of God's right hand, it is
their power indeed that gives thera .an influ
ence, but it is their innocence that makes
them shine. Unblameableness of life, an un
tainted pureness of manners, it defends the
person and confirms the office ; as cleanliness.
It both refreshes, and, at the same time, also
strengthens the body. Rust, it not only de
faces the aspect, but also corrodes the sub
stance ; and a rusty sword does execution upon
nothing bnt its own scabbard.
Nothing that is vicious can be lasting ; vice
is rotten, aud it makes so. Whatsoever is
wicked is also weak; (Ezek. xvi. 30,) " Since
thou doest these things, how weak is thv
heart !"
The enemies of the church may fear your
power, but they dread your innocence. It is
this that stops the open sepulchre, and beats
hack the accusation upon the teeth of the
accuser. The innocent white, it is a trium
phant colour.
And believe it, when .all these calumniators
shall have spit their venom, it will be found,
that an unspotted life will be to them both a
confutation aud revenge.
For siu they love, th.at is, to enjoy it in
VOL. n.

themselves, and to accuse it in others ; but
God forbid that we should so far gr.atify their
malice, as to verify their invectives, or that
any crime should sit blushing upon the mitre.
And certainly it were a strange and a shame
ful thing, to behold vice installed, debauchery
enthroned ; .and to have the whole trivnsaction
only the solemnity of an advanced sin and a
consecrated impiety.
3. The third and last qualification that I
shall mention is authority ; it is to be vi fenced,
as well a« a bra,:cn wall. The inward firmness
of one must be corroborated by the exterior
munitions of the other.
Courage is like a giaut with his hands tied,
if it has uot authority and jurisdiction to draw
forth and actuate its resolution. Courage is
nothing, if it is not backed with a commis
sion. There are those who absolutely deny any
jurisdiction to belong to the church ; affirm
ing, that all the apostolical sanctions were
rather .advice than law ; thus m.aking the
church-officers to be only like a college of
physicians, who, when they consult about,
.and deterraine any matter in physic, and pre
scribe to their patients, their prescriptions
command nothing by way of authority, but
only propose by way of counsel. Whence it
is the less wonder, that Erastus, a physician,
should endeavour to reduce the church to such
an imaginary power.
Others, amongst which a person of great
learning aud discontent, though they proceed
not to a plain, barefaced denial of the church's
jurisdiction, yet they deny the derivation of
it from Christ ; and derive it from the consent
of the primitive Christians, voluntarily choos
ing governors and a government, .and then
submitting themselves to their jurisdictiou.
But God forbid that the church should be
forced either to follow Erastus's prescriptions,
or to try her title and plead her cause at an
adversary's bar.
Certain it is, that the New Testament makes
mention of several acts of ecclesiastical juris
diction performed by the apostles and others.
And we find also several express speeches of
Christ that do evidently endue them with
such a jurisdiction. But n e read not a word
that it came from any such consent, or yoluu-
tarv submission of a company of Christians
coHibining together, and choosing their owu
model ; aud it is str.ange that, in .such a m.at-
ter, the antiquary should so much recede from
the judgraent of'antiquity.
But thanks be to God that our church has
not onh- its iurisdiction from Christ, but
also a superadded overplus of confirmation
from the secul.ar power, which has piously and
priidentlv provided those laws, that will cer-
tainlv biiid up her breaches, and bring order
out of confusion, if they be executed with the
same courage with which they were enacted.
a

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Serm. IV.

\--

But if the governors and trustees of the
church's power fly back, and shrink, and bury
a noble law as soon as ever it is born, raay not
those that made it object to us, " that they
would have healed us, but we would not be
healed ?" May they not also use that speech
of our Saviour to us, "Behold, now your
house is left to you desolate ?" You have lost
your advantages, and overlooked your oppor
tunities. Does it become a man, with a sword by his
side, to beseech ? or a governor, arraed with
authority, to entreat ? He that thinks to win
obstinate schisraatics by condescension, and to
conjure away those evil spirits with the softer
lays and music of persuasion, may, as David
in the like case, have a javelin flung at his
head for his pains, and perhaps escape it as
narrowly. There is a strange, coraraanding raajesty in
two things, truth and law, and they are now
both on the church's side ; but there is a das
tardly poorness in guilt and faction, that will
shrink before the face of justice and the aspect
of authority.
And let faction look and speak big in a
turault, and in the troubled waters of rebel
lion ; yet I dare vouch this as a truth of cer
tain event, and that without the spirit of
prophecy, that courage assisted with law, and
law executed with courage, will assuredly
prevail. Come we now to tbe second thing, namely,
II. The opposition that the church-gover
nor thus qualified will be sure to meet with
in the adrainistration of his office, expressed
in those words, " they shall fight against thee ;"
and this they are like to do the.se three ways :
1. By seditions preaching and praying.
2. By railing and libels.
3. And thirdly, perhaps, by open force.
1. And first of all, they will assault their
governors with seditious preaching and play
ing. To preach Christ out of contention is
conderaned by the apostle ; but to preach
contention, instead of Christ, certainly is most
abominable. We have seen men preached
into schisra, lectured into sacrilege, and prayed
into rebellion ; the very pulpit has been made
to undermine the church.
We have been robbed and plundered in
scripture phrase, and have heard rapines and
bloodshed not ouly justified, hnt glorified.
People in the mean time thronging to tho
church, not like " doves to their windows,"
but like eagles to their prey ; to have their
appetites enraged, to have their talons whet
against government, and their consciences
fired against whatsoever is constituted in
church and state.
Read the collections of sermons upon their
bloody thanksgivings, and their bloodthirsty
humiliations, and upon other occasions before
the two houses, which are so many satires

against government, so many declamatioin
against the church ; every line aud period
alraost spitting poison against monarchy,
against discipliiieand decency ; to the reproach
of that exercise, to the shame of their calling,
and (so far as it lay at the mercy of their
practices) to the blot of Christianity :
I say, let any one read that collection, or,
to speak more properly, that magazine of
sermons, and then let him confess that it was
the sword of the tongue that first drew and
unsheathed the other.
He that would hear an Invective against the
ministry, let him not go to a tavern, to a
carap, or to an exchange, but let him repair
rather to a church. And when his occasions
shall carry him to the market-town, to funiish
himself with other commodities, if he would
be furnished also with a stock of arguments
against loyalty and the church, let him leave
the market-place a while, and step aside into
the lecture.
2. Their second way of fighting against the
officers of the church will be by railing and
libels. I may seem to commit an absurdity,
I confess, in making this a different head from
their preaching and praying. But, consider
ing that they speak from the press as well as
from tbe pulpit, and in other places besides
the church, we must admit of this distinction.
And for this way of opposition, by virulent,
unseemly language, odious terms, and vilify
ing words, none ever improved their talent to
such a height of perfection.
The reverend fathers of the church were
the chief mark ,at which their virulence was
levelled : and for these, the more moderate of i
their opposers were contented to call them by j
no worse names than " whited walls, hypo
crites, painted sepulchres, scribes and phari
sees, implacable enemies of godliness, limbs
of Antichrist, retainers to the whore of
Babylon." But others, who had a greater
raeasure of this gift, bestowed upon them
higher titles, as, "devils incarnate, murderers
of souls, dumb dogs ;" and some, that would
tip their virulence with more than ordinary
wit, have thought fit to call them "dumb
dogs that could only bark at God's people.'
1 could give you a larger catalogue of th»e
gentle, pious. Christian expressions, used by
the brotherhood in Queen Elizabeth's days;
though since much augmented with several
additions and enlargements never before ex
tant, by their worthy successors aud tme
posterity ; persons, whose mouths are too foul
to be cleansed, and too broad to be stopped.
But they are in nothing so copious and
eloquent, as when they amplify and declaim
upon that old, beaten", misapplied theme of
persecution. Which charge, if true, yet they,
of all men living, were the most unfit to make
it. But I shall not busy myself to confute,
much less to retaliate their aspersions.

ON JEREMIAH, xv. 20.

99

3. In the third and last place, they may
oppose the governors and government of the
church by open force; and this is fighting
indeed ; but yet the genuine, natural conse
quent of the other : he that rails, having
opportunity, would rebel ; for it is the same
malice in a various posture, in a different way
of eruption ; and as he that rebels shews
what he can do, so he that rails does as really
demonstrate what he would do.
The reason of the thing itself does evince
this, and, what is yet a greater reason, ex
perience ; and he that will not believe what
he has felt, nor credit the experience of twenty
years, deserves to undergo it for twenty years
more. As the trumpet gives an alarm to the battle,
so bold invectives do as certainly alarm the
trumpet ; it is the sarae breath by which men
utter the one and blow the other.
What insurrections, what attempts, what
tumults they may make, we know not ; but
we know their principles, and we have suf
ficiently seen them illustrated in their prac
tices ; and therefore from what has been done,
do but rationally collect what may.
We have he.ard much of the "power of
godliness," by which indeed is meant only
the godly party being in power ; and the
godly party with them are those who have
sworn the destruction of monarchy and of
the church, and have bewitched the people
with a fardel of strange, canting, insignificant
words. And let men know, that, notwithstanding
the disguise of a whining expression and a
demure face, there is no sort of men breathing
who taste blood with so good a relish, and
who, having the power of the sword to second
their "power of godliness," would wade
deeper in the slaughter of their brethren, and
with the most savage, implacable violence,
tumble all into confusion, ruin, and desola
tion. The quicksilver of Geneva is a thing of a
violent operation, and cannot lie still long,
but it will force its vent through the bowels
of a nation ; and God grant, that it may be
thoroughly purged out, before it becomes raor
tal and incurable : and give us the defence of
a prudent jealousy, to beware of those whose
loyalty and submission lies only in their want
of occasion.
We .have now despatched the two first
things considerable in the text ; in which, as
• in a set battle, we have seen the armour and
preparations of defence in the first place, and
the assault and opposition in the second. It
remains now,
III. That, as in all fights, we see the issue
and success, which is exhibited to us in these
words; "but they shall not prevail agaiust
thee." It is a bold venture to foretell things future.

because it is infamous to lie under the shame
of a mistaken prediction, and some, if they
had prophesied less, perhaps would have
preached better.
Things future fall under human cognizance
only these two ways :
1. By a foresight of them in their causes.
2. By divine revelation.
For the first of these, moral causes will
afford but a moral certainty ; but so far as the
light of this shines, it gives us a good prospect
into our future success.
For which is most likely to prevail, a force
marshalled into order, or disranked and scat
tered into confusion ? A force united and com
pacted with the strength of agreement, or
a force shrivelled into parties, and crumbled
into infinite subdivisions? A government
confirraed by age, and rooted by antiquity,
and withal complying with the conveniences
of society, or a government sprung up but
yesterday, aud yet becorae intolerable to-day ;
having the rigour, without the order of
discipline ; like a rod or twig, both for its
smart and also for its weakness ?
But besides the arguments of reason, we
have the surer ground of divine revelation.
God has engaged his assistance, made hiraself
a party, and obliged his omnipotence as a
second in the cause : "I am with thee to
save thee and deliver thee, saith the Lord."
We have something raore to plead than
God's providence, their old heathenish argu
ment. We have his word for our rule, and his
promise for our support. He that undertakes
God's work, may, by a legitimacy of claim,
challenge his assistance.
Yet neither are we destitute of arguments
from providence, so far as they may be pleaded.
For has God, by a miracle, raised a church
from the dead, only to make it capable of a
second destruction? has he buoyed it up from
the gulfs and quicksands of faction and sacri
lege, only to split it upon the rocks of a new
rebellion? Has he scattered those mists of
delusion, discovered the cheat of a long, reli
gious fallacy, and so strangely opened men's
eyes, that he raay more strangely put them
out again? Or will Christ invert the order
of his works, and having cured us, do another
miracle only to raake us blind ?
No certainly ; for as God does not create
but with a design to preserve, so he does not
deliver but with a purpose to defend.
But you will say. Does not our own late
experience stare us in the face, and confute
this assertion ? For has not the church been
exposed to the lust, fury, and rapine of her
adversaries? Have they not prevailed and
trampled upon her? ILave they not ruined,
reformed, and torn her in pieces as they
pleased ? And what assurance have we, that
what has been done already may not be done

100

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Serm. V.

again ? And then what will become of the
truth of this, " they shall not prevail against
thee?" To this I answer two things, with which I
shall conclude : —
1. That even those enemies of the church,
in the late dismal swing of confusion, did not
prevail against her. For that only is a pre
vailing, that is a final conquest.
But this was only a cloud that hindered
the sun.shine for a while, but did not put out
the sun. A veil drawn over the church's
face, not to extinguish her beauty, but to
hide it for a time. In short, it was ouly an
interruption, not an abolition of her happi
ness. 2. But, secondly, I add, that he who is
pillaged or murdered in the resolute perfor
mance of his duty, is not properly prevailed
against. It has been a constant tradition of the
church, that Jeremy himself, to w hom this very
Jiromise was made, was barbarously knocked
on the head, and killed in Egypt, for his im
partial prophesying ; yet still this proraise
was the word of God ; and therefore doubtless
could not fall to the ground, however the
prophet might.
There is a great deal of difference between
a raurder and a conquest.
So that should God again let loose the reins
to the forraer tyranny ; should he once more
give the sword to faction, ignorance, and dis
content, and arm the diabolical legion that
lately possessed us, and has been since cast
out ; should he commission all this rabble to
harass and run down the nation with plunders,
bloodshed, covenants, and sequestrations ; yet
still God will verify these words to every
faithful, courageous officer in his church,
"they shall not prevail against thee."
Such an one raay be plundered, indeed, and
yet not undone ; he may be sequestered, im
prisoned, yea, and slain, and yet, according
to the soberest judgment of reason, not con
quered. Some raay now think that the work of this
exercise is not discharged, unless directions
are given for the raanagement of the episcopal
office ; but I persuade myself, that our govern
ment advances none to this office, but such as
are able to direct theraselves. However I, for
my part, had rather proraise obedience, than
proffer counsel to ray superiors.
The business I undertook was to speak en
courageraent to those that shall sit at the
stern of the church iu such a discouraging
age, and to tell thera, that God will make
them " fenced brazen walls." And he that
strikes at a wall of brass may maul his own
hands, but neither shake nor demolish that.
Wherefore, let the furies of a new confusion
break forth, let the spiritual trumpets soiind
another march to rebellion, and the pulpit

drums beat up for volunteers for the Devil
and threaten the church once more.
Yet the governors of it may here take
sanctuary in the text ; and, with confidence
frora hence, bespeak their opposers.
Who shall " fight against us ?" it is God
that saves. Who shall destroy ? it is the same
God that delivers.
To which God, fearful in praises, and work
ing wonders, be rendered and ascribed, as is
most due, all praise, might, majesty, and
dominion, both now and for evermore.
Amen.

SERMON V.
PART I.

"Paul, a servant of God, and an apostle of JeiUB Chriat.
according to the faith of God's elect, and the acknowledging
of the truth which is after godliness." — Titus, i. 1.
In the last words of this verse, about which
only our present discourse shall be concerned,
we have a full though compendious account
of the nature of the gospel, ennobled by two
excellent qualities. One, the end of all
philosophical inquiries, which is trtah; the
other, the design of all religious institutions,
which is godliness; both united, and as it
were blended together in the constitution of
Christianity. Those who discourse metaphysically of the
nature of truth, as to the reality of the thing,
affirra a perfect coincidence between truth and
goodness ; and I believe it might be easily
made out that there is nothing in nature per
fectly true, but what is also really good. For
although it is not to be denied, that true
propositions may be framed of things in
theraselves evil, yet still it is certain, that the
truth of those propositions is good. Nothing
so bad as the Devil, or worse thau a liar ; yet
this affirmation, that " the Devil is a liar,
is hugely true and very good.
It would be endless to strike forth into the
elogies of truth ; for as we know it was the
adored prize for which the sublimest wits in
the world have always run and sacrificed their
tirae, their health, their lives, to the acquist
of it ; so let it suffice us to say here, that as
reason is the great rule of raan's nature, so
truth is the great regulator of reason.
I. Now, in this expression of the gospel_^
being " the truth which is after godliness,
these three things are couched :
1. That it is siraply a truth.
2. That it is an operative truth.
3. That it is operative to the best of ene<!t%
which is godliness.

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101

And first for the first of these ; it is a truth,
and upon that account dares look its raost
inquisitive adversaries in the face. The raost
intricate and mysterious passages in it are
vouched by an infinite veracity ; and truth is
truth, though clothed in riddles, and sur
rounded with darkness and obscurity ; as the
, sun has still the sarae native, inherent bright-
' ness, though wrapped up in a cloud.
Even those transcendent enigraas of the
Trinity, the incarnation of the Son of God,
and the resurrection of the dead, they all
challenge our assent upon the score of their
truth. And that three is one, and one three,
is altogether as true as that three is three,
though far from being so plain. It is hard
indeed to conceive a reparation of the same
numerical body having been transformed by
so many changes, yet we have the divine
word for it ; and death itself is not more sure
than that men shall rise from the dead.
Now, the gospel being a truth, it follows
yet farther, that if we run through the whole
catalogue of its principles, nothing can be
drawn from thence, by legitimate and certain
consequence, but what is also true. It is im
possible for truth to afford any thing but
truth. Every such principle begets a conse
quence after its own likeness.
2. The next advance of the gospel's excel
lency is, that it is such a truth as is operative.
It does not terminate in notion, or rest in
bare inactive speculation, but from the head
it shoots forth into the hand, and sets all the
faculties of our nature at work. It does not
dwell in the raind like furniture, only for
omament, but for use, and the great concern
ments of life. Most sorts of huraan know
ledge are like the treasures of a covetous raan,
got with labour and much industry ; and
being got, they lie locked up and wholly un
employed ; and indeed the very nature of
them abstracts from practice. The knowledge
of astronomy, geometry, arithmetic, music,
and the like, they may fill the mind, and yet
never step forth into one experiment ; but the
¦knowledge of the divine truths of Christianity
is quick and restless, like an iraprisoned flarae,
which will be sure to force its passage, and to
display its brightness.
3. The third and highest degree of its per
fection is, that it is not only operative, but
also operative to the best of purposes, which
is to godliness ; it carries on a design for
heaven and eternity. Some things are indeed
active, but the design of their action is trivial,
cheap, and contemptible ; so that, in effect, it
is no more than a sedulous and a laborious
doing of nothing ; which kind of actions,
should they he arrested with that question,
Oui bono ? the vanity of such performances
would quickly appear, that they were but a
shooting without any aim, a raising of a
bubble, and a pursuing of the wind. Every
L

thing is ennobled by its design ; and au action
is advanced in its worth, when it drives at an
object grand and necessary, (John, xvii. 3,)
" 'This is life eternal, to know thee the only
true God, and whora thou hast sent, Christ
Jesus." It serves the two greatest interests
in the world, which are the glory of the
Creator and the salvation of the creature ; and
this the gospel does by being " the truth
which is after godliness."
Wliich words raay admit of a double sense :
1. That the gospel is so called, because it
actually produces the effects of godliness iu
those that embrace and profess it. 2. That it
is directly improvable into such consequences
and deductions, as have in them a natural fit
ness, if coraplied with, to engage' the practice
of mankind in such a course.
In the former of these senses the gospel
cannot universally sustain this appellation ;
forasrauch as in many hearts it is no sooner
conceived but it proves abortive ; and like the
seed falling upon stony ground, it is choked
by the thorns of cares aud lusts, and other
corruptions growing up and hindering it, so
that it never brings forth fruit to perfection.
Many entertain principles which they defy
by their practices, and unlive all that they
have believed ; so that that which was
intended for the cure of sin, by accident
becomes its aggravation. 'Wherefore the
latter sense only can take place here ; that is,
that the gospel, in its nature, is the most apt
and proper instrument of holiness in the
world, the most naturally productive of holy
living and a pious conversation ; unless a raan
prevaricates with the articles of his faith, runs
counter to his profession, and acts contradic
tions. Now, the truth that we have declared to
have thus an influence upon godliness, con
sists in these two things : —
1. A right notion of God.
2. A right notion of what concerns the duty
of man.
These two are the foundations of all sound
and rational piety ; and as it is a matter of
great moment, so it is also of great difficulty,
so to assert and state each of these, both in
their just latitude, and yet within their due
limits, that one may not intrench upon or
evacuate the other. r /-¦ j
It highly concerns us so to discourse of God
in the matter of religion, that his prerogative
of being the first cause of all things, and both
the author and finisher of man's salvation, be
not infringed by such assertions as of necessity
infer the contrary. And yet, on the other
side, this prerogative of God is to be defended
with such sobriety, as not in the raean time
to leave the creature no scope of duty, or to
render all exhortations and threatenings, and
other helps of action, absurd and superfluous.
The difficulty of doing right to both which.

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appears frora this ; that those who endeavour
to assert one, usually encroach upon the other.
As for instance ; sorae of those who manage
the defence of God's prerogative in being the
first cause of all things, and sovereign author
of our salvation, assert that the creature never
advances into action, but by an irresistible
predetermination ofthe faculty to that action ;
upon the presence of which predetermination
the faculty cannot but act, and upon the
absence or defect of which it cannot possibly
move or deterraine itself. And then, over
and above this predeterraination, they assert
a concurrence of God to that action of the
power or faculty, perfectly the sarae with that
action. Which assertions, in spite of all
qualifications of thera, leave it inapprehen
sible what place can reasonably be left for
addressing exhortations to the will, when it is
not at all in its power to proceed to the per
forraance of the thing to which it is exhorted,
but solely in the power of hira that exhorts.
On the contrary ; those who would redeem
the will from this inactivity,usually extend the
freedom of it to that compass, as to make God
a mere stander by in the great business of the
soul's salvation ; it being at the courtesy of
the will's choice and acceptance, whether all
that God does towards the saving of a man
shall, in the issue, become effectual or not
effectual to that purpose. Such will not allow
any thing to be liberty of will, but a perfect
equilibrium and inditl'erency of choice as to
good or evil ; which for p.apists to assert, who
in this assertion lay the foundation of their
pretended merits, is no wonder ; but why
protestants should be so fond of it, I see no
reason : for that this indifferency to good and
evil is not of the intrinsic nature and essence
of the will's liberty, is clear from this ; that
then the saints, who are confirmed in the love
of God and goodness, so that they cannot sin,
or choose that which is evil, could not be said
to love God freely ; nor the devils to sin freely,
for they cannot choose but sin ; nor Christ to
have done actions of holiness freely, for he
could not do otherwise. Besides that the
supposition of original sin, aud the total de
pravation of raan's nature, renders such a
liberty in those that are not renewed by
baptism strangely absurd ; for it is an ap
parent making of a corrupt tree to bring forth
good fruit.
But you will say, that this nullifies all ex
hortations to piety ; since a man in this case
cannot totally come up to the thing he is ex
horted to. But to this I answer, that the
consequence does not hold : for an exhortation
is not frustrate, if a man be but able to come
up to it partially, though not entirely and
perfectly. As, take a man under the origiual
depravation of nature ; though in this con
dition he cannot avoid all sin, both as to the
matter and manner ofthe action, yet there is

no particular sin but he may forbear; though
the iraperfection and obliquity of tho eud or
motive inducing hira so to forbear it, makes
the raanner of that forbearance not wholly
void of fault. A man unregenerate, and un-
renewed by grace, may choose whether he
will be drunk, fornicate, or swear ; but it is
not in his power to be acted to these forbeaN
ances, out of a love to God, to piety, or virtue;
and yet if they proceed not from such a prin
ciple, such forbearances are, in the sight of
God, but faulty and imperfect.
I am not ignorant, that in giving an account
of these matters there is a knot on both sides;
and that upon a nice screwing of consequences,
not easily to be resolved ; yet surely it con
cerns us so to discourse of these points in
general, as neither to clip the divine prerogt
tive, nor yet, on the other hand, to tie up the
creature so, as to undermine duty by taking
away the energy of precepts, threatenings, and
exhortations. II. To proceed therefore. There are three
thiugs that I shall deduce from this descrip
tion of the gospel's being the truth according
to godliness :
1. That the nature and prime essential
design of religion is to be an instrument of
good life, by adrainistering arguments and
motives inducing to it.
2. That so much knowledge of truth as is
sufficient to engage men's lives in the prac
tice of godliness, serves the necessary ends of
religion. For I shew, if godliness were the design, it
ought also, by consequence, to be the measure
of men's knowledge in this particular.
3. That whatsoever doth in itself or its
direct consequences undermine the motives of
a good life, is contrary to and destructive of
Christian religion.
1. That the nature aud prime essential de
sign of religion is to be an instrument of good
life, by adrainistering arguments and motives
inducing to it.
It were to be wished, that to produce
reasons and proofs for such a proposition were
wholly needless and vain ; yet since the capri
cious and fantastic notions of sorae men have
raade it much otherwise, I shall endeavour to
clear up the assertion I have laid down by
these arguments :
1. The first is, because religion designs the
service of God, by gaining over to his obe
dience that which is most excellent in man,
and that is, the actions of his life, and con
tin ual con verse. That these are the most con
siderable is clear from hence ; because all other
actions naturally proceed in a subserviency to
these. As the actions of a man's understand
ing, directing, and of his will commanding
they are all designed for the regulation of bi8
constant behaviour ; and that which is the
end to which other things are designed, is, as

ON TITUS, i. 1.

103

such,more excellent than those things designed
to that end.
2. The design of religion is man's salvation:
but men are not saved as they are more
knowing, or assent to more propositions, but
as they are more pious than others. Practice
is the thing that sanctifies knowledge ; and
faith without works expires, and becomes
a dead thing, a carcass, and consequently
noisome to God ; who, even to those who
know the best things, pronounces no blessing
till they do them. Upon this ground it is,
that when a man would gather sorae comfort
able assurance of his future estate, he does not
seek for evidences from his knowledge, and
the boldness of his belief, but from his godli
ness, and the several instances of a holy life,
the only infallible demonstration of a sincere
heart ; otherwise, it is probable that hell is
paved with the heads of the knowing and the
wicked, and the catalogue of the damned
made up of such as knew their master's will,
and did it not.
3. A third argument is from hence, that
the discriminating excellency of Christianity
consists not so much in this, that it discovers
more sublime truths, or indeed more excellent
precepts than philosophy, (though it does this
also,) as that it suggests more efficacious argu
ments to enforce the performance of those
precepts, than any other religion or institution
whatsoever. Compare the precepts of Pytha
goras, of the stoics, and of Christian religion :
Does Christian religion commend piety to
wards God, and justice to our neighbour?
Does it arraign vicious affections and corrupt
desires? So do they. Wherein then has it the
preeminence ? Why in this ; that after they
had taught the world their duty, what they
were to do, and what not to do, they had no
arguments prevalent with the nature of men,
above their contrary propensions, to bind
them over to such practices.
But Christianity has backed all its precepts
with etemal life and eternal death to the
performers or neglecters of them ; whereas
philosophy could do nothing, but by taking
in the assistance of fabulous stories, or by
telling men, that virtue was a sufficient re
ward to itself; which, upon all experience,
has been found an argument infinitely short,
aud unable to bear up the practices of men,
contrary to the solicitations of their opposite,
impetuous corruptions.
4. The fourth and last argument is from
this : that notwithstanding the diversity of
religions in the world, yet raen hereafter will
generally be conderaned for the sarae things,
that is, for their breaches of morality. Men
<shall be condemned for being false, lustful,
injurious, profane, lovers of pleasure raore
tian lovers of God, and the like. But these
are the sins of all nations, and are universally
found in the profession of all religions.

It is confessed there shall be an accession
to raen's guilt, and raore or less fuel added to
their torraents, according as the religion they
lived under administered to them clearer or
obscurer notions of duty, and more or less
pregnant instructions to the exercise of piety ;
otherwise, men shall not so much be con
demned for not believing of riddles and hard
sentences, as for not practising of plain duties ;
for this is that which religion drives at ; not
to subtilize raen's conceptions, but to rectify
their manners.
And these are briefly my reasons for the
first deduction from the words, namely, that
the nature and prime essential design of reli
gion is to be an instrument of good life, by
administering arguments and motives induc
ing to it.
2. A second inference frora the gospel's being
the truth according to godliness is this :
That so much knowledge of truth as is
sufficient to engage men's lives in the practice
of godliness, serves the necessary ends of reli
gion ; for if godliness be the design, it ought
also, by consequence, to be the measure of
men's knowledge in this particular ; which
consideration, well and duly iraproved, would !
discover how needless it is, to say no raore, j
that ignorant people should be let loose to read
and judge of writings that they do not under- ;
stand. The principles of Christianity, briefly
and catechistically taught them, is enough to
save their souls ; but, on the other hiCud, they j
may read themselves into such opinions and
persuasions, as may at length destroy a i
government, and fire a whole kingdom ; and
for this 1 shall not seek for arguments, after i
experience. !
3. The third and great consequence, from
the gospel's being the truth according to god
liness, shall be this :
That whatsoever does in itself, or its direct
consequences, undermine the motives of a good
life, is contrary to, and destructive of Chris
tian religion.
Now the doctrines that more immediately
concern a good life are reducible to these three
heads :
1. Such as concern the justification ot a
sinner. 2. Such as concern the rule of manners.
3. And such as concern repentance.
All which things are such vital ingredients
of religion, that an error in any of them is like
poison in a fountain, which must certainly
convey death and contagion to every one that
shall taste the streams. It will be of some
moment, therefore, to bring the doctrines that
lie under these several heads to a particular
examination, that so, having a distinct view
of life and death before us, we may both secure
our choice and direct our practice.
First of all, then, concerning the justifica
tion of a sinner. The great business that we

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have in this world is, to endeavour to be saved,
and the means to that is to be justified. This,
therefore, is the great mark at which all our
actions are to be levelled, the great prize for
which we run ; and, consequently, if it is not
stated and proposed to us upon such terras as
shall employ and call forth the utraost at
tempts of the soul, the nerves of piety are cut,
and obedience is overlaid by taking away its
necessity. How this may be done, let us take
a brief survey :
1. First then, that doctrine that holds that
the covenant of grace is not established upon
conditions, and that nothing of perforraance
is required on man's part to give hira an in
terest in it, but only to believe that he is
justified ; this certainly subverts all the rao
tives of a good life. But this is the doctrine
of the antinomians ; and the foundation of
this they have laid in another wild, erroneous
assertion, that every believer was actually
justified from eternity, and that his faitii is
only a declaration of this to his conscience,
but uo ways effective of any alteration of his
state or condition. Justified in the sight of
God he was before his belief, but his belief at
length gives him the knowledge of it ; and so
makes him not more safe, but more confident
than he was before.
But certainly this inevitably takes away the
necessity of godliness, for it asserts, that a
sinner, and an ungodly person, while such,
may stand justified before God. For the
better understanding of which we raust ob
serve, that a man may be said to be a sinner
in a double respect : 1. In respect ofthe law,
as having not continued in all things written
in the law, to do them. 2. In respect of the
gospel, as having not believed and repented ;
which are the terms upon which, through
Christ, we are accepted as righteous.
As for the former of these respects, all raen
are sinners upon a legal score, as not having
performed an entire, indefective, legal obe
dience. But ill the latter sense, upon ev.an ge
lical allowances, a man that believes is not
counted to be in a state of sin, though legally
he is.
Now the forementioned doctrine allows
justification to these sinners also ; for if a raan
is actually and perfectly justified from all
eternity, whereas he comes but in some period
of his life to believe and repent, does it not
invincibly follow, that he was justified before
that belief and repentance; and, consequently,
while he was under an estate of unbelief and
irapenitence? which assertion is the very bane
of all piety and gospel obedience. It dashes
all industry in the ways of holiness, lodges a
man's hands in his bosom, and renders a pious
life superfluous and precarious.
2. That doctrine that teaches that a man
may be accepted with God for the righteous
ness and merits of other s.aints, poisons and

perverts the nature of justification, so as to
render it utterly ineffectual to engage men in
a course of godliness. For if there is a trea
sury of good works and merits deposited in the
custody of the church, and to be dispensed by
her to whom she pleases, for all the purposes
of salvation, a man need not be rich in good
works of his own, provided he be rich enough
in money to purchase hiraself a propriety in
those of other men. So that it is not a good
life, but a good purse that is necessary to
the justification of a sinner ; yet upon snch
wretched doctrines as these is built one ofthe
raost externally glorious fabrics that the world
has yet seen.
But it will be objected, perhaps, that tho
doctrine of the iraputed righteousness of
Christ does equally evacuate all motives to a
good life ; for if his righteousness, which is
infinitely perfect and exact, be imputed to us,
what need we produce any of our own ? To
this I answer, that the reason is not the same.
For though the righteousness of Clirist bo
iraputed to us, yet it renders not a good life on
our part needless, since this is made the very
condition of that iraputation. That is, if we
fill the measures of sincerity, in doing tho
utmost that we are able, Christ's righteousness
shall be imputed to us for justification, not
withstanding our failing in many things,
which, by reason of the infirmities of our
nature, we have not done. Thus, therefore,
the iraputation of Christ's righteousness is sus
pended upon a man's own personal righteous
ness, as its necessary antecedent condition.
But now it is otherwise in the imputation
of the raerits of the saints to any man, since
this cannot proceed upon any such condition
of personal obedience on his part. For thus
the arguraent against it will run : either that
man does the utraost that he is able, and lives
as well as he can, according to the terms of
evangelical sincerity, or he does not ; if he
does, then what need can he have of the
righteousness and merits of the saints, who
themselves were able to do no more while
they lived in the flesh? But if he does not
acquit himself in a holy life, and it be
admitted that the righteousness of the saints
may supply such a defect, so as to render the
man accepted before God ; is it not as clear
as the sun, that by this raeans the sinner is
discharged from pressing after godliness, as
necessary to his justification ? For it seems
he may want it, and yet, for all that, have his
business done to his haud.
How much the great God has been dishon
oured, and how raany poor souls have been
murdered, by such assertions as these, is sad
to consider : for they have been abused into
a confidence in, and reliance upon, such sup
ports ; which, in the invaluable concernments
of eternity, have deceived and given them the
slip, and let thera fall without remedy inte

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105

the bottomless gulf of endless perdition. God
amend or rebuke such pernicious impostors.
In the next place, let us consider the
¦ doctrines that relate to the rule of life and
manners, which is the law of God.
1. First then, that doctrine that exempts
all believers from the obligation of the moral
law, is directly destructive of all godliness ;
which doctrine is taught and asserted by the
antinomians, who from thence derive that
name, as being opposers of the law. But
now, if there be no obligation upon men to
the duties of the moral law, how cau it be
necessary for them to perform any such
duties? and consequently the command of
loving God with all their strength and all
their soul, of not worshipping images, of not
dishonouring God's name, of obeying parents,
of not committing murder and adultery and
the like, concerns not these persons. But
if this be their opinion, it is well that they
are not able to escape the force of human laws,
as they do the obligation of the divine.
I confess the apostle Paul oftentimes op
poses " the law to grace," and affirms of
believers, that they are " not under the law,
but under grace." But what does he mean
by these expressions? why his meaning is
founded upon a twofold acceptation of the
law: 1. That it may be taken as a covenant
conveying life upon absolute, entire, indefec
tive obedience, and awarding death to those
who fail in the least iota or punctilio.
2. It may be taken as a rule of life and a
transcript of the duty of man.
Now it is in the former sense only that
believers are not under the law ; for if they
were, they could uot possibly be saved, since
all men have sinned ; and the law, as a cove
nant, promises life only upon the terms of
such an exact obedience, as excludes all sin.
But the covenant of grace, under which
believers are, promises life upon condition of
such obedience as is sincere, though legally
iraperfect : that is, such an one as is not
absolutely exclusive of all sin, but only of the
reign, and power, and dominion of sin.
"Yet all this does not loose them from the
obligation of the law as it is a rule of life, to
which they are to conform theiractions. The
law tells believers what they are to do, and
withal obliges them to do it ; but what
measure of obedience will be accepted of a
man, in order to his salvation, that is deter
mined not by this rule, but by the covenant
of grace declared in the gospel; which, upon
the account of Chrisfs merits, pardons and
dispenses with many deviations frora that
strict rule, and conderans for none, but such
as are inconsistent with a state of sincerity.
The forementioned persons, who cashier
this obligation of the law also, aud admit it
for not so much as a rule, resigning theraselves

up to the sole conduct of their own heart,
which they call the spirit ; these, I say, as
needs they must, assert also, tbat believers
cannot sin ; for since sin is a transgression of
a law, it roundly follows, that those who are
obliged to no law can be guilty of no trans
gression. But this doctrine is so broadly impious,
that it does not undermine a good life, but
directly blow it down. Aud therefore I shall
only say this of the abettors of it, that those
who can own themselves to be without sin,
demonstrate themselves to be without shame.
2. 'That doctrine which asserts any sin to
be in its nature venial, that is, such as God
cannot in justice punish with damnation,
tends to subvert a good life : but the doctrine
of the church of Rorae asserts this ; and lays
the foundation of this assertion in a distinc
tion between works done against the law, and
works done beside the law. Now they say a
thing is done beside the law, when, though it is
a deviation from the law, yet it is not con
trary to the end of the law, which is love to
God, but very fairly consistent with it : that
is, though a man does such and such things,
yet the doing of them ejects not the love of
God out of his heart, and so long the design
and purpose of the law is served and complied
with, notwithstanding all such diminutive
transgressions. But this discourse is very weak and imper
tinent. For when they say, that some actions
destroy not the creature's love to God, and so
are ouly beside the law, as not overthrowing
the end of it ; they either understand that
those actions destroy not that love as to the
habit, or the act. If they intend the former,
they speak nothing to the purpose ; for an
action may be sinful, and yet not drive the
principle of habitual love to God out of the
soul ; forasrauch as a habit is uot destroyed
by every contrary action : as a man may be
habitually holy, and yet sometimes be sur
prised with the commission of unholy actions ;
and, as to the main, a wise man, though pos
sibly he may have spoke or done some things
in his life unwisely. But, however, neither
the holiness of the one, or the wisdora of the
other, makes an unholy nor unwise action to
be upon that account holy or wise.
But if, on the other side, they assert, that
these kinds of sins interrupt not the actual
exercise of the creature's love to God, they
will prove that which I believe was never yet
proved ; namely, that it is possible for aman,
iu one and the same action, to devi.ate from
the law of God, and yet to exert au act of
love towards hira ; which indeed amounts to
a plain contradiction : for since to love God
is to perform his coraraands, if we assert that
that love is not for the present hindered or
interraitted by sorae transgressions of those
commands, does it not clearly follow, that a

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man may perform the command, and yet
transgress it at the same time and in the very
same action ?
But it is not directly my business to insist
here upon the absurdity of this doctrine, but
to demonstrate the impiety of it, so far as it
tends to abate men's endeavours in the pur
suit of a stricter course of holiness ; which
surely it does with a very great and pernicious
efficacy. For if men can pervert their judg
ments so as to look upon some deviations
from the law of God, the great rule of life, as
no sins, taking sin strictly and properly, they
will proceed to a general undervaluation of
the nature of sin ; and, keeping a due propor
tion, if small sins must pass for no sins, the
greatest sins must lose many degrees of their
greatness. The heart of man will insensibly
be wrought upon to make a sport of sin, and
to trifle with two of the most dreadful thingsin
the world, a strict law and an infinite justice.
But there are no two things that seem to
bear so great a resemblance one to another, as
the state of the Christian church perverted by
the doctors of the church of Rome, and the
state of the Jewish church corrupted by the
glosses and doctrines of the pharisees. For
as the Romists hold fast the distinction of
mortal and venial sins ; so the pharisees, with
the sarae result, distinguished of the divine
precepts and commandments, that some were
great, that is, necessary to be observed, and
some small, that is, such as did not bind the
conscience with so strict an obligation, but
that the violation ofthem might, with a very
fair comportment with the divine justice, be
dispensed with. And it is with direct allusion
to this distinction of theirs, that our Saviour
speaks, (Matt. v. 19,) " Whosoever shall break
one of these least comraandraents, and shall
teach men to do so, he shall be called the
least in the kingdom of heaven ;" that is, in
the Hebrew dialect, he shall have nothing to
do there at all : least being here not only a
terra of dirainution, but of absolute negation.
The raeaning and design of those words
was Christ's clearing hiraself from, the com
mon imputation that the scribes and pha
risees loaded him with, of being an under-
rainer of the law of Moses. As if he had said,
I am so far from having an intent to destroy
or untie the binding force of the law, that I
enforce a stricter observation of it than those
that make this charge against me. For
whereas they teach that some of the divine
commandments are to be reputed little, and
such as men are not bound to the strict ob
servance of ; I on the contrary affirm, that
there are no such little commands, (as they
call them,) but that the very least of them
obliges so indispensably, that the violation
aud neglect of it will, without repentance,
exclude from heaven, and bind over to dam
nation.

And no question, but were he now amongst
us, he would rebuke the modern pharisees,
and patrons of venial sins, iu the same man
ner ; who, by that unhallowed distinction,
have lopped off a large proportion of that
obliging force that belongs to every divine pre
cept, and so in effect have made the law itself
faulty and defective ; not obliging where men
are pleased not to be obliged ; and making
that to be no duty, which licentious persons
are unwilling should be so. Indeed, he that
sins against the law is bad enough, but he
that makes even the law to sin, that he may
discharge himself, is incurable and insuf
ferable.

SERMON VI.
PART II.

' The acknowledging of the truth which is after godUnese."
Titus, i. I.

3. That doctrine that asserts, that it is in
men's power to supererogate, and to do works
of perfection over and above what is required
of them by way of precept, tends to the
undermining and hinderance of a godly life.
Works of evangelical perfection or superero
gation are defined, such as a man may with
out sin not do, but, if he does them, they
entitle him to a greater reward. 'Which
assertion carries along with it this visible
impiety, that a man is not obliged to do the
utmost, in the way of holiness, that he can ;
for the law is the measure of men's obliga
tion, and no raan is obliged to any thing as
his duty, hut what the law obliges him to :
but if it is in his power to do some sublime
works of holiness, over and above what the
law exacts of him, it clearly follows, that
without sin he may omit the doing of them ;
for where there is no law there is no sin :
and here we suppose the obligation of the
law not to extend thus far.
Now surely there can be no greater a stop
to an active endeavour than to state the pro
portions of men's duty less than the propor
tions of their strength and ability ; and to
assure them, that they do all that is necessary
for them to do, though they do much less
than they are able. It seems by this, that
God does not call for all their strength and
all their souls, but they have great reserves of
both left entirely in their own disposal ; nay,
and those of much greater worth and excel
lence than what the law demands from thera ;
since the doing of these advances them to a
higher perfection, and prepares for them a
greater and a brighter crown than all the
rest of their obedience.

But if this were so, how shall we make out
the sense of those precepts that coramand us
" to strive to enter in at the strait gate ;" and
" to press forward to the mark of the prize of
the high calling ;" and " to use our utmost
diligence to make our calling and election
sure ;" that " having done all, we may be able
to stand ;" and the like. Certainly these are
expressions that stretch endeavours to the
highest, and determine in no less compass
than the whole that a man by all the powers
and faculties of his soul can perform.
Nor can it avail the persons that we con
tend with to reply, that God vouchsafes us
those assistances of grace, that are able to
bear men beyond the lines of mere duty ;
for the dispensations of grace would, upon
these terms, put us into the sarae condition of
perfection, that we are to expect only in a
state of glory. Grace indeed extinguishes
the reign of sin, but it does not wholly extir
pate the inherence of it as to all the re
mainders. It makes a man that he will not
devote and give himself over to the practice
of sin, but it does not wholly rescue him from
the surprise of many infirraities.
And were not these men fuller of pride
than perfection, and more Ph.arisees than
Christians, they would acknowledge so rauch,
and let down those gaudy plumes of their
high pretences of a double refined sanctity,
upon the sight of their black feet and pol
luted goings. For surely they have not yet
convinced the world of the feasibleness and
truth of their propositions, by any manifest
transcriptions of them upon their lives. But
can these doctors style theraselves angelical
from any thing that they do, whatsoever they
al-e pleased to teach ? I cannot see but that
a friar or a Jesuit is subject to the sarae
passions and irregular eraotions that other
men are. Nor can I perceive that their lives
proceed in such a supernatural strictness, and
transcendency of piety, above the rest of the
world. They should do well to prove their
doctrines of perfection by instance and ex
ample ; and to demonstrate that a thing may
be done, by shewing that actually it has been
done : but if they cannot, they should first
acquit themselves in point of duty, before
they flourish it with their supererogations ;
and think of paying their debts,.. before they
go about to purchase.
Besides, to assert that the perfection, com
manded by the law, is less than the perfection
that the power of man can raise itself to,
seems a high imputation upon God's wisdom
and holiness, as he is a legislator ; the design
of which must needs be to work up the crea
ture to the highest conformity to himself,
that a created nature is capable of. But he
that, instead of stretching hiraself to the lati
tude of the law, contracts the law to his own
measures, will find that God, when he coraes

ON TITUS, i. 1.

107

to deal with him, will have recourse to his
own rule, and not correct a true original by a
false copy.
4. That doctrine that places it in the power
of any mere mortal man to dispense with the
laws of Christ, so as to dischjirge any man, in
any case, from being obliged by them, is highly
destructiveof holy living: butsodoesthe doc
trine of the chnrch of Rome, that vests such a
dispensing power in the pope ; by which they
raise the pretended chair of Saint Peter above
the throne of Christ himself : for the sovereign
power resides not so much in him that makes
the law, as in him that is able to do with the
law what he pleases when it is made, by
either continuing or suspending the obligation
of it. Christ indeed has given laws to his
church ; but when it is at the pope's pleasure,
whether those laws shall oblige or not oblige, I
leave it to the judgment of the meanest reason,
who, in this case, raust be accounted superior.
The laws of raen are dispensable, because
the nature of them subjects them to the rea
son of dispensation ; that is, because no human
lawgiver is of that wisdora, as to provide
against all future inconveniences in the con
stitution of laws, but that the observation of
them may soraetiraes run men upon greater
mischiefs, than the making of them was de
signed to prevent : but Christ was of that
infinite wisdom and knowledge, as to enact
laws of that universal compliance with all the
conditions of man, that there can be no new,
emergent inconvenience unforeseen by him,
that should at any time make the obligation
of thera to cease.
It is. possible, indeed, that the law raay
cease to oblige, upon the removal or want of
the matter of the obligation. As it is every
raan's duty to give alms^ but if a man has
nothing, he can give nothing : and to com
municate is a duty, but if the materials of the
sacraraent, bread and wine, cannot be had, to
coraraunicate is irapossible, and so no raan
can be obliged to it : but still, in all this,
there is no dispensation with either of these
laws ; for the impossibility of their perfor
mance makes them, to such persons, under
such circurastances, cease to be laws. But a
law is then properly dispensed with, when it
is capable of being obeyed ; and the person
capable of yielding such obedience to it is yet,
by an intervenient power, discharged from
his obligation to obey : the forraer case is like
fire's not burning, when it has no fuel, or
matter, to fasten or prey upon ; the latter is
like the fire's not burning the three children
in the furnace, when both the fire was in full
force, and also a proper combustible subject
offered it ; but, by the interposal of a divine
power, it was hindered from exerting that
burning quality upon that subject. So here,
the law is in full force, and the person under
it in a capacity to do the thing comraanded

108

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Sehm. VI

by it ; but the pope tells him, that he shall
not be obliged to it, he will dispense with
hira ; and so the labour of obeying is saved.
But since bold encroachments seldom ven
ture themselves without pretences, it concerns
us to see what reason the pope assigns for his
exercising such a power over the laws of Christ.
Why his spiritual janizaries, the schoolraen
and casuists, tell us, that where the observa
tion of any command is impeditiva majoris boni,
a stop and hinderance of a greater good than
the non-observance of it would occasion, there
the pope has po'wer to dispense with the ob
servation of that coramand, and to discharge
men frora it.
As for instance : a man has bound himself
with a lawful vow or oath, and accordingly
proceeds to the execution of it ; but the priest
finds, that the greatness of their church would
be considerably advantaged by this person's
not observing his vow or oath, and accor
dingly persuades him to break it ; but the
man's conscience is solicitous and tender, and
asks who shall warrant him in the breach of
a lawful oath : hereupon the pope says that
he will ; and though the law of God and nature
ties a man to the keeping of his oath, yet,
because the not keeping of it will niinister to
a greater good, namely, the advantage of the
church, this is a sufficient reason for him
to dispense with his oath : for answer to
which, I would inquire, whether the com
mand of keeping oaths and vows is not
clear and express ; and whether there can
be any greater good, than to obey an express
comraand of God. I demand also, supposing
that the advancement of their church be in
deed a greater good, yet whether the intend
ing of such a good can legitimate an action
in its nature sinful? and whether the breach
of a clear comraand be not such an one?
When these questions receive a full and a
satisfactory resolution, then may the con
science acquiesce in the pope's dispensation ;
but till then, it is safer to obey God in the
precept, than man in the interpretation of it.
And now, who is there that deserves the
name of a Christian whose heart does not rise
against such horrid and impious usurpations
upon the prerogative of Christ ? such gross
and open methods of promoting the course of
sin ? If a command of Christ thwart that
which the pope, in the behalf of his own in
terest, will judge a greater good, the coraraand
must stand back, and his dispensation take
place. All such bands upon the conscience
are like the withes, or the cords, upon Sam
son ; they fly asunder like flax burnt with fire ;
they are of no force or efficacy at all. For as
it is in the pope's power to dispense with a
command, so it is also solely in his power to
judge of the reason upon which he is to dis
pense with it ; and we know that he is seldom
the poorer for such dispens.ations.

The truth is, he exposes the precepts of
Christ to sale, and he that will bid most for
the breach of a command shall carry it : whieh
is such an intrenchment upon all the offices
of Christ, such an impudent defiance of that
supremacy of which he pretends to be the
vicar and substitute, that it is apparent that
Saint Peter's pretended successor sells Christ's
power, as much as ever Judas did his person.
Here'is the making merchandise of religion,
and with that of souls : here is the ground
work of indulgences, the quick market for
pardons, by which the gospel, from the law
of liberty, is tumed into the instrument of
licence ; and the sure asylum for such as would
live sinners, and yet die saints.
And thus much for the doctrines that tend
to the undermining of a pious life, by pervert
ing the great rule of living, the law of Christ.
I come now to the third sort, which are,
III. Those that relate to repentance.
This follows in order of nature ; for after a i
law is broke, there is no recovery but by re
pentance ; so that the depravation of the
nature of this, is a sin against our last
remedy ; and he that, having transgressed
the divine law, abuses his conscience with
false rules of repentance, does like a man,
that first by his intemperance brings himself
into a disease, and then puts poison into his
physic. Now the doctrine about repentance may be
perverted in a double respect :
1. In respect of the time of it.
2. In respect of the measure.
1. And first for the doctrine that states the
time of repentance destructively to a pious
life. And for this, it cannot but be very
grievous and offensive to persons possessed
with a real piety and sense of religion, to
consider the assertions and positions of the
Romish casuists touching this particuhir.
Their answer to this question. When shall a
sinner repent? is, in general. At any time
whatsoever. Which indefinite assertion lias
by some been drawn out into particular
determinate periods of time. As some affirm,
that it is a man's duty to act repentance on
the grand holydays, as Christmas, Whitsun
tide, but especially at Easter. But others
except against this as too severe, and say, that
since God has not determined the time of
repentance, we are to presume that the church
also is so favourable as to leave it undeter
mined too ; and therefore sorae blush not to
state the matter thus ; That the time in which
a sinner is bound to repent, or to have coutri-
tion for his sins, is the article of ininiinent
death, whether natural or violent. In a word,
they say a man is bound to repent of his sins
once ; but when that once shall be, he may
determine as he shall think fit.
Before I corae to exaraine these profane
assertions, I shall carefully premise this ob- ;

ON TITUS, i. 1.

109

servation ; that in this whole matter we are
by no means to confound the duty of repen
tance with the success or issue of repentance.
For although it is not to be denied, that a
man, having sinned, and afterwards defers his
repentance for a long time, may yet, by the
grace of God, repent savingly and effectually
at last ; yet this makes nothing for the proving
that it was not that man's duty to have
repented immediately upon the commission of
his sin ; and that every rainute of such delay
was not sinful. No man is to make the event
of what he has done, the raeasure of what he
ought to do. It is possible that a sinner may
be converted, and turned to God, in the last
year, or month, or perhaps day of his life ;
but, notwithstanding this, he sinned in not
being converted to God before.
This premised by way of answer to the
Romish casuists, I reply, that that sentence of
the church, " At what time soever a sinner
repenteth hira of his sins, God will blot out
his iniquities from before hira," speaks only
of the consequent event and success of a true
repentance, but determines nothing antece
dently of the time in which that repentance
is to begin ; which, in opposition to the fore
going blasphemies, we are undoubtedly to
hold to be the very next instant after the
couiraission of the sin ; then is the time in
which it is the duty of a sinner to repent ;
frora that very moment there is an obligation
upou him to recover hiraself by a hearty
contrition and humiliation ; and that I prove
by this argument : Either a man is bound
immediately to repent after he has sinned, or
the impenitence reraaining upon hira in that
subsequent portion of time is no sin ; and if
so, then, in case he should die iu that tirae,
he could not be chargeable before God for that
impenitence. Chargeable indeed he would be
for the sin he had coramitted ; but for not
repenting of that sin no charge could lie upon
hira. But this is an assertion of such bare
faced intolerable irapiety, so directly contrary
to the whole tenor of the gospel, that it can
need no confutation.
However, it is worth considering, to see
upon what ground our adversaries have built
their assertion. And it is briefly this, that
God obliges a sinner to repentance, not pro
perly as to a duty, but as to a punishment ;
and being so, from the strength of this maxim,
that nobody is bound in conscience to undergo
a punishment till he is condemned ; and
adding withal, that the day of danger, or
approaching death, seeras to be this arraign
ment and condemnation of a siuner ; then
they conclude, that, for his own security, it is
incumbent upon him to submit to the penalty
of repentance.
But to this I answer, first, that this suppo
sition, that repentance is properly a punish
ment, is, ill a great measure, false. For

repentance is properly the araendraent of a
raan's life, and a passing from a state of sin to
a state of holiness ; but this is not a punish
ment, but a perfection and a privilege. It is
indeed accorapanied with afflictive actions,
such as sorrow and reraorse for past sins ; but
this is only by accident ; because a man can
not recover hiraself to newness of life, without
such sorrowful reflections upon what is past ;
otherwise, if araendraent of life could be
corapassed without thein, we should find that
sorrow for sin was not the thing directly and
chiefly intended in the precept of repentance.
It is clear, therefore, that repentance is not
properly a punishraent ; but whether it were
so or no, that which was argued before from
the nature of it, and the sinfulness of irapeni
tence, sufficiently evinces that the practice of
it is to be immediate ; no raan can without sin
defer it till the raorrow, any more than to the
year after, or to that, than to his death. For
the words being indefinite, respect uot one
time raore than another, and therefore the
deterraination of the tirae must be fetched
from the nature of the duty comraanded in
these words ; which, since it determines for
the present, it ought presently to be put in
practice. Add to this, that every raoment passing
without repentance adds to the guilt and
strength of sin unrepented of ; which lies not
idle or inactive, but fixes its possession deeper
and deeper ; the mind, by reflecting upon it
with relish and complacency, grows into more
intimate unions with it ; so that in effect, by
the internal actions and approbations of the
will, it is repeated and reacted without any
external commission. There is nothing more
absolutely destructive of the very designs of
religion, than to stop a sinner in his return to
God, by persuading his corrupt heart that he
raay prorogue that return with safety, and
without any prejudice to his eternal concern-
raents. Ufjon the best issue of things, ii
araounts to an exhortation to him to reap the
pleasures of sin as long as he can ; and then,
at last, that he may not also reap the fruits of
sin, to submit to repentance as a less evil, but
not to choose it as a good. But whether he
that has these notions of repentance is ever
like to arrive to the truth of repentance, he
alone knows, who knows whether he will give
such an one another heart or no. The doc
trine, therefore, of a deferred repentance is a
mischievous and a devilish doctrine, and like
to bring those that trust in it to the Devil.
2. The next pernicious error about repen
tance relates to the measure of it. And here
we will suppose the Romish casuists to recede
from the forraer error, and to be fully ortho
dox as to the tirae of repentance, and to enjoin
it immediately. But thon, what is the repen
tance that they enjoin ? Is it such an one as
changes the life and renews the heart ? such an

no

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Serm. VI.

one as breaks the power and dominion of siu,
and works an alteration in all the faculties
and inclinations of the soul ? No, this is too
troublesome a task ; they have a rauch shorter
way ; for unless they can put off their sins as
easily as a raan does his cloak, they had rather
have them stay on. And therefore, placing
the nature of repentance only in sorrow for
sin, they distinguish this sorrow into two
sorts ; the first is contrition, which is a sorrow
for sin conceived frora the apprehension of its
natural filth and contrariety to the pure nature
of God ; the other is attrition, which is any
sorrow or reraorse of the raind for sin con
ceived from the apprehension of the danger
and misery like to be consequent upon it.
Now, though they enjoin the former, and
recommend it, yet not as absolutely necessary
to the forgiveness of sins ; for they hold,
that a man dying with attrition, that is,
a less sorrow, and commenced upon lower
motives than the love of God, if attended
with confession to the priest, and absolution
from him, shall undoubtedly be saved. An
assertion of such high venom and raalignity,
that it even opens the flood-gates to all wicked
ness, and confirras raen iu a resolved pursuit
of their sin, by securing them a passport to
heaven and happiness upon those easy terms,
that it is scarce possible for the vilest of sin
ners but they must come up to.
For imagine a man, after threescore years'
debauchery, laid at length upon his deathbed,
without any hope of recovery, and then for
the priest to ask him, whether he is not
troubled for his sins, and whether he wishes
not, that he had not committed those things
that are like to pay him home with the wages
of etemal death ; the man, no doubt, under
his present weariness of appetite and decay of
body, cannot be so much a stock, and uncon
cerned for hiraself, but that he can wish these
things undone, of which he tastes no present
pleasure, and for which he fears a future ven
geance. Now if this, joined with their cus
toraary confession, shall be accounted by the
priest a sufficient ground upon which to ab
solve hira, and, upon his absolution, to war
rant his salvation, I cannot see but that, upon
this way of procedure, it is raore difficult for
a raan to be daraned than to be saved. For
this whole act of attrition is not properly the
sinner's being troubled that he has sinned,
but that he is like to be daraned for his sin ;
which for a man not to be troubled at, that
carries human nature and sense about him, is
impossible. This, therefore, is short of that which is
itself short of repentance ; that is, it is short
of real sorrow for sin : and sorrow for sin
(whatsoever sorae may imagine) is not repen
tance. It is indeed a part, or rather an ad
junct of it, there being no true repentance
withont sorrow. But repentance is properly

a man's engaging in a new course of life ; not
a weeping for sins past, but a vigorous resis
tance and mortification of sin for the future.
The contrary opinion has undoubtedly de
ceived many, and betrayed them into that
place, wliere they are repenting too late of
the errors of their former repentance. Let no
man account himself to have repented, who
has not changed his life. And as the apostle
says of circumcision and uncircumcision, so
say I here, that neither mourning for siu, nor
confession of it, avail any thing, but " a new
creature." And truly, he that will hope for
life upon other terms, must do it by a new
gospel. And thus I have traversed those pestilential
doctrines, that, like worms, lie gnawing at the
root of all godliness ; doctrines, that only pur
vey for licentiousness. And I dare avouch,
that if these carry in them the true sense of
Christian religion, a man may with full and
perfect compliance with the rules of Chris
tianity, raake as plentiful a provision for the
gratification of his corrupt desires, as if he
were a raere atheist or epicure. And there
fore I wonder not that many pass from our
church to the church of Bome ; for being sick
in conscience, and yet impatient to undergo
the rigours of a thorough cure, they are will- j
ing to make up all with a skinning plaster, I
and to relieve their minds upon as easy terms !
as they can. And of this they cannot fail in
the church of Rome, which has contrived her
doctrine to a perfect agreement with all inte
rests and dispositions : so that to frame and
bend all discourses of divinity, to the humours
and corruptionsof men, is with them religion,
as with us it is, for the most part, accounted
prudence. I have now finished the third and last con
clusion drawn from the words ; namely. That
whatsoever does in itself or its direct conse
quences undermine the motives of a good life,
is contrary to, and destructive of Christian
religion. The improvement of all that has been de
livered, shall lie in these two things: —
1. To convince us how highly it concerns
all, but especially the most knowing, to try
the doctrines that they believe, and to let in
quiry usher in faith. It is noted of the
Bereans, (Acts, xvii. 11,) as a sigu of a gene
rous and noble spirit, that they would search
and sift the nature of the things that were
delivered to them ; for it is sifting that sepa
rates the flour frora the bran, the precious
from the vile. Error is a thing that does not
always discover itself to the first view; it is j
often fair as well as deceitful ; and therefore
that understanding that will sell its assent to
first appearances, is in danger of the snare,
and to mistake an iraposture for an oracle.
An error raay look speciously in a principle,
which will betray ugliness enough in the

ON TITUS, i. 1.

Ill

consequences. It may be honey in the mouth,
nud wormwood in the belly ; delicious to the
first apprehensions, but found destructive upon
after inquiry and experiment.
He that embraces and believes a truth, if
he does it without trial, owes the rightness
of his judgment not to understanding, but
chance. But truth is too great a prize to be
the reward of laziness. God never made it
but for the trophy of a laborious and a search
ing intellect. No man can rationally build
npon an implicit faith, that is, upon another's
knowledge, but he that has given his name to
that church, which allows a man to be saved
by other men's righteousness. We are com
manded " to try all things ;" and therefore
certainly that thing that is worth all the rest.
In a word, since truth is the way to happi
ness, and since there is no promise of finding
but to him that seeks ; he that will not be at
the trouble to seek out the way, does not de
serve to attain the end.
2. As what has been delivered, convinces
ns of the necessity of trying all doctrines ; so
it snggests also the sure marks by which -ne
m.ay try them :
1. As first negatively ; it is not the pleasing
ness or suitableness of a doctrine to our tem
pers or interests, that can vouch it to be true.
Men oftentimes believe things to be so, be
cause they would have them so ; and the
judgment is strangely induced to yield its
assent to any assertion that shall gratify the
affections. But my profit or my pleasure are
very imcompetent guides of my conscience ;
very unfit casuists to resolve questions. Truth
is a thing that usually carries with it too great
a severity to correspond with our pleasures.
It lies in the rough paths of duty and diffi
culty, things wonderfully opposite to the de
lights of pleasure and sensuality, and made
to please, not in theraselves, bnt in their
effects and consequences. No man thinks a
thing too pleasant or too profitable ; but
many will hereafter find that some things are
too true.
2. The commonness, and the general or long
reception of a doctrine, is not a sufficient argu
ment of the truth of it. This relies upon the
former consideration, that the suitableness of
any doctrine does not evince it to be true ;
but it is certain, that doctrines are oftentimes
generally received, because they are suitable,
and serve an interest : ¦witness most of those
that are held in the Church of Bome ; they
were introduced by fraud, and continued by
force : for there is soraething of pleasure or
profit in the bottom of almost every one of
them. But falsity does not cease to be falsity, by
having the good fortune to be generally be
lieved a tmth ; any more than a plague ceases
to be a plague, by spreading itself over all
places. It is indeed the more dangerous and

formidable, and so may be more hardly con
quered, but for the very same cause it is to be
the more eamestiy opposed.
Neither does long continuance sufficiently
commend a doctrine ; for it is possible that it
mav be no more than agedness of error, and
no gray hairs can make that venerable. The
impostures of Mahomet have lasted now a
thousand years ; and should they last a thou
sand more, they would be as false as they
were at their first beginning. Age alters the
circumstance, but not the nature of things.
3. It is not the godliness or virtue of the
preacher or asserter of any doctrine, that is a
sure mark of the truth of it ; for godliness
makes no man infallible. It is possible that
a man may think a principle tme or pious,
which, in its consequences, may be false or
impious ; because he has not force of reason
enough to discern all the conclusions into
which a proposition may be improved.
It is the infelicity of' truth, and the great
hinderance both of science and religion, that
the greatness or goodness of some persons
should imprint the same authority upon their
words. And error has never such an advan
tage to prevail and insinuate, as when it is
propagated by a person of reputation for wis
dom or piety. It has been observed, that
most heretics have been such ; by virtue
whereof they have conveyed their poison to
the world successfully. And our own schis
matics took the sarae course ; for had they not
gained such an opinion for sanctity with the
rout, they could not have countenanced and
christened all those black villainies that were
acted in the late rebellion.
But a doctrine is to be tried by its conse
quences : as a way is to be chosen or shunned,
according as the end is to which it leads. It
concems every man to preserve his reason
from fallacy and deception ; and it makes no
alteration of his case, that he was deceived by
an authentic hand, any more than it is a com
fort to a man dying by an infection, that he
caught it of a great and honourable person.
But if a doctrine naturally tends to promote
the fear of God in men's hearts, to engage
them in the prosecution of virtuous courses,
to persuade them to be sober, pious, tempe
rate, charitable, and the like ; it carries with
it the mark and impress of the great etemal
tmth ; and so is uo more capable of being a
lie, than a lie is capable of being good ; or
than God, the fountain of truth and good
ness, is cap.able of being contrary to himself.

112

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Serm. VII,

SERMON VII.
PART I.

' A man that flattereth his neighbour, spreadeth a net for his
feet." — Proverbs, xxix. 5.

He that shall set himself to fight against a
custora, will find that the match is not equal ;
and that by speaking against a generally re
ceived practice, he only treads the dry paths
of duty, without any reward or recompense,
but only to be slighted for his pains. But
since neither custom nor credit must autho
rize a vice so far, as to set it out of the preach
er's reach, surely an ill practice may be very
safely and discreetly reprehended, while, in
the raean tirae, persons are spared.
That which the text here offers for the sub
ject of this discourse, is flattery ; a thing con
deraned by the raouth of one who could very
well judge, as being a king, and therefore ex
perimentally acquainted with the ways and
arts of flatterers ; a sort of cattle that usually
herd in the courts of princes and the houses
of great persons.
'The words of the text are so plain, that they
can need no explication, and therefore I shall
iraraediately fall upon the prosecution of the
matter contained in them, which I shall raan
age under these three general heads : —
I. I shall shew what flattery is, and where
in it does consist.
II. I shall shew the grounds and occasions
of it on his part that is flattered.
III. I shall shew the ends and designs of it
on his part that flatters.
I. And first for the first of these, what
flattery is. It surely must be a very difficult
thing to bring it under any certain description,
the very nature and property of it being to
put on all forms and shapes, according to the
exigence of the occasion ; as it is reported of
a creature called a polypus, that it still assumes
the exact colour of that thing to which it
cleaves. And therefore, he that would paint
flattery must draw a picture of all colours, and
frame a universal face, indifferent to any par
ticular aspect whatsoever. But though we
cannot reach all the varieties of it, we may
yet endeavour to give sorae account of those
general ways in which it does exercise and
shew itself :
1. The first is the concealing or disserabling
of the defects or vices of any person. Indeed,
to publish a man's defects to others is raalice,
but to declare them to hiniself is friendship
and sincerity ; for it is to awake him out of
his sleep when his house is afire, and to tell
him that he is under a distemper that may
prove mortal, if not prevented by timely

applications ; but flattery is like that devil
mentioned in the gospel, that is both blind
and dumb, it will pretend not to see faults, and
if it does, it will be sure not to reprove them ;
a teraper of all others the most base, cruel, and
unchristian ; for it declares a man unconcerned
in the misery and calamity of his brother, such
an one as will not put himself to the expense
of a word, to recover a perishing soul from the
raoutli of ruin and damnation. It shews him
to be void of compassion, the bond of converse
and all society.
It is indeed, in the estimation of the worid,
accounted a piece of prudence, to let things go
as they will, without interposing to interrupt
or alter their course : and no question but if
a man, according to our raodern politics,
makes hiraself the sole centre of all his
actions, and thinks upon nothing but the im
proving and securing his private interest, it is
the safest and most prudential course to stand
still and say nothing, though he sees never so
many destroying theraselves round about him.
But had the world heretofore acted by those
principles that pass for prudence now-a-days,
perhaps it would not have stood so long as it
has ; for had no raan espoused the cause ofthe
public, nor thought hiraself at all obliged,
upon the comraon accounts of humanity, to
contribute to the good and advantage of
others, men could never have united or em
bodied ; or being once embodied, and gathered
into corporations, they must presently again
have been scattered and dissolved, there being
(upon supposition of that temper that we have
been discoursing of) no common cement to
bind and hold them together.
Now this is the only ground upon which the
flatterer's silence can be accounted prudence;
but unless to be base is to be prudent, I sup
pose it will have another esteera with those j
who are the most competent judges of such j
things. It is indeed a pest and a disease, and j
so to be looked upon and detested by those j
minds that have the least tincture of virtue j
and generosity. It breeds only in narrow, j
paltry, self-serving spirits, that lie upon the
catch, and raake this their whole design, tu ,
enjoy the world, and to live to themselves. ,
But now, as to be silent of raen's defects j
and vices is a piece of flattery, and flattery a
degenerous and unworthy thiiig ; yet, that all
people may not promiscuously think them
selves called upon to reprove and declare
against whatsoever they see araiss in others,
and so mistake that for charity and duty,
which is indeed nothing else but sauciness
and impertinence, it will be convenient to
shew, 1. Who they are that are concerned to speak
in this case.
2. The manner how they are to speak.
And first for the persons ; I conceive they
may be brought under these three sorts : —

ON PROVERBS, xxix. 5.

113

1. First, suoh as are intrusted with the
govemment of others. All government makes
the actions and behaviour of him that is
governed, in some sense, the actions and be
haviour of him that governs : and conse
quently, a governor is as really obliged to
observe and regulate what is done by those
that are under him, as what he does himself.
And therefore, as no man is to flatter himself,
so neither is such an one to flatter others. No
mau is to be abused into a destructive per
suasion, that his vices are virtues, and his
faults perfections ; which without an impar
tial discovery will certainly follow, from that
opinion that self-love begets in every man of
his own actions, though never so ugly and
irregular. He that says nothing of the mis
carriages of a person under his government,
betrays a trust, and forgets, that as every
father is a governor, so every governor ought,
in some respect, to bo a father ; and surely no
father will suffer a son to perish, only for want
of telling him that he is like to perish ; if he
does, God will require his blood at his hands,
which will be but a sad reckoning, where the
relation shall redouble the raurder.
2. The second sort of persons, to whom it
belongs to tax and take notice of miscarriages,
are those who are intmsted with the guidance
and direction of others ; such as are persons
set apart to the work of the ministry. It
may possibly be looked upon as a piece of
presumption to say, that they are to guide or
to direct, who of all men are accounted the
most ignorant and impertinent ; yet such is
> their unhappiness, that the sins of those that
think theraselves much wiser, if not reproved
and testified against by thera, will be charged
by God upon their score. That preacher that
shuts his eyes and his mouth where he sees a
bold and a reigning vice, prevaricates with
his profession, and deserves to be removed
from it by some remarkable judgraent frora
Heaven, for being too wise to discharge his
duty. He is silent, it seems, for fear of interrupt
ing a great sinner's repose. The galled coii-
science must not be touched, for fear the beast
should kick, and do hira a shrewd turn.
And therefore, there must not be a word
cast out, that, may so much as border upon a
reprehension, or but hint his sin to his suspi
cion; for if that takes fire, so as to raake hira
worry, and at length ruin the preacher, all the
pity he shall find, for being faithful so much
to his own disadvantage, shall be to be up
braided for want of experience, and for not
knowing men. However, this and a much
sh.arper calamity cannot take off the obligation
that Christ and Christianity has laid upon
every preacher of the word. And it is to be
feared, that God may, sorae tirae or other,
silence those, who have in this raanner first
silenced themselves.
vol. ir.

3. The third sort of persons to whora this
duty belongs are those that profess friendship.
Every man is to challenge this as a debt
from his friend, to be told irapartially of his
faults ; and whosoever forbears to do it, fails
in the highest office of kindness. For to what
purpose does a raan take another into that in
timacy as to make hira in a manner his second
conscience, if he will not be bold and impar
tial, and do the office of conscience, by excus
ing or accusing, according as he has done well
or ill? Two things are required in him that
shall undertake to reprove another ; a confi
dence in, and a kindness to the person whora
he reproves ; both which qualifications are
erainently to be found in every real friend.
For who should a raan confide iu, if not in
himself? and who should he be kind to, if
not to liimself? and is it not a saying as true
as it is common, that every friend is another
self? But is it possible that that raan should truly
love rae, that leaves rae unguarded and un
assisted, when the weakness and inadvertency
of my own mind would expose rae with all
my indecencies and imperfections to the ob
servation and derision of the world ? No ; it
is the nature of " love to cover a multitude of
sins;" which are by no way so effectually
concealed and covered from the eyes of others,
as by being faithfully discovered and laid open
to him who comraits thera.
It puts hira upon his defence, and upon all
the arts of securing hiraself, by watching and
criticising upon his own behaviour ; it arms
him with caution and recollection, and so frees
hira from the greatest evil in the -world ;
which is confidence in the midst of folly ; a
quality that destroys wheresoever it abides ;
that unfits a raan forcon versation, deprives him
of all respect ; and, in a word, is the only thing
that can make his eneraies formidable, and, in
all their attempts against him, successful. '
And thus I have shewn who the persons are
to whom it belongs to discover and to reprove
faults : but since, though the work is fitted to
the person, there may still be a fault in the
raanner, we shall, in the next place, see how
these reprehensions are to be raanaged : con
cerning which I shall set down these rules :
1. First, let the reproof, if possible, be
given in secret ; for the design of it is not to
blazon the crirae, but to araend the person.
Let it not be before raalicious witnesses, such
as shall more enjoy the man's shame, than
h.ate his vice. The publication of a miscar
riage, instead of reforming the offender, may
possibly make him desperate or impudent ;
either to despond under the burden of his in
famy, or to harden his forehead like a flint,
and resolve to outface and outbrave it; neither
of which are like to conduce any thing to the
purposes of virtue, or to proraote the person's
recovery. H

114

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Shrm. VII,

Shame, indeed, is a notable instruraent to
deter a raan frora vicious and lewd practices,
but then it is not shame as it is actually en
dured, but as it is yet feared ; for the endu
rance of it puts an end to the fear ; and if the
man is of a bold and a daring temper, is like
to make him ten times more a wretcli and a
villain than he was before : for now he thinks
he has felt the worst of his crime, and so lies
under no check, as to its farther progress.
But such is partly the malice, partly the
unskilfulness of most persons, in their taxing
the faults of others, that the man that is most
concerned in the report perhaps conies to hear
of it last ; it being first communicated to .an
other, and so, through many hands is'at length
conveyed to him : or peradventure it is at the
very lirst proclaimed upon the house-top ; so
that the m.an, instead of being gradually re
duced, is at once blown up and undone ; and
this is all the ch.arity and discretion of some
reprovers. But the method prescribed by Christ is very
different. Has thy brother offended thee?
" first tell him his fault between him and
thee ;" and if that prevail not, then take unto
thee a " witness ;" but if neither this will do
any thing, " then tell it him before two or
three witnesses :" and .at last, upon contempt
of all these, then " bring it to the church."
All which excellent proceeding consists of so
many steps of prudence and huraanity ; of
tenderness to our brother's reputation, as well
as to his soul ; and of his comforts in this
world, as well as of his salvation in the next:
a course worthy the imitation of all, but
especially those who are to study the great
wisdora of winning souls.
The vices of most natures have in them
this property of the dirt, that the sight of the
sun hardens, but never dissolves thom. When
the crime is made public, the criminal thinks
it not worth while to retreat. His ignominy
is now in the mouths and raemory of all men,
and so not to be cancelled or brought into
oblivion by any after-practices of virtue or
regularity of living.
The end of every reproof is remedy ; but to
shame a raan is revenge ; aud such an one as
the bitterest adversary in tho world cannot
act a sharper or a more remorseless : and
therefore the church of Rome, which practises
and requires confession of sius to the priest,
thinks no penalty too severe to be inflicted
upon that confessor that should disclose any
thing revealed to him in confession. A prac
tice most wise and charitable ; and though
used by them perhaps upon grounds of policy,
yet to be enforced in the like instances upon
the highest accounts of religion.
For it is a piece of inhuman barbarity to
afflict a man, but in order to his consequent
good ; and 1 have shewn, that the publication
of a man's shame, that might otherwise be

concealed, can contribute nothing to the
making of him better. It may sink his spirit
or exasperate his vice ; but any other effect
upon him it can have noue. A sore is never
to be ripped up, but in order to its cure.
2. Let a reproof be managed with due re
spect to, and distinction of the condition of
the person that is to be reproved. He that at
any time comes under the unhappy necessity
of reprehending his superior, ought so to be*
have himself, that he may appear to acknow
ledge him his superior no less in the reproof,
than in the most solemn acts of reverence and
submission ; for religion teaches uo man tobe
rude or uncivil, nor takes away the difference
of persons and the inequality of states and
conditions, but commands a proportion of re
spect suitable to all : and he that reproves a
prince or a great person in the same manner
that he would a peasant, or his equal and
companion, shews that he is acted rather by
the spirit of a Scotch presbytery, than of
Christ. But such perhaps will defend them
selves with the example of the prophet Elijah
reviling Ahab and Jezebel, and so, baptizing
the interaperance of their tongues with the
narae of zeal, bear themselves for persons of
a heroic spirit comparable to the old pro
phets. But persons that pretend this, ought
to satisfy the world that they act by the sarae
extraordinary coramission from heaven that
Elijah did, and withal to do the rairacles that
Elijah did, for the proving of that commission;
otherwise it will not be sufficient for thera,
that they shew wonders of incivility and ill
behaviour. All persons called to the ministry are un
doubtedly commissioned by Christ to bear
witness to tho truth, by testifying against tbe
enormities of the greatest as well as of the
meanest sinners ; but no man's particular
personal indiscretion is any part of his com
mission. It is possible indeed that it may,
nay, very certain that it will make the execu
tion of it very useless and ineff'ectual to most
of the great purposes to which Christ designed
it ; for truth unseasonably and unmannerly
proposed conies with a disadvantage, and is in ,
danger to raiscarry through the uuskilfulnea
of the proposer : and as we say of some com
mentators and interpreters of scripture, tbat
the text had been clearer, had they not ex
pounded, or, indeed, rather exposed it ; soit
is like that some persons had not been so ^
vicious and lewd, to the degree of incorrigiblf,
had not their vice and lewdness heen indis
creetly reproved ; for that has made thom bid
defiance to virtue, and turn their backs upon
tho reproof ; imputing (by :in unjust indeed,
but yet by an usual inference) tho faults of the
person upon tho office and the religion; in
which case the reprover shall, before God,
share the offender's guilt ; for that finding him
siuful, he made him obstinate and impenitent;

ON PROVERBS, xxix. C>,

115

and so confirraed the beginnings of sin into a
¦resolved, settled impiety.
I question not, but it had been very lawful
for Abraham to have reproved his father's
idolatry, and to have declared and represented
the unreasonableness of such a worship to
him. But yet while he was doing so, I cannot
believe that he was in the least discharged
frora the eterual obligation of the law of
nature, exacting a due honour to be paid to
' parents : for a true doctrine could never have
1 «xoused an undutiful behaviour.
With what huraility,revereiice, anddistance
'. did D.aniel reprove Belshazzar! Though a
I most impious, insulting heathen, and one
! that had but newly, in a drunken revel, even
spit in the face of the God of heaven, by a
profanation of the sacred vessels of the temple
amongst his unhallowed parasites and con
cubines ; yet he did not fly in his face, or call
him profane or sacrilegious prince, and tell
him that divine vengeance would pay hira
home for his insolence and unthankfulness to
God. No ; Daniel did not speak as some,
I that now-a-days pretend to interpret, utter
. themselves to princes. But after he had
I recounted the signal mercies and judgments
of God upon his father Nebuchadnezzar, all
the reproof he gives him runs in these gentle
and sober words, (chap. v. 22,) "And thou
his son, 0 Belshazzar, hast not humbled thine
heart, though thou knewest all this." For
undoubtedly, had he been sharp and per
emptory, Belshazzar, a prince of that haughty
and arrogant spirit, would never have sent
him out of his presence clothed with scarlet,
•and with a gold chain about his neck. No ;
it is like he had been loaded with another
kind of chain, and, perhaps, worn a scarlet
died with his own blood. But prudence and
¦submission made his reproof acceptable and
his person honourable.
j Great ones, whose state and power makes
! their will absolute and formidable, must, for
! the most part, be pleased before they can be
I convinced ; and therefore must be brought to
I love before they will obey the truth. Upon
j which account it is infinitely vain to cast
i the issue and success of persuasion upon
the sole force of truth or virtue addressing
itself to the raind, with all its severities bare
and unqualified by a winning behaviour in
him that is to persuade. He that presumes
upon the mere efficacy of truth, forgets th.at
men have affections to be caressed, as well as
': understandings to be informed ; which is the
¦ reason, that a reprehension can never be grate-
I ful to persons of high place, but as it comes
disguised with ceremony, and attended with
; all the expressions and demonsti'ations of
j honour and due respect ; all which will be
found little enough to keep thera from think
ing themselves affronted, while they are only
faithfully admonished ; and from throwing

back an unpleasing truth in the teeth of hira
that brings it.
What men's pride and ill-nature may carry
them to, is not in the preacher's power
to remedy or prevent ; only it concerns him,
that the reproof which raen's sins have made
necessary, should not, by any failure of duty
on his part, be raade ineffectual. God has not
made it a virtue in any man to have no res
pect of persons : aud therefore let hira that
shall call upon princes and Csesars to give
God his due, beware that he do it with that
homage as not to bereave Csesar of his due ;
reraerabering, that if he that reproves is
God's ambassador, yet he that is reproved is
God's vicegerent ; and that there is nothing in
the world that more highly deserves reproof
than a pragmatical and absurd reprover.
3. Let him that reproves a vice, as much
as is possible, do it with Words of raeekness
and commiseration. Let the reprehension
corae not as a dart shot at the offender's per
son, but at his crime. Let a man reprehend
so, that it may appear that he wishes that he
had no cause to reprehend. Let him behavo
hiraself in the sentence that he passes, as we
raay imagine a judge would behave himself,
if he were to condemn his own son, brought
as a criminal before hira ; that is, with the
greatest reluctancy and trouble of mind
iraaginable, that he should be brought under
the necessity of such a cruel accident, as to be
forced to speak words of death to him, whose
life he tenders more passionately than his
own. Now this being the teraper and disposition
that is required in a reprover, it easily appears,
that nothing can be more deforraed and un
charitable than scoffs and bitter sarcasms
thrown at a poor guilty person ; thau to insult
over his calaraity, and to seem, as it were, to
taste and relish his distress. A jeering re
prover is like a jeering judge, than which
there caunot be iraagined, either in nature or
manners, a thing raore odious and intolerable.
And therefore the Roman orator, discoursing
of sceptical urbanity, or jesting, how 'far it
was allowable in speeches and pleadings, lays
down an excellent rule, fit to bo owned by
the most Christian charity, that two things
were by no means to be made the subject of
jest ; naraely, great criraes and great miseries ;
for if these be made the matter of our mirth,
what can be the argument of our sorrow?
There is something in thera at which nature
shrinks and is aggrieved ; so that it beholds
thera with horror and uneasiness : and nothing
but a very ill raind, improved by a very ill
custom, can frame itself to pleasant apprehen
sions upon such occasions ; for that any man
should be merry, because another has offended
God, or undone himself, is certainly a thing
very unnatural.
But then farther ; as reproofs are not to be

116

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Serm. VII.

managed with bitter and scurrilous reflections
upon the offender, so neither is the offence
itself to be aggravated by higher and blacker
expressions, than the n.atui'e of the thing or
the necessity of the occasion requires. He
that is to reprove is to remember, that his
business is not to declaim and shew his parts,
but to work a cure. And some actions are so
confessedly lewd, that but to hint them to
the offender is sufficient to cover him with
shame and sad remembrances, without a mo
rose and particular insisting upon the descrip
tion of their vileness ; which being to tell the
guilty person no more than what he knew
before, cannot properly serve to inform, but
only to upbraid and afflict him ; which is
none of the works of charity, as every repre-
hensiou ought to be.
David was not to be informed of the enor
mity of the sins of murder and adultery, and
to have long harangues made before him, to
aggravate and set fortli their filthiness ; and
therefore, when the prophet Nathan was to
bring him a reproof from heaven, and to call
him to repentance, we see with what insin
uations and arts of gentleness he does it ; he
represents the injustice and unreason.ableness
of what he had done in a parallel case, leaving
him to make the application ; by which, hav
ing brought hira to the confession of his sin,
hc does not presently fill his ears with tragical
exclaraations about the impiety and grossness
of it, both in respect of the person that com
mitted it, and the persons upon whom it was
committed ; a work fitter for a schoolmaster
than a prophet ; but he answers his confession
with a declaration of pardon, seconded only
with a gentle item, or admonition ; " The
Lord has done away thy sin ; thou shalt not
die : howbeit, by this deed thou hast given
great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to
blaspheme." Nothing could have been spoke
more gently, and yet more forcibly, to melt
him down into a penitential sorrow for, and
an abhorrence of those two foul deviations
from the law of God. But there is a sort of
men iu the world, pretending to a degree of
purity and acquaintcance with the mind of
God above other mortals, that upon such an
opportunity would have called up all their
spleen and poison, and have reviled him at
least two hours by the clock ; and could no
more have refrained doing so, than they could
have held their breath so long.
Before I pass from this rule of managing
reproofs with words of meekness, candour,
and compassion ; I cannot but think this also
necessary to be added, tbat they are to be
managed ¦without superciliou.sness, and a
certain spiritual arrogance, by which the re
prover looks upon the guilty person with
disdain, in comparison of that higher measure
of holiness and perfection, that upon this
account hc presumes to be in himself. But

this is for pride to reprehend other vices, which
perhaps, in the sight of God, carry a much
less guilt.
He that has a criminal and a vicious person
uuder his reproof, should speak as one that
thankfully ascribes it to God's mere graces
that he isnot as bad himself, having the same
nature, and the same natural corruptions, to
betr.ay him to all the evil and villainy that
can be, if God should but desert and leave
him to his own strength. By this means he
treats the offender as his equal, his brother,
and naturally standing upon the same ground,
the vantage being entirely from divine favour;
of which a man raay have cause to be glad
indeed, but no cause to boast.
For let that proud pharisee that shall re
prove a publican with words of insultation
and boasting, " that he is not such an one as
he," tell me how he knows, that, had he been
placed under the same circumstances and
opportunities of sin, he should not have been
prev.ailed upon to do the same for which, with
so much arrogance, he reproves or rather baits
another. Was it not the mercy of Providence,
that cast the scene of his life out of the way
of temptation ? that placed the flax and the
stubble out of the reach of the fire? Aud
what cause has he then to be bitter aud in
solent upon him, that God thought fit to
deny these advantages to, though otherwise
of no worse mould or make, or less merit
than himself?
But this is not to be passed by, that, as
God most peculiarly and directly hates snch
an arrogant disposition, as is apt to crow and
insult over the failings and lapses of others;
so it is ten to one but that, some time or
other, he lets loose some fierce temptation
upon such an one, and lesives hini so far to
himself, that he falls foully and scandalously,
to the perpetual abasement of his pride, and
the infaray of his person ; in which case, all
the daggers that he threw at others are, with
greater force and sharpness, returned upon
his own breast, where -formerly there dwelt,
so little compassion to his offending brother.
And therefore, surely, I should think it i
concerned every one about to reprove any
vicious persons whatsoever, first to allay his
spirit, and to compose hiraself to mildness
and moderation, with that excellent admoni
tion of the apostle, (G.al. vi. 1,) " If a man be
overtaken in a fault, restore such an ono in
the spirit of meekness, considering thyself,
lest thou also bo tempted." And believe it,
it will bo but an uiieonifortable revolution,
when ho th.-it once bore himself high upon
his innocence, and then shewed no mercy
upon others, shall come to havo thesame need
of mercy himself.
4. The fourth and last rule that I shall
mention for the completing of our direction j
about this duty, is, that a reproof be uot con-

ON PROVERBS, xxix. 5.

117

tinued or repeated, after amendment of that
which occasioned the reproof. For this is
both malicious and useless ; malicious, because
it renews a man's torment, and revives his
calamity ; and then useless, because the man
is already reforraed.
Pardon is still to be accompanied with ob-
liviou ; not that it is in our power to forget a
thing when we will ; but it is in our power
to behave ourselves as if we had forgot it ; with
that friendliness of address, that uuconcern-
ment of speech, that openness and respect of
carriage that we use to persons that never did
those actions which others have only left off
to do.
But to be still sarcastically reminding of a
penitent amended person of his former mis
carriages, which perhaps stand cancelled in
heaven, and even blotted out of the book of
God's remembrance ; it is like the breaking
open of graves, to rake out bones and putre
faction, and argues not only au unchristian,
but an inhuman, wolfish disposition.
Let this suffice to render every such person
inexcusable to himself, that he would not
endure to wish that either God or man
should deal so by him ; and if so there can
be no such true and infallible demonstration
of his baseness, as the impartial raeasure of
this rule.
And thus much for the first thing wherein
flattery does consist ; namely, the concealing
and not reproving the defects and faults of
obnoxious persons ; which, understood with
those due limitations hitherto laid down, will
be able to keep hira, whose place or condition
may at any time call him to this work, both
frora a sordid, undutiful silence on one hand,
and from a saucy, meddling, bitter imperti
nence on the other.

SERMON VIII.
PART II.
** A man that flattereth his neigh hour spreadeth a net for his
feet." — Proverbs, xxix. 5.
_ 2. Thb second thing wherein flattery con
sists is, the praising and defending the defects
or vices of any person. This is a step much
higher than the first, which was (as we may
so call it) the negative part of flattery, as con
sisting only in silence, and a not reproving
those things that both deserved and needed
reproof. And as it goes higher, .so it is much
more inexcusable, and incapable of those
apologies that may be alleged, though not in
justification, yet at least in mitigation of the
former. For partly the timorousness, partly
the bashfulness of some tempers, (affections
not always at our command,) may silence the

tongue, and seal up the lips from uttering
those things which the mind and judgment
frequently suggests upon these occasions. A
man may be sometiraes even dazzled and
astonished into silence by the presence of
sorae glistering sinners ; so as to be at a loss
both for words and confidence to vent those
reproofs that fill the conscience, and are even
struggling to break forth. Certain it is, that
this or any other consideration can by no
means warrant a silence there, where religion
bids a mau cry aloud ; nor can any one plead
his modesty in prejudice of his duty ; yet
surely there is something at least pleadable
upon this account, for the bare not-reproof of
a sin, that can with no face be urged for its
defence. For pusillanimity must first pass into a
prostitute impudence, before a man can arrive
to that pitch as to vouch hiraself the encoraiast
of sin, and to speak panegyrics upon vice ;
many a man may favour a malefactor, and
wish his crime concealed or passed over, who
yet would never endure to be his advocate.
It is one thing for a man to shut his eyes, and
so resolve not to see that which is black ;
another for him, with an open eye and a
shameless front, to affirm black to be white ;
and to undertake to persuade the world so
much. But so does he that attempts the commen
dation of any thing lewd or vicious ; he
transforms the Devil into an angel of light ;
he confounds the distinction of those things
that God has set at an infinite distance ; he
outfaces the common judgment of sense and
reason, and the natural, unforced apprehen
sions of mankind.
And though one would think that there is
that coraraanding raajesty in truth, as even to
awe raen into an acknowledgraent of things to
be as really they are, and generally do appear ;
and withal that ingenuity bred in every
breast, as not to own any broad defiance of
the clearest evidence ; yet experience shews, i
that there is a sort of men in the wprld, that
have wrought theraselves to that hardiness, as
to venture to tell one that has done passion
ately and rashly, that he did courageously and
discreetly ; that shall applaud him in all his
follies ; assuring hira, that if raen speak amiss
of his behaviour, it is rather upon the account
of envy and malice to his person, than any
real disapprobation of his actions ; and that
he is not to measure hiraself by the words of
his adversaries, that speak their prejudice, not
their judgraent ; oftentiraes valuing that in
wardly which they inveigh against outwardly,
and cherishing that in themselves, that they
tax and discommend in him.
They shall tell hira farther, that though
possibly such and such actions were faulty,
and unbecoraing in others, yet the diff'erence
of his condition alters the case, aud changes

118

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Serm VIII.

the very quality of the action. For what
should a great person have to do with
humility? or the rich and the wealthy with
teraperance, industry, aud sobriety? Why
should a statesraan or politician restrain him
self to the punctilios of truth and sincerity?
These are the virtues of mean eraployraents
and lower minds ; they raay perhaps be com
mendable in country gentlemen and farmers,
but persons that move in a higher sphere,
mnst have a greater latitude and corapass for
their raotion ; and it were infinite weakness
and inexperience to stick at a lie or an oath,
or the taking away an innocent life, when
reason of state requires it, and so unshackles
its ministers from the bonds of those nice
rules that are to hold and direct other mortals.
And if these actions have a cleanly and a
successful issue, they shall certainly find syco
phants enough to extol them for the greatest
prudence and wisdom that in such grand and
difficult affairs could be shewn ; they shall at
least be vouched necessary, and consequently
lawful, or as good ; and 'the authors of such
actions seldom seek for or desire any farther
warrant for thera thau necessity, though it be
of their own making.
But that people raay not bo wicked without
some plea or pretence to cover and protect
them from being thought so, there has a very
serviceable distinction beeu found out and
asserted by some, between a religious and a
political conscience, in every one that is a
governor ; the former is to guide hira as such
a particular person, having a soul to save;
the other to rule and direct hira, as a person
intrusted with the good, safety, and protection
of those that are under his governraent, and
consequently empowered to use all those
courses that serve as means absolutely neces
sary to compass such an end ; which two
capacities, as they are very different, so it
seems that they cannot both proceed by the
same rule. Forasmuch as a governor, in many
junctures and circumstances of affairs, cannot
reach the ends of government, in protecting
and securing his people, but by sometiraes
having recourse to those ways and actions that
perhaps are not allowable upon the strict
rules and measures ofreligion, which, if rigidly
and unseasonably adhered to in such instances,
may possibly throw all into ruin and con
fusion. For answer to which ; it is not for me to
interpose in what concerns government and
governors ; it has its mystery, and those that
manage it are to be presumed best to under
stand it ; but as for this distinction between a
religious and a political conscience, I shall
make bold to give it its due, in saying, that
in all those cases in whieh it cou'ies to be
practised, it subverts religion. For to affii-m
that there is any capacity or condition of
mau, of which religion is not a competent

rule, is to make it a rule infinitely short and
insufficient, as to the guidance and direction
of the manners and actions of mankind ; the
great end for which God designs it.
Besides the gross absurdity of placing the
same raan under two contrary rules ; which
is to bring him under two contrary duties ;
and to make him at the same time obliged to
do a thing, and yet upon another score dis
charged from that obligation ; which is a ridi
culous contradiction.
Many things, indeed, are distinguished in
speculation, that perfectly coincide, and are
inseparably the same in practice. And though
it is not to be denied, that the capacity of a
raan aud of a governor differ in apprehension ;
forasrauch as to be a man and to be a gover
nor are not the sarae thing ; yet when we
corae to behold those two capacities, as they
really exist in nature, we shall find, that what
is done by one is also done by the other, and
wh.at befalls one consequentially befalls the
other. If the governor sins, the man will not
be innocent ; and if the man is sick, the
govemor will find himself but ill at ease. Hc
that breaks the law under one capacity shall
suffer under both, and then, setting aside all
the niceties of speculation, if God condemns
king Ahab, I believe it will be hard to distin
guish the man Ahab out of the same condem
nation. But now, if to persuade raen out of the
acknowledgment of the evil and unlawfulness
of their actions, be flattery ; and farther, to
use arguments and acts to settle them in such
a persuasion, be one of the grossest and most
detestable sorts of it, especially if religion be
abused to so base a purpose ; then surely
none are so deeply chargeable with flattery .is
these two sorts of men :
1. Such as, upon principles of enthusiasm,
assure persons of eminence and high place,
that those transgressions ofthe divine law are
allowable in them, that are absolutely prohi
bited and condemned in others. For thus they
reason : That the divine laws and precepts
were intended only for the ordinary rules of
life ; but such as are extraordinary persons,
raised up by God for sorae extraordinary
work, are exempted from those common obli
gations ; as being directed by a higher role,
namely, the immediate dictates of the Spirit
speaking and acting within them, which
Spirit, being God, is able to dispense with his
own laws, and accordingly does so, as the exi
gence of those works, that he calls such per
sons to, shall require. So that for them to
rob and plunder is as justifiable as for the
Israelites to rob the Egyptians ; and to slay
and murder, though it be princes, is hnt like
Phinehas's standing up and executing justice!
the inward motions of the Spirit counter
manding the injunctions of the outward
letter.

ON PROVERBS, xxix. 5.

119

But to raise in any such an opinion of
themselves, is surely one of the vilest and
most destructive pieces of flattery that can be
Used by one raan to another : for it is to raake
religion minister the same scope and licence
to the most irapious actions that atheisni itself
can allow ; and that with this advantage, that
it does not trouble the mind with the same
stings and remorses that the professed despiser
of religion usually feels in the midst of all his
extravagancies : for if a man is brought to
believe that he breaks the divine law with as
good a conscience as others keep and observeit,
there is no doubt but such a belief will keep
hira at perfect peace with himself, notwith
standing the most enormous violations of it.
I cannot believe that the authors of our
late confusions could have ever acted in such
a barefaced opposition to all laws, both human
and divine, with so much satisfaction, serenity,
and composure of mind, had not their seduc
ing prophets thoroughly leavened them with
this principle ; that being the select people of
God, and so stirred up and peculiarly called
to " serve him in their generation," (as the
phrase then ran,) they were privileged from
those ordinary rules and measures by which
the lawfulness and morality of other men's
actions were determined. The saints indeed
might do the very sarae actions which in
other men were sinful, but yet they in so
doing could not sin ; and this was that per
suasion that still patched up their conscience,
after all the blows and wounds it had received
by dashing against the divine precepts.
Such was the soul-destroying flattery by
which those impostors encouraged many thou
sands in the way of damnation ; like that ly
ing prophet, that bid Ahab " go and prosper,"
when he sent him to the battle in which he
was to fall and perish.
2. The other sort of persons chargeable with
this kind of flattery are the Rotaish casuists,
who have made it their greatest study and
business to put a new face upon siu, and to
persuade the world that many of those actions
that have hitherto passed for irapious and
unlawful, are indeed nothing such, but adrait
of such qualifications as clear thera of all guilt
and irregularity.
They are not indeed so absurdly impudent
as to declare that murder is no sin ; but they
will order the matter so, that a man may be
killed upon mauy punctilios of credit and re
putation, and yet no murder be coramitted.
They will not tell a man that it is allowable
to steal ; but they will teach that, in case a
servant finds that his master will not afford
him wages proportionable to what he judges
his own service to be worth, he may take
from him so much »s will amount to a valu
able compensation, and not be chargeable with
the breach of that law that prohibits a man
to steal. They will not deny many actions

to be evil ; but if a man have but the dexte
rity and art of directing his intention to some
right end, or at least of not aotually directing
it to an ill, why then presently the whole
action loses all its raalignity, and becomes
pure and innocent, by a wonderful, but a very
easy transforraation.
It were infinite to draw forth all particu
lars ; but these are sorae of the ways by which
these religious sycophants have poisoned the
fountains of morality, and flattered mankind
with such doctrines and assertions as shall
sooth them up, and imbolden them in the
most vicious and lewd courses iraaginable.
They have opened a well, not only for sinners,
but even for sin itself to wash in, and to be
clean. So that if there be any persons in the
world who raay be justly accused for calling
good evil, and evil good, these are the men ;
and they do it too, diligently, copiously, and
voluminously ; and consequently have the
fullest and the fairest claira to the curse that
is joined to that accusation.
But now this kind of flattery is so much
the more to be abominated, because as it is of
most mischievous consequence, so it is also of
very easy effect, and meets with a strange
success, seldom returning without accomplish
ing the work of persuasion, or rather indeed
of fallacy and delusion.
Of which a double reason may be assigned :
1. The first taken from the nature of man.
2. The other from the very uature of vice
itself. 1. For the first of which ; it is too apparent
how fond and credulous most men are, and
even desirous to be persuaded into a good
estimation of whatsoever they do ; and there
fore as some people will buy and use flattering
glasses, though they know them to be so, be
cause they had rather please themselves with
a false representation, than view their defor
mity by a true ; so sorae will catch at any
colour or dress, (though never so thin,) to
give some varnish and better appearance to
their vice.
A perverted, disordered raind, if it cannot
have arguraents and solid reasons to allege
for the legality of what it does, it will content
and satisfy itself with flourishes and shows of
probability ; and that deceiver that shall
labour to furnish it with such, shall be wel
corae and honourable ; his dictates shall be
received as oracles, and never sifted by ques
tions and exarainations ; for people are natu
rally averse frora inquiring after that which
they are unwilling to know ; and therefore
such an one shall be even prevented by a
willing, forward assent. But it is easy for a
man to finish his visit, that is met three
parts of his way.
2. The other reason is from the very nature
of vice itself, which oftentimes bears a great
affinity to virtue, and so admits of the harder

120

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Serm VIII.

distinction. Upon which account, it is no
difficult matter to persuade the prodigal per
son, that he is only very liberal ; it being
yery hard to assign the precise point where
liberality ceases, andprodigality begins. Upon
the same ground, covetousness may easily
pass for providence, and a proud mind be
mistaken for a high and generous spirit ;
there being a great likeness in the actions re
spectively belonging to each of these, enough
to impose upon unwary, distinguishing minds,
that are prone to receive every like for the
same. Now from these two considerations we may
easily gather, how open the hearts of most
men lie to drink in the fawning suggestions of
any sycophant that shall endeavour to relieve
their disturbed consciences by gilding their
villainies with the name of virtues, and so
smoothing the broad way before them, that
they may find no rub or let in their passage
to damnation. This therefore is the second
thing wherein flattery consists.
3. The third is, the perverse imitation of
any one's defects or vices, which seeras to
carry it higher than the former, forasmuch
as actions are much more considerable than
words or discourses. A man, for many causes,
may be brought to commend that which he
will never be prevailed upon to follow ; but
for any ono to transcribe and copy out in
hiraself whatsoever he sees ridiculous or im
pious in another, this .argues a temper made
up of nothing but b.ascness .and servility.
And to any generous and free spirit it is
really a very nauseous and a fulsome thing,
to see some prostitute their tongues and their
judgments by saying as others say, com
mending what they coramend, dispraising
whatsoever things or persons they dispraise,
and fraraing themselves to any absurd gesture
or motion that they observe in them ; mak
ing themselves as it were an echo to their voice,
and a shadow to their bodies. In a -word, no
man can be exact and perfect in this wav of
flattery, without being a monkey and a mimic,
and a lump of wax for any fool to stamp his
image upon.
But surely few would be so sottish and
servile, as to break a leg or an arm, or put
out au eye, because they see the great person
whom they depend upon and adore, deprived
of any of these parts. And if so, do they not
consider, that a man is to be more tender of
his manners and the dignity of his soul, than
of any thing that belongs to his body, which
would give him but a small preeminence
above the brutes, were it not animated and
exalted by a principle of reason ?
Every kind of imitation speaks the person
that imitates inferior to him whom he imi
tates, as the copy is to the original : but then
to iraitate thatwhich is mean, base, and un
worthy, is to do one of the lowest actions in

a yet lower instance : it is to climb down
wards, to eraploy art and industry to learn a
defect and an imperfection ; which is a direct
reproacn to reason, and a contradiction to the
methods of nature.
And so much the more intolerable is it,
because such persons are seldom seen to imi
tate the excellencies and the virtues of him
whom they flatter ; these are looked upon
with distance and lazy adrairation : but if
there be any vice that sullies and takes off
from the lustre of his other good qualites, that
shall be sure to be culled out, and writ i-pon
their lives and behaviour. Alexander had
enough to imitate him in his drunkenness
and his passion, who never intended to be
like hira, either in his chastity, or his justice
to his enemies, and his liberality to his friends.
And it is reported of Plato, that being crook-
shouldered, his scholars, who so much ad
mired hira, would endeavour to be hke him
by bolstering out their garments on that side,
that so they might appear crooked too. It is
probable that many of these found it easier
to imitate Plato's shoulders than his philoso
phy, and to stuff out their gowns than to
furnish their understandings, or improve their
minds. I ara confident there is none that does not
deride and conderan this silly piece of offici-
ousness, as scarce to be reconciled to common
sense ; yet we raay find as bad daily in the
behaviour of raost parasites, who thiuk they
can never honour their great masters, but by
exposing themselves. Which practice, though
it is most irrational, yet it has this to en
courage and continue it, that such grandees
are wonderfully pleased to see their vices and
defects aped by their followers and retainers ;
indeed much more than to see their perfections
drawn into imitation.
And that, I conceive, for this reason ; be
cause vice, being weak and shameful, is glad
to kave any countenance and credit shewn it ;
which is done by no way so much as by
having many followers. To be vicious alone
is a great shame, and few natures are able
to bear it ; aud therefore corapany gives a
kind of authority to sin, and brings vice into
fashion, which is able to coraraend and set
off' any thing. Nero's killing his mother
could not but be looked upon as a hideous
and unnatural thing, for all the senate's
public thanking of him for it, and his courtiers'
applauding of the action ; because in this,
humanity was too strong for flattery, and
suffered none of them, to practise what their
slavish disposition induced them to commend ;
which shews how much the greater number of
flatterers speak against their conscience ; for
that which a man in the same condition
would not do himself, he certainly dislikes in
another. 4. The fourth and last thing that I shall

ON PROVERBS, xxix. 5.

121

mention, wherein flattery consists, is an over
valuing those virtues and perfections that arc
really laudable in any person. This is a
different sort frora all the forraer, which had
no foundation of good at all to work upon,
but were wholly employed in giving appear
ances where there was no substance, in paint
ing of rotten sepulchres, and belying vice into
the reputation of virtue.
But this is more modest and tolerable, there
being some groundwork of desert, though
rauch too narrow for those huge superstruc
tures of commendation that some raise upon
it ; which therefore turn into flattery, which
consists in a partial representation of any
thing to be greater and better than indeed it
is ; for truth suffers as much by this as by the
former ; it being violated by any dispropor
tion between the thing as it is expressed, and
as it does exist.
The flatterer views every little virtue or
good quality in hira whom he resolves to ex
tol, as it were, with a microscope ; such a one
as shall swell a gnat into an elephant, and an
elephant into a raountain. Ordinary, plain,
homespun sense shall be raagnified for extra
ordinary wit and fancy ; and good, honest,
flat words shall pass for propriety and exact-
nes of expression.
TBut to go higher. Let a star be accounted,
as indeed it is, a bright and a glorious thing ;
yet we are not therefore to persuade the world
that it is a sun. Herod, no doubt, (Acts, xii.
22,) spoke like an eloquent man ; yet that
was short of speaking with " the voice of a
god," as his flatterers told hira in that their
impious and profuse acclamation. He that
should celebrate a captain that had the good
fortune to worst the enemy in a skirmish, to
the degree of a Caesar or an Alexander, would
wonderfully stretch and overdo, and render
the poor man ridiculous, instead of glorious ;
and every one that measures his actions by
any elogies given him by the flatterer, sets his
reputation upon stilts, which is not the surest
way of standing ; and when he coraes to be
weighed in the balance of the irapartial and
the judicious, will be found wanting.
For look, as the detractor represents the
perfections of him whom he hates, lessened
and diminished from what they really are,
partly by a malicious concealment, partly by
calumny and direct slander ; so the flatterer,
whose design is managed by a contrary way,
(though perhaps in itself the same,) greatens
and advances every thing beyond the bounds
of its real worth ; describing all in hyperboles,
high strains, and words of wonder, till he has
puffed up that little thing that he commends,
as we see men do a bladder, which owes all its
bulk only to air and wind, upon the letting
out of which, it returns and shrinks into a
pitiful nothing.
And just so must the opinion that a man

conceives of himself frora the delusions of
flattery, vanish and have its end ; for, like a
feather, it was raised by a breath, and there
fore, when that breath ceases, it must fall to
the ground again.
And thus I have finished the first general
head under which I cast the prosecution of
the words ; namely, to shew what flattery
was, and wherein it did consist. I do not
profess myself so skilful and experienced in
it, or desirous to be so, as to affirm tbat I have
recounted all the ways and methods, all the
turnings and meanders, through which this
various thing uses to wind and carry itself.
But these are enough to serve as a rule by
which both to direct our own actions, and to
judge of the actions and behaviour of other
men. They may convince us how vast a
difference there is between flattery and friend
ship, and between the crafty, low mind of a
flatterer, and the generous disposition of a
friend. But when 1 have said all of the base
ness of this art, yet so long as men find it bene
ficial, and withal see the world full of those
that are willing to be made fools of by it, I
believe all that I shall persuade raen of will
be this, that they are like to get raore by
practising of it, than any one else shall get by
speaking agaiust it.

SEEMON IX.
PART III.
•* A man that flattereth his neighbour spreadeth a net for hia
feet." — Provkbbs, xsix. 5.
II. The second general head proposed for
the prosecution of these words, was to shew
what were the grounds and occasions of flat
tery on his part that is flattered. I shall
raention three :
1. Greatness of place or condition. There
is nothing that secures a raan. frora flattery
more than the confident and free access of in
genuous persons. But confidence and freedom
are seldom found but where there is a parity
of conditions ; reproof being of the nature of
those things that seldora ascend and move up
wards ; but it either passes to an equal, or
descends upon an inferior. He that is great
and potent casts an awe and a terror round
about hira, and, as it were, shuts and barri-
cadoes hiraself in frora all approaches, like
mount Sinai, where the fire burning, and the
voice thundering, would suffer none to corae
near it ; so that such an one is still treated
with silence and distance ; his faults are
whispered behind his back ; he is scoffed at in
little rooras and merry meetings, and never
hears the severe, healing truths that are spoke

122

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Ser,m. IX

of him ; bnt lives muffled and blindfold, un
acquainted with himself and the judgments
of men conceming hira.
Upon which account, great persons, unless
their understandings are very great too, ancl
withal unprejudiced with self-love, so as to be
their own monitors, and irapartial exactors of
themselves, are of all others the most miser
able. For though a reproof might open their
eyes and correct their behaviour, and though
there are not wanting those that are concerned
for their good, yet they fright away all these
remedies, and live and die strangers to their
cure. For in this case men consider, first, the great
danger of speaking freely to great persons
what they are not willing to hear : it may
enrage, aud make them their mortal enemies.
It may render them as great in malice as they
are in power and condition. It is at best a
very bold venture, and greatness is not so
tractable a thing, as to lay itself quietly open
to the repreheiider and the faithful adrao-
nisher, who speak for the man's advantage
more than for his pleasure, and bring him
physic instead of sweetmeats. The expe
rience men have in the world usually makes
them fearful to engage iu unpleasing offices.
Especially when they consider farther, how
easy it is to be safe and silent ; and how
little it concerns them to court a trouble, a
danger, and a potent displeasure, by endea
vouring to do a man good against his will.
They think it a great folly to put themselves
upon a harsh, and the sarae also a thankless
eraployment ; to lose an interest, and a great
friend, only for doing that which they could
with much more ease have let alone.
Men see also how ill it has fared with such
as have presumed to be free with the grandees
of the world, in point of reproof and ani
madversion : they h.ave been rewarded with
frowns, sharpness, .and disdain, and sent away
with dejected countenances ; as if the reprovers
themselves had been the persons in fault.
Majesty and power usually think virtue and
happiness itself bought at too dear a rate, if it
be at the price of an admonition.
For all which causes, persons of evil or low
minds, which make up much the greater part
of the world, are willing to follow their game,
and to cajole and flatter a vicious greatness,
since it turns so much to their profit and re
putation ; while the great one, that is abused
according to his own heart's desire, bids the
flatterer sit at his right hand ; in the mean
time raaking his irapartial friend and reprover
his footstool, slighting him for his upright
dealing, and sending him to his own virtue
for a reward.
2. 'The second ground of flattery, on his part
that is flattered, is an angry, passionate dis
position, and impatient of reproof. This also
frights and deters men from doing the office

of friends in a faithful reprehension. For some
minds are raore rsiging and tumultuous than
the sea itself; so that if Christ himself should
rebuke them, instead of being calm, they
would r<age and roar so much the louder.
That admonition that would reclaim others,
does but chafe and provoke thera ; as the
sarae breath of wind that cools some things,
kindles and inflames others. No sooner do
some hear their behaviour taxed, though
with the greatest tenderness and moderation,
but their choler begins to boil, and their
breast is scarce able to contain and keep
it from running over into the heights and
furies of bitterness and impatience. The man,
instead of correcting his fault, will redouble
it with a greater ; add fierceness to his folly,
affronting and reviling him that would unbe-
sot and reform him.
Now it requires a person not only of friend
ship and fidelity, but also of courage and
valour, to undertake to be a reprover here ; for
asmuch as to reprove such an one, is, iu effect,
to give him battle: he must be able to bear,
and, what is more, to slight and tame his
rage ; he must not sneak and fly back at every
great word, nor suffer himself to be talked
and vapoured out of countenance.
But few people are able, and fewer willing,
to put themselves to so great an inconvenieiicc
for another's good, and to raise a storm about
their own ears, to do an odious, ungrateful
piece of service for au ungrateful person ; and
therefore men usually deal with such currish,
sharp natures as they do with mastiffs, they
are fain to stroke them, though thoy deserve
to be cudgelled. They flatter and commend
them, to keep them quiet, and to compose the
unruly humour which is ready to grow and
improve upon the least check or opposition.
From the consideration of which we easily
see the great misery and disadvantage of pas
sionate, angry persons ; their passiou does not
only bereave them of their own eyes, butalso
of the benefit of other men's ; which he that
is of a gentle and a tractable nature enjoys in
the midst of all his errors : for his friend sees,
and judges, and chooses for him, wheu the
present precipitation of his mind hurries him
besides the steady use of his reason. He is
reduced by counsel, rectified and recalled by
one that sees his fault, and dares tell him of
it ; so that the cure is almost as early as the
distemper. We raay observe of brambles, that they
always grow crooked ; for by reason of their
briers and thorns no hand can touch them, so
as to bend them straight. And so it is with
some dispositions ; they grow into a confirmed,
settled obliquity, because their sharpness
makes them unfit to be handled by discipline
and admonition. They are a terror and a
grievance to those that they converse with :
and to attempt to advise them out of their

ON PROVERBS, xxix.

123

irregularities, is as if a chirurgeon should offer
to dress a wounded lion ; he must look to
perish in the address, and to be torn iu pieces
for his pains.
It was surely of very great importance to
Nabal, mentioned in 1 Sam. xxv. to have been
admonished of the rough, unadvised answer
that he returned to David's soldiers ; for it
was like to have brought a min upon him
and his family and his whole estate ; yet none
would do him that seasonable kindness, be
cause of the rudeness and churlishness of his
manners : for in the 17th verse that character
is given of him, that he " was such a son of
Belial, that a man could not speak to him."
Many would be willing to recover a person
frora his follies, but they are not willing to be
snapt and railed at for so doing ; they would
be ready enough to pluck a brand out of the
fire, might they do it without burning their
fingers. But to be foolish and to be angry
too, is for a man first to cast himself into a
pit, and then to hinder others from pulling
him out.
3. The third and last ground of flattery, on
his part that is flattered, is a proud and vain
glorious disposition. 'To tell a proud person
of his faults, is to tell infallibility that it is
in an error, and to spy out something amiss
in perfection. Such an one looks upon him
self as above all defects, and privileged from
doing any thing mean, low, or obnoxious.
There is no quality that more estranges a man
from the free addresses of his friends, and
their hearty communications of their thoughts
concerning him, than a high conceit and
opinion of himself : for this makes him rate
all other men's judgraents by his own raea
sures, and set that price upon hiraself and his
actions, that he thinks all the world must
come up to : and therefore he that taxes or
reprehends him, must expect the same credit
and success that he is like to find, that should
accuse an only son to his fond mother : he
would quickly experiment that love is won
derfully blind, but especially about those
things that it has no mind to see.
A proud person, who, with the worst kind
of idolatry, adores himself, and what is more,
the worst part of himself, his defects and
vices, thinks that his doing of any action is
sufficient to stamp it decent and virtuous. As
it is reported of Cato being drunk, that one
should say of him, by reason of his reputation,
so much too great for any slander, that it
would be easier to prove that drunkenness was
no vice, than that Cato could be vicious ; so
some people, though they spoil every thing
by an undue management of it, lose oppor
tunities, and overlook occasions, yet they must
be thought to be still carrying on designs of
policy, to err and mistake prudentially ; the
world must persuade itself out of its own ex
perience, and believe surmises, though con

tradicted by effects. It must be willing to be
sunk by the hands of such skilful pilots, and
judge the foolishness of some to be wiser than
the wisdom of others.
Now those that would have the world main
tain such an opinion of them, are the fairest
and the broadest mark for the flatterer to shoot
at that can be, the fittest persons to be made
buffoons of : for do but commend and praise
them to their face, and you raay pick their
pockets, cut their throats, and cheat thera of
their estates. Nor need the flatterer fear that
thoy will look through his design, and so dis
cover and loathe all his feigned encomiums ;
for let them be never so gross and palpable,
let him lay it on never so thick, yet pride
and conceitedness will swallow all, and look
upon itself obliged too, for being so kindly
abused. And it has been sometimes seen, that a man,
while he has been flattering and extolling an
opinionative fool, (who has with much plea
sure heard and em'braced him, for the glorious
things he so liberally spoke of him,) he has
now and then turned his head aside, aud
flouted and laughed at him to his companions,
for suffering himself to be held by the nose
by such pitiful arts, so easily discerned aud
detested by any person of discretion.
Upon an easy observation we shall find,
that there is nothing that renders a man more
ridiculous, in most of the passages of his life,
than much credulity ; there is nothing that
more certainly makes him a prey to the de
ceiver and the cheat : bnt now this is the
inseparable property of pride and self-estima
tion. Every such person carries a belief about
him so strong and so great, that it is impos
sible to over-work it ; he will turn every ro
mance into a real history, and even believe
contradictions in his own behalf.
Which being so, if a man be great and
potent as well as proud, it is no wonder if he
is always plied with flatterers, and if they
resort to him as the crows do to a carcass,
always fluttering and chattering about him ;
for, alas! he thinks they are only doing him
right, and admiring him for that -which he
himself admires much more. Pride makes
him lift his eyes upward, which is the reason
that he never turns them inward; and so
being unknown to himself, he must believe
the deceiver upon his own word.
Now the deduction that I shall make from
all this is, that of the many arguments and
signs of real friendship, none is so sure and
infallible, as a readiness to reprehend impar
tially and seasonably whatsoever needs repre
hension. For it is clear, that he that does so,
prefers the good of him whom he reprehends
before his own interest. He knows not but
his proud and impatient humour may make
him disgust .and persecute him for giving him
so free and true a view of himself; bnt yet he

1-2-1

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS

Sr.iiM. IX.

ventures all to redeem him from shame and
disorder : in a word, he resolves to do the
part of a friend, though his very doing so
makes him forfeit his being thought so. He
that carries on no desigti for his own advan
tage in what he does, gives an unfailing de
monstration of his sincerity ; and he that tells
a man what he knows will find but a sraall
acceptance with him, (as the story of his
faults is like to do,) hazards his friend's favour,
and with that his own emolument ; and really
makes himself and his hopes a sacrifice to the
other's reputation.
Having thus finished the second general'
head, and shewn the grounds and occasions
of flattery on his part that is flattered, I pro
ceed now to the
Third and last, which is to shew the ends
and designs of it on his part that flatters : and
those are briefly comprised in these words of
the text, " He spreads a net for his neigh
bour's feet."
It is a metaphor borrowed from the prac
tice of hunters or fowlers ; and now, as there
is no man that spreads a net, but does it with
this double intention, first to catch .and de
stroy the thing for which he spreads it, and
then, by so doing, to advantage himself, as
either in his pleasure or his profit ; so accor
dingly every flatterer, in all his fawnings and
dissimulations, is acted and influenced by these
two grand purposes :
1. To serve himself.
2. To undermine him whom he flatters,
and thereby to effect his ruin.
1. And first, he designs to benefit and serve
himself. In all that artificial scene that he
lays, by adoring and commending this or that
great person, he intends not so much to praise,
as to be, what the other is. He would bc
great, rich, and honourable ; and that puts
him upon the dissembler's drudgery, to enslave
himself to all his humours, to extol his im
pertinences, and adore his very villainies. It
is not for want of wit or apprehension, that
the flatterer speaks such paradoxes : for he
sees through that great and glorious bauble
that he so cringes to ; he despises him heartily,
while he harangues him magnificently ; his
thoughts and his words are at a perpetual
jar and distance ; he thinks satires, while he
speaks panegyrics.
Nay, and perhaps he hates and abhors his
own ill fate too, that should force him to take
such a sordid course to advance himself ; that
should make him fall down before such an
iraage, and worship such an illustrious piece
of emptiness. But profit reconciles evil minds
to tbe coarsest and lowest services ; and men
are willing to bow their bodies, and stoop
down to take up a jewel or a piece of gold,
though it be frora a dunghill.
But it is evident, that every flatterer de
signs only his own advantage, whether there

be or be not any real foundation of worth in
him whom he pretends to adraire ; and that,
from this one consideration, that the same
person, in case he falls from his greatnessand
power, is presently deserted, and finds all his
parasites' encomiums turned into scoffs and
invectives. The man's virtue, if he had any,
rem.aiiis untouched, and perhaps by his cala
mity improved. He can be as valiant, as just,
and temperate, as he was before ;'but what is
that to the purpose ? He cannot reward or
prefer ; he cannot frown an enemy into ruin,
or smile a friend or a dependant into a fair
fortune. And if so, the flatterer thinks he
should but lose his tirae and his breath to
declaim and be eloquent upon so dry a subject.
No ; his game lies another way ; he bids good
night to the setting, and reserves his devotion
for the rising sun. Men may be both wise
and virtuous ; but it is their power that makes
thera commended for being so.
And from this it is also that we may ob
serve in flatterers such great difference in the
behaviour of the same person at one time,
frora what it is at another. While he is yet
upon the chase, and a getting, none so humble,
so abject, so full of all servile compliances ;
but when his nest is feathered, and his bags
full, he can be insolent and haughty, he can
bend his knee as stiffly, and keep his distance
as magisterially as another. For, like Saul,
after he comes to a crown and a kingdom, he
then presently finds in himself another spirit,
and disdains to look after those asses that he
used formerly so much to follow. Let his
old, rich patrons now commend themselves ;
he has served his turn of them, caught the
fish, and he cares for no more. After the
young one is grown up and well thriven, it
follows the dam no longer ; but instead of
following it, if occasion serves, it can kick it.
No man uses flattery as his employment, bnt
as his instrument ; and consequently, when
it has done his work, he lays it aside. And
thus much for the flatterer's first design, which
is to serve and advantage himself.
2. His second is to undermine and ruiu him
whora he flatters. He finds his interest aud
affairs cast so, that he is not like to be con
siderable without the downfall of such or such
a person, who yet is so great and powerful,
that he despairs to shake hira by violence and
direct force, and therefore he endeavours to
circumvent him by art ; to which purpose, he
pretends himself an admirer of his extraordi
nary parts and virtues, tickles his ears with
perpetual applauses of all his words and ac
tions ; and by this means he gets the esteem
of a friend, and with that an opportunity of
working under ground. But all this while he
is big with a design of mischief; ho is only
taking aim -svhere he may shoot him surely
•and mortally ; so that .all the fair speeches
and fine flowers that he strews in the other's

ON PROVERBS, xxix. 6.

125

way, are only to cover and conceal the fatal
gin and trap that he has placed, to catch and
bring him into the hands of the destroyer.
And it is very frequent, that the flatterer,
by taking this course, makes his design effec
tual, and compasses the ruin of him whora
he flatters ; and that upon these several ac
counts :
1. First, By this means he deceives him, and
grossly abuses and perverts his judgraent,
which should be the guide and director of all
his actions. A right judgraent is to the soul
what a strong and a healthful constitution is
to the body ; it will, by its own force, work
off all lesser inconveniences and distempers.
Though a raan be soraetiraes driven aside by
his passions and his irregular appetites, yet so
long as his mind and understanding has a
habitually true notion and apprehension of
things, it will recover the raan, and prevent
the error from being infinite. And therefore,
according to that advice given to the soldier,
T^K xi^xx^u ir£(p!iA.a^o, " Secure your head ;" so
is every oue to be careful to preserve his
judging faculties entire, that he may not be
abused into false choices, and iraposed upon
by undue and fallacious conclusions ; for a
flaw in these leaves the soul like an army
without conduct, exposed to all the miseries of
dispersion and confusion.
He that is thoroughly deceived, is in the
very next disposition to be ruined ; for cast
but a mist before a man's eyes, and whither
may you not lead him ? He marches on with
as much confidence into a slough or a pitfall,
as he would tread the direct paths that lead
to his own house. None plays the fool con
fidently, but he that verily believes he does
wisely. He is flattered into mistakes and
false measures of his actions, and views all the
passages of his behaviour by a false light, the
consequences of which must needs be destruc
tive and miserable.
And therefore every flatterer who endea
vours to delude and blind the judgment of
a man, properly gives him a fatal wound in
the head ; and if that be crazed and giddy, it
is not the absolute, entire perfection of all the
other parts of the body, that can suffice to
regulate and direct so much as any one action
of life. The whole tenor of a man's behaviour
in this case is like the motion of a watch that
has a fault in the spring ; he is rendered
utterly useless, as to all great and considerable
purposes. 2. The flatterer undermines, and perhaps, in
the issue, ruins him whom he flatters, by bring
ing him to sharae and a general contempt ; for
he deals with him like one that pins sorae
ridiculous thing upon another's back, and then
sends him with it into the market place, where
he finds hiraself hooted and laughed at by all,
but walks on wholly ignorant of the cause.
The flatterer tells an impertinent, talking

grandee, that his discourse wonderfully be
comes him ; that he utters himself with extra
ordinary grace and exactness of speech ; he
accordingly believes him, and gives his tongue
no rest, but is still proclairaing his emptiness
and indiscretion in all corapanies. He tells
auother passionate furioso, that it argues
height and gallantry of spirit, not to endure
the least undervaluing word, the least shadow
of an affront ; and he accordingly, upon every
trivial occasion, takes fire, and flames out into
all the expressions of rage and revenge ; and,
for his pains, is despised by sorae, hated by
others, and opposed by all ; and these are the
effects and favours of flattery.
In a word, the flatterer deals -n-ith the flat
tered person as the Philistines did with Sara-
son, first putting out his eyes, and then raaking
hira a mock and a sport to all that had a raind
to divert themselves with his calaraity.
Sharae, of itself, is indeed a great misery ;
but then we are to consider farther, that as to
the real advantages of the world, it is to be
reckoned araongst the surest and speediest
causes of a man's ruin. For who will employ,
who will prefer or recomraend a despised per
son ? Kindness and conterapt seldom lodge
upon the same object. But suppose that a
raan had a kindness for such an one, yet he
would not be able to own the effects of such a
kindness, against the general envy and deri
sion and censures of the world ; bad certifi
cates to vouch a raan's fitness for any place or
preferraent. Sharae and contempt casts a man under the
feet of those whom he converses with ; in
which case, we cannot presurae upon any such
redundancy of compassion and good nature
amongst men, as to iraagine that any one can
be under foot without being trampled upon.
He that slights me himself cannot possibly be
my friend ; but he that endeavours to make
others slight me too, must needs be ray mor
tal enemy.
3. The flatterer undermines and effects the
ruin of hira whora he flatters ; forasmuch as
by this means he renders his recovery and
amendment impossible. Every fault in a
man shuts the door upon virtue, but flattery
is the thing that seals it. Solomon gives his
judgraent in the case fully and unanswerably,
(Prov. xxvi. 12,) " Seest thou a man wise in
his own conceit ? there is more hope of a fool
than of that raan." A man's way out of error
lies through the paths of conviction ; and he
that recovers a fool must first unbefool him to
that degree, as to persuade him of his folly ;
for it is a thing against nature and reason tor
a man to think of amendment, who at the
same time thinks himself perfect. No man
surely prepares himself for travel, while he
supposes himself at his journey's end.
He that makes another sick, and brings him
under a distemper, docs not presently destroy

126

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Serm. X.

hira, because there is still a reraedy in physic ;
but he that persuades a sick, distempered per
son that he is well, and so keeps him from the
use of physic, he certainly is preparing a coffin
for him, and designs nothing but to bring him
to his grave.
Every flatterer, by infusing into a man a
good opinion of his defects and vices, endea
vours to fasten and rivet them into his beha
viour for ever ; for no man leaves what he
cannot dislike. Persuade a prisoner, or a
captive, that his prison is a paradise, and you
shall never hear him petition for a release.
Vice, indeed, captivates and enslaves whereso
ever it prevails ; but flattery strives to make
the mind in love with its slavery, and so to
render that slavery perpetual and unalterable ;
it would fain intoxicate and charm a man
into a kind of stupidity and impotence to help
himself. In short, it uses him as Jael did
Sisera ; it pretends to refresh and entertain
him kindly, but it designs only to nail his
head to the ground.
And thus I have endeavoured to lay open
the flatterer's ends and purposes. Where,
upon the result of all, it is perhaps a disputable
case, whether of the two is a worse thing, to i
flatter, or to be flattered ; to be so sordid, and I
withal mischievous, as to practise the one, or !
so blind and sottishly easy as to sufl'er the 1
other. But the truth is, this latter is the
object of pity, as the former is of the justest
hatred and detest.ation. In fine, it raust be
"the harralessness of the dove" that must
keep aman from doing one, and "the wisdom
of the serpent" that must preserve him from
being abused by the other ; neither of which
virtues can be had in any perfection, but from
the grace and bounty of him who is the
author and giver of every good and perfect ¦
gift. I

SERMON

PART 1.

** Keep back thy servant also fi-om presumptuous sins ; let
them not have dominion over me." — Fsa].m xix. 13.

These words, running in the form of a
prayer or petition, raay suggest these three
things to our consideration, —
1. The thing prayed against ; " presurap
tuous sins."
2. The person making this prayer ; king
David ; one adorned with the highest elogies
for his piety, even by God himself.
3. The means that he eng.ages for his de
liverance from the thing he prays against ;

namely, the divine grace and assistances
" Keep back thy servant from presumptuous
sins." All these things lie naturally and evidently
in the text : and there is no doubt, but that
it may be most pertinently handled iu a dis
tinct prosecution of them. But I shall choose
rather to frame ray thoughts into another
method, and designing to take in aud com
prehend all these in the progress ofthe follow
ing discourse, I shall cast the discussion of the
words under these two general heads :
I. 'To shew what these presumptuous sins
are. II. To shew the reason of this so holy
and excellent person's so earnestly praying
against them.
As for the first of these, what presumptuous
sins .are. In the handling of this, I shall do
those three things :
1. 1 shall shew in general what it is to pre
sume. 2. I shall assign sorae of the most notable
kinds of presuraptuous sins.
3. I shall prescribe some remedies against
them. And first, for the first ; what it is in gene
ral to presume ; where, before we proceed to
any strict and positive definition of it, we
may briefly take notice of the description it
lies under in the word of God, which sets
forth this sin by various, and those very sig
nificant expressions. It calls it a man's
" hardening of his heart ; hardening his neck,
hardening his face," and, in a word, " harden
ing himself against God." It calls it "a
walking frowardly, and a walking contrary to
God ;" as also " a resisting of the Holy Ghost;"
"and a grieving and doing despite to the
Spirit of grace." It is likewise expressed by ,
a " man's going on in his own ways," and
" refusing to be reformed," with the like :
that is, all the several evils and provoking
malignities that are in obstinacy, stubborn
ness, impudence, and direct conterapt of God,
like so many lines in their centre, meet and
concur for the making up of the character of
presumption. But that we may yet view the nature of it
more closely, and define what it is : to pre
sume, or to coramit a presumptuous sin, is for
a raan, in the doing of any unlawful or suspi
cious action, to expect and promise himself
impunity upon those grounds that indeed
afford no reason for any such expectation.
So that, to the making up of suoh a sin,
these three integral parts are required : |
1. That a mau undertake an action, known :
by him to be unlawful, or at least doubtful. ¦
2. That notwithstanding this, he promise
to himself security from any punishment of
right consequent upon it.
3. And lastly, that he do this upon motives
utterly groundless and unreasonable.

ON PSALM xix. 13.

127

In this order, therefore, does presumption
accomplish its course of acting in the heart of
the presuming sinner. For, as for the thing
that he is about to do, he either doubts whe
ther it he lawful or no ; or he certainly knows
that it is unlawful : whereupon, if on either
hand he proceeds to the doing of it, he infal
libly bolts upon a sin, because he certainly
acts against conscience, either doubtful or
knowing ; both of which will involve him in
siu : for to act against a knowing conscience
is apparently sinful ; and to act also against
the doubting, from the mouth of the apostle
receives the express sentence of condemna
tion ; " He that doubteth is damned if he
eat," (Rom. xiv. 23.)
Now the presuraing sinner, knowing the
¦action he is attempting to be unlawful, or at
the best suspecting it as doubtful, proceeds,
notwithstanding this dissatisfaction, to deli
berate and advise with himself, whether he
should undertake it or no ; he argues the case
with himself on both sides. On one side, he
pleads the unlawfulness, or at least the suspi
ciousness ofit, and the great danger that may
follow upon either : on the other, he thinks
of the pleasure, the profit, and the advantage
of the thing under debate, together with a
supposed probability of escape and impunity,
-though he does commit it. And hereupon, as
the result and upshot of his deliberation, he
comes to fix, and to resolve that he will do it,
be the consequence what it will : though yet
he believes he shall carry the matter so, as to
bring himself off clear and harraless after all :
and thus from suspense he pnoceeds to resolu
tion, and from resolution passes into action ;
and so stands a perfect, coraplete, presurap
tuous sinner before God, as having brought
his sin to maturity and actual commission,
through all the by-traces, all the rubs and
impediments that either conscience or Provi
dence laid in its way.
From what has been said, we may here ob
serve, that the presuraptuous sinner is utterly
divested of those two only pleas that can be
alleged for the extenuation of sin, as, 1st, Ig
norance. 2d, Surprise.
And first, as for ignorance. Though the
case is such in the rules of morality, that no
ignorance of things, lying under necessary
pr^tice, can be totally inculpable, and so
cannot wholly excuse the guilt of the action
occasioned by it ; yet as to an extenuation of
the degree, we find the plea of it frequently
admitted in Scripture ; as " the servant that
knew not his lord's will, and did things
worthy of stripes," was therefore beaten but
with few stripes, (Luke, xii. 48.) And our
Saviour himself grounds his prayer for his
murderers upon their ignorance of what they
did ; (Luke, xxiii. 34,) " Father, forgive
them ; for they know not what they do."
And Saint Paul gives the same account of his

obtaining raercy after his blasphemies and
persecutions ; (1 Tim. i. 13,) " I obtained
mercy," says he, " because I did it ignorantly
and in unbelief." So that ignorance, we see,
though not by any virtue in itself, but by the
mere mercy, and goodness, and condescension
of God, has prevailed and been effectual for
the covering of a multitude of sins, not yet
grown too big for pardon.
But now the presuraptuous sinner cuts
hiraself off from all such plea ; for he sins
with a high hand, with an open and a seeing
eye. His conscience is all the tirae awake,
like a thief that breaks open a house in the
face of the sun, and amidst the resorts of a
market. The motto of a presuming sinner
maybe, Veni, vidi, et peccavi. The Devil told
Eve, that her and her husband's eyes should
be opened, upon their eating of the forbidden
fruit ; and, accordingly, most of their poste
rity have since inherited the power of sinning
knowingly and seeingly, of offending their
Maker with counsel and deliberation. Their
eyes are opened indeed with a mischief : but
for that very cause their sin is heightened ;
and it were better for them that they " were
blind ;" for then, as said our Saviour to the
pharisees, they " would have had no sin :"
that is, no sin in comparison : their sin would
not have borne so deep a tincture, and been
set off with such crimson aggravations.
As sin leaves the soul, so presumption
leaves sin itself naked, by drawing from it its
covering ; and also helpless, by taking away
its last asylum and retreat. In both of which
it had a fair accomraodation frora ignorance,
which, like darkness, invites sleep ; and so is
the parent of a little rest and transient quiet
to sick, guilty, and disturbed consciences.
Ignorance is looked upon as so plausible a
defence, that I have heard and read of those
that have studiously been ignorant of the evil
of an action, where they have passionately
desired the pleasure of it : they have endea
voured to shift off' the light, and to convey
theraselves from the inspection of their own
consciences, that so their sinful delights might
proceed with the greater relish and the less
interruption. A pretty art for men to befool
and damn theraselves withal.
But such raust know, that ignorance
affected, and voluntarily procured, is so far
frora giving any mitigation or excuse to other
actions, that it is not able to excuse itself.
For who can defend an action, by pleading
that he did it ignorantly, when it was in his
power not to have been ignorant, when the
raeans of kuowledge were before him, and the
neglect of them was his choice ? Presuraption
and such an ignorance raay walk hand in
hand, forasmuch as it may be resolved into
presumption. It is a blindness brought upon
a man, because he would uot see ; otherwise
all ignorance, that is merely negative and in-

128

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Serm. X.

culpable presumption, is utterly inconsistent
with, and makes absolutely unpleadable.
2. Presuraption excludes all plea from sur
prise : a plea admitted in human courts for
the diminution of the malignity of many
crimes. An action not being perfectly evil,
but as committed by perfect choice, which is
much weakened and disturbed by the hurry
of a surprise. And there is no doubt but the
mercies of the court of He.aven also have some
grains of allowance for those actions that men
are thus, in a manner, thrown headlong into.
But now where there is deliberation, there
can be no surprise ; forasrauch as a surprise
prevents and takes a raan off from all previous
deliberation : and presumption is still accom
p.anied with deliberation ; it is a sin that pro
ceeds gradually, it destroys the soul soberly,
and with design.
But before I go any farther, when I say
that surprise takes off from the nature of pre
sumption, so that every presumptuous sin
raust be supposed to be coramitted with deli
beration ; I conceive that, for the preventing
of raistakes, this may need sorae farther ex
plication. We raust know, therefore, that a
sin raay be said to be committed deliberately,
either formally and immediately, or only
virtually and remotely. Of the forraer there
can be no doubt ; for in that sense a raan sins
deliberately when he sins with foregoing
thought, as well as with present purpose of
mind. But for the latter, we may take those
terras more at large, thus : when a raan is
brought into a sudden heat of passion and
confusion of spirit, in which he proceeds to
blaspherae God, or to revile his prince, or the
like ; this blaspheray and treason of his must
not think presently to take sanctuary in this
pretence, that it was done only in a surprise
of p.assion, and so ought not to be accounted
presumptuous, upon this ground, that it can
not pass for deliberate : this, I s.ay, is not to
be allowed, because if the man knowingly and
deliberately put himself under those circum
stances that raised him to that fury of passion,
every action done under that passion is vir
tually deliberate, and follows the nature and
quality of the first action, as the leading, prin
cipal cause of all that directly ensued upon it.
A man drinks himself into a present rage,
or distraction of mind ; in which condition
he is perhaps carried to commit a rape or a
murder, which action is indeed in itself
sudden and indeliberate : but, since the man
at first engaged in drinking with full choice
and deliberation of mind, his passion being
caused by that drink, and the murder being
caused by that passion, are both of thera vir
tually deliberate, as being resolvable into a
foregoing choice : upon which score they con
tract the guilt and foulness of presuraptuous
sins, aud so stand rated in the accounts of
Heaven.

But here, because there is much and fre
quent discourse in divinity, of a distinction
between sins of presumption and sins of in
firmity ; and since very much depends npon
the right or the wrong apprehending of it in
a casuistical theology, as also iu the daily
practices of men ; it will not be amiss to in
quire into the ground or reason of this dis
tinction. What a sin of presumption is, we have
declared already; so that the whole business
will lie in this, to see what that is that makes
a sin to be a sin of infirmity.
Three opinions there are in this matter:
I. The first derives the nature of it from
the condition of the agent, or him that com
mits it.
2. The second derives it from the matter of
the action.
3. The third and last, from the principle
producing it.
We shall consider each of them in their
order. 1. First of all then, there are some who
derive the nature of a sin of infirmity from
the quality or condition of him that commits
it ; affirming every sin committed by a be
liever, or a person truly regeu'-rate, to be a
sin of infirmity ; partly because, they say,
that there is not that absolute and full con.
currence of the inward principle in such a one
to the commission of the sin ; but chiefly be
cause such persons, being supposed to be fixed
in an unchangeable possession of the divine
favour, so that they cannot possibly fall from
it, no sins can be able to alter their estate,
whereupon their sins lose their full effect, and
become only lapses and infirraities.
For answer to this ; it is not necessary here,
cither to assert or to deny the perpetuity and
unalterable tenor of a regenerate man's estate;
but this I affirm, that to take the nature of
his actions merely from the condition of his
person, is hugely absurd ; for that can only
infer the pardon of his sins upon another ac^
count : but surely a sin changes nothing of its
nature by this, that in one mau it is pardoned,
in another not.
This indeed has been eagerly asserted by
some ; and in this assertion they laid a foun
dation for all licentiousness; for, according to
the tenor of their doctrine, it -was but for
them first to put on a bold front, and to per
suade themselves and others that they were
of the number of the converted and the rege
nerate ; and then, whatsoever sins were after
wards coraraitted by them, sunk to a won
derful low degree of guilt, as being chargeable
with no higher than what arises from infir
mity. In the strength of this doctrine, some
would hold David's murder and adultery to
have been only sins of infirraity; though each
of them complicated, and made up of so many
several base sins, and ripened with such deli-

ON PSALM xix. 13.

129

berate contrivances, that it is hard to comrait,
or indeed to imagine, sins of a blacker hue.
But, for a fuller vindication of the truth, I
shall, even upon the supposition and grant of
this principle, that a regenerate person never
so loses his ground by any sin, as to be cut
offfrom his interest in the favour of God, and
his title to heaven ; I shall, I say, yet shew
the falseness and unreasonableness of the
doctrine perversely built upon it; and that by
these following arguments :
1. First : whereas it is said, that persons
regenerate sin not with such a plenary and
entire consent of will as others ; for which
cause their siu loses many degrees of its ma
lignity ; I demand, whether by this they
understand not, (as in all reason they must,)
that such persons find in their conscience a
greater reluctancy to be brought to the com
mission of sin than others ? And if so, what
is their excuse but a higher aggravation of
their sin ? that it is committed more against
the light and dictates of conscience struggling
and contending against it, than the sins of
persons wholly unsanctified.
2. But, in the second place, I demand
farther, whether this estate of regeneration
does not, according to their own supposition,
raise the persons so qualified to the privilege
of being the sons of God ? And if so, I would
fain know, whether the unworthy behaviour
of a son is not of a more provoking nature
than the same deportment from a stranger?
A son is capable more of presuming upon
his father than a slave or servant upon his
raaster; for one offends only against autho
rity, the other against authority raixed with
love, and endeared with the nearest relation.
I conclude therefore, that this is so far
from degrading a sin to the smallness of an
infirmity, that it stamps it ten times a greater
presumption than it would be, if commit
ted by another person.
3, And lastly. If the sins of persons regene
rate must all pass for infirmities, theu how
comes David here (who surely was not the
last or meanest of this number) to pray so
earnestly to be kept from sins of presump
tion? If the nature of his condition secured
him from all possibility of falling into them,
where was the danger? And if no danger,
where was the necessity of praying to be
rescued from an irapossibility? But it seeras
David steered his actions by a different
divinity, ^and looked upon this as the most
dangerous presumption of all, to call sins of
presumption sins of infirraity. And thus
much in answer to the first opinion.
?, Some derive the nature of sins of infir
mity from the raatter of them ; as that they
are committed only in thought or desire, or
sometimes in word, but pass not into out-
'ward and gross action.
But this also is most false and pernicious,
VOL. n.

and directly opens a gate to the encouragement
of the vilest irapieties. For though it must
be granted, that our thoughts and desires, and
sometimes our words, are less under command
than our outward actions ; yet to affirm,
therefore, that whatsoever is sinfully trans
acted in these, must presently be baptized but
an infirmity, is an assertion no ways to be
endured. And for answer to it, I affirm,
1. First, that there is no act producible by
the soul of man, that either is or ever vvas
under the power and comraand of raan's will,
but is capable of receiving .all the poison and
guilt, that the will (which is itself tbe foun
tain of all sin) is able to infuse into it; and
consequently of being a sin of presumption.
But now both thoughts, words, and desires
are controllable by the will, which is able to
make the soul cease thinking and desiring of
any particular thing, by diverting and apply
ing it to other objects. And if the will has now
lost some of the absoluteness of its priraitive
dorainion, yet when we corae to state the
morality of actions, we are to consider the
power it had naturally, and in raan's inno
cency, and has since lost by its own fault ; but
stands therefore no less accountable for it to.
God, than if it were not lost.
2. But secondly, let us hear the voice of
God in the Scriptures concerning this raatter.
There, I ara sure, are loud complaints of the
sins of men's thoughts. (Isa. Iv. 7,) "Let
the unrighteous man forsake his thoughts,"
says God; and (Jerem. iv. 14,) "How long
shall vain thoughts lodge within thee?" And
(Matt. XV. 19,) " Prom the heart," says our
Saviour, " proceed evil thoughts, murders, and
adulteries." We see here evil thoughts put
into the same catalogue with murders and
adulteries ; and these surely are not sins of
infirraity. But above all, take that place in
Acts, viii. 22, where Saint Peter bids Simon
Magus "pray to God, if peradventure the
thought of his heart might be forgiven hira."
And then for desires ; we know that in
God's account they stand for actions. In
Matt. V. 28, Christ calls the unlawful desire
of a woraan adultery. And God still com
plained of his people, that " their heart -went
after idols :" and in Psalm Ixxviii. 18, it is
said of them, " that they tempted God in their
heart." But that evil desires carry so high a guilt
with them, is no less evident from mere
reason : for if the evil of the thoughts lies
under so great a conderanation before God,
that ofrthe desires raust needs lie under a.
greater ; forasmuch as desire is a farther step
and advance of the soul into sin ; and is
indeed the very pulse of the soul, naturally
shewing the temper and inclination ofit.
And so much for the second opinion.
3dly and lastiv. The difference of asin of

130

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Serm. XI.

presumption and of infirmity may be drawn
from the principle immediateljr producing the
action ; as, namely, that the will is carried to
the one by malice, to the other by inadver
tency. And this is that, that reason will force
us to pitch upon. For there is no doubt, but
an evil choice (the thing here meant by
malice) is that which greatens the impiety
and guilt of an action into the nature of pre
sumption ; which action, done out of a sudden
incogitancy, might pass for but a weakness,
and so stand rated at a much lower pitch of
guilt. Certain it is, therefore, that malice is that
that constitutes the nature of presumption,
and inadvertency that raakes a sin to be but
an infirmity. But then to draw this down
a thesi ad hypothesin, and to deterraine the
bounds of each, by shewing exactly where
malice ceases, and where a faultless inadver
tency begins ; this, I confess, is most difficult,
and perhaps, by any one common rule, con
stantly and universally applicable to every
particular action, not to be effected.
But for our better conduct in a case of such
importance, I shall shew first negatively,
what is not a sin of infirmity ; 2dly, what
positively is.
As for the negative part, we are to observe,
1. That whensoever a man ventures and
designs to comrait a sin upon this ground,
that he judges it a sin of infirraity ; that sin,
by such antecedent thought and design before
hand, is changed from a sin of infirmity into
a sin of presumption. For though an infir
mity be comparatively but a little sin, yet it is
far from an infirmity to account any sin little,
and much more upon that ground to commit
it. Men are apt to say, (in their hearts at
least,) that such or such a thing is no great
matter ; and therefore, surely, they need not
so much scruple the doing ofit. But such
must know, that this argues a cursed under
valuing of the evil of sin, and a desire to take
any advantage to comrait it ; than which
there cannot be a greater proof of a corrupt,
rotten, aud unsanctified heart.
That sin, though in itself never so small,
that a man, after the coraraitting of it, is de
sirous to excuse or extenuate, by charging it
upon surprise, passion, weakness, company,
or the like, does by such excuse cease to be an
infirmity ; for when a man comes to defend
his sin, it shews that he has a hearty kind
ness for it, and dislikes nothing in it but the
consequent danger ; than which temper of
mind few actual sius are more loathsome and
provoking in the sight of God.
But in the next place, to pass from nega
tives, and to shew positively what a sin of
infirmity is ; I conceive it may not unfitly be
defined, a sin committed out of mere, sudden
inadvertency, that inadvertency not being
directly caused by any deliberate sin imme

diately going before it. The reason of this
has been given already, namely, that the conse
quent actions follow the guilt and nature of
the antecedent action that caused them. But
for the better clearing of the thing discoursed
of to our apprehensions, that I may also give
an instance of this kind of sin ; I suppose,
when a man, being suddenly urged and pro
voked vehemently, conceives an angry thought,
or utters a hasty word, that that thought and
that word may be reckoned for infirmities.
And when an unlawful desire suddenly strikes
the mind, but a man's heart iramediately
sraites him for it, so that he presentiy checlis
that desire, this also, I conceive, may be re
puted a sin of infirmity. But, God knows,
few sins pass from us thus. Sin is scarce ever
acted by us, but with the full force and power
of all our faculties. And it is seldora that we
do any thing faintly, when it is to dishonour
God, or to ruin ourselves.
And thus I have finished the first branch of
the first general head ; which was to shew,
what it was in general to presume, ^nA where
in the nature of a presumptuous sin did
consist. Now to God the Father, God the Son, and
God the Holy Ghost, be ascribed all honour,
might, majesty, and dominion, now and for
ever. Amen.

SERMON XI.
PART II.
" Keep hack thy servant iUh> from presumptuous sina."
Psalm xix. 13,
II. I COME now to the second, which is to
assign some of the most notable kinds of pre
sumptuous sins.
Concerning which, I shall premise this in
general ; that there is no sin committable by
man, as to the kind of it, but by circumstances
is capable of being made a sin of presumption*
Upon which account it would be infinite to
set down all the several kinds ; and therefore
I shall only insist upon some of the greatest
remark for their malignity, and such as it
most concerns the souls of men to be clear and
secure from.
For a man to sin upon hopes or confidence
of pardon or mercy, I cannot reckon as a par
ticular kind of presumptuous sin ; this being
the general nature of presumption running
through all the respective kinds and species of
it. For he that presumes to offend, promises
himself pardon from God's mercy, without
any warrant from God's word.
The particular kinds, therefore, of prcsump-

ON PSALM xix. 1,3.

131

tnous sin, that I shall cull out and insist upon,
are these tliat follow : —
1. The first is, to sin against the goodness
of God, raanifesting itself to a man in great
prosperity. Every beam of God's favour to a
sinner in these outward enjoyraents, is a call
to repentance upon the stock of ingenuity.
And the apostle's expostulation (Rora. ii. 4.)
lies full against the neglecter of it ; " Despisest
thou the riches of his goodness and forbear
ance and longsuffering ; not knowing that the
goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance ?"
Eviery breath of air that the sinner takes in,
is a respite given hira by mercy from sin-
revenging justice. Every morsel he eats,
aud every drop that he drinks, is an alms,
aud a largess, and a repast, that he has no
claim to.
But when mfercy shall rise higher, and from
the benefit ora bare subsistence serve his con
venience, and what is more, his abundance ;
when Providence shall make his increase
bigger than his bams, and his incomes to up
braid the narrowness of his coffers ; when it
shall add a lustre to his person, and at the
same tirae multiply and advance his family ;
when it shall appoint angels for his guardians,
and, in a word, set a hedge about all that he
has; for such a one to rise up and spurn
against his Maker, to raake all his plenty and
greatness the drudge of his luxury and arabi
tion ; so that his sins shall outvie his sub
stance, and the very effects of raercy be raade
the weapons of unrighteousness ; for hira
therefore to sin, because he is great, and rich,
and powerful, that is, because Providence has
by all this obliged hira not to sin ; is not this
the height of ingratitude, as ingratitude is the
height of baseness ?
Samuel upbraided David for his two great
sins, by recounting what God had done for
him, and how openhanded Providence had
been to him, in heaping upon him all exter
nal blessings, even to the anticipation and
exceeding of his desires. " Behold," says the
prophet, in the name of God, (2 Sam. xii. 8,)
" I had given thee such aud such things :"
and certainly these things are mercies ; those
I am sure that enjoy thera, would confess
them so in the want of them. For let such a
one reflect upon the thousands and the ten
thousands of calamitous persons round about
him, and tell me a reason why he should stand
exempted from the same lot ; why Providence
should be so fond of him, as to make him swim
in pleasure, while others are sinking under
their necessities? When he sees this man
roaring under pain, that man languishing
under sickness, another hauled to prison for
poverty and debt, another starving with cold
and hunger ; let him tell us what obligation
he has laid upon God, that he should be
healthful in his person, flourishing in his con
dition, full in his revenues, and sit down to a

table, the very scraps of which were a feast
for raany persons much more holy and virtu
ous than hiraself.
But to go a little farther : while he is thus
provided for, (as we have observed,) not only
as to convenience, but also supplied as to
affluence ; can he tell rae, why he is all this
tirae permitted to live, and to tread the earth ?
why he is not in hell, roa,ring in the flames,
and beraoaning hiraself iu the regions of the
damned? whether his sins have not long
since deserved it, and whether both the mercy
and justice of God might not be glorified in
his destruction ? and whether many, whose
sins were fewer and sraaller than his, have
not been cut off frora the earth in wrath, and
disposed of into that remediless estate of tor
ment? Can he ascribe this reprieve to any
thing but to niercy, to mere undeserved
mercy, that places the marks of its favour
absolutely and irrespectively upon whom it
pleases ?
But now is there any gross sin, that such a
one can commit, that is not a direct defiance
to the designs of this mercy ? There is not any
temporal blessing that a man enjoys, that
shall not be reckoned upon his eternal ac
count. That sentence shall appear fresh and
fierce against hira, " Son, thou receivedst thy
good things." And it is not so rauch his
having sinned that shall condemn him, as his
having sinned in pomp, in plenty, and raag
nificence. His having sinned against the
bounties and endearments of Providence ;
this is that that shall rank him with those
leading sinners, whose portion lies deeper in
the bottomless pit than that of ordinary
offenders. 2. A second sort of presuraptuous sins, are
sins coraraitted under God's judging and
afflicting hand ; than which there cannot be
a raore open and professed declaring of an
opposition to God ; it being little short of
sending a challenge to Heaven. It is a
striking of God, while God is striking us ;
and so, as it were, a contention who should
have the last blow. For a child to coramit
that fault under the rod, for which the rod is
upon hira, shews an incorrigible disposition,
and a raalice too great to be chastised iuto
araendraent. What does God send forth his arrows for,
and shoot this man with sickness, another
with poverty, and a third with shame, but
to reclaim and to recover thera ? to irabitter
the sweet morsels of sensuality to them, and
to knock off their affections from sinful
pleasures ? For God makes not the miseries
of men his recreation ; it is no delight to him
to hear the groans and the sighs of a distressed
person. It can be no diversion to the chirur
geon, to hear the shrieks and the cries of him
whom he is cutting for the stone ; but yet
he goes on with his work, for he designs

1.32

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Skrm. XL

ll

nothing but ease and cure to the person whom
he afflicts.
God would make men better by soft and
persuasive raeans, he would " draw them with
the cords of a man ;" but when these prevail
not, he is drove to the use of his whips and his
scorpions ; but if these prove ineffectual too,
the man is too great a sinner to be corrected,
and consequently to be saved. When a man
comes three or four times out of God's furnace
with his dross about hira, it is a sign of a re
probate and a castaway. God complains of
the house of Israel, (Ezekiel, xxii. 18,) " that
they were dross in the midst of the furnace."
When the flesh is so proud, that it scorns all
the powers of a corrosive, it is an argument
that it is incurable, and fit for nothing but to
be cut off. God speaks it with a certain
pathos and expostulation, and as if he were
even brought to a nonplus, (Isa. i. 6,) " Why
should ye be stricken any more? ye will revolt
still more and more." Some are so obstinately
bad, and confirmed in their vice, that judg
ments and afflictions are but thrown away
upon them ; and God's shooting at them is
but like shooting at a mark, which indeed re
ceives the arrow, but does not at all feel it.
But such persons raust know that their sins
are rendered infinitely raore daring and pro
voking by the distress of their condition. God
throws them upon the ground, and they,
instead of being humbled, rage and rave, and
throw the dirt in his face. This is properly a
man's " hardening himself against God." The
Holy Ghost speaking of a wicked prince of
Judah, sets forth the height of his wickedness
by this character, (2 Chron. xxviii. 22,) " In
the time of his distress did he trespass yet
more against the Lord ; this is that King
Ahaz." What a brand does he give him ! as
if he had said. This is that monster of men,
that spot of nature, that prodigy of irapiety.
It is the property of dogs to snarl under the
whip, and to fly in the face of hira that strikes
thera. There is never an affliction that befalls any
man, but it comes with this motto written
upon it by the finger of God himself, " Go,
sin no more, lest a worse evil come unto thee."
Has any man felt the hand of God upon his
body, his estate, or his family, or any concern
ment that is dear unto him ? Why let hira
hear his voice also ; his adraon ishing, his
counselling voice, " Sin no more, lest a worse
evil happen unto thee." Has God snatched
away a man's child ? God can snatch away
his estate too. Has God took away his estate ?
he can take away his friends also. Has he
bereaved him of his friends? he can likewise
bereave him of his reputation. Has he blasted
bis reputation ? he can proceed to touch him
in his health, and with the most miserable
of distempers to smite him with madness,
frenzy, and distraction. And after all this,

God has more ways to plague his rebel crea
ture, than our poor, short apprehensions can
reach unto.
But now for a man to sin against all this ;
to laugh at all these warning periods of
Heaven ? what is it but a kind of waging war
with God? Well may every serious person
be still putting up this prayer. Lord, keep me
from this kind of presumption ; for certainly,
wheresoever it is, it places a man hut a fingers
breadth from destruction.
3. A third sort of presumption is, to com
mit a sin clearly discovered and directly
pointed at by the word of God, either written
or preached. The word sometiraes raeets the
sinner with that power and clearness, that his
conscience even forces him to cry out and
arraign hiraself; This is my sin, and I am that
sinner that is preached againsit. He finds it
not in the power of his inventi<fc, by any art
or evasion, to elude or shift off the charge, it
comes so home and close to his condition. It
is to his sin, as a looking-glass to his face ; it
represents it in every shadow, lineament, and
proportion ; so that the preacher niight be
even thought to have had a correspondent in
the man's breast, and to have held intelligence
with his heart ; he gives him so exact and
particular an account of the several ways,
methods, and actings of his sin.
Now, for a man to turn his back upon all
these bright discoveries of his sin, to commit
it, as it were, with the word yet sounding in
his ears, and full and quick in his memory ;
it is like a man's offending, not only against
a law, but a law rubbed up, renewed, and set
afresh before men's eyes, by the king's pro
clamation. It is but too usual to see sorae persons, who
at church feel their consciences searched and
lanced, and the word even lashing their sin
over the face ; yet presently, like Samson
after the Philistines had been upon him, tq
go out and shake themselves a little, and
forthwith become the very same men that
they were before. They are as ready for
their cups, for their rotten, obscene, and pro
fane discourse ; and, in a word, for all kind of
lewdness ; as if the preacher had not reproved
their vice, but produced new arguments to
encourage it ; and exhorted thera to persevere
diligently in those blessed paths, in which
they are sure to have the Devil for their
leader, and their lust for their corapanion.
But the word of God will not be baffled and
put off so ; where it finds no reception, it will
be sure to leave a guilt, and no mau can
despise it securely ; the more clearly it
informs, being rejected, the more fiercely it
condtrans. Por surely we cannot imagino
that the great God of heaven is so cheap m
his addresses to men's souls, as, according to
his own expressions, " to wait, to rise up
eariy," and " all the day long to stretch forth

ON PSALM xix. 13.

13:)

IL

his h.ands" to the sons of men, in setting out
the nature and danger of sin before them ;
only that they may have opportunity to shew
how little these things change and move them ;
how hard and obstinate they can be in hold
ing fast their vice, as it were, in spite of
Heaven, and maugre all the divine warnings,
threats, and admonitions.
This is none of the least degrees of presump
tion ; for supposing that the sinner has not
shook off the first principle of self-preserva
tion ; while he ventures and proceeds confi
dently in a sin marked out for vengeance by
the voice of God himself, he must needs
question either his truth, that he will not, or
his power, that he cannot, make good what
he says, by punishing as severely as he
threatens. 4. A fourth sort of presumption is, to com
mit a sin against certain passages of Provi
dence, jiarticularly thwarting, and, as it were,
lying cross to the coraraission of it. God is so
merciful to and careful of sorae raen's souls,
that when his words make no impression, he
is pleased in a raanner to pnt forth his hand,
and, by some kind of force, to withhold a raan
from the perpetration of his intended villainy,
as hy dashing the opportunities of sinning
with sorae unlooked-for accident, so that the
thread and chain of all his fine contrivances is,
for the present, broke.
It were infinite to recount particulars ; each
man may collect enough frora his own observa
tion. The drunkard's merry meetings are
put off and defeated by the interposal of
emergent unexpected business ; the designs ot
the revengeful person by the intervention of
company, perhaps by sickness, or sorae other
misfortune disabling hira for the execution of
his malicious purposes ; nay, and sometimes
the frustration and disappointment shall be so
repeated, and withal so strange, that the sin
ner's conscience cannot but tell him that the
finger of God is in the whole affair, and that
the_ Almighty himself withstands him ; in
which case, for him still to hold on his wicked
desigu, and to look for new opportunities to
bring it to birth ; to make fresh attempts, and
to try other courses ; it argues a raan furiously
and invincibly set upon offending God, and
pursuing the satisfaction of his sin over all
those mountains of opposition that Heaven
has raised in his way.
Thus we see nothing could withhold Pha
raoh and his host from following tho Israelites ;
for in Exodus, xiv. 24, 25, it is said first, " that
God troubled them ;" then, that " he took off
their chariot wheels, so that they drove
heavily;" and lastly, such a terror seized
them, that they cried out, " Let us flee from
the face of Israel ; for the Lord fighteth for
them against the Egyptians ;" yet nothing
could recall Pharaoh till Moses stretched out
his rod upon the sea, and it returned and

swallowed up him and his whole army, so
that "they sunk like lead in the mighty
waters." And then for Balaam, whose story we have
in the 22d of Numbers ; his heart was all that
tirae upon the rich enticing offers of the king
of Moab ; yet how raany rubs and repulses
did God cast in his way, and with what diffi
culty did he go after " the ways of unrighteous
ness ;" yet go after thera he did, and upon
that score stands recoi-ded in Scripture for as
presumptuous and resolved a sinner as any
is mentioned in the sacred story.
Those who break through all those mounds
and hinderances that God has laid between
them and the gratification of their vice, irai
tate Balaara's sin, and may expect to inherit
his damnation.
5. A fifth kind of presumptuous sins are,
sins against the inward checks or warnings of
conscience about the evil of any course or
action. We may call thera the checks of
conscience, though I doubt not but that some
tiraes they are the iraraediate whispers of
God's Spirit in the soul ; but it matters not
much which they are, it coraing all to one
result ; whether God speaks immediately by
himself, or by his interpreter, for so is the con
science, uttering every thing in the narae and
authority of God ; that there are such inward
checks and startings of the soul at the attempt
of any great sin is most certain ; and I appeal
to the mind of every particular person that
hears me, whether he has not often found a
struggle within himself, and a kind of pull-
back from the sin that he has been about to
engage in, raising such questions in his heart
as Joseph put to himself, " How shall I do this
great wickedness, and sin against God ?" and
how shall I answer it at the last day? and.
What if I should die before I repented of it ?
and. May it not, for all its present promises
of pleasure, be bitterness in the latter end ? I
know every one (none excepted) feels some
thing like this within himself; it is a thing
of universal experience, and no man can
deny it.
Now, from whence and for what can all
these suggestions be sent into the heart?
What is the reason that there is such a kind
of thing within us, ready,' as it were, to catch
us by the arra, and to bid us hold our hand
when we are putting it forth to the commis
sion of any sin ? Surely they are the spiritual
engines of God, planted by him in the soul to
wield it this way and that way, to the prose
cution of virtuous, and from the pursuit of
vicious courses ; they are the characters of
every man's duty drawn and engraven upon
his heart ; they are the expositors and faithful
reporters of the mind of God to a man con
cerning the quality of every action that he is
about ito do.
And to thwart and trample upon them is

134

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Seem. XI.

pleasure, in vain to be sought for any where
else ; they are transient discoveries of himself.

to presume upon God to that degree that is
called "a resisting of his Spirit." It is to
extinguish the eternal light ; and to shut our
eyes, that we may the more boldly leap down
this dismal precipice into the arms and era-
braces of our sin. However, such presumers
must learn, that he who now warns us from
sill in "a still voice," wheu he coines to
reprove and judge for sin will do it in thunder.
And there is not one of these inward, gentle,
and (as they think,) inconsiderable movings
and endeavours of the conscience against sin,
but shall one day corae into account, and be
reckoned in the catalogue of its aggravations.
So that if we should iraagine a sinner
pleading the excuse of his sin before God,
that he was pushed on to the acting of it by a
claraorous, furious principle within him, his
violent affections, his mouth would quickly
be stopped, and all his plea cut off by this one
demand ; Whether he did not find another
principle within hira, as much protesting
against that sin, as passionately dissuading
and drawing him off from it, painting the
evil of it before his eyes, and laying the sad
consequents of it home to his heart. All this
will and must be granted ; and therefore he
that sins against these iuw.ard checks, pre-
suraes, and, what is raore, he presuraes inex
cusably. 6. A sixth sort of presumptuous sins are,
sins .against that inward taste, relish, and
complacency that raen have found in their
atterapts to vvalk with God, and coraply with
the precepts of the gospel. The former are
sms agjiinst the sight, these against the taste
of God's favour. For the explication of which
we raust observe, th.at sorae persons, wrought
up and warmed by the word into good resolu
tions, set forth for heaven, and intend with
themselves a dereliction of the world, and a
living up to tho.se divine rules of piety taught
and proposed by the Saviour of the worid, the
great instructor of souls. Hereupon, by reason
of the native suitableness of those excellent
things taught by him to the generous prin
ciples of virtue, naturally planted in every
mind, a raan, upon the least compliance with
thera, finds a strange, exalting pleasure and
satisfaction arising frora thence, much superior
to all the poor delists of sensuality. This is
called, (Matt. xiii. 20,) " a receiving the word
with joy ;" and it is said of Herod, (Mark, vi.
20,) " that upon the Baptist's preaching he did
many things, and heard him gladly;" and
there is mention of sorae, (Heb. vi. 4,) that
" had tasted of the heavenly gift."
Now this is that relish and inward compla
cency that I spoke of, and which I said raight
be sinned against. For I doubt not but God
gratifies new beginners in the ways of piety
vi'ith certain strictures and tastes of spiritual

the very glimpses of heaven, and drops of an
overflowing bounty.
' And I doubt not also, but many, who have
been admitted to a participation and expe
rience of these privileges, have yet, throngh the
force of temptation, the entanglements ofthe
flesh, and the deceitfulness of their own hearts,
been so far turned aside, as to have all these
impressions worn off their minds, and in the
issue prove wretched apostates. For these
are not the peculiar mercies of the elect, who
are loved with an everl.asting love, but kind
ness of a lower degree. God may drop such
raanna upon those that shall never enter into
Canaan ; raany, like Moses, may have a short
view of that which they shall never enjoy.
But this is that that we drive at, that every
apostasy and sinful backsliding after the soul
has been thus treated by God, is thereby in
flamed to the nature of a great unkindness and
a vast presuraption. For can a raan do any
thing more heinous than this? After God
has raet him in his prayers, embraced him in
sacraments, and given him hope of the pardon
of his sins; after all this, to turn rebel? to
hear the B.aptist gladly, and within a while to
behead him ? Can there be a viler and blacker
presumption ? He that only has a cordial by
him, -and balks the use of it, dies without
remedy ; but he that also tastes it, and then
spits it out again, dies without pity.
And let this be observed, that if such per
sons, who, like Agrippa, were almost Chris
tians, and have been, as it were, in the skirts
and out-courts of heaven, chance to apostatize
finally, and to perish, the consideration of this
will raake the worm of conscience bite much
more terribly, and the everlasting flame burn
ten times more violently, than if they had
gone to hell at the comraon rate of sinning,
with such as never thought of any other god
but their belly, nor any religion beside their
sensuality. 7. The seventh and last sort of presumptu
ous sins that I shall raention is, the returning
to and repeated commission of the same sin ;
which surely is the greatest demonstration of
a bold, stiff, resolved sinner that can he. Flies
are accounted bold creatures, and that for a
very good reason ; for drive them off from a
place as often as you will, yet presently they
will be there again. It is not a thing so clear,
but it has been disputed by divines, whether
a relapse into the same sin, if a gross one, be
pardonable. There is great cause to conclude,
that it raay and is ; the contrary assertion
being a limitation of mercy, where the word
sets no limits to it : yet surely the case is
dangerous, and those two things may be very
¦well consistent, that a disease is curable, and
yet not one of five hundred ever cured of it.
And if one, of so raany sinning presumptu
ously in this nature, has been, by the singular
grace of God, recovered, and in the end saved,

ON PSALM xix. 13.

135

I should think it would be but a small en
couragement to any, to presume that he shall
be the one picked out of so great a number.
David presumed upon the goodness and justice
of God broadly and foully enough in those his
two great sins ; and so did Peter in denying
his master. But we read of no more murders
or adulteries in David, or denials of Christ in
Peter ; and God knows, if there had, what
would have been the issue of such a presump
tion in either of them.
This is a sinning against the common me
thods of nature, as well as the obligations of
grace. For it is natural to all men, nay, even
to most brute animals, to avoid that thing or
place where they have met with some notable
mischief or disaster. There is a lasting horror
of it imprinted upon the spirits, that presently
works and shews itself upon the sight of the
hurtful thing. Some stomachs never can abide
a liquor or meat wonderfully grateful to them
before, after they have had some loathsome
physic conveyed to them in it ; now there can
no reason be assigned why men should not be
thus affected also as to spirituals.
A raan commits a gross sin, and by it makes
a great breach upon the peace of his con
science, loses all present sense and feeling of
the favour of God, and perhaps, over and
above, finds some outward, fierce expressions
ofhis wrath in the discomposure ofhis worldly
affairs, so that both within and without the
man is distempered and disordered, and infi
nitely at a loss how to resettle himself in his
former calm condition. But at length, by
divine favour, he does regain hisforraer ground,
and perhaps, within a while, his forraer sin
also presents itself to him with fresh entice
ments and little renewed arts of persuasion :
What will the man do now ? Will he let the
old, stale cheat, new dressed, be acted over
upon him the second time ? Will he venture
the loss of God's favour once raore ? and try
whether his pardoning mercy will hold out as
long as he is pleased to abuse it ? Will he
have his conscience about his ears again, and
break his leg, because once, by much pain and
misery, he got it set in the like case ?
If he does, let him know that he is incor
rigibly presumptuous, " he crucifies the Son
of God afresh," is a professed despiser of mercy,
and by this daring retnrn to his former sin,
that had so fearfnllymauled and shattered him,
has, to say no more, put his repentance, his
recovery, and salvation, under a very great
improbability. And thus much for the second
branch of the first general head, which was,
to assign some of the most notable kinds of
presumption.

L.

SEEMON XII.
PART HI.

* Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins, lest they
.get the dominion over me." — Psalm xix. 13.

The prosecution of these words was first
disposed under these two general heads :
I. To shew what these presumptuous sins
was. II. To shew the reason of this so excellent
and holy person, the Psalmist's, so earnest
praying against them.
The first of these I proposed to be handled
under these three particulars : —
I. To shew what it was in general to pre
sume. 2. To shew and assign some of the most
remarkable kinds of presuraption.
3. To propose some remedies against these
sins. The two first of which being despatched, I
proceed now to the third and last.
The grand and general remedy against pre
sumptuous sins surely raust be, to arra the
understanding, and to check the exorbitance
of the will, by consideration ; for the eraploy
ment of which, with matter in reference to
the sins we are treating of, these three things
offer themselves to be considered :
1. Let a man endeavour to fix in his heai't
a deep apprehension and persuasion of the
transcendent evil of the nature of sin in gene
ral : which is no less than a direct affront to
our Creator and Governor in a breach of that
law that he values as a transcript of his own
holiness, and enforces by the penalty of eter
nal death threatened to the violators and
transgressors of the least iota of it. The foun
dation of men's apostasy from God seems to
be laid in the undervaluing thoughts they
have of sin. It is but as a mote in their eye,
not for any trouble that it gives thera, but for
their opinion of its smallness. The easiness
of the commission of it hides the monstrous
greatness of the provocation ; and men can
sport away a soul so quickly and so easily, that
they can scarce be brought to think themselves
any poorer for the loss.
But since it is difficult to view the nature
of a thing immediately in itself, let men read
the nature of sin in the dismal history of the
effects and consequents of it. And for this,
let them.first see the ruin of a whole species,
and the fall, not of raan only, but of mankind,
effected by it. Let them view Adam tumbled
out of paradise, embased in his nature, and

136

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Serm. XII.

cursed in his actions, with a perpetual toil and
misery entailed upon his descending posterity.
Let them also see a deluge breaking in upon
the earth, and the whole world lying under
the destroying element ; and they shall find
that it was sin that opened the sluices of
heaven, and brake up the fountains of the
great deep. Sin was the thing that made
God almost unravel the works of a whole
creation, and deface the draughts of his own
hand. He that shall read the several captivities,
bondages, dispersions, and massacres of the
Israelites, reads so many comments upon sins,
so many lively descriptions of the destructive
force of a raighty guilt. But he that would
bring the matter to a compendium, .and see
all in one, let him see the only Son of God
fetched out of the bosom of his Father, to bleejl
and suffer, and die upon the cross ; that is, to
die a vile, cursed, ignorainious death. Let
him see his very Father his executioner, and
preparing him a cup full of the dregs of .an
infinite, flaming fury, to be drunk oft' by him.
And all this, not for any personal sin of his
own, but for the sins of others, took upon
himself merely by imputation ; so that being
found under this, neither the dignity nor in
nocence of his person could secure it against
the nails and the spear, the scoffs .and the
flouts, the gall and the vinegar, that our sins
had prepared and infused for him.
And lastly, to add a latter, since there can
be no greater instance of the malignity of sin:
when we shall luave the fabric of this beauti
ful frame of .all things unfixed and torn down
about us, the elements melting with fervent
heat, and the heavens passing away with a
noise ; when the universe shall be reduced
to its first principles, and time shall be no
more ; when the judgment shall be set, and
the books opened ; then we shall understand
that it was sin that made all these desolations,
that kindled these fires, .and will be yet
kindling much greater.
Now let a sinner consider all these passages,
and when he has considered them, let hira
know tbat there is unspeakably more evil
in sin than in all these. For God can des
troy and confound a world, but he cannot sin :
and Christ could subrait to all the violences
of cruelty, all the loads of conturaely; but
he who could do all this, could not be brought
to coramit the least sin.
Nor is this to be wondered at ; for as every
quality flows rauch more plentifully in the
cause thau in the effect ; so sin, that causes
and produces all these evils, must needs con
tain a much more redundant evil in itself.
But now, after all this, the presuming sinner
must yet farther consider, that all the evil he
has hitherto heard of is but the evil of sin
considered barely as sin ; and then let hira col
lect, that presumption is the very poison and

gall of sin itself, the highest degree of it. Sin
then reigns and sits in its throne, when it is
once advanced to the natureof being presump-
tuous : so that presumption is a sin (if it were
possible) soraething more than sinful.
2. Let a man most seriously consider and
reflect upon God's justice. The hands of jus
tice are not so tied up by mercy, but that
they are loose enough upon those who have
no title to mercy : and such the greatest jiart
of the world are, who may possibly, by a
redundant bounty, enjoy, but they cannot
claim it ; for as God deals with men upou
a double account, either of the gospel or of
the law, the tenor of the former of which is,
th.at " there is no condemnation to such as
are in Christ Jesus ;" that is, to such as believe
and repent, and becorae new creatures : aud
the tenor and voice of the latter is, " Ciirsid
be every one that continueth not in all things
written in the law to do them ;" so theso two
dispensations divide and comprehend all man
kind ; whereupon those who are not under
ono are certainly r.anged under the other.
Those who havo not, by sincere repentance
and the fruits of it, reached the conditions of
the gospel, are under the lash and dint of tho
law. In the execution of whose sentence the
divine justice reigns and shews itself, as tho
other is the proper scene of mercy.
But now, while a sinner presumes and sins
confidently, upou what grounds of certainty,
or indeed of rational probability, can he con
clude himself to be within the verge and com
pass of the second covenant ? There is not a
greater and a more dangerous symptom of ii
person wholly estranged from all right to the
evangelical privileges. For none cau be en
titled to these but the penitent ; and can any
man evidence his penitence by his presump
tion ? his sorrow for sin by a resolved pro
gress and continuance in it? And if he can
make out no title here, let him consider, and
tremble under the consideration, that he lives
every minute obnoxious to the arrests of
that fierce attribute of God, his justice : he
is absolutely under the power of the law,
that law that cries for wrath and revenge
upon the violators of it.
So that, as presumptuous, he is the proper
object for wrath and justice to discharge itself
upon. Mercy indeed wards oft' all these dmul-
ful blows ; but it does not this universally
and promiscuously for all, but for those only
who by certain conditions are qualified for
the proper subjects of mercy, as others are of
justice. Where we may observe, that each of
these attributes confine their working within
their proper object, and encroach not upon
the respective bounds of each other. He that
is a vessel of raercy is out of the reach of jus
tice ; and he whora the law consigns over to
justice, so long can have no protection from
mercy.

ON PSALM xix. 13.

137

The impartial thought of which, surely,
should be sufficient to disabuse the confidence
of the presumptuous, and to rectify his wild,
unliraited apprehensions of that pardoning
grace, which speaks pardon to none while they
presurae upon it.
3. Let a man correct his presumptuous
humour, by considering how much such
offences would exasperate even men. It is
well, if some men can pardon once. But
when they see that an offender grows upon
them, takes heart, and reiterates the provoca
tion over and over, their patience is out of
breath, tires and can hold out no longer.
Peter thought, according to the rate of the
world's pardoning, that he extended charity
to a vast compass, when he discoursed of
pardoning his brother seven times. He
thought that then surely the acts of pardon
were in their number of perfection.
No man of spirit will endure that his cle
mency should prostitute his honour to the
saucy invasions of a bold and a growing im
pudence. No father will endure that his son
should abuse his goodness, as if it served for
nothing else but only to suffer and forgive.
And this is a thing so known to men, so im
planted in them by nature, that such as have
not wholly shook off all modesty, dread the
very sight of a man whom they have much
presumed upon: and though they tear no
punishment from him, yet they find those
rejolts from humanity, that deject their coun
tenance, and make them sneak, and fly the
presence of an affronted person.
¦ Which being so, has not every presumptuous
sinner reason thus to school and upbraid him
self : shall I fear to deal thus and thus with a
man, a sinful man like myself; a worm, a
piece of living dirt ; one whose breath and
life are iu his nostrils ? and shall I venture to
pass the same and greater affronts upon the
omnipotent Creator of the world, that can
crush me to nothing, that can frown me into
hell, and even look me into endless destruc
tion ? Shall I fear an anger that lasts but
a raoment, and can do but little while it
lasts ; an anger that is but as the spleen of
a wasp, a short fester, and huff of passion :
and shall I provoke such a displeasure as the
very angels tremble at ; a displeasure that for
its duration is eternal, and for its weight
intolerable ?
Men see and converse with that every day,
in the ordinary passages of coramon life, that
might invincibly argue them into a better
behaviour towards their Maker. Could we
but treat God as a king, as a magistrate, or a
master, of all sins those of presumption would
be the fewest. For in the courts of men,
people seldom expect to be pardoned the
second time. But as for God, his mercy, they
say, is infinite ; and therefore they resolve
that their rebellions shall be so too, since

there is no exhausting, no coming to the bot
tom of an infinite : and thus they presume to
be pardoned so often, that in the issue they
fall short of being pardoned once.
And thus much for the third aud last
branch of the first general head ; which was,
to prescribe remedies against sins of presump
tion. II. I proceed now to the other general
head proposed at first for the handling of the
words ; which is, to shew the reason of this
holy and excellent person's, the Psalmist's, so
earnest praying against these sins.
I suppose the prosecution of the first head,
which was to declare to us what presumptuous
sins were, might be argument enough to de
clare to us the second also, in shewing the
cause why the Psalmist so fervently prays
against them. He prays against them, as
against so many pests, so many direful causes
of God's wrath, so raany devourers of souls ;
and every prayer made against such things
carries its reason too visibly writ upon it to
be long inquired after.
But yet, for a more full and explicit discus
sion of the point in hand, I shall endeavour
to give some more particular account of the
reasons inducing this holy person with so
much zeal to engage his prayers against pre
sumptuous sins. And I conceive the princi
pal of them may be brought under these two
heads : —
1. The danger of falling into these sins.
2. The sad consequences of them, if fallen
into. And first, for the danger of falling into
them ; this appears in several respects :
1. In respect of the nature of maii, which
is generally apt to be confident, and to mea
sure its belief by its desires ; still presaging
the best, flattering itself, and building broad
superstructures upon narrow foundations.
Few men feel their conditions so bad, but
they find room for hope : and that which is
hope in some cases, will rise into arrogance
and presuraption in others.
Most men are of a debonair, sanguine, jolly
disposition, which never fails to supply those
builders with materials, who are apt to rear
castles in the air : so that we raay well avouch,
that where despair has slain its thousands,
presumption has slain its ten thousands.
For despair seldom breeds but in the me
lancholy temper, that inclines men to be
thoughtful and suspicious, or in such breasts
as have been forced into a preternatural me
lancholy by conversing with unskilful spiritual
guides, of an indiscreet severity, and pinning
their faith upon ill-managed discourses about
predestination. But these are but a very
small portion of mankind, in comparison of
the other : these go in handfuls, the other in
herds, thronging into the broad way, where
mirth and confidence carry them, hoping and

138

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Serm. XII.

laughing into perdition. Let this therefore
be the first reason ofthe danger of men's fall
ing into presumptuous sins.
2. The second reason is from the object of
presumption, God's mercy : which, though I
shew was limited, and not as boundless and
absurd as some men's imaginations ; yet there
is no doubt but, according to the present
economy of God's actings, the exercise of it is
of much more latitude and extent than the
exercise of his justice. The time of this life
is a time of mercy, and God delights to make
the experiments of it splendid and illustrious.
Hereupon presumption strikes in, and ad
vances it iiito endless and irrational ; and
uses it not only as an argument for repenting
of past sins, (the sole proper use ofit,) hut as
an atecedent inducement to warrant sin for
the future. The largeness of raercy has made
it apt to be abused by the corruption of man's
heart, which is ready to suck poison out of
the fairest flowers of God's garden ; and to
make the most amiable of his attributes serve
the interest of its vilest affections.
Let both law and gospel denounce death
against the coraraission of such or such a sin ;
and presumption shall interpose, and tell the
sinner in the Devil's own words, " Thou shalt
not surely die;" and then mercy shall be
alleged for a proof of this assertion : that shall
be brought for an encouragement, that God
intended only for a cure of sin.
3. Thirdly and lastly. A third reason of
the danger of falling into presuraptuous sins
is from the terapter, who chiefly busies and
concerns himself to engage men in this kind
of sin. It is said of David, concerning his sin
in numbering the people, which put the sword
in the hand of the destroying angel, to give
his whole kingdom such a blow, " that Satan
stood up and provoked David to number
Israel," (1 Chron. xxi. 1.) And of Judas it
is most particularly rem.arked, (Luke, xxii.
3,) " that Satan entered into Judas ;" and so
by a kind of immediate possession acted him
to the betraying of his master. And for
Ananias, who prevaricated about the price of
his lands, and so endeavoured, as it were, to
put a trick upon the Spirit of God, the apostie
Peter tells him, (Acts, v. 3,) "that it was
Satan that filled his heart to lie to the Holy
Ghost." Nay, and in that notable temptation
in which he accosted our Saviour himself, the
sin he drove at was a high presumption,
namely, that Christ should cast himself head
long from a pinnacle of the teraple ; " because
God had charged his angels to keep him in
all his ways ;" that is, that he should presume
fo promise himself the divine protection in
an action wholly uncommanded, and conse
quently unwarranted, because God had en
gaged to secure and guard him in the com
manded instances of duty and obedience.
It is clear, therefore, that the Devil lays a

more than ordinary stress upon this ; and if
so, he will be sure to employ all his engines
to push his design forward ; for he knows that
one great sin does his work compendiously,
and destroys at a blow. He knows also, that
his design, like a two-edged sword, may
chance to cut both ways. For first he will
make a man presume to comrait a sin, and
then, if possible, he will make him despair
for liaving coraraitted it. Wherefore, if all
the arts and stratagems of our mortal enemy
can endanger us, we are in danger of being
entangled in this sin ; this fatal, destructive
sin, which is the very masterpiece of the
Devil, and the gate of hell ; and consequently
have cause, with bended knees and bowed
hearts, night and day to invoke the almighty
assistances of Heaven for our rescue from
that sin ; in the commission of which, every
man so really proves the murderer of his own
soul. And thus much for the first reason of
David's so earnest praying against presump
tuous sins, namely, the danger of falling into
them ; as also the several causes from whence
that danger doth arise.
I proceed now to the other reason, which
is, the sad consequences of these sins, if once
fallen into : amongst which we may reckon
these that follow : —
1. This kind of sin is marvellously apt to
grow and prevail upon him that gives way to
it ; which ill consequence of it is deservedly
mentioned by me, in the first place, it being
that great and only one that David mentions
instead of all the rest ; " Keep," says he, "thy
servant from presumptuous sins, lest they get
the dorainion over me." Every presumption
is properly an encroachment, and all encroach
ment carries in it still a farther and a farther
invasion upon the person encroached upon.
It enters into the sonl as a gangrene does
into the body, which spreads as well as infects,
and, with a running progress, carries a venom
and a contagion over all the members. Pre
sumption never stops in its first attempt. If
Caesar comes once to pass Rubicon, he will be
sure to march farther on, even till he enters
the very bowels of Rome, and break open the
capitol itself. He that wades so far as to wet
and foul himself, cares not how much he
trashes farther.
When the tenderness of the soul is lost, and
its first awe of God and religion broke by a
bold sin, it grows venturous, and ready to
throw itself upon all sorts of outrages and
enormities. It does not demur and tremble
as it used to do, when any thing gross and
foul was proposed to it ; but it closes with it
readily, and steps undauntedly into that
stream that is like to carry it away, and swal
low it up for ever.
This growing, encroaching mischief per
haps first fastens but upon the thoughts, and

ON PSALM xix. 13.

lay

they take the liberty to settle upon some un
lawful, base thing, like flies upon a carcass ;
from these it advances a step farther, and seizes
the desires, which presently are carried out
with a restless eagerness after the same vile
object ; and these at length meet with some
friendly opportunity, by the help of which
they break forth into actual commission ;
which actual commission grows from one into
many, and coraes to be frequent and repeated,
till it settles into a custora, and fixes itself
immoveably and for ever in a man's beha
viour. This is the nature and quality of presurap
tion ; much like what our Saviour says ofthe
mustard seed, which at first is the least of all
seeds, but being grown up is greater than all
herbs, so that the birds of the air lodge in the
branches of it. In like raanner presumption
first sows itself in a thought;, the least of all
sins for the matter of it ; but from thence
shooting up into a custom and a habitual
practice, it grows mighty and wide, opens its
arms, and spreads out its branches for every
unclean bird, every sinful action and abomina
tion to come and lodge and rest upon.
No man can assign the limits, the ne plus
ultra of presumption, where it will stay, and
with what pitch of villainy it will be con
tented : it is as unruly as power, as boundless
as rebellion ; and therefore, he that would
preserve his conscience, and the peace of it,
has cause to keep a perpetual guard upon his
heart, to stave it off from a first admission.
2. The second ill consequence of presurap
tuous sins is, that of all others they prove the
most difficult in their cure, forasrauch as they
take away that which is the proper disposi
tion to it, tenderness of conscience ; leaving
the heart fixed and hardened, and not easily
capable of any healing irapression. It is
impossible for any man to be brought off
from sin, but by the sense and feeling of sin:
which sense, every presuraption does by
degrees weaken and dull, and in the issue
utterly extinguish.
For I shew before, that the proper effect of
such sins was custom in sinning ; and with
what difficulty that is reraoved we are told
in Jeremiah, xiii. 23, " Can the Ethiopian
change his skin, or the leopard his spots ? then
may ye also do good, that are accustomed to
do evil." The Ethiopian's blackness and the
leopard's spots are natural to them ; aud
there is no washing away nature, no purging
off the essential properties of things ; and
therefore this is raentioned as a difficulty but
one reraove frora an impossibility.
Custom and frequency in sin breeds a
familiarity with it that produces an affection
to it, and ends in a resolved continuance in
it. And as it is said by the apostle upon
another occasion, " that perfect love casts out
fear ;" so where custom has fastened a man's

love upon sin, the awe and the dread of it
vanishes ; and the sinner can break a precept
under tho very eye of sin-revenging justice,
without trembling ; without feeling any in
ward wound or blow upon his heart : which
is a frame of spirit, leaving a man not far from
a reprobate mind and a seared conscience ; a
disease that laughs at all the applications of
the spiritual physician ; (Jer. li. 9,) " We
would have healed Babylon, but she is not
healed." And the truth is, he who comes
recovered out of a course of presumptuous
sinning, has plucked his foot out of a mortal
snare, a deliverance never vouchsafed but to
the favourites of mercy, supplying the defect
and weakness of the means by an invincible
grace. And we may say of such an one very
properly, as of a raan rising from a swoon,
and the very neighbourhoods of death, that
he is corae to hiraself.
3. As sins of presumption are raore diffi
cultly cured, so they waste the conscience infi
nitely more than any other sins. As really
as blows and wounds and bruises weaken the
body, and by degrees dispose it to its final
dissolution ; so certainly do some sins shake,
and batter, and tear down the constitution of
the soul. Guilt upon the conscience, like rust
upon iron, both defiles and consumes it, by
degrees gnawing and creeping into it ; as that
does, till at length it has eat out the very
heart and substance of the raetal. The in
ward as well as, the outward man has his
proper health, strength, and soundness natu
rally belonging to him ; and in proportion,
has also his diseases and disteraper, arising
frora an irregular course of living. And every
act of presuraption is to him as a spiritual
debauch or surfeit : things that bring a pre
sent disorder, and entail a future decay upon
nature. David was a sufficient exaraple of this, who
coraplained in Psalra xxxviii. " that there
was neither soundness in his flesh, nor rest in
his bones, by reason of his sin :" and that
" his wounds" even festered and grew noisorae
" because of his foolishness," so that " he be-
cameas a man in whora there was no strength."
He lost that vigorous, athletic habit of soul,
which before made hira erainent and mighty
in the ways of God ; and now he began to
droop and languish like a mau that had drank
a poisonous draught, that ever after wasted
and consumed his spirits; so that in Psalra
xxxix. and the last verse, he prays to God
" to spare him a little, that he might recover
strength, before he went hence, and was seen
no more." He that would see what desperate
stabs and gashes the guilt of presuraptuous
sinning gives the conscience, should do well
to acquaint hiraself with the case of David, as
he hiraself (dolefully enough) expresses it
all along in his Psalras ; and if that does not
warn him of bis d.anger, he is like to learn it

140

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Serm. XII.

too late by the woful instructions of smart
and experience.
4. Fourthly and lastly. These sins have
been always followed by God with greater
and fiercer judgments than any others ; and
for this also we need go no farther than David
for an eminent instance and deraonstration :
for after those two horrid sins coramitted by
him, did not God raise up a rebel against him,
not only out of his own house, but also out of
hisown loins? one that defied him both in
the relation of a father and of a king, that
trarapled upon his authority, and abused his
wives in the face of all Israel ? Did not God
also punish his adultery with an infaraous
lewd action in his family? his son committing
incest with his own sister : and moreover the
" sword was never to depart from his house."
To all which may be added the ignominy, the
scoffs and reproaches that were in whole vol
leys discharged at hira from all sides ; hard
usage fpr majesty and sovereignty to be treated
with : yet by all this, God was pleased to give
him some taste of the poison of his presump
tions. And to proceed to other instances : Did not
the villainy and lewdness of a few Benja-
mites, set and resolved upon their sin against
all admonition, almost consume and reap
down a whole tribe? Did not the violence
and uncleanness of Hophni and Phineha ,
bring a disaster and a defeat upon the arini "
of Israel ? aud withal perpetuate a hideous
destructive curse upon their father's house ?
Did not the apostasy and ingratitude of Solo
mon against that God that raade him shine
like a star of the first magnitude amongst all
the neighbouring princes, rend away ten
tribes from his son at once ?
But above all, take that notable instance of
Manasses, whose sins indeed were of that high
strain, that they seemed to surpass all those
of the kings of Israel and Judah, that were
either before or after him ; yet, notwithstand
ing this, both he himself proved a penitent
and a convert at the last ; and as for his s 311
and successor Josiah, he was as erainently
transcendent for his piety, as his father had
been for his sin ; and extended a reforraation
every way as large and wide as the forraer's
corruption. So that one would have iraagined
that he had cleansed the land, and even atoned
his father's aborainations ; whereupon the
Spirit of God gives him this bright and glo
rious character ; (2 Kings, xxiii. 25, 26,)
"That like unto Josiah there was no king
before him that turned to the Lord with all
his heart, and with all his soul, and with all
his might, according to all the law of Moses,
neither afterwards arose any like unto him."
And now what follows after all this ? Why
in the next verse, " Notwithstanding this, the
Lord tumed not from the fierceness of his
great wrath, wherewith his anger was kindled

against Judah, because of all the provocations
that M.anasses had provoked him withal."
Josiah's goodness could not expiate Manasses'
sin. The son's penitential tears could not
wash away the father's guilt.
And now for the sinner that we have been
hitherto discoursing of ; if all the former con
siderations will not move hira, yet let him at
least arrest his presumption with this last,
Perhaps the growing, contagious nature of his
sin moves him not ; the difficult cure of it, !
peradventure, prevails upon him as little : and
it is like, that its aptness to waste, and harden,
and debauch the conscience raay make but
small impression upon him ; yet shall notthe
effects of it, the confusion, the disaster, and
the curse that it is big with, the curse that
will descend like "rottenness into his bones,
and strike like a dart through his liver;"
shall not all this terrify him into caution and
prayer, into reformation and amendment?
It is the concernment of God's justice and
his honour, to meet and confound an audacious
sinner in his course with some remarkable
instance of his vengeance. It is a clearing of
his Providence to the rational world. Men
surely have cause to pray against the commis
sion of that sin, which, if once committed,
may leave a guilt that no repentance can so
wipe off as to discharge the sinner wholly
from all punishment in this world. God,
upon the intercession of Moses, was reconciled
to the Israelites after their raaking of the
golden calf; yet the pardon was raingled with
a bitter allay ; (Exod. xxxii. 34,) " Neverthe
less," saith God, " in the day when I visit I
will visit their sin upon thera." Aud it was
a usual saying of the Jewish rabbles, that
there was no affliction or judgment that ever
befell the children of Israel but had an ounce
of the golden calf in it.
And no sinner can assure himself but that,
after all his prayers, and tears, and humilia
tions, nay, and what is more, his reconcile
ment with God, as to his eternal estate, yet,
as to his teraporal, the anger of the same (Jod
may, for the guilt of some gross, presumptuous
sin, stick in his skirts, and never cease to pur
sue and dog him to his grave, sealing his
offence with that dreadful sentence in Isaiah,
xxii. 14, "Surely this iniquity shall not be
purged from you till you die." Which sen
tence as every presumption will deserve, soit
is only in his power that pronounces it to
prevent. To whom be rendered and ascribed, as is
most due, all praise, might, majesty, and
dominion, both now and for evermore. Amen.

ON PSALM cxxxix. 3.

141

SERMON XIII.
" Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art
acquainted with aU my ways." — Psalm cxxxix. 3.
In this Psalm David endeavours to possess
himself with a holy adrairation of the excel
lency of God's knowledge, which is one of
those divine perfections which we call attri
butes ; all of which, though they are so raany
expressions of God condescending to Our ca
pacities, yet they are so exceeding glorious in
themselves, that when we study to search
them out, we must needs conclude, that they
are objects much fitter for our admiration
than our understanding. And one of the
greatest of these is that which we are now
about, to wit, God's knowledge.
It is such a knowledge as sees and compre
hends all things, but is coraprehended by
none ; and the best of huraan knowledge is
so far from equalling of it, that it is its greatest
perfection to be able to express it. But when
we have said all concerning it that we can,
when we have spent our inventions and our
words, we -must set down and confess with
David, that " such knowledge is too won
derful for us ;" since our highest and raost
devout expressions of God rather testify our
reverential desires of honouring hira, than at
all express his nature. Now the knowledge
of God is chiefly wonderful, in respect of the
extent and latitude of its object, as it takes in
all things knowable. But here tho prophet
considers it in a more restrained sense, as it is
conversant about the secret and hidden things
of man, and in this respect it is admirable.
It was no sraall testimony of the divinity of
our Saviour's knowledge, "thathe knew what
was ill man, and needed not that any one
should tell him," (John, ii. 25.) Certainly
none can find out those many windings and
turnings, those strange intricacies of the mind,
but the great artificer that framed them.
From the 1st verse to the l7th we have many
rare, full, and elegant expressions setting forth
God's accurate discernment of the most hidden
contrivances of raen ; who, by one cast of his
eye, looks through the whole scene of our
lives. Whether rising up or lying down ;
waking or discoursing ; thinking, yea, before
we think ; yet unborn and enclosed in the
womb, he clearly sees and beholds us. The
words that I have read unto you seera to be a
metaphor, taken from soldiers surrounding
the ways with an arabush, or placing scouts
and spies in every corner, to discover the
eneray in his march : thou " compassest my
path ;" thou hast, as it were, thy spies over
me, wheresoever I go. By " path" is meant
the outward actions and carriage of his ordi

nary conversation. By " lying down" is
signified to us the private and close actions of
his life ; such as were attended only by dark
ness and solitude. In the 36th Psalm, verse 4,
it is said of the wicked, " that he deviseth
raischief upon his bed," to denote, not only
his perverse diligence, but also his secrecy in
it : and God is said " to hide his children in
the secret of his pavilion." So that these
places of " rest" and " lying down" are de
signed for secrecy and withdrawing. When
a raan retires into his chamber, he does, in a
manner, for a while, shut himself out of the
world. And that this is the fine sense of that
expression of " lying down," appears from
the next words, "Thou art acquainted with
all my ways ;" where he collects in one word,
what he. had before said in two; or it may
come in by way of inference and deduction
from the former. As if he should say. Thou
knowest what I do in my ordinary converse
with meh, and also how I behave myself
when I ara retired frora them ; therefore thou
knowest all my actions, since a man's actions
may be reduced either to his public or private
deportment. By the other expression of
" ray ways" is here raeant the total of a
raan's behaviour before God, whether in
thoughts, words, or deeds, as is manifest by
comparing this with other verses. In the 2d
verse it is said, " Thou understandest my
thought afar off;" and in the 4th verse it is
said, " There is not a word in ray raouth, but
thou knowest it altogether." And thus we
see, that it was David's scope to shew, that
the raost dark counsels of men are exposed to
God's view, and this he does by a distinct
enumeration of all the particulars : " Thou
knowest my downsitting and my uprising ;
thou understandest my thoughts ; thou com
passest my path and my lying down ; there is
not a word in my mouth, but thou knowest
it ; thon hast beset me before and behind ;
thou coverest me in ray mother's worab, and
seest my substance being yet iraperfect." He
raight have coraprised all this in short, as in
some such like expression ; Lord, there is
nothing in the life of man so concealed, but
it is open and manifest to thy discernraent.
But he chose rather to dilate hiraself ; because
a distinct and particular mention of each
several passage shews not only God's bare
knowledge, but also his observance of these
things. From hence therefore I shall gather
this doctrinal observation, namely,
That God knows and takes strict and accu^
rate notice of the most secret and retired pas
sages of a man's life.
In the prosecution of this doctrine I shall
only prove it by some reasons, and afterwards
make application, which I chiefly intend.
The reasons shall be of two sorts :
I. Such as prove that it is so, that God
knows the most secret passages of our lives.

142

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Serm. XIII.

II. Such as shew whence it is, that he takes
such notice of them.
The first reason proving that God does
observe the secret passages of man's life is,
because he rules and governs them. Govern
ment is such a thing, as requires the highest
and raost perfect endowments of knowledge ;
the very wheel and hinge even of human
government is intelligence. Can a man de
prived of his sight raanage a chariot through
bye and dark ways with a steady hand ? Can
God, that carries the rule of all things in so
constant and fixed a course, and yet not
observe those things? Certainly he could
not govern the world by his power, unless he
governed his power by his knowledge. In
Ezekiel, i. 18, God's providence in the admi
nistration of all things here below is expressed
by a wheel full of eyes, to signify God's
quicksighted knowledge in his governraent,
and to express also that those eyes were
always in motion.
The Spirit of God attributes the like know
ledge to Christ in his providential ruling the
church, (Zechariah, iii. 9,) " Upon one stone
shall be seven eyes." By " the stone" is here
meant Christ, to whom is ascribed perfect
knowledge ; by " eyes" is signified knowledge,
and the number denotes perfection. Now,
there are three ways by which God governs
the most secret projects of man, to all of
which there is required a distinct knowledge.
1. He governs them by discovering of thera.
Now how is it possible for any one to make
that known to another which he does not
know hiraself. God prudently overrules most
plots by a seasonable revealniont of thera, as
the sun may be said to " rule the day," as it
is in Gen. i. 16, because of his universal sight,
by which he discovers all things. In Matt.
ii. 13, God disappointed Herod's design of
killing Christ, by making it known to Joseph;
and God made ineffectual the treacherous
intentions of the men of Keilah, in delivering
David to Saul, (1 Sam. xxiii. 12,) by discover
ing to David what they intended against hira ;
wherefore it must needs follow, that since
God makes hidden things open to raen, they
must of necessity be much more open and
manifest to himself.
2. He governs the most secret intentions by
preventing of them. For assuredly, if God
should permit all the sin that men conceive in
their thoughts to break forth into action, the
world would not be able to continue, by reason
of the overflowing sinfulness of men. God
does therefore prevent and hinder it, and as
it were stifles it in the very birth. Now, to
be able to prevent an evil, argues a clear
knowledge of its approach. How many secret
villainies, thought of and intended, and even
ready for execution, have been turned aside
by God's interposing providence ! In Gen.
XX. 6, God says of Abimelech, that " he with

held him from sinning against him, and
suffered him not to touch Sarah." Adultery,
in all likelihood, would have followed, had
uot God stepped in between the intentions
and commission of it ; and does not this argue
God to be a strict discerner of our most private
actions ? Wisely to prevent is an act of the
highest prudence and experience ; that watch
man must have his eyes open, that discerns an
enemy coming while he is yet afar off.
3. God governs the secret designs of men, by
directing them to other ends than for which
they were intended. Man may resolve, but
God often secretly blows upon his counsels,
and scatters all his resolutions. In vain do
the Syrians take counsel to invade Judah,
when 'God says, in Isaiah, vii. 7, "It shall
not stand, neither shall it come to pass." If
God can turn the designs of raen which way
soever he pleases, he cannot but also see and
observe thera. To be able to divert a river in
the raidst of its most violent course from its
native channel, shews more than ordinary
skill. When a sinner in the full career of
his intentions is rushing into sin, like a horse
into the battle, then for God to wind him to
his own purposes, it shews him to be of an
infinite wisdom, and withal to have his eye
continually fixed upon that man's ways.
How privately did Joseph's brethren carry on
their plot against him, with an evil and
raalicious intent ; yet God observes their
treachery ; and what they intended for his
misery, God turns to be a rairaculous means
of their own preservation, (Gen. xlv. 6.)
And thus did Judas plot in secret with the
rulers of the Jews to betray his Master ; God
sees his design, and withal orders the most
cursed intention that ever was, to the best and
most glorious end. Most excellent, therefore,
must the knowledge of God be, that describes
the most hidden, sinful actions of men, so as
to manage them contrary to their natural
tendency ; the sinner shoots the arrow, but
God takes the aim, and directs it to his own
raarks. Let a man sin as secretly as he can,
yet he shall not be able to avoid God's know
ledge, nor to contradict his will, I raean his
efficacious and hidden will ; which, by a secret
influence, controls all actions, even the most
wicked, to the glory of God. From hence we
may be assured, that God is both privy to and
observant of our most concealed iniquities,
since he is able to see farther into them than
the sinner himself that commits them. And
thus much concerning the first reason, proving
that God observes the most secret passages of
our lives, because he governs them, and that
both by discovering, by preventing, and by
directing them to his own ends.
The second reason proving the same is, be
cause he gives laws to regulate the most secret
passages of our lives, and therefore he must
needs know and observe them. It is absurd

ON PSALM cxxxix. 3.

143

for any governor to irapose laws upon men
ill respect of those actions which cannot come
under his knowledge. Hereupon all human
laws tend only to the regulation of the out
ward man, and proceeds no farther. But God
extends his law to the most secret behaviour
of men, eveu to the thoughts. Hence our
Saviour interprets the lust of the heart, and
the first motions thereof to uncleanness, to be
adultery, (Matt. v. 28.) Hence also the
" word," or law, " of God," is said, in Heb.
iv. 12, to be " quick and powerful, and a dis
cerner of the thoughts and inteuts of the
heart." And in Heb. iii. 12, the Spirit of
God commands them not to entertain " an
evil heart of unbelief," nor so much as in
their desires " to depart from the living God."
If God took no notice of secret unbelief, if he
did not know or regard all the private ex
cursions of the mind to sin, it were vain and
fruitless to limit them by a law. But since
he has set a law even to these also, since he
does not only restrain our secret actions, but
even our thoughts and desires, we may very
well collect that all these are in his view,
that he evidently beholds and searches them
out, and that his knowledge is not shorter
than his coraraands.
The third reason is, because he will judge
the most secret passages of our lives, there
fore they are raanifest to him. Knowledge is
so requisite to judgment, that our earthly
judges cannot judge rightly in matters that
they do not know : hence Job, to shew how
uprightly he judged, said, that " he searched
out the cause that he knew not," (Job, xxix.
16,) implying that it was irapossible for him
otherwise to award a righteous sentence. Jus
tice indeed is pictured blind, not because it is
to be without the eye of knowledge, but the
eye of partiality. Now shall not God, that is
the judge of all the earth, do right ? Shall he
condemn and punish men for such sins as he
knows not whether they have committed or
not? Certain it is, that he judges men for
secret sins ; therefore it is also certain that he
knows them. In Eccles. xi. 9, Solomon says
of the voluptuous raan, that for the ways of
his heart, which are his secret and his hidden
ways, "God will bring him to judgment;"
and in Eceles. xii. 14, it is said, " that God
shall bring every work into judgment with
every secret thing, whether it be good, or
whether it he evil;" and no wonder, since
there is not so much as the least rising of the
heart to sin but he views it ; no circumstance
so inconsiderable to our apprehensions, but
he ponders it : he does, as it were, severely
winnow every action, and discerns that which
is good in it, frora that which is vile and sin
ful. Now there are two seasons wherein God
'Will judge men for their secret sins. First, in
this life, wherein he often gives sinners a fore
taste of what he intends to do in the future:

and though he does reserve the wliole weight
of his judgment till after death, yet he fre
quently dispenses some strokes of it by way
of eamest before. Because not only men's
desires, but also their belief, is chiefly satis
fied by things present : wherefore God some
times follows secret sins with present judg
ment. When Moses declared the law of God
to Israel, and withal denounced punishments
to the disobedient, heapplies hiraself especially
to those that were guilty of secret disobe
dience ; and lest they should rid theraselves
of the fear of those punishraents, by looking
upon them as future and remote, he shews
how dreadfully God intends to deal with such
sinners even in this life, (Deut. xxix. 18 —
21.) Here we see sin was very secret, shut
up in the private reasonings and debates of
the mind; but God fetches the sinner out,
and purges him, with present temporal judg
ment, for, as it appears from the foregoing
chapter, the curses here mentioned were
chiefly such as touched men in their life, their
estate, and outward relations. Such is the
irrational atheism of most men, that although
they have no thought, and consequently no
fears of hell, yet they accordingly dread tem
poral affliction : Like a child that does not so
rauch fear the loss of his life, as the loss of his
apple. Let such men know, that it is very
probable that by their secret sins they may
bring down the curse of God upon themselves
in this world; and although their hell be
completed hereafter, they may begin it here.
Whence is it that some raen are so strangely
blasted in their parts and preferraent, but
from some hidden sin, that rots and destroys
all : whence is it that many large estates do
undiscernedly shrivel away and come to
nothing, but perhaps from the guilt of some
secret extortion, perjury, or the like, that lies
fretting and eating out the very bowels of
them. I do not speak this universallj^, nor
affirm that this is always the cause ot these
miseries, but it is to be feared that it is very
often so. I.J
2. The second season wherein God judges
the secret passages of our sins, is at the day of
judgment. In respect of which our Sa-viour
says, that " there is nothing hid but shall be
made raanifest," (Luke, xii. 2.) A thief or a
murderer raay carry on his villainy undis
closed for raany years, but the day of his trial
will discover all : in Daniel, vii. 10, it is said, |
" the judgraent was set, and the books were
opened." By " the books" is raeant the know
ledge of God, in which all things are kept as
durably and distinctly as if they were regis
tered in a book. Theu God will ojien this
book of his knowledge, aud read all those
hidden passages that are writ in it in the
audience of all the worid. And this is one
reason why he permits so many heinous im
pieties to be concealed here on earth, because

144

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Serm. XIIL

he intends to dignify that day with the reveal-
men t of them.
And thus much concerning the first sort of
reasons, which prove that it is so, that God
knows and observes the secret passages of our
lives. I proceed now to the second sort of
reasons, that prove whence it is that God thus
knows thera. Now these proofs are very dif
ferent : for the first proves, that God knows
these things by way of connection, that is, by
those acts of God which are always enjoined
with knowledge, as his governing, giving laws,
and judging: but now these latter reasons
prove, that he observes all hidden things from
that which is the cause of such observations.
1. And the first reason shall be drawn from
God's omniscience, or his power of knowing
all things : from whence it follows, that no
thing can be hid from him ; and this is that
light which no man can keep off, any more
than he can in the opening hinder the day
from shining upon him ; it is a light shining
in every dark place : as it has no obscurity
itself, so it permits nothing else to lie obscure :
and that it is universal and infinite, appears
from this, because otherwise it would not bear
a full proportion to the rest of God's perfec
tions. Now in respect of this, it is said in
Prov. XV. 3, " The eyes of the Lord are in
every place, beholding the evil and the good :"
and in 2 Chron. xvi. 9, " The eyes ofthe Lord
run to and fro throughout the whole earth :"
and in Job, xxviii. 24, it is said of God, " that
he looketh to the ends of the earth, and seeth
under the whole heavens." How vain there
fore is the thought of these men that attempt
sin upon confidence of privacy, that do, as it
were, dig deep to hide their counsel from the
Lord. Oh that such would but read and con
sider that text in Heb. iv. 13, " All things are
naked and open before the eyes of him with
whom we have to do." Now to behold a thing
as naked, implies the greatest evidence and
discovery. It is also said, that " secret things
belong unto the Lord,"(Deut. xxix, 29;) which,
as also the forementioned places, are only so
many expressions of God's infinitely compre
hensive knowledge : from hence therefore we
may clearly deduce what we do intend. If
the perfection of God's nature engages him
to know all things, he must also actually
know all things; and if he actually discerns
all things, he must also discern all secret
things; and if he is .acquainted with .all
secrets, he must also behold and observe the
secret passages of our lives, which of all other
secret things are the most considerable.
2. 'The second reason may be drawn from
God's intimate presence to the nature and
being of all things, frora whence is also in
ferred his knowledge of thera : for since there
is no real distinction between the being and
knowledge of God, but only in the manner of
our conceptions, it follows, that where he is

present in respect of his being, he mnst be
also present in respect of his knowledge. But
now the being of God is diffused through the
whole and every part of the universe, as the
soul insinuates itself into all the members of
the body : not that God is thus present to all
the world by way of identity with it, (as some
profane philosophers have affirraed, who, in
a literal sense, may be said to have known
no God but the world ;) but he is present
with it by way of nearness and inward proxi
mity to it. Without which, the creature
could not derive continual influence from
him for the upholding of its being, but must
of necessity fall back into its first nothing.
From this universal presence of God the Scrip
ture often proves the universality of his know
ledge : in the twenty-third of Jeremiah, ver.
24, God thus argues himself, " Can any hide
himself in secret places that I should not see
him ? saith the Lord." Why ? whence is it so
impossible to avoid God's sight ? That which
follows proves it ; " Do not I fill heaven and
earth ? saith the Lord." God's filling heaven
and earth, that is, his being present every
where, proves also, that there can be no
place hidden from him, but that he likewise
sees everywhere. David also, in this hundred
and thirty-ninth Psalm, wliere the text is,
proves God's infinite discernment of all things
by the same argument. He had said, that
God " compassed his paths, and knows all his
ways :" but what was the reason that con
vinced him of this? He sets it down iu the
seventh and eighth verses, " Whither shall I
flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into j
heaven, thou art there : if I raake my bed in
hell, behold thou art there." He that always
stands by us must needs see and observe what
we do : wherefore, if the sinner would act his
sin out of God's knowledge, let him first endear
vour to go out of his presence ; which he is no
more able to do, than to go out ofhis ownbeing.
And thus much concerning the reasons proving
the point ; I now proceed to application.
If it is thus certain that God takes strict
notice of the most secret passages of our
lives, both because he overrules them, and
prescribes laws to them, and judges them;
and also because of his omniscience and
omnipresence, then, in the first place, it raay
afford, 1. A use of conviction, to convince all pre
sumptuous sinners of the atheism of their
hearts. I know the proof of this point, that
God sees in secret, may seem to have been
superfluous ; since the general vogue of the
world is ready, not only to meet, but even to
prevent us in their acknowledgment of God's
all -seeing eye : but if we look through men's
professions, and trace their lives, we shall
find that they do not really believe any such
thing. For were we fully convinced that the
just God, that declares himself a most certain

ON PSALM cxxxix. 3.

145

punisher of sin, did also raost certainly know
sin, we should not dare to comrait it pre
sumptuously before him. Experience, the
strongest argument, shews us the contrary in
the ordinary passages of our lives. A very
child will forbear to offend not only before
his father, but before such an one from whom
his father may come to know it. The reason
is, because all persuasions, if real, do naturally
engage a man to actions suitable to those per
suasions. As for example, had you a thorough
persuasion upon your heart that God saw you
when you were attempting any vile sin, the
very thought of this would beget such a reve
rence and a dread upon your spirits, as you
could not venture to commit, if to gain a
world : for we see such thoughts cast an awe
npon us, even in our deportment before men.
Hence the fool, that is, the wicked man, is
said to say in his heart, that " there is no
God," because he does act in his life as if he
thought there was none. In like manner, the
presuming sinner raay be said to deny that
God sees and observes all his actions, because
he behaves himself so, as if he were really
persuaded that God did not observe them :
therefore, whosoever thou art that art a pre
sumptuous offender, setting aside all thy
spurious words, when thou dost resolve upon
any sin, thou dost either believe that God
sees thee, or that he does not. To believe he
does not, is to deny him to be God : to be
lieve he sees thee, and yet to coramit the sin,
is to affront him to his face, to bid open
defiance to him, and to cast unwisely that
contempt upon hira, that the most audacious
and impudent offender dares not offer to his
earthly magistrate : wherefore, if from thy
heart thou dost acknowledge God's all-seeing
eye, cease from sin ; otherwise, to any reason
able judgment thou dost really deny it, and
in spite of all thy fair speeches art truly an
atheist. For deeds always overbalance words,
and downright practice speaks the mind raore
plainly than the fairest profession.
Second use. It speaks terror to all secret
sinners ; God sees and observes them in all
their secrecies ; he spies out all their private
haunts and their sly recourses to their beloyed
sin. Let such men consider how unwilling
they would be that men should know of their
concealed villainies, of what they act by them
selves ; surely they would rather forfeit their
lives, and all that was near unto them, than
their secret sins should be divulged ; and then
let them know that God sees thom, and that
it was better that they were known to all the
world, that they so fear, than to him. For he
sees more filth in them, than one of the most
discerning and carping judgment can find in
the faults of his adversary ; and he does more
detest them, than the most holy and upright
man can do the most grossest and notorious
sin. Let them also consider, that the greatest
VOL. IT.

ground of all their sins, which is secrecy, is by
God's all-seeing eye taken away. For as
suredly the confidence of concealment is the
greatest inducement for a hypocrite to cora
rait the vilest sins. Psalm Ixiv. 6, "They
encourage themselves in an evil matter ; they
say. Who shall see them ?" And thus confi
dence of secrecy gave them confidence in sin.
But certainly it is an ill argument, because
sinners do not see God, to conclude therefore
that God does not see thera ; like the foolish
bird hiding his head in a hole, he thinks hira
self secure from the view ofthe fowler, because
the fowler is not in his view. Oh, how
raiserably are such sinners deceived in the
vain prop of a false confidence ! Psalra xc. 8,
" Thou hast set our iniquities before thee, our
secret sins in the light of thy countenance."
As God lifts up the light of his countenance
upon the godly, to refresh and comfort them,
so he does ^Iso upon secret sinners, to discover
and to amaze them. It is said of the secret
adulterers, (Job, xxiv. 16, 17,) " They know
not the light ; for the morning is to them as
the shadow of death." How then will they
bear the light of God's countenance, which
will cast the shadow of death in their faces in
a much more dreadful manner ? In the same
verse it is said, " If one know them, they are
in the terrors of the shadow of death ;" but
the all-seeing God knows them ; oh, the fear,
the shame, and confusion that is in the mind
of a discovered sinner ! And let such an un
clean person know, that he had better act his
irapurity in the sight of his reverend parents,
and of a severe raagistrate, than under the
observing eye of a just and holy God, before
whom secret sins are not secret, but open and
revealed. Yet such as are secret to men we
raay rank into two sorts, both of which God
perfectly knows :
1. Such as are wholly transacted in the
raind, without the service and rainistration
of the body ; and these are the sins of our
thoughts and desires, which are locked up from
the knowledge of raen or angels. No court of
human judicature pretends to judge or punish
the thoughts and intentions ; they are in a
peculiar manner reserved for the jurisdiction
of the court of Heaven, which alone is able to
examine and find thera out. Now there is no
act of man so quick as his thoughts ; which
in this resembles the angelical nature, that
they are swift and invisible. Let the gross
acting sinner act as fast as he can, yet the
thinking sinner will have the start and ad
vantage of hira, and sin an hundred thoughts
before he shall perform one sinful action. Oh,
the infinite raultitudes of impure thoughts in
a polluted mind, like swarms of flies upon a
carcass, continually sucking and drawing in
corruption. Now God has a more than ordi
nary respect to pien's thoughts ; hence God
cries out of his people, (Jer. iv. 14,) " How
K

146

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Serm. XIII.

long shall vain thoughts lodge within thee?"
The greatest wickedness, and that which is
the most odious to God, is the wickedness of
the heart ; and this consists iu pollution of
the thoughts and desires. Nay, God does so
much hate the sinfulness of these, that sorae
tiraes he expresses the whole work of conver
sion by the renovation and change of the
thoughts : (Isaiah, Iv. 7,) " Let the wicked
forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his
thoughts ; and let hira return unto the Lord,
and he will have raercy upon him." But was
it God's intention only to restrain these, and,
in the meantime, to give hira liberty in his
sinful actions ? No ; but the fors.aking of one
implies the leaving of the other, as the greater
duty includes the less. He that will not so
much as indulge himself in an evil thought,
will much less venture upon the gross cora
mission of sin. Now God oftentiraes judges
of the state and condition of a raan from the
purity or impurity of his thoughts ; and that
upon these reasons : —
1. Because the sin of the thoughts and de
sires is most spiritual, and consequently most
opposite to the nature of God ; spiritual
wickedness is properly contrary to spiritual
holiness, and it is that by virtue whereof
Satan has strongest possession of the soul, as
being that wherein most men resemble him,
who being destitute of a body is not capable
of corporal, fleshly sins ; hence, in Ephes. vi.
12, we have the vileness of his nature ex
pressed by " spiritual wickedness iu heavenly
places." Now, as there is nothing almost so
evident in itself, as by the advantage of con
traries, so we may see how odious spiritual sin
is to God, in that spiritual duty is so accep
table. God does not so much command us to
serve hira, as to " serve hira in spirit and in
truth." In all religious duties the voice of
God is, " Son, give me thy heart." To find a
sacrifice without a heart, was always accoun ted
a thing prodigious. To bring our bodies to
church, and leave our thoughts at home ; this
is most detestable before God. To lift up our
eyes to heaven in prayer, and yet to fix our
desires upon the earth, oh, this his soul hates.
As God drew a resemblance of himself upon
the whole man, so, in a more lively raanner,
he iraprinted it on the mind. Now one sin
ful thought is able to slur this image of God
upon the soul ; one corrupt desire is able to
divest the soul of all its native innocence and
purity. This certainly must be true, that
that which tends to corrupt the best and most
worthy part of man, must needs be the worst
and greatest corruption. But all, even the
heathens, will acknowledge, that a man's mind
is his better part; and scripture and expe
rience tell us, that evil thoughts and desires
defile the mind ; therefore we should endea
vour, in the first place, the sanctification and
regulation of these. Moral philosophy tells

us, that external actions are not morally good
or evil of themselves, but by participation of
the good and evil that is in the acts of the
will, by which they are commanded. We are
not angry with the hand that strikes us, but
with the evil intention that guided the hand ;
nor with the tongue that curses us, but with
the vile disposition of the mind that bid it
curse. God commanded David to cut off the
sin of Saul, (2 Sam. xxi. 1,) and he com
manded Jehu to slay the posterity of Ahab.
The outward action is here the same ; whence
then was David's action pleasing to God, and
Jehu's reputed murder, (Hosea, i. 4,) but
from the difference of their thoughts and in
tentions? David did it with an intent to
obey God, and Jehu with a design of private
revenge. It is most just, therefore, that God
should judge of the whole raan by his thoughts
and desires, since from these are the issues of
life and death.
2. He judges a man by these, because his
actions aud practice may be overruled, but
thoughts and desires are the natural and
genuine offspring of the soul. Experience
tells us, that we have not that command and
dominion over our thoughts that we have
over our actions ; they admit neither of order
nor limitation, but are the continual incessant
bubbling up of sin outof the mind :forwem<ay
observe that those acts that may immediately
result frora the faculty, without the interced
ing coramand of the will, are scarcely con
trolled by it. How will the unruly imagina
tions of a vain fancy range and wander, in
spite of all the dictates and commands of
reason. There is nothing more easy or usual
than for oue to counterfeit his behaviour. A
man may cause, that nothing but love and
kindness shall appear in hi6 actions, when in
his thoughts he breathes cruelty and murder.
The hypocrite, in the outward part of the most
holy duty, may make as fine and specious a
shew as the best, when there is nothing but |
sin and rottenness in his heart ; (Ezekiel, !
xxxiii. 31,) " Theysit before thee asmypeople,
and they hear thy words, but they will not
do them ; for with their mouth they shew |
much love, but their heart goeth after their |
covetousness." Here we see they had nothing
so frequent in their words and outward services
as the worship of God, and nothing so remote
from their desires. But now in the thoughts
there is no dissimulation : what a man is in
these, that he is in truth and reality : the
soul is in its thoughts, as in its retiring room,
laying aside the garb and dress in which it
appeared upon the stage of the world. Nay,
although a man had a full rule over his
thoughts, yet they must needs be free from
dissiraulations, as not being capable of the
causes of it. That which makes men dis
semble, is a fear of and a desire to please the
eyes of men ; which we know cannot reach

ON PSALM cxxxi-x. 3.

147

to the thoughts. It is therefore clear, that
sincerity does only reside, and consequentiy
is only to be found in these : hence we may
observe, that Christ, in all his replies to the
Jews and the Pharisees, did rather answer the
inward reasonings and thoughts of their raind,
than the questions they did propose. In Ezek.
xiv. 3, 4, we have raen addressing themselves
to God in the greatest shew of salvation that
might be ; yet he professes that he will not
answer them according to those pretences,
but according to the idols they had set up in
their hearts. A man, by reason of his con
cemraents and interest in the world, what for
fear of this punishraent, and hope of that
preferment, will cast himself into such a
mould, as he shall be really nothing less than
what he does appear to be ; his words, ac
tions, and outward carriage shall bear no
correspondence with his intentions. The
covetous man, in his mind, can lay heap upon
heap ; and what he cannot gain by his endea
vours, he -will make up by his thoughts.
The arabitious raan will think over all the
applauses and greatness of the world, and in
the closet of his mind erect to hiraself the idol
of his own excellencies, and fall down and
worship it. The revengeful person, though
fear will not let hira act his revenge, yet in
his thoughts he will stab and trample upon
his brother. The lascivious wretch, though
shame will uot let hira execute his sin, yet
he will feed his corrupt fancy with unclean
imaginations. In all these passages raen, be
ing secure frora the view of others, behave
themselves according to the free genius and
inclination of their nature. But God knows
all these silent workings : he knows them,
and abhors them : and that he does know
them, he will make it appear at that day,
when he shall also make others know them,
and when the secrets of all hearts shall be
revealed. Oh what black stories will be told
at the day of judgment of raen's thoughts !
2. The second sort of secret sins are such as
are uot only transacted in the raind, but also
by the body, yet are covered and kept close
frora the view of men. Such was David's sin
in the matter of Uriah, (2 Sam. xii. 12.)
God says to him, "Thou didst this thing
secretly." Such was Cain's murder of his
brother. Such was the theft of Achan : there
were no standers by, conscious to it ; it was
not done before spectators. Now certainly a
sinner should thus argue ; If I cannot hide my
secret sinful thoughts and desires from God,
how much less shall I be able to conceal my
actions, be they ever so private. When
Satan, secrecy, and opportunity, all of thera
great tempters, shall tempt you to sin, con
sider that you have still this company with
you, a conscience that will accuse you, and a
God that will judge you. And is there any
man so irrational as to commit a robbery in

the sight of his accuser ? to do a felony before
his judge? What reason will not suffer us to
do before men, shall not reason and religion
keep us from committing before God ? Thou
mayest wrong and defraud thy neighbour in
secret, (Habakkuk, ii. 11,) " but the stone
shall cry out of the wall, and the beam out of
the tiraber shall accuse thee." Thou mayst
kill and murder, and none behold thee, " but
the voice of thy brother's blood shall cry to
God from the ground that receives it," (Gen.
iv. 10.) I may here speak to the secret sin
ner in the wordJ of a holy author ; Let him
but find some corner where God may not see
him, and then let him sin as he pleases. The
adulterer in the foreraentioned place of Job,
is said " to wait for the twilight :" but here
we find in this Psalra, " that the darkness
and light are both alike to God." The drunk
ard will presume to be " drunk iu the night ;"
(1 Thess. V. 7,) but here we may read, "that
the darkness hideth not frora God, but the
night shineth as the day." No sins can be
covered, but such as God hiraself shall be
pleased to cover within the righteousness of
his own Son : he that can see in secret, and
when thou shuttest thy door behold thoe
praying iu thy closet, can as easily seo thee
when thou art sinning there ; and as for
private duty he will reward, so for secret sin
he will punish thee openly, either in this
world or in another. And therefore it were
good for such kind of sinners to consider, that
while their door is thus shut, the gates of hell
stand open.
3. As it speaks terror to all secret sinners,
so it speaks no less corafort to all sincere-
hearted Christians. The same sunrising and
break of day that terrifies the robber, is a
comfort to the honest traveller. Thou that
art sincere, God sees that sincerity in thee
that others cannot discern ; yea, he often sees
more sincerity in thy heart, than thou canst
discern thyself. This raay uphold the droop
ing spirits of a disconsolate soul, when the
black mouths of men, steeled with ignorance
and prejudice, shall be opened in hard speeches
against him. For indeed, now-a-days, when
a man cannot find fault with his brother's
outward conversation, which only he can be
hold, he will censure him in respect of spiri
tuals, which no man can discern, any more
than I can know what is in a man's raind by
the colour of his clothes. Such men speak as
if God did not onlv make them partake ofhis
raercies, but also ofhis prerogative. And when
it should be their work to resemble God in
holiness, they arrogautiy pretend to be like
hira in oraniscience. How severely, though
bliudly, do they judge of raen's hearts ? Such
a raan is profane ; another is carnal, and a
mere raoralist ; another proud, and as to the
bent and frarae of his spirit, a conteraner of
religion. But here the sincere soul raay cora-

148

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Serm. XIV.

fort itself, when with one eye it can reflect
upon its own integrity, and with the other
upon God's infinite, infallible knowledge, and
say, indeed. Men charge me thus and thus, as
false-hearted and a hypocrite, but my God
knows otherwise. This, I say, may set thee
above the calumnies of unreasonable men,
and make thee ride upon the necks of thy
accusers. And as Daniel, by trusting in his
God, was secure from the mouths ofthe lions ;
so thou, by acting faith upon, and drawing
comfort frora God's omniscience, mayest defy
the more cruel mouths of thy reproachers.
When a man is accused of treason to his prince,
and knows that his prince is fully assured of
his innocence, he will laugh all such accusa
tions to scorn. It is thus with God and a
sincere heart : in the midst of all slanders,
he will own thee for innocent ; as he did
Job, when his friends, with much specious
piety, charged hira with hypocrisy. Where
fore commit thy way to the all-seeing God, to
that God that is acquainted with all thy
ways ; that sees thy goings out and thy com
ings in, and continually goes in and out before
thee, and will one day testify and set his seal
to thy integrity. Corafort thyself in the con
sideration of his oraniscience, from whence it
is, "that God judgeth not as man judgeth,
but judges righteous judgraent." And hold
fast thy integrity, that lies secret in the heart,
" whose praise is of God, and not of man."

SEEMON XIV.
" Say not thou. What is the cause that the former days were
better than these ? for thou dost not inquire wisely concem
ing this.'' — Eccles. vii. 10.
In the days of Solomon, when Jemsalem
was the glory of the whole earth ; when it
flourished as the metropolis, not only of reli-
II gion, but of the riches of the world; when
j; gold was made as common as silver, and silver
as the stones of the street, (so that its inhabi
tants might even tread and trample upon that
which so much commanded the hearts of
others ;) when their exchequer was full, and
their fleets at Ophir ; when religion was esta
blished, and the changing, ambulatory taber
nacle fixed into a standing teraple, and all
crowned with a peace under Solomon after the
afflictions and wars of David ; when they
flowed with plenty, and were governed with
wisdom ; yet, after all, the text here gives us
a clear intimation, that plenty passed into
surfeit, fulness into loathing, loathing into
discontent, and that (as it always happens)
into complaints of the times, namely, " that
forraer days were better than these."

When yet, upon a small reflection back
ward, we have the calendar of the former
tiraes red with the bloody house of Saul, with
the slaughter of the priests, and with the re
bellions of Sheba and Absalora ; nothing but
turaults, changes, and vicissitudes ; and yet,
in the verdict of folly and faction, present
enjoyraents did so far endear former calami
ties, as to give them the preeminence in the
comparison. But we see there may be " folly even in
Israel ;" and, if they were all of this mind,
Solomon may justly seem to have monopo
lized all the wisdom to hiraself. We have
hira here chastising the sottishness of this in
quiry : indeed the fittest person to encounter
this exception, as being a king, and so able to
control ; being a preacher, and so able to con
fute it ; furnished with power for the one,
and with wisdom for the other.
This is therefore the design of the words,
either to satisfy or silence this raalecontented
inquiry; and supposing it to carry in it its own
confutation, he confutes it, not by argument,
but reproof ; not as a doubtful problem, but
as a foolish question : and certainly the case
must needs be carried, where the fool makes
the question, and the wisest of men gives the
answer. The matter in controversy is the pre-emi
nence of the forraer tiraes above the present ;
when we must observe, that though the words
run in the form of a question, yet they include
a positive assertion, and a downright censure.
The inquiry being determined before it was
proposed, now the charge of folly here laid
upon it may relate to the supposition upon
which it is founded in a threefold respect,
naraely, —
I. Of a peremptory negation, as a thing
absolutely to be denied, that former times are
better than the following.
II. As of a case very disputable, whether
they are so or no.
III. As admitting the supposition for true,
that really they are better, and so bear away
the pre-erainence.
Yet in every one of these three most diffe
rent respects, this inquiry ought to be ex- 1
ploded as absurd, impertinent, and irrational. |
1. And first of all, that it is ridiculous to j
ask why former times are better than the j
present, if really they are not better, and so
the very supposition itself proves false ; this
is too apparently m.anifest to be matter of
dispute, and that it is false we shall endeavour
to prove and evince in the ensuing discourse :
bnt before I enter upon the proof of it, this
one observation must be premised :
That time is said to be good or bad, not
frora any such quality inherent in itself, but
by external denomination from the nature of
those things that are and do subsist in such a
space of time. Time is the great vehicle of

ON ECCLESIASTES, vii. 10.

149

nature, not only for its swift passage and
career, but because it carries in it the systera
of the world, from one stage and period of
duration to another.
Now the world may be considered either in
its natural or moral perfections. Some hold,
that for the former, there is a continual dimi
nution and an insensible decay iu nature,
things growing less and less, the very powers
and faculties of them being weakened and
shrank ; and the vital spirit, or humidum ra
dicate, that God and nature first infused into
the great body of the universe, being much
exhausted, so' that now, in every following
age, the lamps of heaven burn dimmer and
dimmer, till at length they dwindle into
nothing, and so go out of themselves.
But that this cannot be so, is clear from
these reasons. 1st, Because the ancientest
histories generally describe things in the same
posture heretofore that we find them now.
2d, That, admitting the least and most indis
cernible degree of diminution, even to but one
remove firom none at all, the world, in the
space of six thousand years, which date it
almost now bears, by the continuance but of
that small proportion of change, would have
sunk even to nothing, or the smallness of an
atom. 3d, This will make the final annihi
lation of the world a mere effect of nature, and
not of God's supernatural power ; and so the
consequent of it is irreligious.
'Wherefore it being sure that the whole
fabric of the world stands in the sarae vigour
and perfection of nature which it had at first,
we corae next to that in which we are now
most concemed, to see whether or no it be
impaired and sunk in its raoral perfections,
and what is the consequent of that in po
litical. We have here an aphorism of Horace much
inculcated, " Terra males homines nunc educat
atque pusillos." But poetry never yet went
for arguraent : and perhaps he might speak
this, being conscious of his own manners, and
reflecting upon his own stature. But that in
the descent of succeeding generations, the fol
lowing are not stiU the worse, I thus evince :
1. By reason : because there were the same
objects to work upon men, and the sarae
dispositions and inclinations in raen to be
wrought upon, before, that there are now.
All the afiiairs of the world are the births and
issue of men's actions ; and all actions come
from the meeting and collision of faculties
with suitable objects. There were theu the
same incentives of desire on the one side, the
same attractiveness in riches, the same relish
insovereignty, the same temptation in beauty,
the same delicacy in meats, and taste in wines ;
and, on the other side, there -were the sarae
appetites of covetousness and arabition, the
same fuel of lust and interaperance.
And these are the wheels upon which the

whole visible scene of affairs, ethic and politic,
turns and depends. The business of the world
is imitation, and that which we call novelty
is nothing but repetition. 'The figure and
motion of the world is circular, and experience
no less than matheraatics will evince, that, as
it turns round, the same part must be often
in the same place : one age indeed goes before
another, but precedency is not always pre
eminence ; and it is uot unusual for a worse
to go before a better, and for the servant to j
ride before and lead the way to his master.
2. But, 2dly, the same may be proved by
history and the records of antiquity ; and he
who -would give it the utmost proof that it is <
capable of from this topic, must speak volumes ,
and preach libraries, bring a century within
a liue, and an age into every period. But
what need we go any farther than the noblest
and yet the nearest piece of antiquity, the
book of ]Moses.
Is the wickedness of the old -norld forgot,
that we do so aggravate the tempest of this?
Was it destroyed with waters of oblivion?
and has the deluge clean overwhelmed and
sunk itself? In those days there were giants .
in sin, as well as sinners of the first mag- j
nitude, and of the largest size and proportion.
And to take the world iu a lower epoeha,
what after-age could exceed the lust of the
Sodomites, the idolatry and tyranny of the
Egyptians, the fickle levity of the Grecians?
and that monstrous raixture of all baseness in
the Roman Neros, Caligulas, and Domitians,
emperors of the world, and slaves to their
vice ?
And for the very state of Israel, in which
this envious inquiry was first comraenced,
was that worse in Canaan, under the shadow
and protection of a native royalty, than under
the old servitude and tyranny of Egypt?
"Was their present condition so bad, that while
Solomon was courting Pharaoh's daughter,
they should again court his yoke ? woo their
old slavery, and solicit a match with their
former bondage ? Was it so delightful a con
dition to feed Pharaoh's cattie, and to want
straw themselves? instead of one prince, to
have many taskraasters? and to pay excise
with their backs to maintain the tyrant s
janizaries, and to feed their tormentors ? But
it seems, being in a land flowing with honey,
thev were cloved with that, and so, loathing
the'honey, they grew in love with the sting.
But to bring the subject to our own doors ;
if we would be convinced that former ages
are not alwavs better than the following, I
suppose we need not much rack our raeraories
for a proof from experience.
I conceive the state of the Christian church
also may come within the compass of our
present discoui-se. Take it in its infancy, and
with the properties of infancy ; it was weak
and naked, vexed with poverty, tom with

160

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Serm. XIV.

persecution, and infested with heresy. It
began the breach with Siraon Magus, con
tinued it with Arius, Nestorius, Eutyches,
Aerius, sorae rending her doctrine, some her
discipline ; and what are the heresies that
now trouble it, but new editions of the old
with farther gloss and enlargement ? What
is Socinus, but Photinus and Pelagius blended
and joined together in a third coraposition ?
What are our separatists and purity-pretend
ing schismatics, but the tarae brood and
successors of the Donatists ? only with this
difference, th.at they had their headquarters
in meridie, in the southern parts of the world,
whereas ours seera to be derived to us frora the
north. These, I thought, had put it out of
dispute, that no succeeding age of the church
could have been worse : and, I think, the
assertion might have stood firm, had not
some late instances of our own age made it
disputable. But as for those who clamour of the corrup
tions of our present church, and are so earnest
to reduce us to the primitive model ; if they
mean the primitive truth, and not rather the
primitive nakedness of it only, we know this,
for doctrine and discipline, it is the very tran
script of antiquity. But if their design be to
make us like the primitive Christians, by
driving us into caves, and holes, and rocks ;
to tear down teraples, and to raake the sanc
tuary itself fly for refuge ; to bring beasts into
churches, and to send churchmen into dens ;
at the same time to make men beggars, and
to take away hospitals ; it is but reason to
desire, that they would first begin and
exemplify this reformation in themselves ;
and, like the old Christians, with want and
poverty, wander about in sheepskins and
goatskins : though, if they should, that is not
presently a sheep that wears the skin, nor
would the sheep's clothing change the nature
of the wolf.
I conclude therefore, that all these porapous
declamations against the evil of the present
times, set off by odious comparisons with the
forraer, are the voice of error and envy, of the
worst of judges, malice and mistake : though
I cannot wonder if those assert affairs to be
out of order, whose interest and desire it is to
be once more a reforming.
Aud thus rauch for the first consideration
of the suppositions : as a thing false, and to be
denied. I shall now,
II. In the second place, rerait a little of
this, and take it in a lower respect ; as a case
disputable, whether the preceding or succeed
ing generations are to be preferred : and here
I shall dispute the matter on both sides.
1. And first for antiquity, and the former
ages, we may plead thus. Certainly every
thing is purest in the fountain, and most un
tainted in the original. The dregs are still
the most likely to settie in the bottom, and

to sink into the last ages. The world cannot
but be the worse for wearing ; and it raust
needs have contracted much dross, when at
the last it cannot be purged but by an
universal fire.
Things are most fresh and fragrant in their
beginning. The first-born is the most honour
able, and it is primogeniture that entitles to
the inheritance : it is not present possessions,
but an early pedigree, that gives nobility.
The older the world grows, the raore de
crepit it must be : for age bows the body, aud
so causes an obliquity : every course of time
leaves its mark behind it ; and every century
adds a wrinkle to the face of nature.
As for knowledge, the former age still
teaches the latter ; and which is likely to be
most knowing, he that teaches, or he that is
taught? The best and most compendious
way of attaining wisdom is the reading of
histories ; but liistory speaks not of the
present time, but of the former.
Besides, it was only the beginning of time
that saw men innocent. Sin, like other
things, receives growth by time, and improves
by continuance : and every succeeding age
has the bad example of one age raore than the
former. The same caudle that refreshes when
it is first light, smells and offends wheu it is
going out.
In tho alphabet of nature, it is only the
first letter that is flourished. In short, there
is as much difference between the present and
former tinies, as there is between a copy and
an original ; that indeed may be fair, but this
only is authentic. And be a copy never so
exact, yet still it shines with a borrowed per
fection, and has but the low praise of an
imitation : and this may be said in behalf of
the former times.
2. But secondly, for tho preerainence of the
succeeding ages above the former, it raay be
disputed thus.
If the honour be due to antiquity, then
certainly the present age must claira it ; for
the world is now oldest, and therefore upon
the very right of seniority itfay challenge the
precedency : for certainly the longer the world
lasts, the older it grows. And if wisdom
ought-Jto be respected, we know that it is the
offspring of experience, and experience the
child of age and continuance.
In every thing and action, it is not the
beginning, but the end that is regarded : it is
still the issue that crowns the work, and the
araen that seals the petition : the plaudite is
given to the last act : and Christ reserved the
best wine to conclude the feast : nay, a fair
beginning would be but the aggravation of a
bad eud.
And if we plead original, we know that sin
is strongest in its original ; and we are taught
whence to date that. The lightest things
float at the top of time ; but if there be such

ON ECCLESIASTES, vii. 10.

151

a thing as a golden ago, its mass aud weight
must needs sink it to the bottom and conclud
ing ages of the world.
By having the histories of former ages, we
have all their advantages by way of overplus,
besides the proper advantages of our own ;
and so standing upon their shoulders, or rather
upon their heads, cannot but have the farther
prospect. Though the flourish begins the line, yet it
is the period that makes the sense. As for
the infirmities of age, we confess that men
grow decrepit by time, but mankind does not.
Policy, arts, and manufactures iraprove ; and
nature itself, as well as others, cannot be an
artist, till it has served its time.
And, in religious matters, for the church,
we know that it is Christ's body, and there
fore its raost natural, coraraending property is
growth ; but growth is the effect of duration,
and if it had had its greatest perfection at
the first, growth would have been irapossible.
Besides, we confess that prophecy was a
thing appropriate to the first days of the
church ; but then it is not prophecy spoken,
but fulfilled ; not the promise made, but per
forraed, which conveys the blessing ; and
though the giving of prophecies were the
glory of the first tiraes, yet their corapletion
is the privilege of the latter.
But do we not see all this while, that by
thus ascribing the preeminence to former ages,
we tacitly reflect a reproach upon the great
Maker and Governor of the universe? For
can Omnipotence be at a stand ? Is God
exhausted ? And is nature the only thing
which makes no progress ? God has made all
things in motion, and the design of motion
is a farther perfection.
In sum, it was the fulness of time which
brought Christ into the world ; Christianity
was a reserve for the last ; and it was the
beginning of tirae which was infaraous for
man's fall and ruin ; so in Scripture they
are called " the last days," and the " ends of
the world," which are ennobled with his re
demption. But lastly, if the following ages were not
the best, whence is it, that the older men
grow, the more still they desire to live? —
Now such things as these raay be disputed in
favour of the latter tiraes beyond the forraer.
Having here brought the raatter to this
poise, to this equilibriura, that reflexive in
quiry in the text concerning the worth of
former times above the present, is eminently
unreasonable in these two respects :
1. In respect of the nature of the thing it
self ; which we have seen is equally propen-
dent to both parts, and not discemible which
way the balance inclines ; and nothing can
be more irrational, than to be dogmatical in
things doubtful ; and to determine, where
wise men only dispute.

2. In respect of tho incompetence of any
man living to be judge in this controversy ;
and he that is unfit to judge, I am sure is un
able to decide. Now that incompetence arises
from this ; that no man can judge rightly of
two things, but by coraparing theni together ;
and compare them he cannot, unless he ex
actly know them both. But how can he
know former ages, unless, according to the
opinion of Plato or Pythagoras, he might
exist and be alive so many centuries before
he was born ?
But you will reply, that he may know them
by the histories of those that writ of their own
times. To this I answer, that history raay be justly
suspected partial ; and that historians report
the virtues of their own age, selected and ab
stracted from the vices and defects ; and if
sometiraes they mention tho vices also, (as
they do,) yet they only report the smaller,
that they raay with less suspicion conceal the
greater. Now it is an unequal comparison to
compare the select virtues of one age, with
both the virtues and the vices of another.
History, stripped of partiality, would be a
poor, thill, meagre thing, and the volume
would shrink into the index. I conclude,
therefore, that he who would decide this con
troversy, whether the former or latter times
ought to have the pre-erainence, by the his
torians of those times, he properly does this :
he first calls a man into question, and then
makes him judge in his own cause, and at the
best sees only by another's eyes.
Come we now to the third and last ground :
3. That admitting this supposition as true,
that the forraer ages are really the best, and
to be preferred ; yet still this querulous re
flection upon the evil of the present times
stands obnoxious to the same charge of folly ;
and if it be condemned also upon this suppo
sition, I see not where it can take sanctuary ;
now that it ought to be so, I demonstrate by
these reasous :
1. Because such complaints have no efficacy
to alter or remove the cause of them . Thoughts
and words alter not the state of things. The
rage and expostulations of discontent are like
thunder without a thunderbolt, they vanish
and expire into noise and nothing ; and, like
a woraan, are only loud and weak.
States are not altered, nor governraents
changed, because such an one is discontented,
and tells us so in a sermon, or writes it in a
book, and so prints himself a fool. Sad, un
doubtedly, were our case, should God be angry
with a nation as often as a preacher is pleased
to be passionate, and to call his distemper the
word of God.
A quill is but a weak thing to contest with
a sceptre, and a satirical remonstrance to stand
before a sword of justice. The laws will not
be worded out of their course. Tho wheel

152

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Serm. XIV.

will go on, though the fly sits and flutters and
buzzes upon it.
It would be well if such persons would take
Luther's advice to Melancthon, and be per
suaded to leave off to govern the world, and
not to frarae new politic ideas ; not to raise
models of state, and holy coramonwealths, in
their little discontented closets ; nor to arraign
a council before a conventicle ; and being
stripped of their arras, to fly to revelation ;
and when they cannot eft'ect, at least prophesy
a change. Though there be a lion, a bull, a venomous
serpent, and a fiery scorpion in the zodiac ;
yet still the sun holds on his way, goes through
them all, brings the year about, finishes his
course, shines, and is glorious in spite of such
opposition. 'The maunderings of discontent
are like the voice and behaviour of a swine,
who, when he feels it rain, runs grumbling
about, and by that indeed discovers his nature,
but does not avoid the storm.
2. Such complaints of the evil of the tiraes
are irrational, because they only quicken the
sraart, and add to the pressure. Such queru
lous invectives against a standing governraent,
are like a stone flung at a marble pillar, which
not only makes no impression upon that, but
rebounds, and hits the flinger in the face.
Discontent burns only that breast in which
it boils ; and when it is not contented to be
hot within, but must boil over in unruly, un
warrantable expressions, to avoid the heat, it
wisely takes refuge in the fire ; hence, when
the sea swells and rages, we say not impro
perly, that the sea itself is troubled.
Submission is that which either removes or
lightens the burden. Giving way either avoids
or eludes the blow ; and where an enemy or
au affliction is too strong, patience is the best
defiance. And herein does the admirable wisdom of
God appear, in modelling the great economy
of the world, so uniting public and private
advantages, that those aftections ancl disposi
tions of mind, that are most conducible to the
safety of government and society, are also
most advantageous to every man in his own
personal capacity ; for does not an humble,
compliant subjection at the same time streng
then the hands of the magistrate, and bless
the person that has it with the privileges of
quiet and content? He who has content has
that for which others would be great ; he both
secures and enjoys himself; but, on the con
trary, he that frets, and fumes, and is angry,
he raises tumults abroad, and feels the sarae
within ; as he that cries, and roars, and raakes
a noise, first hinders his own sleep, before he
breaks the rest of others ; and it is not un
usual to see a fire soraetiraes stifled and ex
tinguished in its own smoke.
In short, discontent is as laborious as use
less ; and he who will rebel must reckon upon

the cost and conduct of an army ; and endure
the trouble of watching, as well as use the
dissimulation oi praying.
3. Thirdly and lastly, these censorious com
plaints of the evil of the tiraes are irrational,
because the just cause of thera is resolvable
into ourselves. It is not the times that de
bauch men, but men that derive and rub
a contagion upon the time : and it is still the
liquor that first taints and infects the vessel.
Tirae is harmless ; it passes on, and meddles
with none ; the sun rises, the year proceeds,
and the seasons return, according to the de
crees of nature, and the inviolate constancy of
a perpetual course. And is it uot irrational
for a raan to cast the errors of his choice npon
the necessity of fate ? or to complain that men
speak low, because his hearing is decayed?
and to utter satires and declamations against
those tiraes which his own vice has raade bad ?
and, like Amnon, defile his sister, and then
loathe her for the wrong he did her ?
Thus we use to say, it is the room that
sraokes, when indeed it is the fire which is in
the roora ; and it is still the fault of the com
mon banter or way of speaking, to disjoin the
accusation and the crime, and to charge a land
with the vices of its inhabitants.
But I should think, that it might not be so
difficult a thing to find out a way both to
remedy the complaint, and to remove the
cause of it. For let but the prodigal confine
himself, and measure his expenses by his own
abilities, and not by another's books; let him
trust himself raore, and others less ; let minis
ters cease to call faction religion, to lift up
their voice too rauch like a trumpet, and iu
petitions for peace declare for war ; aud let
uot others think themselves wronged, if they
be not revenged ; let no man be forced to buy
what ho has already earned ; to pay for his
wages, and to lay clown new sums for the
price of his blood, and the just merit of his
service ; and then, certainly, there will be no
cause to prefer former ages before tho present.
But if men will extravagantly plunge them
selves in debt, and then rail and cry out of
bad times, because they are arrested ; if the
gallant will put all upon his back, and then
exclaim against the government because he
has nothing for his belly ; if men will think
themselves bound to preach the nation all on
fire, and being stopped in their attempt, cry
out of persecution ; if the public peace must
be sacrificed to private revenge, certainly the
complaiut is impudent and brutish, and de
serves to be sent to the law for an answer, and
to the gaol for satisfaction.
But it is a sure, though no new observation,
that the most obnoxious are still the most
querulous ; that discontent, and the cause of
it, are generally from the same person ; and
that, when once the remorses of guilt and
villainy improve into discontent, it is not less

ON ECCLESIASTES, vii. 10.

153

difficult to make such persons contented, than
to make thera innocent.
Rigour .and conterapt are the best correctors
of this distemper. And he who thinks that
such pereons may be pacified, may as well
atterapt to satisfy the bottorale.ss pit, the
cravings of hell, or the appetites of the grave,
.which may sooner be filled (as impossible as
that is) than be satisfied.
For where interests are contradictory, (as
in all societies or companies of men some
must needs be,) there an universal satisfaction
is just in the sarae raeasure possible, in which
contradictions are reconcileable. And doubt
less there have been those, who have heartily
cursed that rain or sunshine, for which others
have as heartily prayed.
Even our blessed Saviour himself, we read,
in Heb. xii. 3, " endured the contradiction of
sinners :" and (be it spoke with reverence) it
would put Providence itself to a kind of non
plus, to attemper any dispensation of it to
an universal acceptance ; any more than that
glorious fountain of light, the sun, can shine
upon all the corners of the earth at once.
Wherefore since the distemper we speak of is
incorrigible, and the remedy deplorable ; let
uot bare power attempt to outdo Omnipo
tence, nor the " gods of the earth," as they
are called, think to do that which the " God
of heaven" has never yet thought fit to effect.
To whom be rendered and ascribed, as is
most due, all praise, might, majesty, and
dorainion, both now and for everraore.
Amen.

SERMON XV.

A FUNERAL DISCOURSE.
** Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the
way with him : lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to
the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou
be cast into prison.
"Verily I say unto thee, Thou shalt by no means come out
thence tiU tliou hast paid the uttermost farthing. "
Matt. v. 25, 20.
In these words Christ endeavours to enforce
that high and noble duty of an araicable con
cord and agreeraent betwixt brethren ; the
greatest bond of society, and the raost becora
ing omaraent of religion : and since it is to
be supposed that raen's frailty and passion
will sometiraes carry them out to a violation
and breach of it, and, if not prevented, settle
iu a fixed and lasting rancour ; he prescribes
the antidote of a speedy reconcilement, as the
only sovereign and certain reraedy against the
poisonous ferraent of so worlting a disteraper.
If an injury be once done, Christ will have

the repentance alraost as early as the provoca
tion ; the rupture drawn up as soon as raade ;
the angry word eaten as soon as uttered, and
in a manner disowned before it is quite spoke ;
that so men's weakness in the one may in
some measure answer and compound for their
hastiness in the other.
And since those are always the strongest
and most effectual addresses to the raind of
man, that press a duty not only by the pro
posal of rewards to such as perform, but also
of punishraents to such as neglect it, Christ
therefore shews us the necessity of iraraedi
ately making peace with our injured brother,
from the unavoidable raisery of those obsti
nate wretches that persist in and (as much
as in them lies) perpetuate an injury ; and
being raortal themselves, yet affect a kind of
immortality in their rautual hatreds and
aniraosities. As for the words, some understand them
in a literal, aud some in a figurative sense.
Those who take them literally affirm, that
Christ intended no parable in them at all,
but by " adversary " raeant any man whom
we had injured, any one that has an action
against us ; and by " way," a way, properly
so taken ; and by a " judge, officer, and
prison," an earthly judge, officer, and prison.
And thus Chrysostom understands them, ac
cording to the strict acceptation of the letter,
affirming that Christ's whole scope and intent
was to terrify men from being injurious to
their brethren, by shewing what severe, in
exorable usage would attend such as should
offend in this kind.
Others will have the whole scheme of the
text figurative, and to be understood only in
a spiritual sense : according to which opinion,
it will be requisite to give some short account
of the several terms contained therein, and to
shew briefly and distinctly what may spiri
tually be raeant by each of them.
1. And first for the word " adversary.'^ Not
to traverse the various and differing opinions
of comraentators ; if the form of the words
should be only tropical and figurative, I con
ceive it most rational to understand here by
" adversary" either the divine law, or a man's
own conscience as commissionated by that law
to accuse, charge, and arraign him before the
great aud dreadful tribunal of God. For to
make either God himself the adversary, who
in this case must of necessity be supposed to
be the judge ; or Satan the adversary, who
upon the same account must needs be the
officer or executioner ; or lastly, to make a
raan's own sin the adversary, which, howso
ever it raay cry out for justice against him,
yet can with no tolerable sense be said to be
that which he is here commanded to agree
with ; these, I say, all and every one of them,
are such unnatural assertions, and the grounds
of them so weak, aud the consequences of them

154

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Serm. XV.

so absurd, that any ordinary reason may soon
discern the falseness and unfitness of such an
exposition of the word, which, how tropical
soever the scherae of the text may be, still
ought to maintain that due analogy and rela
tion, that the things signified by those words
naturally bear to one another.
2. By " the way" is meant the time of this
life ; or rather the present opportunities of
repentance, which last not always as long as
life lasts. These are the happy seasons of
making up all differences with a threatening
law and an accusing conscience ; the great
pathway of peace, in which we may meet and
join hands with our angry adversary, and so
close up all those fatal breaches through which
the wrath of an ireful judge may hereafter
break iu upon us.
3. By "judge" is meant, as we have inti
mated already, the great God of heaven, who
at the last and great day shall judge the world.
We may behold him, in the SOth Psalm, as
it were advanced upon his throne of justice,
and from thenoe summoning all flesh before
him to receive sentence according to the merit
of their ways ; aud it is emphatically added,
in the sixth verse of that Psalm, " for God is
judge himself."
4. By " officer,'' as we also hinted before, is
to be meant the Devil, the great gaoler of
souls, the cruel and remorseless executioner
of that last and terrible sentence, which the
righteous Judge of heaven and earth shall
award to all impenitent sinners.
6. By " prison," no doubt, is meant hell,
that vast, wide, comprehensive receptacle of
damned spirits, from whence there is no re
demption or return. As for that larger sig
nification that some would fasten upon the
word here, there is no solid ground for it,
either in the context or the reason of the
thing itself. Hell is a prison large enough
already, and we need not enlarge it by our
expositions. 6. Aud lastly, by " paying the uttermost
farthing," must be signified the guilty person's
being dealt with according to tbe utmost
rigour and extremity of justice. For when
the sinner is once lodged in that sad place,
his punishment can have neither remission
nor extenuation : but there must be an exact
commensuration between the guilt and the
penalty ; which raust be adjusted according to
the strictest measures of the law. For mercy
has no more to do, when justice is once com
manded to do its office.
All these things are very easy and obvious,
and I cannot but think it needless to insist
any longer upon them.
And thus 1 have given you both the literal
and the figurative sense of the words ; and if
it be now asked, which of them is to take
place, I answer, that the words are paraboli
cal, and include them both. For the better

understanding of which, we are to observe
these two things concerning p,arables.
First, that every parable is raade up of two
parts :
1. The material, literal part, which is con
tained in those bare words and expressions in
which it is set down.
2. The formal, spiritual part, or application
of the parable ; which consists of those things
that are farther signified to us under those
literal expressions.
The other thing to be observed is, that this
spiritual part, or application of the parable, is
sometimes expressed and positively set down
in terminis; as in Matth. xiii. wliere Christ
speaks of the seed and of the ground. He
afterwards explains himself, and s.ays, that
by " the seed" is meant " the word," and by
" the ground, the hearers." And sometimes
again this spiritual part is not expressed, but
only implied or understood, as in Matt, xxv,
where Christ sets down the parable of the
wise and foolish virgins, yet does not iu ex
press words set down the spiritual meaning
and design of it, but leaves us to comment
upon that in our own meditations. And so
he does here ; we have the literal part or out
side of the parable expressed, but the spiritual
sense of it understood.
Now those two rules thus premised, wo are
to observe farther, that in the application of
the parable, and bringing the two parts of it
together, the literal and the spiritual, we are
not to search after a nice and exact agreement
between them in every particular ; but to
attend only to their correspondence in the
design, drift, and purpose of the parable.
Which design, doubtless, in these words, is no
other than to set forth the severity of God's
proceedings against all impenitent, unrecon
ciled sinners, by shewing that strict and unre
lenting severity that a man not reconciled to
his adversary raeets with even before the tri
bunals of men; so tbat we are not now
anxiously to strain the parable, and to fit
every member of the literal expression to the
spiritual meaning ; as that, because in judicial
processes amongst men there is an adversary, i
a judge, and an officer, and all these three dis- 1
tinct persons, there must therefore be such an i
economy in the tribunal of heaven. No ; all j
these things belong only to the material part, i
the dress and ornament of the para.ble ; but j
the sense and purpose that Christ drives at, is i
that only which we are here to insist upon.
As if Christ should say, |
You know that in matters between man
and man, when one has trespassed against
another, if the party offending, while he has
opportunity to make his peace with tbe party
offended, shall neglect it, so that the matter
coraes at length to be brought before the
judge, he is then to look for nothing but the
most rigorous penalty of the law without mi-

ON MATTHEW, v. 2-5, 28.

105

tigation. Just so it is between God and man :
if any one sins against God, whether by
offending his brother, or by any other kind
of sin whatsoever, if he does not speedily and
prudently lay hold on the opportunity of re
conciling himself to God in this life, when
God shall enter into judgment with him in
the next, there wiU then be no mercy for
him, but, according to the exact tenor of a
righteous, indispensable law, he must abide
the woful, irreversible sentence of eternal
death. This is a compendious paraphrase
upou the text, setting fortli the full meaning
of our Saviour in it. So that from what has
been laid down, I shall now present you with
the senae of the words, under these three con
clusions : —
1, That the tirae of this life is the only time
for a sinner to make his peace with, and to
reconcile himself to God.
2. That the consideration, that the time of
this life is the only tirae for a sinner to recon
cile himself to God in, ought to be a prevail
ing, unanswerable argument to engage and
quicken his repentance.
3. That if a sinner lets pass this season of
making his peace with God, he irrecoverably
falls into an estate of utter perdition.
I shall single out the second for the sub
ject of the present discourse, aud take in the
rest under the arguments by which I shall
prove it.
The proposition therefore to be handled, is
this : — That the consideration, &c. Now this
shall be made appear these three ways : —
I. By comparing the shortness of life with
the difficulty of this work.
II. By comparing the uncertainty of life
with the necessity of it. And,
III. and lastly. By considering the sad and
fatal doora that will infallibly attend the
neglect of it.
I. And for the first of these. Let us com
pare the shortness of life with the greatness
and difficulty of the work here set before us.
What is a raan's whole life, but the incon
siderable measure of a span ? and yet the vast
business of eternity is crowded into this poor
compass. It is a transitory puff of wind ;
while it breathes, it expires. The years of our
life are but too fitly styled in holy writ " the
days of our life." Man takes his breath but
short, and that is an argument that it is always
departing. " Our days (says the royal pro
phet) are but as a shadow." Every day added
to our lives sets us so much nearer to death ;
as the longer the shadow grows, the day is so
much the nearer spent. " Few and evil have
the days of my life been," says Jacob in
Genesis, xlvii. 9. The number of our cala
mities far exceeds the number of our dajrs.
"It is a pilgrimage," (as it is expressed in
the same verse ;) it is a going through the
worid, not a dwelling in it. "We do not use

to make any long stay in the joumey, nor to
take up our habitation at an inn. As Lot
said of Zoar, the city of life, so we may say
ofthe time and space of life, " Isit not a little
one ?" How is it passing away continually !
how is it stealing from us, while we are eat
ing, sleeping, talking! how is it shortened
even while we are coraplaining of its short
ness ! There is nothing that we can either
think, speak, or do, but it takes up some tirae.
We cannot purchase so much as a thought or
a word, without the expense of some of our
precious moments. God has shut us up
within the boundaries of a contracted age, so
that we caimot attempt, much less achieve,
any thing great or considerable. Our time is
too scant and narrow for our designs. Our
thoughts perish before they can ripen into
action ; the space of life being like the bed
mentioned in Isaiah, xxviii. 20, " it is shorter
than a man can well stretch hiraself upon it."
For how do we hear the saints coraplaining
of this in Scripture ! Soraetiraes it is termed
"a vapour," (James, iv. 14,) a thing that
appears. and disappears almost in the same
instant. Sometimes it is likened to " a tale
that is told," (Psalm xc. 9.) a frivolous thing,
and after a few words speaking, quickly at
an end. Aud sometimes, again, it is re
sembled to " a watch in the night." We are
presently called off our station, and another
generation coraes in our roora. This is the
best that can be said of life ; and what shall
we do to make it otherwise ! Stretch or
draw it out we cannot beyond the fatal line ;
it is not in our power to add oue cubit to the
raeasure of our days. We cannot slacken
the pace of one of our posting minutes. But
tirae will have its uncontrolled course and
career, bringing age and death along with it,
and, like the Parthian, shooting its killing
arrows, while it flies frora us. This is our
condition here, this the lot of nature and
mortality. And now, if upon this transient survey of
the shortness of life we could find that our
business were as sraall as our age is short,
it would be sorae relief to us however. But
on the contrary, the work of our lives is long,
difficult, tedious, and comprehensive, such as
could easily exhaust aud take up the utmost
period of the raost extended age, and still cry
out for raore. And if so, then certainly, to
have a large task enjoined, and but a poor
pittance of time to discharge it in, to have a
large tale of brick required, and a sraall allow
ance of straw to prepare it with, cannot but be
a great and heart-discouraging disadvantage.
Yet this is our case; our sin has cut short our
tirae, and enlarged our work : as it is with a
man going up a hill, and falling backwards ;
his journey is thereby made longer, aiid his
strength weaker. Seneca, speaking of the
shortness of life, says, that we did not first

156

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Serm. XV.

receive it short, but have made it so. But by
his favour, nature gave it but short ; and we,
by ill husbanding it, have made it much
sliorter; spending vainly and lavishly upon
a small stock, so many of our precious hours
being cast away upon idle discourse, interape
rate sleep, unnecessary recreations, if not also
heinous sins ; all which have set us backward
in the accounts of eternity, and are now to be
reckoned araongst " the things that are not :"
while in the mean time, the business incum
bent on us, is to recover our lost souls, to
return and reconcile ourselves to a provoked
God, to get our natures renewed, and rein-
formed with a holy and divine principle ;
and in a word, to regain our title to heaven.
All these are great, high and amazing works,
beyond our strength, nay our very apprehen
sions, if an overpowering grace from heaven
does not assist and carry us above ourselves.
It is a miracle to consider, that such a pitiful
thing as this life is, even upon the longest
extent and the best iraproveraent of it, should
afford time enough to corapass so vast a busi
ness, as the working out of a raan's salvation.
Now the difficulty of this business will ap
pear frora these considerations :
1st, Because in this business thou art to
clear thyself of an injury done to an infinite,
offended justice, to appease an infinite wrath,
and an infinite, provoked majesty. And this
must needs be no small or ordinary work ; for
who can stand before them ! Wherefore it is
the highest prudence to eng.age in it betimes,
and to take up injuries between God and thy
soul asspeedily as maybe. For if God should
go to law witli thee, or thou with hira, thou
wert undone for ever. He who goes to law
with this king, is like to have but bad success.
"No flesh living," (says the Psalmist) "shall
in thy sight be justified." Certainly the con
sideration of thy debts should take up thy
thoughts, even by night as well as day, hold
thy eyes waking, and make thee take every
step with terror, lest divine justice should
arrest thee of a sudden. For, 0 man ! who
soever thou art, according as the party is
whom thou h.ast offended, the difficulty of the
reconcilement will be proportionable. If thou
hast offended a "friend," the Spirit of God
says, " that it is easier to win a castle, than
to regain such an one." If thou hast offended
thy sovereign, "the anger of a king is as the
roaring of a lion." Now thy business is to
make thy peace, both with an offended friend,
and with an affronted sovereign. Thy debts
are raany thousand talents ; and as for thee
to pay them is impossible, so to get a surety
for so much will be very difficult. When a
creditor is urgent for his money, or for thy
body, there is no deraur, no delay then to be
made. God has a writ out against thee, and
is ready to arrest thee either for the debt, or
for thy soul. And it will cost thee raany

prayers, many a hard fight and combat with
thy sin, many mortifying duties and bitter
pangs of repentance, before Christ will come
in aud pay the debt, and set thee free : and
when this is done, how difficult will it be to
get the Spirit to set his seal to thy pardon,
and to keep the evidences of it for thee clear
and entire. For without thy justification
thou canst have no security, and without thy
evidences thou canst have no comfort. It re
quires the most strict and accurate walking
before God that can be, with a frequent and
thorough exaraination of all thy experiences;
and yet perhaps, when all this is done, thou
mayest fall short of it at last. For sometimes
one great sin, one dangerous false step in tbe
ways of God, may so blot thy evidences, that
thou shalt even think the love of God is gone
from thee ; that he h.as " shut up his tender
bowels in anger," and that " he has forgotten
to be gracious ;" so that thouraayest go mourn
ing all thy days, and die doubtful whether
thou hast raade a thorough peace with God or
no. And is not the overcoraing of this diffi
culty worth the spending of thy best time and
thy choicest endeavours? Can it be done in
a moment? Is it, think you, the easy perfor
raance of a few hours ? No ; God has rated
these acquireraents at the price of our greatest,
severest, and longest labours. And to shew
yet farther, how difficult it is to make thy
peace with the great God, consider how hard
it is to make thy peace with thy own con
science. And shall a bare witness (for con
science is no raore) prosecute the suit so hard
against thee, and shall not the adversary him
self be much more violent and hard to be
taken off? When thy own heart shall so
bitterly charge thee with thy guilt, and the
black roll of thy raost provoking sins shall be
read against thee by an angry conscience, will
a sraall matter, think you, give it satisfaction?
Will a few broken sighs, and tears, and
mournful words, make it corapound the mat
ter with thee, and let the suit fall ? No cer
tainly, the time of thy whole life, upon the
best and strictest improvement of it, is but
little enough to clear up and settle all differ
ences between thee and thy conscience ; and
how much less then can ithe to pacify, aud
make all even with thy offended God I
2dly, The other cause of the difficulty of
making thy peace with God appears from
this, that thou art utteriy unable of thyself to
give him any thing by way of just compensa
tion or satisfaction. We have a large instance
of soraething offered that way in Micah, vi.
7, " Will the Lord be pleased with thousands
of rains, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil (
shall I give my first-bom for my transgression,
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?'
Alas ! all this is but an impossible supposi
tion ; but yet shews, that all and the very
utmost that the creature does, or can do, or

ON MATTHEW, v. 25, 26.

157

give, is but debt and duty, and that surely is
not meritorious.
Can a man pay his old debts by discharging
his present ? Can the creature oblige God by
any good duty, when it is God himself that
enables hira to perform that duty ? It may
be said, that Christ has engaged to make the
soul's peace, to clear off his debts to God.
True : but then the soul engages in a new
debt of faith and obedience to Christ. And
here all the stress of the business lies, how the
soul will be able to pay off this, and to secure
itself a well-grounded interest and confidence
in Christ ; to take him in respect of all his
offices ; not only to be saved, but also to be
ruled by hira ; not only as a priest, but also
as a king. This will drink up and engross all
that the soul can do and endeavour : all the
strength and tirae allotted in this world is
little enough to do such works as may prove
the sincerity of its faith. For whatsoever re
lation faith may have to works, whether as to
a part, or to a consequent to it ; it is certainly
such a thing as indispensably obliges the
whole of a man's following life to a strict,
constant, and universal obedience to the laws
of Christ. But that which ought chiefly to
quicken the soul to a sudden iraproveraent of
the perishing tirae of this life, in raaking its
peace with God, is this, that as Christ will
not undertake for it without faith and repen
tance, so the offer of these does not last al
ways. The consideration of this raade the
apostle quicken the Hebrews to present duty :
" To-day if you will hear his voice," (Heb.
iii. 16.) There may be those offers of mercy
made to thee to-day, that thou mayest not
enjoy again for ever. The things of thy peace
may be freely held forth to thee now, which
for the future may be set out of thy reach.
Consider, therefore, upon what terms thou
standest with God, and lose no time : the
work is difficult, and the delay dangerous, and
the tirae short. The Spirit, that to-day stands
at thy door and knocks, may be gone before
to-morrow ; and when it is once sent away,
no man can assure hiraself that it will ever
return. And thus much concerning the first argu
ment to prove the doctrine, drawn from our
comparing the shortness of life with the great
ness and difficulty of the work.
II. The second argument is taken from our
comparing the uncertainty of life with the
necessity of the work. Life, as it is short, so
it is dubious ; like a problematical question,
concise, but doubtful. None can promise be
yond the present. Who can secure to hira
self the enjoyraent of a year, nay, of one day,
one hour ? " Thou fool, this night shall thy
soul be taken frora thee," (Luke, xii. 20.) A
mau is in this contracted life as in a narrow
sea, ever and anon ready to be cast away.
Strength and health of body can make thee

no absolute proraise of life, although the surest
grounds we can build upon. For raay we
not take up the coraplaint of David, and
mourn over the immature death of the strong :
" How are the mighty fallen, and the weapons
of war perished !" How are the strong and
healthful become a prey to an untimely
death I Count not, therefore, how many hours
thou hast to live in the world ; look not upon
thy hour-glass : do not build upon the sand.
Death may snatch thee away of a sudden. As
it is always terrible, so it is often unexpected.
Thou flourishest at present like a flower, but
the wind bloweth where and when it listeth.
" It passeth over it, and it is gone ; and the
place thereof shall know it no more," (Psalm
ciii. 16.)
Now this being considered and duly
pondered in one scale of the balance, and the
necessity of making our peace in the other,
how should it incite us to a serious, present
endeavour for the accomplishment of tbis
work ! " Can two walk together, unless they
be agreed?" says the prophet, (Amos, iii. 3.)
Canst thou walk quietly with God, while he
is thy adversary ? Will not the consideration
of this, that thou art going to the judge, and
the way is short, and thy adversary ready to
give in an accusation against thee, whet thy
importunity to make an agreeraent with
hira ? Thy endeavours are not serious and
rational, unless they are present and im
mediate. That endeavour is only rational,
which is according to the exigency of the
thing. Now the business of thy soul is the
matter thou art to engage in, and thou art
only sure of the present time to raanage it in.
Unless this be laid hold of, thou dost really
trifle in the business of eternity, and dost
only embrace a pretence, instead of a serious
intention. Things that are earnestly desired,
and withal not to be delayed, are effected with
an immediate expedition. If I am uncertain
when my enemy will invade me, I will
imagine that he will do it suddenly, and
therefore ray preparations shall be sudden.
In things that concern our temporal in
terest, we are so wise as to make present
provision, and not to suspend all upon con
tingent futurities. He that is sick to-day,
will not defer sending for a physician till to
morrow. He that waits for the fall of some
preferment puts hiraselfin a present prepared
ness. But, alas! upon all these thiugs the
most we can write, it is convenience, not
necessity. There is one thing, and but one
that is necessary. It is not necessary that
thou shouldest be healthful, nor that thou
shouldest be honourable : but it is necessary
for thee to be saved; to be at peace with
God ; to have the hand-writing that is against
thee, by reason of the law, blotted out ; to be
friends with an almighty adversary. It was
the note of a merry epicure, but may be

158

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Serm. XV.

refined into a voice becoming a Christian, Td
diptipoa fiihu fioi, TO S' aiplou tis oUe ; I will
take care for to-day, who knows to-morrow?
Let the Christian lay hold of the present
occasion ; and if he would live for ever, let
him look upon himself as living but to-day :
let this be secured, and whatsoever coraes
afterwards, let him reckon it as an overplus,
and an unexpected gain. If to-day it be thy
business to gain a peace, all the rest of thy
days it is thy only business to enjoy it.
Reason is irapatient of delay in things neces
sary, and Christianity elevates reason, and
makes it more impatient. Are we not bid
" to watch, to be ready, to have our loins girt
and our lamps prepared ?" Now the persua
sive force of this is grounded upon the uncer
tainty of Christ's coming : although his com
ing be but once, yet if it is uncertain, the
expectation of it must be continual. As
indefinite commands do universally engage, so
indefinite, uncertain d.angers are the just
arguraent of perpetual caution. Oh that men
would be but wise, aud consider, and lay aside
their sins, and stand upon their guard!
Wouldest thou be willing that a sudden
judgnient should stop thy breath while thou
art a-swearing or a-lying? Wouldest thou
have God break in upon thee, while thou art
in the loathsorae embraces of a filthy whore ?
Wouldest thou have death corae and arrest
thee in the narae of God, while thou art in
thy cups and in thy drunkenness? Now
since these sudden soul-disasters may fall out,
" what manner of persons ought we to bo in
all holy conversation and godliness? Who
knows but within a few days a noisome dis
ease may stop thy breath ? It did so to Herod.
Or perhaps an unfortunate stab send thee
packing? It did so to Abner. Or perhaps a
stone from the house dash out thy brains, and
prove both thy death and thy sepulchre ? It
did so to Abimelech. These small, incon
siderable things, commissioned by a Deity,
are able to snap asunder the rotten thread of
a weak life, and waft thee into eternity. And
if thou hast not prepared a way beforehand,
by concluding a solid peace with God, thou
wilt find but sad welcome in the other world.
Thou art indeed taken from the prison of thy
body ; but it is because thou art led to thy
eternal execution.
And thus much concemiug the second
argument drawn from the uncertainty of life,
compared with the necessity of the work.
III. The third argument to prove that the
consideration, that the time of life is the only
time of making peace with God, ought to
quicken us to a speedy repentance, may be
taken from considering the dismal doom that
does attend those who go out of the world
before their peace is made.
Now the misery and terror of this doom
consists in two things :

1. That it is inevitable, it cannot be
avoided. 2. That it is irreversible, it cannot be
revoked. And this takes in the substance of
the third doctrine, namely. That if a soul let
pass this season of making its peace with God,
it immediately falls into a state of irrecover
able perdition.
1. This doom is inevitable, it cannot be
avoided. When we have to do with a strong
enemy, if we cannot fly from him, we must
of necessity fall by him . If we cannot outrun
vengeance, we must endure it. The poor soul
is now fallen into an ocean of endless misery,
and if it cannot swim, or bear up itself, must
sink. The place of torment is before thee,
and an infinite power behind thee, to drive
thee into it ; therefore in thou must, there is
no remedy ; no ways to escape, unless thou
canst either outwit God or overpower him.
All possibility of escaping an evil must be
either by hiding one's self from it, and so
keeping ourselves from that ; or by repulsing
it, and so keeping that from us. But either
of these are impossible for thee to do, when
thou art environed on this side by an omni
science, on the other by an oranipotence.
We read of those that shall " cry unto the
mountains to fall upon them, and to the rocks
to cover them from the face of the Lamb, and
of hira that sitteth upon the throne," (Revel.
vi. 16.) But, alas ! what poor asylums are
these, when God, by his all-seeing eye, can
look through the mountains, and by his hand
can remove them ! A condemned malefactor
raay break the prison, and fly and escape the
punishraent. But canst thou break the gates
of hell ? Canst thou, like a stronger Samson,
carry away the door of tbe infernal pit ? Oh !
who can be strong in the day that the Lord
shall thus deal with him ! Adrait thou couldst
unfetter thyself, and break thy prison, yet
thou wert not able to run from God : God has
his arrows of vengeance, and canst thou out-
fly an arrow ? To speak after the manner of
men, thou hast a severe judge, and a watchful
gaoler. As " he that keeps Israel," so be that
imprisons thee, " does neither slumber nor
sleep." He has an eagle's eye to observe, and ;
an eagle's wing to overtake thee ; there is no
way to avoid him. If thou canst find the
way out of the midst of utter darkness, break
asunder the everlasting chains, break throngh
the Devil and his angels, and those armies of
eternal woes, then mayst thou wring thyself
out of God's hands.
2. This doom is irreversible, it cannot be
revoked. It is proper to any word, when ;
once spoken, to flyaway beyond all possibility
of a recall ; but much more to every decre
tory word of God, which the deliberate reso
lutions of an infinitely wise judge have made
unchangeable. The word is gone out of God's
mouth in righteousness ; it shall not retum :

ON MATTHEW, v. 25, 26.

159

God's conderaning sentence admits of no re
peal. " The Strength of Israel is not a man,
or the son of man, that he should repent,"
(1 Sam. XV. 29.) The outcries of a miserable,
perishing man may often prevail with a man
like hiraself, who Is ofthe same mould, the
same affections, so far as to cause an act of
passion and comraiseration to revoke an act of
justice. But, alas ! all the cravings and the
wailings of a justly conderaned sinner shall
be answered of God with, " I know you not."
All such lamentations cannot at all move a
resolved Deity ; they are like a vanishing voice
echoing back from a marble pillar, without
making the least impression. " As the tree
falls, so it lies."
If the sinner falls into destruction, there he
mnst lie for ever without recovery. " I sink,"
says David, " in the mire, where there is no
standing," (Psal. Ixix. 2.) What he says of
his affliction, a lost soul may say of its per
dition ; that it sinks deeper and deeper, it
cannot so much as arrive to a stand, much
less to a return. A man, while he is yet
falling frora sorae high place, is not able to
stop or to recover hiraself, much less can he
be able, when he is actually fallen. Even
the heathen poet, from those imperfect notions
that the heathens had of the future misery of
lost sinners, could acknowledge the descent to
hell easy, but the return impossible : " Facilis
descensus Averni : sed revocare gradum," &c.
It is a rule in philosophy, that frora a total
privation to the habit, there can be no regress.
So after a total loss of God's love and presence,
there is no possibility of re-obtaining it. For
put the case that it were possible, yet who
should solicit and seek out thy pardon, and
get thy sentence reversed ? It raust be either
God, or angels, or raen. First, it cannot be
God the Father ; for he is thy angry judge,
and therefore cannot be thy advocate. Nor
God the Son, for him thou hast crucified afresh,
and his offers of redemption are only upon tiie
sceue of this life. " He prays not for the
world," (John, xvii. 9,) that is, for the wicked
¦world ; then much less for the condemned
world. The Spirit will not intercede for thee ;
for him thou hast often grieved, and frustrated
j»all the methods of his workings. Now good
angels cannot present a petition for thee ; for
it is as much "their work and business to
glorify God in the destruction of the wicked,
as in the salvation of the righteous. The
devils are the instruments of thy misery, and
thy tormentors will never prove thy interces
sors. As for men, those that are saved are
the approvers, and those that are conderaned
are the corapan ions of thy misery ; but neither
cau be thy helpers. Perpetual therefore
must thy perdition needs be, when both the
Creator and all his creatures are concerned
either to advance, or at least to rejoice over
thy destruction. Oh let every sinner, that is

yet on this side the pit, carry this in his more
serious thoughts, (Psalm xlix. 8,) " The re
demption of the soul is precious, and it ceaseth
for ever." The loss of time, and the loss of a
soul, is irrecoverable.
All the application I shall raake shall be to
urge over the sarae duty enjoined in the text
upon the score of another arguraent, .and that
also couched in the words, " Agree with thine
adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the
way ;" yea, for this very reason, because thou
art in the way. " As long as there is life,
there is hope," we say ; and so, as long as
there is the enjoyment of a temporal life,
there may be just hope of an eternal. These
days of thy respite, they are golden days ;
every hour presents thee with salvation ;
every day lays heaven and happiness at thy
door. 'Wherefore go forth, and meet thy
adversary ; do not fly off and say, " There is
a lion in the way ;" that he is austere, and
hard to be appeased. No, he does not come
clothed with thunder and terror, but with all
the sweetness and inviting tenderness that
mercy itself can put on. Thou hast a friendly
enemy, one whose bowels yearn over thee ;
for although, of all others, he is, if unrecon
ciled, the most terrible, so to be reconciled he
is the raost willing. "While with one hand he
shakes his rod at thee for departing from him,
with the other he graciously beckons to thee
to return. And if thou canst so far relent as
to endeavour it, believe it, he is ready to meet
thee half way ; he did so to the prodigal.
Oh, consider then, this thy inestimable
advantage, that thou art yet in the way, yet
in a possibility, nay in a probability of recon
cilement. Thou art not put to sue for terms
of peace, but only to accept of those that are
freely offered and prepared to thy hand. Close
in with such a potent adversary : it is thy
wisdora, thy eternal interest, thy life ; thou
mayest so carry the business, as to turn thy
eneray into thy Saviour. Wherefore take
that excellent advice of the Spirit, with which
I shall conclude, (Psalra ii. 12,) " Kiss the
Son, lest he be angry, and so ye perish from
the way."

SERMON XVI.

' But all their works they do for to be seen of men."
Matt, xxiii. 5.

It is strange to consider the great difference
both of the principle and quality of most of
those actions that in the world carry the same
reputation. Of this we have here a notable
instance in a sect of men amongst the Jews
called the Pharisees ; who made as glorious an

160

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Serm. XVI

appearance, and had as high a vogue for piety,
as the best. Their righteousness and good
works so glistered, that they even dashed the
judging faculties of those who judged more by
seeing than by weighing ; and doubtless they
were in show so exactly good, that no argu
ment frora appearance could decide the dif
ference. And yet, like those trees which are fair and
flourishing at the top, frora the dung that lies
at the root, the principle of all these good
works was a sinful .appetite, an appetite of
glory, an ambitious desire ; sinful perhaps in
itself, but certainly so in its application to
such a design. Yet, however sinful it was in
tbe nature of an appetite, we see it was very
strong and operative in the nature of a prin
ciple ; and such a one as wrought men to
great heights in the outward and splendid
side of religion.
My design at this time is from these words
to inquire into the force of this principle in
reference to a virtuous and religious life ; and
to shew how far it is able to engage men in it.
And this I shall do under these four heads :
I. I shall shew that a love of glory is suffi
cient to produce all those virtuous actions that
are visible in the lives of those that profess
religion. II. I shall shew whence this affection comes
to have such an influence upon our actions.
HI. I shall shew the inability of it to be a
sufficient motive to engage raankind in virtu
ous actions, without the assistance of religion.
IV. I shall shew that even those actions
that it does produce are yet of no value at all
in the sight of God.
For the first of these, that the love of glory
is able to produce all those virtuous actions
that are visible in the lives of those that pro
fess religion.
This I prove first frora this, that it actually
has produced them, and therefore it is able to
produce them : for this, let the noblest and
most virtuous of the heathens be an instance;
whose outward virtues few Christians equal,
but none transcend : yet they were acted in
all by a thirst of that glory that followed
those performances. For into what will you
resolve the industry of the philosophers, the
chastityof Scipioand Alexander, the liberality
of Augustus, the severity of Cato, the integrity
of Fabricius, but into a desire of being
famous for each of these perfections? See
what a round and open profession of this
Tully makes in his defence of Archias the
poet! We know he had behaved himself
with great virtue and resolution in the behalf
of his country against Clodius and Catiline ;
but what induced him? Was it either love
of the virtuous action itself, or hopes to gain
by it a better place in their Elysium ? Nor
he nor any of the wiser sort believed any
such thing. Juvenal tells you, "vix pueri

credunt." But what was It then ? Why he
tells you, that if he had not grown up in per
suasion from his j-outh, that nothing was
earnestly to be desired in this life but praise
and honour, he would never have exposed I
hiraself to those enmities, dangers, and oppo
sitions, that he underwent in the prosecution
of his country's defence.
And after that he had proved that other
great men acted upon the same principle ; for
how came they else to be so fond of poets and
historians, the great instruments and propa
gators of their fame ? he then gathers up all
into this general conclusion : — " Nullara vir
tus aliam mercedem laboruin periculorumque
desiderat prseter hanc laudis et glorite : qua
quidem detracta, quid est quod in hoc tam
exiguo vitae curriculo, et tam brevi, tantis nos
in laboribus exerceamus ?" You see now the
spring-head from whence streamed all the
splendid and renowned moral actions of these
persons. Nay, in persons of a much inferior rank
and apprehension, we have the same principle
working them to a degree of abstinence equal
to the greatest austerities and instances of
mortification seen now-a-days in persons reli
gious. Those that used to run and wrestle in
the public garaes, what strange abridgments
did they suffer both as to the kind and mea
sure of their food ! what abstinence from wine
and women, and all other luxury, did they
constantly tie themselves up to ! The apostle
P.aul gives them this testimony iu 1 Cor. i.-c.
25, " Every man that striveth for mastery is
temperate in all things :" and that with such
a strict and rigorous exactness, that many
who now-a-days profess Christianity, would
not deny their appetites half so much to gain
a kingdom in this world, or the world to come,
as the apostle says those persons did to gain a
corruptible crown ; that is, some pitiful gar
land, ready to wither and to be blasted by the
breath of those applauses that attended the
putting of it on.
But farther, that even in those that profess
religion, religion is not always the conimaud-
ing, producing principle of their best actions,
the very example of the pharisees will demon
strate. For what almost could be outwardly
done, which these men did not do with great
advantage, pomp, and soleranity of perfor
raance? They -.vere frequent in prayer, they
gave alras, they were exact in their tithings
even to mint and cummin ; they sat in the
seat of Moses, .and taught sometimes so well,
th.at Christ, in Matt, xxiii. 3, charges his dis
ciples, that " whatsoever they bid them, they
should observe and do :" aud for their zeal
they would undertake the expense aud toil of
" compassing sea and land, to gain one prose
lyte to their religion," In a word they had
gained such a reputation for their piety, that
it was a common saying amongst the Jews,

ON MATTHEW, xxiii.

161

" That if but two men in the world should be
saved, one of them would be a pharisee."
Now, let any one shew me, where amongst
us there is such a face ofreligion and concern
ment for it. You will say, perhaps, that the
truth and body of it may be among us ; but
certainly it is a strange thing to see a body
without a face, and reality without any shew.
There is a difference indeed between the sub
stance and the shadow, yet there is seldom a
substance without the shadow. But this by
digression. We have seen what the pharisees did ; but
what was the first moving cause that bore
thera up to such a pitch of acting? Why,
that they raight be talked of and adraired ;
in a word, that " they might be seen of men."
They gave alms indeed, but it was with trum
pets and proclaraations. They prayed ; but it
was standing in the streets, with a design
more to be seen here below, than to be heard
above. They fasted ; but then they disfigured
themselves, wore a sad countenance and a
drooping head, that they might gain notice
and observation, and so feed their arabition.
They pretended great zeal to the law ; but
carried it more in their phylacteries than
their hearts, and in the borders of their gar
ments more than their lives. All their
teaching was in order to be called rabbi; to
be treated with public and porapous saluta
tions J to be cringed to in soleran raeetings ;
to be at the top of every public feast and
assembly. The whole design of all that
pageantry and show of piety that they
.amused the world withal, was nothing but
noise, and vogue, and popularity : this was
the breath that blew up their devotion to
such a high and a blazing flarae.
And are not many Christians, though dif
fering from them in religion, yet the very
same men ; and owe all those shows and forms
of godliness, which they have clothed them
selves withal, to the influence of the sarae
spurious principle? How raany appear de
vout, and zealous, and frequent in the service
of God, only to court the esteem of the world,
or perhaps to acquit themselves to the eye of
a superior !
- How vast a distance is there between their
inside and their outside ; between the same
men as they open themselves in private, and
as they sustain an artificial dress or person in
public ! the reason is, because though they
have not goodness enough to be religious, yet
they have pride enoUgh to appear so.
2. That the love of glory is sufficient to
produce all those virtuous actions, that are
visible in the lives of those that profess re
ligion, appears farther from hence ; that there
is nothing visible in the very best actions,
hut what may proceed from the most depraved
principles, if acted by pradence, caution, and
Resign. And if piety be not requisite to their
VOL. II.

production, I ara sure the next principle, for
influence and activity, is a man's concernment
for his reputation.
Now that a principle, short of piety, is able
to exert the fairest performances that bear
the name of pious, is clear from this, that
there is no external discrimination of the
hypocrite from the sincere person : what one
does, the same is done by the other. He that
should see a stoue that is shot from a sling,
and a bird fly in the air at the same time,
were he ignorant of their nature, could not,
by any mark of discovery inherent in the
motions themselves, know one to be uaturalj
and the other to be violent. And Christ pro
nounces, that in the great day of discovery,
" many that are first shall be last ;" that is,
those who have the highest esteera for piety,
grounded upon the gloss of an outwardly
virtuous behaviour, shall be found to have
had but little reality, and so be rewarded
accordingly. This therefore being proved, who can deny
but a sense of honour, and a touch of ambi
tion, may supply the room of a better princi
ple in those outward instances of virtue, that
shine only upon the surface of men's lives ;
yet sufficient to attract the estimation of those
who can look no farther ?
We know designs much inferior to this are
able to bear a raan up to such a pitch. The
designs of gain, which are the lowest and
basest that can he, and put a raan upon tho
most sordid and inferior practices ; yet tljese
are able to inspire him with such an impetus,
as is able to raise him to a show of piety ; so
that the vilest person shall appear godly, when,
in a literal sense, he shall find " that godli
ness is great gain."
Nay, the design of pleasure and sensuality
may make a man undergo many religious
austerities, and sacrifice a less pleasure to the
hope of a greater. For in the great instance
of mortification, which is fasting, what were
all the fasts and humiliations of the the late re
formers, but the forbearing of dinners? that is,
the enlarging the stowage, and the redoubling
the appetite, for a larger supper; in which the
dinner was rather deferred, than took away.
But now the design of glory is as much
above these, as the mind of a Csesar above
the mind of a farmer or a usurer ; or the
applauses of the learned and the knowing
above the entertainments of a kitchen. And
therefore, if those ignoble appetites were able
to advance a man to so high a strain, cer
tainly the other, which has the same activity,
and a greater nobility, must needs do it much
raore. And thus much for the first thing.
II. I come now to the second, which is to
shew, whence this affection comes to have
such an influence upon our actions.
The reasons, I conceive, may be these : —
1. Because glory is the proper pleasure of
L

162

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Serm. XVI.

the mind. That which pleases is by the
Latins culled jucundum : and I find this jucun-
dum, by a certain author, of some repute in
the world, divided into that of the body, and
that of the mind. That of the body is pro-
i perly the perception of those pleasing objects
i that respectively belong to the five senses ;
: but that of the mind he affirms to be glory :
which, I think, may be properly defined or
described, the complacency that a man finds
within hiraself, arising from his conceit ofthe
opinion that another has of some excellency
or perfection in him. For as pride is the
opinion that a man has of his own perfection,
so glory is the pleasure that he takes, from
the opinion that another has of it. And ex
perience shews, that the perception of harmo
nious sounds do not more please the ear, nor
sweet things the taste, than the opinion of
this does affect and please the mind. It was
the speech of Dionysius, concerning his para
sites and flatterers, that though he knew that
what they said was false, yet he could not but
find himself pleased with it. And Themis-
tocles, being pointed at in the public theatres
and meetings, confessed, that the pleasure he
took in it did araply reward all those great
exploits that he had done for his country.
Now that this so intiraately affects the
mind with pleasure, appears from the great
regret and trouble that the mind feels from
its contrary, which is scorn and disgrace.
There is nothing that pierces the apprehen
sive mind so keenly and intolerably as this.
It depresses the spirits, restrains the freedom,
and contracts the largeness of the thoughts.
A man that is under disgrace neither relishes
the returns of business, nor the enjoyments
of society ; but desponds, and suffers himself
to be trampled upon and contemned by per
sons much worse than himself.
From whence it follows, since glory so
much enamours, and disgrace so much afflicts
the soul of man, that it is no wonder, if the
acquiring of one, and the avoiding of the
other, so potently coraraands all our actions.
For what are actions, but the servants of our
appetites? And what are all the labours of
men laid out upon, but to acquire to them
selves such objects as either please their senses,
or gratify their more noble desires ?
And certainly there are some tempers in
the world, that can sit up as late, and rise as
early, and endure as much trouble, to purchase
the pleasure of their raind, as others do for
that of the senses. Sallust, in the character
that he gives of Lucius Sylla the dictator,
araongst other things, sets down this, and it
is for his coraraendation, that he was " volup-
tatum cupidus, sed glorise cupidior :" though
he loved his cups and his women too well,
yet still he coramanded them as well as his
amiy ; and had rather court honour with the
hardships and dangers of the field, aud with

hunger and thirst, and toilsome watchings,
arrive at length to the glories of a triumph.
And no wonder ; for the pleasures that lie
in the gratifications of the senses are transient
and short, and perishing, as those gratifica
tions are themselves : but the pleasure of a
glorious object is lasting ; it is treasured up
in the meraory, and the mind raay havo re
course to it as often as it will. He that eats
a luscious morsel, or sees a fine picture, is
pleased as long as he tastes the one, or beholds
the other, which perhaps is a minute : but he
that has done a glorious action, reflects npon
it with pleasure to his dying day ; it is as sure
to him as his life or his being ; it lasts and
lives, and supplies the mind with continual,
fresh perceptions, with all the delights of an
active remembrance and a busy reflection.
The same also holds in the contrary of
glory, which is disgrace, compared to all those
pains that afflict the body, which are afflictive
just so long as they actually possess the part
which they aggrieve ; but their influence
lasts no longer thau their presence. Nobody
is therefore in pain to-day, because his head
ached a month ago ; nobody feels the torments
of a cured gout, nor languishes with the re
membrance of a removed sickness. Nay, he
is rather so much the more refreshed, by how
much a former pain gives a raan a quicker
sense of his present ease.
But it is otherwise in the afflictions of dis
honour : this, wheresoever it fastens, leaves
its marks behind it. It torments the mind
with an abiding anguish. A man cannot lay
it down : it incorporates into his condition.
It is a pain not to be slept away, and a scar
not to be worn off. He eats, he travels, he
lies down and rises up with it. It is an em
blem of hell, irksome and perpetual.
And being so, we need seek for no farther
cause why these affections so entirely command
a man, as to every faculty both of body and
soul. A man would do any thing to secure
his honour and his reputation : that is, to live
while he is alive, and not to be the scorn and
laughing-stock of a company of worthless,
pitiful, and contemptible persons, who have
nothing else to make them seem honourable,
so much as in their own esteem, hut the dis
graces of others.
2. The second reason, that this affection of
glory comes to have so strong an influence
upon our actions, is from this ; that it is
founded in the innate desire of superiority
that is in every man. One raan desires to be
greater and better than another, and conse
quently to be thought so. Nature has placed
us in the lower region of the world, but, for
all that, we aspire ; it has cast us upon the
earth, but still we rebound.
If it be here deraanded, whence this desire
arises, and upon what it is founded ; I answer,
that it is founded upon the very natural love

ON MATTHEW, xxiii. 5.

1(«

that we bear to out being, and the preserva
tion of it. For every degree of superiority, or
greater perfection, is a farther defence set upon
a man's being ; as he that is powerful, rich,
wise, or the like, has those means of securing
his being, that he, who is destitute of power,
riches, and wisdora, has not. So rauch as any
man is above another, so much he thinks
himself safer than another.
But now it is the great effect of glory and
fame thus to raise a man : hence the very
word, by which we express the praising of
one, is to extol hira ; that is, to lift hira up :
for honour properly sets a raan above the
crowd ; it makes hira, like Saul, higher by
the head than the rest of his brethren.
Hereupon, since the desire of superiority is
such a restless affection, engaging a raan in
the highest and hardest atterapts ; and since
the desire of glory is grafted upon it, and in
deed is subservient to it ; it is a raatter of no
hard resolution to find out, whence the desire
of glory comes to exercise such a control over
us, as to corapel us to do this, abstain from
that, endure another thing, and that with
snch success, as to carry its commands victo
rious through any reluctancies whatsoever.
For what is it that makes the practice of
religion irksome and difficult, but that it
thwarts the inferior appetites of sense ? which
being thwarted, will he sure to make a consi
derable opposition. But now, if an appetite
stronger and more active than those of sense
strikes in with religion, it will render its con
quest over them easy and effectual : and such
an oue I affirm to be the appetite of glory ;
which certainly rules more or less in every
one, who has not degenerated into a brute so
far, as to have fastened his designs to the
earth, and his desires to his trencher.
But besides a desire of superiority, there is
also a desire of greatness, (for I know no other
name to give it,) which is equally predorai
nant in men, and equally served and promoted
by fame and honour : for does not this, as it
were, diffuse a man, and extend hira to the
wideness and capacity of the world ? That
little bulk that is contained in this or that
roora, in its fame carries a circumference
greater and larger than a nation. Glory
makes a man present in ten thousand places
at once, and gives him a kind of ubiquity, and
that without labour or motion : while he sits
still, he travels over the universe ; he crosses
the seas, and yet never passes the continent ;
he visits all nations, and perhaps never stirs
abroad. But his fame, like lightning, makes
him shine from one end of the heavens to the
other. No wonder therefore, since glory itself
is able thus to stretch a man to a kind of om
nipresence, if the desire of glory has over his
life and actions a kind of omnipotence.
3. The third and last reason that I shall
assign, why this affection of glory comes to

have such an influence upon our actions, is,
because it is indeed the great instrument of
life to have a fair reputation, and really opens
a man a way into all the advantages of it.
For who would employ a profane person, or
trust a known atheist ? And he that is coun
ted neither fit to be employed or trusted, may
go out of the world, for he is like to find but
little happiness in it. The repute of a man's
principles, his conscience and honesty, is that
which represents a man worthy to be used
and preferred ; and the repute of a man's
principles grows out of the external fairness
of his practices.
All the accommodations of life, as power,
wealth, offices, and friends, are often derivable
from the good opinion that men have pro
cured theraselves by the outward and seeming
piety of their behaviour. For the proof of
which, take but the instance of the late times :
more than a show of piety I think none will
allow them, that well understood thera ; but
a show they had, and so wisely did they raan
age it, that the opinion which the vulgar had
of their saintship was such an engine in their
hands, that by it they could turn and wield
them to all their designs and purposes as they
pleased. They plundered, and oppressed, and
robbed men of their estates : yes, but they
did it preaching and praying, and abstaining
from swearing, drinking, aud the like, and
composing themselves to the rigours of au ap
pearing virtue and sobriety. Not but that
they had an appetite to have lashed out into
all that looseness, gaudery, and debauchery,
that sometiraes bewitches other men. But
they were too wise : they knew that would
have vilified their persons, and consequently
have dashed their designs : their villainy was
sober, and therefore successful. And I ara
afraid that experience is like to convince us,
that the face of a disserabled piety gave thera
a greater credit and authority with the gene-
r.ality, than others are like to gain by a better
cause man.aged with seeraingly worse man
ners. So much does the appearance, the
opinion, aud the noise of things govern the
world !
Let this therefore pass for another great
cause, why the affection of glory so engages
and rules the practices of raen, namely, that
it does indeed serve a real interest, and is
resolved into the utile, the idol of profit so
much adored by mankind. It is to very great
purpose for a man to be esteemed ; for he
that is so, will at length be soraething raore.
Farae is indeed but a breath and a wind ; yet
even the wind is that which carries the ship,
and brings the treasure into the merchant's
bosom. And thus much for the second general head
proposed for the handling ofthe words, namely,
to shew whence this aff'ection coraes to have
such an influence upon men's actions.

164

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Serm. XVL

III. Pass we now to the third ; which is to
shew the inability of it to be a sufficient
motive to engage mankind in virtuous actions
without the assistance of religion.
In order to the proof of which, I shall
premise two considerations :
1. That virtue and a good life determines
not in outward practices, but respects the
most inward actions of the mind. Virtue
dwells not upon the tongue, nor consists in
the due motion of the hands and the feet :
but it is the action of the soul, and there it
resides. Whatsoever we behold of it in the
external behaviour of raen, is but the mani
festation, not the being of virtue ; as the
action of the body is not the principle, but
only the discovery of life. They are inward,
secret wheels, that set the outward and the
visible a-work.
Piety lodges in the regions of the heart ;
and when the body is immured in prison, or
withered by sickness, an active soul feels none
of those impediments, but is free to the exercise
of virtue or vice ; and by inward volitions or
aversations can supply the want of outward
performances. A man may act like a saint before men, and
like a devil before God ; and on the contrary,
appear but mean outwardly, and yet be all-
glorious within. Otherwise virtue would be
but an outside, and sit but as a varnish upon
the forehead ; and he that looked upon the
body would be as competent a judge of it, as
he that searched the heart. But colour is not
health ; he that looks pale, raay be sound and
vigorous ; and he that wears the rose upon
his cheeks raay have rottenness in his bones.
Virtue and vice are the perfection and
pollution of the soul ; that is, of a being in its
nature spiritual, and consequently invisible ;
whereupon they must be such also themselves.
The scene of their acting is the conscience ;
and conscience has an eye over a man's most
inward and retired behaviour ; it spies out
the first infant essays and inclinations of
virtues, and encourages thera, and discerns
the first raovings and ebullitions of concu
piscence, and severely checks and conderans
them. And thus it judges of a man's estate
before ever the soul comes to communicate
with the body, in the external production of
any of those actions ; and so to alarm the
notice and observation of the world.
So that a man is indeed condemned before
the world knows hira to be an offender, and
has made a very great progress in sin before
he comes to execute and declare it by visible
practices. But yet the man is a vile person,
a stranger to virtue and goodness, as well
when he is concealed, as when the light shews
him to a public detestation. The swine is as
filthy wheu he lies close in his stye, as when
he comes forth and shakes his nastiness in the
street. Let this therefore be the first previous

consideration, that virtue and vice chiefly
respect the inward, invisible behaviours of
the soul.
2. The second consideration is this; that
the principle of honour or glory governs a
man's actions entirely by the judgment and
opinion of the world concerning them. The
grand proposals, that a raan acted by this
principle makes to himself upon every under
taking, and which either licenses or rescinds
his designed action, is. What will the world
say of rae, if I do thus or thus ? He never
says, Is it pious, or generous, or suitable to a
rational soul ? or is it contrary to all these,
and unbecoraing the strictness of the religion
I profess, and the ingenuity of being really
what I am thought to be ? Is it such an
action as would blush in the dark, and needs
not the sun and the day to discover its de
formity ?
No, these are none of the questions or the
demurs, that such an one troubles himself
withal ; if the action be safe and secret, let
it be dirty, and ill-favoured. All actions, he
thinks, are the same, and are discriminated
with these different appellations, by custom,
by received prejudices, and comraon opinion.
And if he can but secure hiraself as to these,
he may enjoy the reputation of virtue, while
he reaps the sweetness of his vice.
Now these two considerations premised, I
affirm that the principle of honour is utterly
insufficient to engage and argue raen into the
practice of virtue, in these following cases: .
1. When by ill customs and perverse dis
courses a vice coraes to have a reputation, or
at least no disreputation in the judgnient of a
nation : and that this so falls out sometimes
is evident. Some nations have allowed of
siraple fornication ; some have so far perverted
that which we call nature, as to count it law
ful, nay laudable, for a son to have his own
mother in marriage, as Quintus Curtius re
ports of some of the Persians. The Lacede
monians would commend and reward their
children when they could thieve and rob
dexterously. Many have counted self-murder
in many cases an heroic action, and becoming
a man of courage and philosophy. For a son
to defraud his parents, and to give that which
he purloined from them, or at least withheld
from them in their indigence and necessity,
to holy uses, was, in the judgment of our
Saviour, a great sin, and a perversion of the
divine law ; yet the pharisees from Moses's
chair authorized it, as hugely suitable to that
law, and an action of sublime devotion.
Now that the foreraentioned practices were
highly unlawful, and inconsistent with piety
and -virtue, is raost certain ; yet passing cur
rent in the world by public warrant, and the
countenance of general use, I deraand upon
what rational ground any raan, acted by a
bare principle of honour, could be kept from

ON MATTHEW, xxiii. 5.

165'

thera, if either his inclination or convenience
prorapted hira to thera ? That which he was
only a slave to, the opinion and vogue of the
world, that could not withhold hiin, for that
would own and credit him in the practice ;
and any other restraint upon him besides
this we suppose to be none.
Bnt now, God would have made but very
short provisions to engage men in duty, if he
had not bound it upon them by such a prin
ciple, as should universally be able to oblige
them in all cases, and in all circumstances of
condition, in which it concerned them to be
virtuous, and to abhor and shun the contrary
vices. But it is clear, that a man's tenderness
of his honour cannot be that principle ; for
that looks only upon what is allowed and
countenanced : but sin is sin, and consequently
damnable, -whether custom revenges it with a
gibbet, or adorns it with a garland. An-d the
divine tribunal will punish an incestuous
person, a pilfering Lacedemonian, a self-mur
dering Roman or Athenian, and an undutiful
Jew, as much as it would a person guilty of
these criraes in any of those nations, where
they are cried down, detested, and revenged
by the hand of public justice ; did not the
infamy of such actions in those places by
accident state the guilt of the persons that
committed thera under a higher aggravation.
And this, in ray judgraent, may be one
reason amongst others, why God is so severely
angry at national sins ; or such sins as bave
at least an influence upon the manners of a
nation, though committed by a few persons,
naraely, that by this raeans there is a reputa
tion given to sin, and the sharae that God has
annexed to it in a great measure took from
it : for nothing is sharaeful that is fashionable.
And when a thing coraes to be practised by
all, or by such as are eminent, public, and
leading persons, it gains credit, and easily
passes into a fashion.
But now by this, one of the great instru
ments by which Providence governs the
societies of men, and controls the course of
sin, is raade utterly frustrate to this purpose.
This instrument is the sharae that attends
upon base and wicked actions ; a great curb
to the fury of some men's inclinations, and
consequently a great mound and bank against
that torrent of villainy, that would otherwise
break in upon society ; for the better under
standing of which, we raust observe, that as
God, in the great work of governing the
world, has several purposes upon several
men, so he effects those purposes by several
means. Sorae men he intends to save, and to pre
pare for another world, and their hearts he
renews and changes by a supernatural, in
effable, and prevailing operation of his grace.
But others he intends only to civilize, and to
fit them to converse in this world ; and these

he governs, not by any supernatural change
wrought upon thera, but by the principles of
natural affections, as fear, sharae, and the
like ; which shall suit thera to society, by
restraining their extravagant and furious
appetites within bounds and measures. And
of all these principles, there is none such a
bridle in the jaiws of an unregenerate person,
as the dread of shame upon the coraraission of
things unlawful and indecent. But now, if
custora and countenance takes off the sharae,
and paints the Jezebel, and gives a gloss and
a reputation to a vile action, why this cord is
snapt asunder ; and the principle of honour
can be no arguraent to keep a raan from a
creditable villainy and a splendid sin.
If to have been a rebel is no shame, pro
vided a man be rich, potent, or factious ; and
to have been loyal is no honour ; but to be
poor, though loyalty were the cause of it, is a
great dishonour ; I would fain know, what
principles of honour could engage a raan to
draw his sword in his prince's defence, or tie
his hands when it lies fair for his advantage
to rebel. Nothing but conscience and a sense
of duty can have any obliging influence upon
hira in this case ; for all arguraents frora credit
or reputation dissolve, and break, and vanish
into air.
Now certainly the thought of this should
add caution to the behaviour of persons of
erainence, and such as sit at the top of affairs,
and attract the eyes of a nation : for their
practice of any sin leaves a colour, and ira-
prints a kind of an authority upon it ; so that
the sharae of it coraes at length to be took
a-way, and with that the strongest dissuasive
that averts the natural ingenuity of raan from
vile and enorraous practices.
And this is the first case in which a prin
ciple of honour, without the aid of religion,
is insufficient to engage men in the practice
of virtue, naraely, when the contrary vice
coraes, in the general judgraent of a people,
to lose its infaray aud disrepute.
2. Another case, in which the sarae prin
ciple is insufficient for the same purpose, is,
when a man can pursue his vice secretly and
indiscernibly; and that he may do two
ways :
(1.) When he entertains it in his thoughts,
affections, and desires. These are the cabinet
councils of the soul ; and it is. certain that
God does not take his estimate of a man from
any thing so much as frora the regular or
irregular behaviour of these : for as a .raan
thinks or desires in his heart, such indeed he
is ; for then most truly, because most incon-
trollably, he acts himself.
But now, if a man shall take a pleasure to
gratify and cherish a corrupt humour by the
services of fancy, and desire, and iraagination
representing to it suitable sinful objects; why
he knows hiraself out of the reach, and con-

166

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Serm. XVI.

sequently out of the awe, of any moral inspec
tion ; there is no prying into the transactions
of thought, no overhearing the whispers of
fancy, no getting into the little close cabals of
desires and affections, when they contrive and
reflect upon their own pleasures, and laugh
at all external spectators. And if so, what
influence can the care of credit and honour
have upon thera, which only regards and fears
those eyes that can look no farther than the
body ? The credit of any action is safe, where
it is not discerned ; for as no vicious person,
though ever so slavishly tender of his credit,
would be afraid to do an indecent thing before
a blind raan, or to speak indecent words before
the deaf; so the greatest enormities raay be
securely thought over and desired even in
the concourse of theatres and the face of the
world. (2.) The other instance of a raan's pursuing
his vice secretly is, when, though it passes
from desire into practice, yet it is acted with
such circurastances of external concealment,
that it is out of the notice and arbitration of
all observers. This, I confess, from the very
nature of the thing, is not altogether so secure
as the forraer ; yet it is sufficient to render all
checks or restraints frora credit utterly ineffi
cacious. There is none indeed who loves his sin so
well, as to dare to own the satisfaction of it
in the market-place, in a church, or upon au
exchange ; common sense of honour is able to
overrule the luxuriancies of vice upon these
occasions and places : for there is no gene
rally conderaned practice so impudent, as to
desire to be public, to be gazed and pointed
at, and run down by an universal outcry and
detestation. But when a man has contrived and cast the
commission of his sin into such opportunities
of darkness and retirement, that, in the sinful
satisfaction of his flesh, he acts as invisibly as
if he was a spirit ; what stop can the fear of
shame give to hira in such practices? For
sharae never reaches beyond sight ; and we
suppose the sinner now to have placed him
self out of the eye of every thing but of
omniscience and of conscience ; which also,
in the present case, we suppose him not to
fear. For he that has no principle to withhold
him frora villainy, but the dread of infaray,
has no God but public opinion, and uo con
science but his own convenience. And tbere
fore .having, by much dress, and secrecy, and
dissiraulation, as it were periwigged his sin,
and covered his shame, he looks after no other
innocence but concealment, nor counts any
thing a sin, provided it be a work of darkness ;
nor cares to be thought a sheep for any other
purpose, but that he may act the wolf, and
worry with more reputation.
And thus I have shewn the cases in which

a bare principle of honour, unassisted by
religion, has no efficacy at all to engage men
in virtuous practices : in a word, he that does
all such works, only that he may be seen of
men, will do none, when he is sure that he
cannot be seen. But now, before I proceed
any farther, I cannot but add this withal,
that honour is the strongest motive that mere
nature has to enforce virtue by ; so that if this
is found feeble, and impotent, and inferior to
so great a purpose, it is in vain to attempt
such a superstructure upon any weaker foun
dation. It is possible, indeed, that some tempers
have so degenerated, as to be acted by prin
ciples much inferior, when arguraents from
honour'raake no irapression upon thera at all:
as there are some who follow no lure like that
of gain ; and others who are terapted by no
bait like that of pleasure. But for the first of
these, the desire of gain is but the quality of
some men, or at least but of some ages ; for
youth is little prevailed upon by it : so that
this is an unfit instrument of virtue, the mo
tive to which ought to be universal. And
for designs of pleasure, they cannot constantly
carry the mind to virtuous practices, because,
when those designs arrive to enjoyment, such
enjoyraents are for the most part contrary to
a virtuous course, which is never more exer
cised than in the severities of abstinence and
great abridgments. These principles, there
fore, are unable to effect that, in which the
principle of honour is deficient.
Conceming which it is to be observed, that
I take it not only in the positive sense, accord
ing to which, honour is a desire of a farther
degree and access to a man's reputation ; but
also, nay chiefly, in the negative sense, as it
imports an abhorrency of shame. Now,
though the former of these is principally
notable in minds of a more noble aud refined
mould, vulgar terapers being seldom con
cerned to heighten and propagate their fame ;
yet the latter sense of honour, as it is a flying
from sharae, seeras universally to have fixed
itself in the breasts of all raankind : there
being no man in his wits, of so sottishly de
pressed a soul, as to endure to be trampled,
spit upon, and avoided like a walking infec
tion, without a strange grief, anguish, and
inward resentment. But however, that this
also is short of being an universal engagement
to virtue, the precedent arguments have suffi
ciently evinced.
IV. I proceed now to the fourth and last
particular ; namely, to shew, that even those
actions that a principle of honour does pro
duce, are of no value in the sight of God; and
that upon the account of a double defect :
1. In respect of the cause from which they
flow. 2. In respect of the end to which they are
directed.

ON MATTHEW, xxiii. 5.

187

1. And first of all, they are deficient in
respect of their producing cause, which should
be a real love to virtue itself, upon the score
of its worth and excellency ; otherwise they
are forced and violent, and proceed only upon
the apprehension of a present interest, which
when it ceases, the fountain of such actions is
dried up, and then the actions themselves
must needs fail.
But when the heart is carried forth to duty
by an inward, vital principle of love to the
thing it practises, it renders every such per
formance free and connatural to the soul, and
consequently of value in the sight of God,
who in every action requires not only what
it is, but whence it comes : and never accepts
the bare deed, but as it is animated and spirit
ualized by the desire. But interest and de
sign are a kind of force upon the soul, bearing
a man oftentimes besides the ducture of his
native propensities and the first outgoings of
his will. But the fruits of righteousness grow
not in such forced soils ; and a man never
acts piously, according to the measures of the
gospel, bnt when his action becomes also his
inclination. If care of my credit brings my body to
church, when in the mean time my choice
and my will places me either at the table of
the epicure or in the embraces of a harlot,
will God, think we, value this shadow and
surface of devotion, and be satisfied with the
attendance of the body, when the free, natural,
uncontrolled flight of my desires has carried
away my soul to an infinite distance frora it?
Yet honour can command only the forraer ;
but the spirit, with which only he that is a
spirit will be served, is wholly out of its reach
and dominion.
2. All actions of virtue, performed from a
principle of honour, are deficient in respect of
the end to which they are directed. This end
is self ; whereas it should be the glory of God,
a thing diametrically, iiTeconcileably opposed
to it. God's displeasure is never so high, as
when it arrives to jealousy : and then God is
properly jealous, when he finds that man
thrusts his own glory into the place of his ;
which he never does more than when he
makes the divine worship the instrument and
engine of his own reputation, and uses piety
only as a handmaid to fame, and a conve
nient means to slide him into the esteem and
acceptance of the world. This is properly
for a raan, instead of serving God, to make
God serve him.
But it is great reason, that a servant, whose
condition declares him not his own, but an
other's, should be concerned only to serve the
interest and occasions of his lord ; and then,
certainly, the creature much more, who stands
accountable to God, not only upon the score
of his inferiority, but his very existence and
production. But he, that employs all his

actions for the advance of his own glory, has
renounced the condition of a creature and a
servant, sets up for hiraself, becomes his own
master, and, what is more, his own god.
It was for the two forementioned defects,
that the most sublime moral performances of
the heathen have been always arraigned and
condemned by Christian divinity ; naraely,
that they proceeded from a heart unrenewed
and unsanctified, and so under the pollutions
of original pravity ; and withal were designed
only to derive a reputation and fair esteem
upon their names and persons, to make so
many glorious pages in their story, or so many
glittering epitaphs upon their monuments.
Thus were managed their best actions. But
whether an arrow be shot from an ill bow, or
levelled and directed by a false aira, it must
both ways equally miss of the mark.
Now, from the subject hitherto discoursed
of, by way of corollary and conclusion, I shall
infer these two things :
1. First, the worth and the absolute neces
sity of religion in the world, even as to the
advantages of civil society. I have shewn
how weak, and short, and insignificant, as to
these effects, the best and noblest principle,
that grows upon the stock of bare nature,will
be found. It is not able to abash a secret
sinner ; and yet the greatest and the most mis
chievous villainies in the world are contrived
in darkness and concealment. But religion
never leaves a man without a thousand wit
nesses, and that in his own breast : it places
him under a perpetual awe of that justice
that sees in secret, and rewards openly. The
religious man carries those principles and per
suasions about hira, that tie him up from those
practices, to which his interest, and the eye
of the world, would let hira loose. It is he
alone that uses the night only for the neces
sities of nature, and scorns it as a covering ;
that dares venture his heart upon his fore
head ; and, in a word, is not afraid to be
seen. But now let any one tell me, what hold
can be took of an atheist in these oppor
tunities of secrecy? His principles are as
large and wide as hell itself. What can raake
him restore a trust, if he can safely and dex
terously conceal it? What can make him
true to his prince, his friend, or any relation
of huraan life, if his reputation conspire with
his advantage so, as to serve one without en
dangering the other ?
Surely there is no such pest to society as
such a person, who owns no concernment be
yond himself ; but having shook off the bonds
of those principles and persuasions by which
mankind are governed, and by which they
are, as it were, put upon equal grounds, in
reference to a coraraon intercourse, he ought
to be exterminated like a wolf, oratiger, and
as a comraon eneray to human converse : for

168

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Sehm. XVH.

such is the scope that the atheist gives hira
self, that nothing can keep him from doing
his neighbour mischief, but shame or impos
sibility. 2. The other thing that we infer from the
precedent discourse is, the inexcusableness of
those persons, who, professing religion, yet
live below a principle much inferior to re
ligion. We need not repair to Christianity
for arguraents, to run down a drunkard, a
swearer, a noted adulterer, or a rebel. A gen
erous heathenism, ruled by maxiras of credit
and shame, is virtue and piety compared to
the lives of such Christians. Self-love, acted
by prudence and caution, is enough to mortify
and shame such enormities out of the world.
Nothing but grace can extinguish sin : but
honour and discretion is enough to prevent
scandal. He is a fool that says but in his
heart, " There is no God ;" but he is sottishly
and incorrigibly so, who proclairas such a
belief by the open and visible actions of his
life. He that pursues his vice notoriously, has
not so much religion as the fear of men would
suggest to the discourses of an ordinary reason.
To perjure one's self publicly, to talk obscenely
or profanely in company, it may be con
demned out of the lives of the pharisees, and
the writings of Cicero or Seneca : it is to be
short of that perfection which will carry many
to hell, namely, " a form of godliness." It is
to have all the venom and malignity without
the wisdom of the serpent : for surely no
wise atheist ever in his discourse, thought it
becoming to speak irreverently of God, or to
scoff at religion.
Those, who do so, have cause to make this
prayer, if ever they make any ; That God
would give them so much discretion as to fit
thera for this life, since he denies them grace
to prepare them for a better.

SEKMONXVII.
" For by Jaith ye stand. " — 2 Cor. i. 24.
These can be none here ignorant, that the
great evangelical virtue so frequently spoken
of, so highly commended, and upon which the
¦whole weight of man's salvation leans and
depends, is faith ; a thing more usually dis
coursed of by divines than explained, and
consequently more easily took up by their
hearers than understood : there being scarce
any who will not with much zeal and
vehemence pretend to it, and by all means
wear the reputation of the name, though they
are wholly strangers to the nature of the

thing. For it being the great and glorious
badge of the citizens of heaven, the sons of
God, and heirs of iraraortality ; it is no
wonder if every man has his mouth open to
profess and boast of his faith : and those
possibly the most loudly of all others who
entertain it only in opposition to good works.
But that I may give some account of the
nature of it, I shall observe, that the Scripture
makes mention of three several sorts of faith :
1. The first is a faith of simple credence, or
bare assent ; acknowledging and assenting to
the historical truth of every thing delivered
in God's word. And such a faith is not here
meant ; for the devils may have it, who, the
apostle Saint James tellsus, (ii. 19,) "believe
and tremble." They own all the word of
God for a most certain, undoubted truth ; but
the devils' faith is very consistent with the
devils' damnation. He that believes well,
may live ill ; and a good belief will not save,
when a bad life condemns.
2. The second sort is a temporary faith, aud
(as I may so call it) a faith of conviction.
Such an one as by the present convincing
force of the word is wrought in the heart, and
for a time raises and carries out the soul to
some short sallies and attempts in the course
of godliness ; nevertheless, having no firm
fixation in the heart, but being only hke the
short and sudden issue of a forced ground, it
quickly faints and sinks, and comes to no
thing, leaving the soul raany leagues short of
a true and thorough change of its estate.
3. The third and last sort, and which here
only is intended, is a saving, effectual faith,
wrought in the soul by a sound and real work
of conversion. It takes in both the former
kinds, and superadds its own peculiar per
fection besides. And if it be now asked, what
this faith is, I must answer, that it is better
declared by its effects and properties, than it
can be set forth by any immediate description
of the thing itself. However, this seems to
he no iraproper representation of its nature ;
that it is a durable, fixed disposition of holi
ness, immediately infused by God into the
soul, whereby the sonl in all its faculties is
changed, renewed, and sanctified, and withal
powerfully inclined to exert itself in all the
actions of a pious life.
It is not a bare persuasion or conviction
resting upon the heart ; for persuasion (which
is nothing else but the proposal of suitable
objects to the mind) is of itself no more able
to effect this strange and raighty work, than
it is possible to persuade a man that is stark
dead to be alive again. No ; it is a living,
active principle, wonderfully produced and
created in the heart by the almighty working
of God's Spirit ; and which does as really
move and act a man in the course of his
spiritual life, as his very soul does in the
course of his natural. And this is that faith

ON 2 CORINTHIANS, i. 24.

109

by which we stand ; and if ever we are sup
ported against the terrible assaults of our
spiritual adversary, this must be our sup
porter. In the words we have these two things
considerable :
I. Something supposed ; whicb is, that
believers will be encountered and assaulted
in their spiritual course.
n. Something expressed ; which is, that it
is faith alone that in such encounters does or
can make them victorious.
I. And firet for the first of these, the thing
supposed. The words -of the text are a mani
fest aUusion to a person assaulted or combated
by an enemy. From which the Spirit of
Crod in Scripture frequently borrows meta-
.: phors, by which to express to ns the condi-
j, tion of a Christian in this world. Soraetiraes
ll setting it out by "wrestling," as in Ephes.
'; vi. 12; "We wrestle not against flesh and
ji blood, but against principalities and powers."
ll Sometiraes by " warring," as in 2 Cor. x. 4 ;
;: " The weapons of onr warfare are not carnal."
j; And sometimes by "striving," as in Heb. xii.
i; "Ye have not yet resisted unto blood,
sWving against sin." But still it describes a
believer's life in some word or other, import
ing contest or opposition.
Now in every snch contest or combat, there
are three things to be considered :
1. The persons engaged in it.
2. The thing contended for by it.
3. and lastly. The means and ways, by
which it is managed, and carried on.
Of each of which in their order ; and,
1. For the persons engaged in this conflict ;
they are such, whose hatred of one another is
almost as old as the world itself, as being
founded in that primitive enmity sown by
God himself between the "seed of the woman,
and the seed of the serpent," in Gen. iii. 15.
The Devil's hatred of us bears date with our
very being, and his opposition is as early as
his hatred ; for it is of too active a virulence
to lie still and dormant, without putting forth
itself in all the actings of a mischievous
hostility. The Devil hates us enough as men,
bnt much more as believers ; he maligns us
forthe privileges of onr creation, but much
more for the mercies of onr redemption : and
as soon as ever we list ourselves in the service
of the great captain of our salvation, he bids
present defiance to us, and proclaims perpetual
war against us ; which he will never be want
ing to carry on with all the force, art, and
industry, that malice, bounded within the
limits of created power, can reach unto.
None, that gives up his name to Chris
tianity, must think that he enters upon a
state of ease, softness, aud fruition. For
though it is called indeed " the way of peace,"
yet it is of peace only in another world, or of
peace with God and our own consciences; but

of incesant war with the Devil, who will
always have power enough to trouble and
discompose even those whom he cannot
destroy ; and to bruise our heel, though he
gets a broken head for his pains.
We see, then, who the persons are, con
cerned in this spiritual combat ; namely, be
lievers on the one side ; that is, pereons tmly
sanctified and justified, and consequently in a
state of grace and favour with God ; and, on
the other side, the great enemy of mankind,
the tempter with all liis hellish retinue, all
the powers of darkness (as it were) drawn out
into battalia, and headed by him, to defy the
armies of the living God. It follows now,
that we see what is the thing designed and
contended for by hira, in the assault he makes
upon believers, "which is the second thing here
to be considered. And it is, in short, to cast
them do-wn from that state of happiness in
which he finds them ; which happiness con
sisting partly in God's image, which is holi
ness, and partly in an interest in God's favour,
which indeed is but a consequence of the
former, the Ioss» of one naturally drawing
after it the loss of the other ; therefore the
Devil does the utmost he is able, wholly to
divest the soul of both.
1. And first, he designs to cast believers
down from that purity and sanctity of life,
that the Spirit of regeneration has wrought
them np to : for the Devil, having lost all
holiness hiraself, perfectly abhors it in all
others. A pious person is an eyesore to
him ; and to be holy is to begin his hell here
upon earth, and to torment him before his
time. As he was the first and grand apostate frora
(Jod, so he is restless, and indefatigable to
propagate that apostasy and rebellion araongst
raankind, an4 to draw them into a confederacy
against their Maker. He is said to have been
" a Uar and a murderer from the beginning;"
and chiefly does he attempt the murder of
souls by making them like himself. And so
intent is he upon his accureed game, that he
will compass sea and land, tempt and entice
night and day, use both force and art to de
bauch and deface God's image in the soul, to
rob it of its innocence ; and, in a word, to
plunge it into all kind of filtii, folly, and im
purity. It is his business, for the labour he
employs about it ; and his recreation, for the
pleasure he takes in it : for e^er}' upright and
¦virtuous person is a reproach to him, and
upbraids him with the loss of that, which he
was so much concemed to have preserved
entire. Holiness carries its beauty with it ;
and there are none that malign and envy the
beautiful so much as those that are deformed ;
but sin has left upon the Devil a spiritual
deformity, greater and more offensive than
any bodily deformity whatsoever.
2. The Devil designs to cast believers down

170

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Serm. XVII.

from their interest in the divine favour.
After the angels were fallen from heaven, the
door was presently, without either delay or
pity, shut upon them : nor was there any
reserve of mercy, to recover them to their
lost estate. Whereupon their envy and malice
were inflaraed against the sons of men, whom
God treated upon gentler terms, not taking
them upon the first advantage ; but allowing
them raeans of pardon and restitution, and so
cancelling the handwriting that stood against
them by reason of the law. He spread open
the arras of an evangelical and better cove
nant to receive them.
No wonder, therefore, if the Devil strives to
cast the soul from that pitch of happiness
which he finds denied to hiraself. And if he
grudges to see raen so much superior to him
in the felicity of their estate, whom he knows
to be so much inferior to hiraself in the per
fection of their nature ; no wonder, I say, if
the pride of Lucifer disdains to see poor raen
ascend to that from which he-- fell, and so
would lay them in the dust again, from whence
they were first took. The Devil would make us
God's enemies by sinning, that so God may
be our enemy in punishing. For the thing
that he so earnestly drives at, is to sow an
immortal enraity between God and an im
mortal soul, and to embroil the whole creation
iu a war against heaven.
The divine grace, he knows, ia a thing never
to be aspired to by him ; the everlasting gates
are made fast against hira ; and therefore he
would give hiraself that fantastic pleasure, at
least of having company in the same con
demnation, and consequently of getting the
whole race of mankind excluded and cut off
from the enjoyment of that, of which he hira
self has no hope. He would gratify his envy
and his implacable virulence, by /ceding upon
the sight of others' misery, and solacing him
self with the despair and wretchedness of
unpardoned sinners. He would have others
hate God as rauch as he does, to the intent
that they may be as much h.ated by him.
For, believe it, how little soever men may
value the grace, mercies, and forbearances of
the gospel ; yet the Devil, who knows the
worth ofthem, by wanting them, would never
be so much concerned to bereave us of the
benefit of them, did he not judge it infinite
.and invaluable. For can we think that he
would be so intent and busy, use so many
arts and stratageras, only to rob us of a toy?
No, surely ; we may learn the greatness of
the prize, from the labour used to compass
and obtain it. The favour of God is the very
life of the creature ; and if the Devil cau but
prevail with a man to sin hiraself out of it,
he prevails with hira to cut his own throat,
and to irabrue his hands in the blood of his
own soul.
3. I come now to the third thing consider

able in this spiritual combat, which are the
ways and means by which it is managed and
carried on.
I shall mention four.
(1.) The Devil's own iraraediate sugges
tions. The Devil, being a spirit, can operate
upon the mind and the imagination, raising in
it evil thoughts, and frequently filthy desires,
by the representation of objects suitable to
our beloved and most predominant affections.
And this course of working is so suhtie, and
withal so efficacious, that he can slide into the
hearts of men, without any resistance or in
deed any observation. Thus he is said to
have " filled the hearts of Ananias aud Sap
phira," (Acts, V. 3,) and to " have entered
into Judas," (John, xiii. 27.) All which was
done by the wicked thoughts he injected into
the rainds of those wretched persons. The
Devil is often at work within us, when we
know it uot ; and secretly underminiug the
very foundation of our peace with God, plant
ing his engines, and laying his trains, to fetch
down all that spiritual building that the Holy
Ghost has reared up within us. Ho creeps
into our bosoras, and lodges himself in our
very hearts, before we can so much as spy out
his motions ; and then he is tampering with
our thoughts, desires, and particular inclina
tions, before we are aware that our adversary
is near us, or any thing designed against us ;
upon which account, he is such an enemy as
will certainly gain an entrance ; and therefore
it must be our care, that he completes it not
with a conquest.
(2.) The second means, by which the Devil
assaults a man, is by the infidelity of his own
heart. A quality that, of all others, does his
work the most compendiously and the most
effectually. It was the engine by which he
battered down that goodly fabric of the divine
image in our first parents : and wheresoever
he can fix this instrument, like another
Archimedes, he will turn about the worid,
and make every one of his assaults against
the souls of men successful and victorious.
This is such a thing, as was even able to
counterwork the miracles of Christ, and, as it
were, to bind those hands of omnipotence by
which he wrought his mighty wonders. Fof
in Matt. xiii. 58, it is said of our Saviour's
countrymen, " that he could do no mighty
work araongst thera, because of their unbe
lief." It is a thing that seems to keep posses
sion for Satan in the hearts of men, and to
frustrate all addresses of the Holy Ghost to
them : for if men can but once arrive to tbat
pitch of desperate impiety, as to question
the truth of the divine oracles, and to disbe
lieve the words of veracity itself, what can
possibly work upon them, while they are
under the power of such a persuasion? there
being no comingat the will aud the affections,
but through the understanding ; nor any pre-

ox 0 CORINTHIANS, i, 04.

171

\-siling npon those, without first convincing
of this. And surely, if tho understanding
c.*n hold out aiziiinst the commanding autho
rity of divine and infallible truths, it may
well defy the impression of all other argu
ments whatsoever.
The Devil was to induce Eve to oat the
apple:, ajT-iinst God's express prohibition,
guarded aud confirmetl by a severe threareu-
ing : a hard task, one wonld think, to undet^
take to bring a ^vrson, both innocent and
very knowing, to such a horrid prevariea-
tlou, aud to eat tlie forbidden fruit, though
serve*! up to her with certain death ; (G«n.
ii. 17,) " In the day that thou eatest thereof.
I thou snalt surely d^ie." And questionless the
- tempter could never have succeeded in sueh .an
; nnliKely attempt, had not unbelief cut the
i way before him : for as soon as he brought
her to disbelieve that severe word of God, .and
to be persuaded that she '" should not surely
die," and thereby, in effect, to give tlie lie fo
an infinite truth, the Devil's work was then
done : fiir thereupon she presently takes the
fatal morsel, and eats deatli snd" confusion,
both to herself and her whole posterity.
S. The third means by whicli the De-vil
assaults and combats tho soul, is by the allur
ing TMiities of the world. Look over the
whole universe, .and you wil! find it to be the
Devil's grind and plentiful uiairazine ; there
bang scarce any thing in it, but wh.at ho
sometimes uses either :i4i a weapon or a snare :
the whole way and course of it being a pro
fessed enmity and opi'MJsitiou to God : so that
he that loves one cannot jxissibly love the
other, (Jaraes. iv. 4.)
While we live iu tho world, we walk upon
traps .and pitr.ills, and such things as have a
strange and peculiar energy to work our de
struction. Even the most beautiful and
desirable tliiiigs of it are deadly and perni
cious : nay. so innch the more deadly, by Iww
mnch the more desirable. Like a sepulchre,
it is still a devouring and a consuming thiiij.
for all its paint and varnish, its stately and
fiur appearance. For soe how the world first
eutaugles, and thou kills such .as come witiiiu
the compass of its: mortal embraces !
One man is taken with the riches of it,
which he pursuts, fellows, and at l.-.st wor
ships, till he has even mado his gr.in his irtvl :
bnt at length he finds, that his god deserts
him, aud leaves him iu the hand of the devil.
Another h.as his eyes dazzled with t'le glories
and glistering honours ofthe world : r.iid bting
mad upon them, lists himself a servuut of the
Devil iu the practice of all Ivasoness iiuairin-
able, that so he may at length rise by him and
like him : not oonsidering that the Devil car
ries the aspiring wretch up to such a pinu,acle.
ouly that he may j-KTSun.io him to throw
hiins«lf thence down heatiloi; j. Another man
is catched aud iu-veigled with the pleasures of

the world, and so suffers himself to be carried
away with thatgoueral torrent of voluptuous
ness that runs violently, aud drowns certainly.
He first makes himself a swine, and then the
Devil enters iuto him, aud hurries him into
the gulf of etern.al pertlition.
And if the world cannot get that hold of a
mau, as to captivate him into a slavish pur
suit either of the riches, honours, or pleasures
of it ; vot the very custora, the eorapliaiiee,
and fiishion of it, insensibly cools, and at
length freezes up that ardent principle of love
to God and holiness, tbat should animate and
bear up tho soul iu the waj-s of duty. Nay.
the very wisdom of tho world (which is the
best part of that bad thing) pollutes .and de
flowers the heart, and brings it uuder the power
of principles directly contrary to the very
spirit aud design of religion : aud a man
shall pass for a wise man aud a politician,
when, with much artifice and subtilty, he is
only spinning the thread of his own destruc
tion. Which being so. it is not for nothing
that Christ bids his disciples " be of gocnl
cheer," for this very one thing, that he " had
overcome the world," (Johu, xvi. 33.) that
great .and mighty adversary, and, :is it were,
under the Devil himself, the general of all his
forces. For it is tho custom, the garb, and
fashion of tho world, that ort\lits, aud streiig-
theus, aud in a manner leads on all those
sins by whicli the Devil fights .against the
souls of men.
4. Fourtlily and Lastly, tlie Devil assault?
aud encounters men by the help of thoir owu
lusts and corruptions. The world, tho flesh,
and the Devil, are those throe formidable ene
mies, that we st;iiid jointiy engaged against
by our very baptism. Our own boilies are
armed against our souls : for the Scriptures
toll us, that •• the Ir.sts of theflesli war afiuinst
tho soui," or •• spirit." So that it may be
s;)iil, that a man's enemies are not only thoso
of his own house, but also of his owu flesh :
not only of the house ho liv« in, but also of
the house he carries about him : and surely
a bosom-enemy must needs bo :is gro;u a rai^-
ihief. as a bosoin-frioud is a blessing. Tiio
body of sin and lust that dwells within us is
an adversary th.at will bo alwr.ys annoying
us, a domestic tempter, always ai our elbow te
seduce, aud tluroby to ruin r.s.
S<i that whicli way soever wo o:iit our
thoughls. wo shall find enemies ri:ady to at
tack us in all our s; irirr.al concerns. For if
wo consider the iuvisible world, there is the
Devil and his loiious eniKattlol agaiust us ;
if wo look alr.xui uixrn thii gs visible, there
the -whole world stands eiig:5ged iu the same
quarrel : .and if wo look yet nirihor into the
lesser world, ourselves, tliore we shidl find our I
Kxlios furnishing out weapons of unrightoor.s-
noss for the s;".uie war : and lastly, if we take
a survey of our own ho:u-ts, wo shall find them j

\\

172

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Skrm. XVII.

full of treachery and infidelity ; so that we
have cause to cry out. Who shall deliver us
from such potent enemies, and especially from
our owu selves? How shall we be able to
bear up against such an unequal, such an
overpowering force ? Surely it can be no ordi
nary assistance that can bring us offfrom such
opposition clear and victorious. And if the
strong man be overcome, it must needs be by
some other that is stronger than hiraself.
And thus I have finished the first general
head proposed frora the words ; namely, the
thing implied or supposed in them ; which
was, that believers should be encountered and
assaulted in their spiritual course.
But now, as all kind of opposition or as
sault includes iu the very nature of it an
endeavour in the assailant to conquer and cast
down the person assailed by him frora his
present station, which -we have been hitherto
discoursing of ; so, in the second place, it ira
plies also an endeavour in the person assaulted
to maintain and make good that his station
against all the force and opposition of his
adversary. And he that is so victorious as to keep his
ground, maugre all such encounters, is said to
" st.and in the day of b.attle ;" which is a
word expressing the posture of a combatant
defending himself with success : (Ephes. vi.
13,) " Take unto you the whole arraour of
God, that ye may be able to withstand in the
evil day, and having done all, to stand." So
that by " standing" is here signified to us a
man's preserving hiraselfin that estate, from
which his adversary contends by all means
possible to throw him down.
It reraains therefore now, that we shew
how and by what raeans this is to be effected ;
and the text tells us, that it raust be by faith ;
" by faith ye stand :" which introduces the
Second general head proposed, which is the
thing positively expressed in the words ;
naraely, that in all these spiritual assaults
made against believers by their implacable
enemy, it is faith alone that does or can ren
der them victorious.
F'or the raaking out of which, I shall shew,
1. In what condition man is, considered'
according to his mere natural estate, and void
of the grace of faith.
2. What advantages and helps faith gives
believers, for the conquering of all that oppo
sition that shall be raade against thera by
their spiritual eneray.
And first, for the first ofthese, the condition
that raan is in, considered according to his
natural estate, and void of the grace of faith ;
which, we raay be sure, is bad and deplorable
enough : and to prove it so, there needs no
other argument than this, thatif bare nature,
since the fall of Adam, were not infinitely in
sufficient to work out its owu recovery, the
diviue grace would never have put itself to

the expense of little less than a miracle, to
work in it such qualifications as may in some
measure enable it to acquit itself in the keep
ing of God's coraraands. For so very strong
is the sway and bias of nature to contrary
courses, that if those inclinations were not
controlled and overpowered by sorae superior
principle, it would not, notwithstanding .all
instructions .and exhortations to the ways of
duty, of itself roll back and relapse into a
state of sin, even without any solicitation
frora Satan or the world : as a stone, if we
quit our hold of it, will of itself, without any
farther irapulse, fall down to its centre fast
enough. Nothing can hinder the workings of
nature, but something that shall be of more
force than nature. But while a man is desti
tute of faith, what forces can he rally up
against the workings of so quick and vigorous
a principle as his owu corruption ? Will he
oppose his imperfect good desires, his fading
resolutions, his good duties and self-righteous- I
ness? Alas! nature will quickly break!
through all such puny resistances. I'hese are
all like the cords upon Samson ; they seem to
bind him indeed while he lies still ; but wheu
the strong raan bestirs himself, then presently
they break : all the forces that reason or na
tural conscience can raise, fly before a temp
tation. All good purposes, made in the
strength of human wisdom and bare morality,
vanish, when a pleasing sin offers aud presents
itself to a lively appetite.
It is with the body of sin as with our uiitu-
ral body, which, if there be strength of nature,
will by degrees work out all those obstruc
tions that grieve or offend it. So strength of
natural corruption will of itself gradually
work off all those convictions that restrain it.
Nay, after it has been in sorae measure
hampered and oppressed by those convincing
works, it will then, upon the least recovery
ofitself, act so much the more strongly against
them ; it being the property of any active
principle, whensoever it is opposed, then to
exert its strongest actions in order to its own
preservation and defence. Every conviction
or serious thought, cast into the soul by the
word, will oppose the corrupt workings of
nature ; whicli, finding itself so opposed, will
endeavour to rescue and relieve itself by a
greater vehemence of acting.
So that, till a thorough change pass upon
our sinful nature, in the renovation of all its
powers, faculties, and inclinations, the soul
reraains as weak and naked as it first came
into the world, without either strength or
weapons to defend itself ; and when an allur
ing temptatiou comes in its way, it will run
with fury througli all its convictions to em
brace it, and is no more able to abstain from
it, than a hungry wolf to forbear his prey.
Nature has corruption enough to be its own
tempter : and if want of grace leaves the door

ON 2 CORINTHIANS, i. 24.

173

ofthe heart unguarded or open, siu needs no
other invitation to enter ; nor has the soul
only, while unrenewed by faith, a readiness
and propensity to sin, but also a cursed suit
ableness to and compliance with every thing
that may any ways induce it to sin ; so that,
in this forlorn, faithless condition, it is like a
city, about which there is an array besieging
it, and within which there is treachery be
traying it, and no arras to defend it. And
thus rauch for the first way of proving that it
is faith alone that can render a man victorious,
j in his conflicts with his spiritual adversaries ;
, namely, by shewing his deplorable weakness
and insufficiency to deal with such opponents,
' while considered iu hisuatural estate, and void
of faith.
The other -way of proving the same asser-
j tion is, by shewing what advantages and
helps faith gives believers for the conquest of
these their spiritual eneraies.
I shall mention three :
1. It gives them a real union with Christ ;
concerning which we must know, that as the
union of the soul to the body is the cause of
life natural, so the union of Christ to the
soul is the fountain of life spiritual. Christ
being to the soul like armour, he then only
defends it, when he is close united to it. And
that such a nearness to hira will afford us such
protection from him, is evident frora the
nature of those things, by which this union
between hira and believers is expressed. In
John, XV. 1, 2, Christ corapares hiraself to
"the vine," and believers to "the branches."
And in Col. i. 18, be is compared to " the
head," and believers to " the merabers."
Where we see, that as long as the branch
continues united to the vine, it receives both
life and sap from it, whereby it is enabled to
fructify and flourish ; and so long as the
members preserve their conjunction with the
head, they derive from thence spirit and
motion, whereby they are enabled to preserve
themselves. But let there be a separation or
disjunction between either of these, and then
presently the branch withers and dies, and
the merabers putrefy and rot, and at length
pass into a total corruption. And just so it
is with Christ and believers ; " through hira
strengthening thera, they can do all things,"
(Philp. iv. 13.) And on the other side,
" without him they can do nothing," (John,
XV. 4.) It is from his fulness, that life and
¦strength flows in upou every part and portion
of his mystical body. And as our union to
hira is the great conduit by which all this is
conveyed to us, so faith is the cause of this
union. Faith ties the conjugal knot, and is
that uniting principle, that, like a great nerve
or string, fastens us to our spiritual head, and
so makes us partake of all its enlivening and
supporting influences.
¦ Aristotle observes, that union is never per

fect between coraplete natures of a different
kind. But now it is faith alone that deno
minates and makes us new creatures ; and
consequently gives us a spiritual cognation
with Christ, without which it is no more pos
sible for us to be united to hira, than for the
dead to incorporate with the living, for dark
ness to hold coraraunion with light, or hell
with heaven.
In short, the result of all is this : want of
a true and lively faith in Christ speaks want
of union to him ; and want of union to him
speaks want of influence from him ; without
which no sin can be really opposed, much less
overcome. It is from Christ, and from Christ
alone, that there must issue forth strength for
the subduing of our corruptions ; from him
alone that there must come a healing virtue for
the stanching of this bloody issue of sin, or,
in spite of all our plasterings and dressings
of it, it will prove incurable : it is frora hira
that there raust corae a continual supply of
assisting grace, to support and bear us up iu
a course of evangelical obedience ; and with
out this, miserable experience will convince
us that we are not able to stand.
2. Faith helps believers in the conquest of
their spiritual eneraies, by engaging the
assistance of the Spirit on their behalf ; with
out whose special influence it is impossible for
the soul to do any thing in the ways of duty
effectually, or to oppose any sin with success ;
for still we find all ascribed to this. It is
" through the Spirit that the deeds of the
flesh are to be mortified," (Rom. viii. 13 ;)
and " it is the Spirit that worketh in us,"
(Phil. ii. 13.) Nothing but the Spirit of God,
living, reigning, and conquering in the heart,
can repulse, and beat b.ack our great adver
sary. That opposition that is from without,
must be resisted and kept out by sorae living,
raighty principle residing within us : but if
the heart of man had of itself any thing to
secure it against the assaults of sin and the
tempter, Christ would have saved hiraself the
labour both of purchasing and of sending the
Spirit. But he well knew our weakness, our
exceeding great and deplorable weakness ;
how unable naturally we are but to see the
false and .alluring fruit of sin, and not to
desire it ; to desire it, and not to taste it.
How ready we always are to admit of a temp
tation, though offered by the Devil; to eat
the apple though presented by a serpent.
And there are some temptations so strong,
contrived with so much hellish art, tendered
with such particular advantage to the accepr
tance of a corrupt heart, and withal pressed
with such importunity, that nothing but the
hand of Omnipotence can keep them off;
nothing but the Spirit of God himself can
hinder thera frora fastening upon, and pre
vailing over the soul.
From whence it is evident, that the heart

174

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Serm. XVII. I

must be bome up, and acted by the Spirit of
God, or of necessity fall away. Every man
naturally moves that way that the tempta
tion moves ; and if he goes a contrary way,
he must needs do it, not as he is led by him
self, but by another. As in the motion of
the celestial orbs, when we see the inferior
ones snatched about with a motion contrary
to their own proper motion, we collect thence,
that they are raoved by a superior.
This is most certain, that it is not in the
power of man that goes, to order his goings,
but he must have a conduct. It is uot in the
power of man to foil the terapter ; but it is God
hiraself thatmust bruise Satan under our feet :
it is not in the tender herb to keep itself
from withering, and being blasted ; but in
the careful hand that covers and protects it.
When God bid the children of Israel go and
possess Canaan, he told thera, that he would
send his angel before thera, and drive out
their enemies. In like manner we go forth
against a temptation ; but Christ must send
his Spirit before us to subdue it, or we shall
certainly fall and perish by it. And as it is
the Spirit that must do all this for us, so it is
faitii alone that entitles us to his assistance,
as an effect and consequent of that interest
that it first gives us in Christ. The Spirit
never assists but where he dwells ; and still
it is faith that makes the soul, as well as the
body, the teraple of the Holy Ghost. .
3. And lastly, faith helps believers in the
conquest of their spiritual enemies, by giving
thera both a title to, and a power effectually
to apply God's proraises. We all (as has been
shewn) stand engaged in a spiritual warfare,
and strength we have none, but what we
fetch frora God. God conveys none but
through Christ : whatsoever Christ gives is
by the Spirit ; and the Spirit works by the
promises, putting those weapons into our
liands; and faitii is properly that spiritual hand
into which they are put. Every promise is
indeed a spring of living water; but it is
water in a well, and faith is the bucket that
must fetch it up both for our use and comfort.
There is enough in every promise, if appre
hended by a lively faith, to enable any
intelligent nature to defy and look all the
powers of hell in the face. That oue promise,
(Rev. ii. 10,) "Be thou faithful unto death,
and I will give thee a crown of life," is enough
to render the strongest assault of the Devil
vain and ineffectual, and the most alluring
teraptation flat and insipid ; if so be faith
takes in the truth of it by a firm persuasion.
For God having so fraraed the nature of
man, that every one of his actions is the pro
secution of something first desired ; and sinee
nothing moves desire, but so far as it is
apprehended good and beneficial ; it follows,
that since the Devil has engaged our actions
and desires in his service by the pleasures and

profits of the world, and such other things ,as
affect the sense ; if ever those desires be took
off from thence, and pitched upon the service
of God, it must be by proposing to them some
greater good, obtainable in such a course, than
can be had in the other : and greater good
there seems to be none, but heaven and im
mortality. Which things falling not under
the apprehension of sense, but only being
represented in the divine proraise, they are
only apprehensible by believing, and by that
faith that apprehends the proraise: for till I
either know or believe that there is a heaven,
and a state of immortal glory, these can have
no more influence upon my practice, than if
there were no such things at all. So that it
is faith that does, as it were, realize and make
these things as present to a rational under
standing, as the eye makes a desirable object
present to the sense. Whereupon, in Heb.
xi. 1, faith is, both with great elegance and
significance, styled " the substance of things
hoped for, and the evidence of things not
seen." That is, when we really believe the
certain event of any good, though it be indeed
future, yet it has as strong an influence to
move the soul, as if it were actually present;
and though it be indeed invisible, yet it does
as really affect a man's desires, as if it were
placed before his eyes. So that those lieroical
conquests obtained by the saints over the
Devil and the world, and there so fully de
scribed by the apostle, are all attributed to
the strength of their faith in the promises; as,
" that they had seen the proraises afar off, and i
were persuaded of thera, and erabraced them,"
in the thirteenth verse. And particularly I
that glorious triumph that Moses made over '
the proffer of all the grandeur of a court and j
kingdom, is solely ascribed to the mighty i
efficacy of the same faith, as the only thing
that could enable him " to have respect to the
recorapense of reward," in the twenty-sixth
vefse, and even " to see hira who was in- '
visible," in the twenty-seventh verse. j
Thus, therefore, does faitii empower b«- '¦
lievers to stand it out against all the fiery on- j
sets of their spiritual eneraies ; naraely, by
enabling them to see better and raore desir- ]
able thiugs in God's promises to engage them
to obey his precepts, than any that the Devil
can propose to them in his temptations to
allure thera to the coraraission of sin.
Wherefore, it being evident, frora what has
beeu delivered, both that believers will be
fiercely encountered in their spiritual course,
and that faith is the only thing that cau pre
serve and defend them in those encounters,
we collect hence both the necessity and excel
lency of this grace ; for it is this alone that
will bear us victorious through all that oppo
sition, that would otherwise wholly crush
and extinguish us. It is this that will set us
above all our enemies, by setting us above

ON 2 CORINTHIANS, i. 24.

176

our own weaknesses. It is this that will
make us "more than conquerors ;" and that
by carrying us out of ourselves, aud pitching
us upon Christ. For in all these spiritual
conflicts it will be found, that he that stands
upon no other legs but his own, will certainly
fall ; there being no sure station for poor
sinners but iu him, who is the rock of ages,
and the great Saviour of mankind ; and so
able to save to the uttermost all those that by
faith rely upon him.
To whom, therefore, be rendered and as
cribed, as is most due, all praise, might,
majesty, and dominion, both now and for
everraore. Araen.

SEKMON XVIII.
*' The Lord is good to all : and hia tender mercies are over
aU his works. " — Psalm cxlv. 9.
He that undertakes to discourse of any of
God's attributes, must profess that he under
takes to discourse of that which he does not
thoroughly understand, if so be that he
understands himself. For how can a finite
comprehend an infinite ? or how can any one
express what he cannot coraprehend ? But
of all God's perfections, his mercy especially
is a theme so great, that none but an infinite
person can worthily enlarge upon it. How
ever, since God is pleased to call us to the
I study and contemplation of himself, we raay,
I conceive, without any presumption or injury
to his greatness, frame to ourselves the best
apprehensions and discourses, that the condi
tion of our nature can afford us of a thing, of
which we have no explicit knowledge.
Now mercy, as it is ascribed to God, may
be considered and taken two ways :
I. Forthe principle itself; which isnothing
else but the simple, undivided nature of God,
as it does manifest and cast abroad itself, in
such and such acts of grace and favour to the
creature. Which very sarae essence or nature,
according to different respects, is called wis
dora, justice, power, raercy, and the like.
II. It is taken for the effects and actions
flowing frora that principle, by which it does
so raanifest and exert itself.
Which also adrait of a distinction into two
sorts: 1. Such as are general, and of equal diffu
sion to all.
2. Such as are special, and peculiarly relate
to the rederaption and reparation of fallen
man ; whom God was pleased to choose and
single out from the rest of his works, as the
proper object for this great attribute to do its
utmost upon.
Now it was the former sense that was in

tended by the Psalmist in the text, as Is
evident from the universality of the words.
It was such a mercy as spread itself over all
his works ; such an one as reached as wide as
creation and providence. It was like the sun
and the light, to shine upon all without ex
ception. And therefore we are not at all
concerned here to treat of the miracles of
God's pardoning mercy, as they display thern-
selves in the satisfaction and ransora paid
down by Christ for sinners : for it would be a
great deviation frora the design of the words,
to confine the overflowing goodness of a
Creator to the raore liraited dispensations of
a Redeemer ; and so to drown an universal in
a particular. For the prosecution of the words, there is
no way that seeras raore easy and natural, and
withal more full, for the setting forth of God's
general mercy to the creature, than to take a
distinct, though short, survey of the several"
parts of the creation, and therein to shew how
it exerts and lays itself out upon each of
them. 1. And first, to begin at the lowest step of
creature-perfection. The divine goodness
pours itself fortli even upon the inanimate
part of the creation : for look over the whole
universe, and you shall find no one part of it
but has its peculiar beauty and ornament. So
that the Greek word xoafio;, which signifies
the world, signifies also dress and ornament;
as if the world were nothing else but a great
union and collection of all beauties and per
fections. " The sun," the Psalmist tells us,
" comes every day dressed and adorned like
a bridegroom, out of his chambers iu the
east." He casts abroad a lustre too glorious
to behold : it is enough that we can see it at
a second hand, and by reflection. Nor can
the night itself conceal the glories of heaven ;
but the moon and the stars, those deputed
lights, then shew forth their lesser beauties ;
yet even those so great, that when weariness,
and the lateness of the night, has in-vited some
eyes to sleep, in the meantime the lights of it
have kept others awake, to view their exact
motion and adrairable order. While the
labourer lies down for his rest, the astronomer
sits up,and watches for his pleasure. Andthen,
if we consider the earth and the sea, we shall
find them like two inexhaustible storehouses,
exhibiting the riches of nature in a bound
less, unmeasureable plenty ; a plenty ennobled
by two excellencies, fulness and regularity.
So that the whole system of the world is hut
a standing copy and representation of the
divine goodness, writing little iraages of itself
upon every the least part and portion of this
great body.
2. But secondly, to proceed farther, to plants
and vegetables,' which have a littie higher
advance of perfection, and enjoy soraething
like life ; that is, something that is enough to

Vid

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Serm. XVIII.

make them grow and flourish : " Consider the
lilies," says our Saviour, (Matt. vi. 28,) " how
they grow ; they toil not, they spin not ; aud
yet Solomou in all his glory was not arrayed
like ono of them." And we read in the SOth
verse, of " God's clothing the grass." It is
some part of a father's or a raaster's bounty,
when his sensor servants go splendidlyclothed,
and so carry the raarks of his liberality upon
their back. And then also, to preserve these
things iu a constant possession of that beauty
that their first creation iraparted to thera, all
the influences of the upper, and the virtues of
the lower world are set on work ; all the
elements are employed, the planets engaged,
and the sun himself rises betimes, and labours
all day long, to give verdure and freshness to
the least spire of grass, to convey sap and
nutriraent to every little plant or twig : so
bountiful is the hand of Providence to main-
i tain the being that it once gave. So that it
is here expressed not only by raercy, but by
" tender raercy ;" such an one as is proper to
parents, who preserve their children with care
and solicitude, supplying their necessities, and
providing also for their conveniences. There
is not the least flower but seeras to hold up
its head, and to look pleasantly, in the secret
sense of the goodness of its heavenly Maker ;
which silent rhetoric, though we cannot hear,
but only see, yet it is so full and expressive,
that David thought he neither spoke irapro-
priety, nor nonsense, nor a strong line, where
he says, " that even the valleys break forth
into singing." And surely then it must be a
song of praise and thanksgiving, a song of
joy and triumph, for those liberal effusions of
goodness, even upon these lower parts of the
creation. But this goodness stops not here : but when
those things seem to h.ave finished their course,
and then to wither and die, and at last bury
theraselves in the bowels of the same earth
that bore them ; why then, the same Provi
dence vouchsafes them a resurrection and
a return to life. Every season has, as it were,
its coraraission and coramand frora Heaven,
to furnish the world anew with the very
sarae things : and when the spring comes, the
decrepit tree grows young and blossoms, the
grass rises frora the dead, and the flowers step
forth as if the whole winter's interval had
been but a sleep, and the places upon which
they grew were indeed beds, without a me
taphor. Thus the goodness of Heaven, while
it provides for the creature, proceeds in a
constant circle ; and as a circle has no end,
so neither has that. For it first produces
these things into being, then preserves them,
and at last, being dead, recovers them ; and
by that gives thera sorae reserablance of an
iraraortality, so far as the proportions of their
nature will admit.
And if it be now said. What good can all

this be to such creatures as have no sense of
it ? I answer, that every thing that is perfect
and regular is a credit, and a glory to itself,
as well as to its author, whether it knows so
much or no. Different natures have different
capacities of good : things endued with sense
and apprehension receive what is good by
apprehending and being sensible of it. But
to say, that therefore inanimate things, whose
nature is wholly different, raust do so too, or
be utterly incapable of good, this is a great
fallacy and error in discourse ; it being to
rate the raost different things by the same
raeasure. For as the brutes are, in their way, capable
of receiving the benefit and good that is pro
perly fitted to their nature and condition,
though they cannot take it in by the sublimer
•and higher apprehensions of reason ; so these
inanimate beings, that are void of sense, have
also their proper good things belonging to
them, though they cannot enjoy them by
hearing, seeing, tasting, and the like, which
are the peculiar fruitions of sensible creatures.
The herb feeds upon the juice of a good soil,
and drinks in the dew of heaven as eagerly,
and thrives by it as effectually, as the stalled
ox, that tastes every thing that he eats or
drinks. Providence has suited each nature
with its enjoyment ; and therefore the " tender
mercies of God" may be said to be over these
things also.
3. From hence let us now, in the third
place, advance a little higher, to the sensible
parts of the creation, the beasts of the field,
and the fowls of the air ; amongst which we
shall find even the chiefest and the strongest
of them constant retainers and pensioners to
the bounty of their Creator ; the lion, who, one
would think, was pretty well able to provide
for himself, yet David tells us, (Psalm civ.
21,) that he still " seeks his meat from God."
And the " young ravens too can call upon
him" in their way, and be heard and fed by
hira when they do call, through a strange
providence. How has God given every creature a power
most particularly to pursue and corapass that
which makes for the welfare of its being!
Where he denies strength, he usually gives
sagacity and quickness of sense : and withal
implants in every one a certain instinct, that
teaches and prompts it to make use of that
faculty in which its chief ability is seated.
The ox, a creature of none of the most ready
senses, has them yet ready enough to know
how to defend himself, and will not encounter
his adversary or assailant, as the mastiff does,
witii his teeth. The littie bird has not strength
to grapple with the hawk or the eagle ; but
it has agility of body to carry it out of reach,
and smallness too to convey it out of sight.
Nay, and if we consider the poor helpless
lamb, which has neither streiigtti, nor wings.

ON PSALM cxlv. 9.

177

nor craft to secure itself by, but seems wholly
offered by nature as a prey to any thing that
will prey upon it ; yet its great usefulness for
the occasions of man's life has entitled it to
the care and protection of him whom it serves.
So that the goodness of God has left nothing
defenceless, but has sent every thing into the
worid well accoutred and provided, according
to the exigence of those necessities that its
nature is like to expose it to. And he that
would do Providence right, in recounting
fully what it has done for the creature in this
particular, must, with Pliny, write a natural
history. 4. In the fourth place, proceed we now one
step farther, and take a survey of rational
creatures, men and angels. And first for
man ; who is, as it were, an epitome, or rather
an union of the two worlds ; as by his body
relating to the earth, and by his soul to
heaven : nothing can more declare the good
ness of his Creator to him, than that he made
him " after his own image."
But passing over the bounty of God to man
in his state of innocence, as not sufficiently
to he expressed by any since the loss of it ; I
shall remark only those blessings and favours,
which men, even since the fall and apostasy
of Adam, seem to enjoy upon the mere stock
of the common mercies of Providence ; which,
we find, as to all the outward materials of
happiness, makes no discrimination between
the good and the bad ; but causes the sun
and the rain to visit the vineyard, as well
when it is Ahab's as while it was Naboth's.
And David says of the wicked, in several of
his Psalms, " that God fills their bellies with
his hid treasures ; that their eyes stand out
with fatness, and that they have even more
than heart can wish."
And surely to be rich, healthy, and honour
able, are favours and blessings, and such as
are the prizes that the most excellent and
renowned part of the world strive for : yet
experience will shew, that these are not the
badges of saintship, or the certain marks of
God's peculiar mercies. A man may affront
and offend all that is above him, and yet
command and enjoy all that is beneath him :
for were not the four monarchies of the world
successively in the hands of heathens, who
worshipped false gods, while they subsisted
and flourished by the beneficence of the tme ?
Nay, and to go even to Israel itself, were not
almost all of its kings enemies to and con
temners of that God, whose peculiar people
they reigned over ? Which shews, that they
enjoyed these privileges and prerogatives, not
upon the score of any federal endearment, or
any interest in a promise that they could lay
claim to. These and many other examples
declare, that the benignity of Providence
seems to be promiscuous and universal, and
as undistinguishing as the air and the ele-
VOL. II.

ments, which equally dispense themselves to
the necessities of all.
And now, we cannot but judge it an instance
of a strange, and alraost an invincible good
ness, for a prince to clothe his rebels in scarlet,
and to raake his traitors fare deliciously every
day. Yet the wicked and the profane ones of
the world, who stand in the sarae defiance of
the raajesty and supreraacy of Heaven, are
treated with as great obligingness and favour
by hira, whom they so defy.
And besides, how many are the casual,
unforeseen dangers, that the hand of Pro
vidence rescues them from ! How many
little things carry iu them the causes of death !
and how often are men, that have escaped,
amazed that they were not destroyed ! Which
shews that there is an eye that still watches
over thera, that always sees, though it is not
seen ; that knows their strengths and their
weaknesses, where they are safe, and where
they raay be struck ; and in how many
respects they lie open to the invasion of a
sad accident. And though it be ten to one,
but that iu the space of a year or two a man
is attacked by one or other of those many
thousand casualties that he is obnoxious to ;
yet we see that most raen make a shift to rub
out, and to be safe, to grow old, and to be
well. In a word, every man lives by a per
petual deliverance ; a deliverance, which for
the unlikelihood of it he could not expect, and
for his own unworthiness, I am sure, he could
not deserve.
6. And now, in the last place, we are arrived
at the very top of the creation, the angels ;
those more lively and bright resemblances
of the Deity, whose raised endowraents and
excellencies' speak tbe goodness of their
Creator to thera in that degree, that it would
nonplus the tongue of angels theraselves to
express the greatness of the obligation. For
corapare a Solomon, an Aristotle, or an
Archimedes, to a child that newly begins to
speak, and they do not more transcend such
an one, than the angelical understanding
exceeds theirs even in its raost sublime im
provements and acquisitions.
Nothing but omniscience can outdo the
knowledge of angels ; a knowledge that dives
into all the recesses of nature, and spies out
all the secret workings of second causes by a
certain and iraraediate view ; which the
quickest human intellect pursues by tedious
meditation, dubious conjectures, short experi
ments, and perhaps after all is forced to sit
down in ignorance and dissatisfaction.
Nor do they excel in knowledge only, but
also in power aud activity. Men indeed raise
armies, and, by much ado and much tirae,
rout an eneray or sack a city ; but we shall
find a destroying angel in one night slaying
a hundred, fourscore, and five thousand men,
(2 Kings, xix. 35.) So great is the force of

178

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Sjjrm. XVIII.

those spiritual beings I For corporeal matter
is not the proper cause of action, but remains
sluggish and unmoved, till it receives motion
by the impulse of an imraaterial principle :
nor does any philosophy prove, nor indeed
can prove, that any thing that is raerely body
can move itself. So that the angelical essence,
being free from any material mixture, is also
free from all clogs and encurabrances. It is
all pure action ; and so must needs exert it
self at a higher rate of force, than any of
those bodily agents that we see and converse
with. Neither do the angels move by certain
periods and steps of progression, as we are
fain to do, who carry our own weights and
hinderances about us ; but they measure the
vastest spaces and the greatest distances in the
twinkling of an eye, in a moraent, in a por
tion of time so short, that it falls uuder no
mortal perception or observation. And for
this cause were the cherubiras in the taber
nacle painted with wings, the best way that
we have to express the greatest agility by :
though the swiftness of an arrow out of a
bow is no more to be compared to the speed
of an angel, than the motion of a snail can be
compared to that.
And now, as God has been so bountiful to
the angels, by ennobling them with such ex
cellent qualities, so he has yet farther mani
fested the same bounty to them in a double
respect :
1. In respect of the place of their habitation
or abode.
2. In respect of their employment.
1. And first, for the place of their abode :
it is the highest heaven, the place of God's
iraraediate residence ; even the presence-
chamber of the Alraighty. (Matt, xviii. 10,)
" In heaven their angels do always behold
the face of ray Father," says our Saviour ;
and (Psalm Ixviii. 17,) "The chariots of God
are twenty thousand, even thousands of
angels ; and the Lord is among thera." They
are (as I may so say) God's menial and domes
tic servants ; they are part of his family ; they
attend about his throne ; and have the most
exalted and direct fruitions of the beatific
vision. 2. In the next place, as for their employ
ment, that is twofold :
1. i'o be continually worshipping and speak
ing praises to God ; to behold and admire
him in the full brightness of his glory : to
conteraplate upon all his ineffable perfections,
and to be in a continual rapture and ecstasy
upon such contemplation ; expressing it in
constant hallelujahs and adorations. In a
word, their great business is to admire and to
praise. 2. Their other employment is immediately
to execute God's commands about the govern
ment of the world : they are the great mini

sters of Providence, and it is their glory so to
be ; their service is their privilege : as in the
courts of princes every attendant is honour
able, or at least thinks himself so. The angels
are still despatched by God upon all his great
messages to the world ; and therefore their
very name in Greek, which is ayyiKoi, signifies
a messenger : in short, they have the most
illustrious employment that can be, which is
to be ambassadors extraordinary from the
King of kings.
And thus I have traced the divine goodness
to the creature, beginning at the lowest, and
from thence ascending to the highest parts of
the creation : which subject, though it has
been general, yet, as to the use and improve
ment of it, may very well havo a particular
reference and application to us men. And
therefore the deduction that I shall make
frora all the precedent discourse, shall be to
instate and settle in our minds right thoughts
of the natural goodness and benignity ofGod
towards men.
How many and vast endearments might we
draw frora God barely as a Creator I Sup
pose there had never been any news of a re
deemer to fallen Adam ; no hope, no afte^
game for him as a sinner ; yet let us peruse
the obligations that lay upou him as a man.
Was it not enough for him, who but yestei^
day was nothing, to be advanced into an ex
istence, that is, into one perfection of the
Deity ? Was it not honour enough for clay to
be breathed upon, and for God to print his
image upon a piece of dirt ? Certainly it would
be looked upon as a high kindness for any
prince to give a subject his picture : was it no
act of love therefore iu God to give us souls
endued with such bright faculties, such lively
images of himself, which he might have thrust
¦into the world with the short and brutish
perceptions of a few silly senses ; and, like
the beasts, have placed our intellectuals in
our eyes or in our noses ?
Was it no favour to make that a sun, which
he might have made but a glowworm? no
privilege to man, that he was made lord of all
things below ? that the world was not only his
house, but his kingdom ? that God should
raise up one piece of earth to rule over ^11 the
rest? Surely all these were favours, and they
were the early, preventing favours of a Crea
tor ; for God then knew no other title, he
bore no other relation to us : there was no
price given to God, that might induce him to
bid Adam rise out of the earth a man, rather
than a spire of grass, a twig, a stone, or some
such other contemptible superiority to no
thing. No ; he furnished him out into the world
with all this retinue of perfections, upon no
other motive but because he had a mind to
make him a glorious piece of work, a speci-

ON PSALM cxlv. 9.

179

men of the arts of Omnipotence, to stand and
glister in the top and head of the creation.
Which consideration alone, I should think,
might be able to compose the murmurs and
the grudgings that lie festering in many men's
hearts against God, caused by a surmise of
God's hard dealings with them. In short,
they paint God with dismal colours, and then
they fly frora hira : they treat him with the
basest of affections, which is suspicion, and
look upon him as glad to take advantage
against his creature.
But may we not say of such. Is this their
kindness to their friend ? Are these the best
returns of gratitude that they can make to
their Creator ? For God, as their Creator, was
their friend, had he never took upon him any
other respect ; their very production was an
obligation, and their bare essence a favour
above a recorapense : for why should God put
a greater lustre upon one piece of the chaos
than upon another ?
¦ The fallen angels, who will never have any
other relation to God, but as to a Creator, will
upon this very score, had they no other sin to
condemn them, stand inexcusably condemned
for ingratitude, ih that they sinned against
that God that obliged them with so excellent
a nature, with the nearest similitude to his
own substance ; that they sinned against hira,
who raade thera so able not to have sinned.
But now God's relation of a Creator reflects
the sarae obligation upon men that it did upon
the angels ; and that so great, that though
they chance to perish for their sins, yet they
will go to hell obliged, and carry the marks of
God's favour with them to their very destruc
tion. Wherefore all thehard thoughts menusually
have of God, ought by alL means and arts of
consideration to be suppressed : for the better
effecting of which, we may fix our meditation
upon these two qualities that do always at
tend thera, —
1. Their unreasonableness.
2. Their danger.
1. And first, for their unreasonableness ; all
such thoughts are not any true resemblances
of our Creator, but merely our own creatures.
All the sad appearances of rigour that we
paint him under are not from hiraself, but
from our misrepresentations : as the fogs and
mists we sometimes see about the sun issue
not from him, but ascend from below, and
owe their nearness to the sun ouly to the de
ception of the spectator.
Is it possible for him, who is love itself, to
be crael, harsh, and inexorable ; to sit in
heaven contriving gins and snares to trepan
and ruin his poor creatures : and then to
delight himself in the cries of the damned,
and the -woful estate of torraented souls ?
There is, I confess, a sort of men, " sons of
thunder," (but, by a new way, they thunder

from hell, not from heaven,) who delight to
represent God with all the terror and hostility
to men, that their own base spirit and sordid
melancholy can suggest. They so account
him a maker, that they scarce allow hira to
be a preserver : they describe hira as a father
without bowels ; they raake him to triuraph,
and please, and as it were recreate himself in
the confusion of all his works : as if our de
struction had been the sole end of our crea
tion, and God only made us, that he might
afterwards have the pleasure of destroying us.
As men use to nourish and breed up deer, and
such kind of beasts, only that they may hunt
and worry them.
With what pleasure may we hear sorae
persons tell men that they are damned !
Indeed with so much, that they seem to taste
the expression more than if they had heard
that they themselves should be saved ; persons
fitter to blow the trurapet upon raount Sinai,
or, according to their old note, to " curse
Meroz," than to proclaim the glad tidings of
the gospel. But still, after such have said all,
to bespatter God's natural kindness to the
sons of men, all their furious, blustering ex
pressions will be found not to have been
copied out from any such real harshness in
God, but to have issued only from the fumes
of an ignorant head and an ill-natured consti
tution. The divine nature is the light and the
refreshment of a rational creature ; God is of
all beings the most araiable, suitable, and
desirable : all the loveliness, the beauty,
and perfection that is diffused and scattered
here and there through the whole creation,
and which is so apt to excite and win our
affections, is in an infinite, inexhaustible
manner treasured up in God. And shall we
now court the stream, and in the mean tirae
throw dirt into the fountain 1
Nay, to proceed farther ; the very design of
a creation unanswerably speaks the goodness
of the Creator. For why should he corarauni
cate himself? why should he diffuse any of
those perfections which he was so fully master
of by an ineffable acquiescence in hiraself?
But his goodness was so vastly, so infinitely
full, that he seemed unquiet and unsatisfied,
till he had as it were disburdened himself by
some coraraunications of it. One would have
thought that these perfections had been too
rare to be coraraunicated, so much as in re
serablance, and that God would have folded
thera up within his own essence for ever ; so
that he who now contents himself with the
prerogative of being the best and the greatest
Being, might have been the only Being: but
he ehose rather to draw out, than only to
possess his own fulness, to scatter something
of his image upon the creature, and to see
himself iu effigy. From all which it follows,
that hard, suspicious apprehensions of God are

180

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Serm. XIX.

both injurious to him and unreasonable in
themselves. 2. The other arguraent against men's en
tertaining such thoughts of God, is the con
sideration of their exceeding danger. Their
malignity is equal to their absurdity : for
whosoever strives to beget or foment in his
heart such persuasions concerning God, makes
hiraself the Devil's orator, and declaims his
cause, whose proper characteristic badge it is
to be the great accuser or calumniator ; for
that is the force of the Greek word S/aSoXof.
And as he is the constant accuser of us to
God, so, by a restless circle of malice, he is no
less industrious and artificial in accusing God
to us. Tho first engine by which he battered
down our innocence, and brought sin into the
world, was by insinuating into Eve's mind
thoughts that God rather envied than de
signed their happiness, in forbidding them to
eat of that one tree : and we know what suc
cess it had, to bereave man of an almighty
friend, only by a false supposal that he was
his enemy.
Despair, which is the greatest instrument
next to that of presuraption, by which the
Devil draws men headlong into the fatal net
of perdition, how and by what means does he
cause it ? Why, by representing God to the
soul like hiraself, a tyrant and a tormentor ;
by tragical declamations upon his vindictive
ju.stice : that he is one full of eternal designs
of revenge, rigid and iraplacable, exacting the
utraost farthing from a poor bankrupt crea
ture, that is not worth it. By such diabolical
rhetoric does he libel and disgrace God to
the hearts of his creatures.
And he well knows, that by these arts he
does his business effectually ; forasmuch as it
is impossible for the soul to love God, as long
as it takes him for an eneray and a destroyer.
We should contradict the principles of our
nature, should we love God so considered ; it
being unnatural to love any thing clothed
with the proper raotives and arguments of
hatred. And as it is impossible for the
understanding to assent to a known, apparent
falsity ; so it is equally impossible for the
will to love, choose, and embrace God, con
sidered as au adversary.
Aud from hence it is, that those who give
directions to distressed, afflicted consciences,
for the reobtaining of corafort, wisely lay the
foundation here ; first of all, to fasten in the
heart a deep and thorough persuasion of God's
natural goodness and benevolence to all his
creatures, to mankind especially, one of the
choicest and most beloved parts ofthe creation.
And by such thoughts we are to antidote
the poison of the contrary ; which of them
selves would quickly ripen into blasphemy,
and from thence pass into a confirmed malice
against God ; the proper sin and character of
the Devil.

We are to assure ourselves of the infinite
agreeableness of the divine nature to ours;
that God's goodness is not only full, but ex
uberant ; the first is his glory, the second our
advantage. Indeed so full is it, that when
it is said, that God cannot shew or exercise
mercy, it is not from any defect either in him
or in that, but merely for want of a suitable
object ; he has always a liberality inclining
hira to give, but we have not always a capa
city fitting us to receive.
But, as I shew at first, the divine goodnese
and raercy is a subject too large to be wielded
by our short and iraperfect discourses ; for that
which is " over all his works" raay well be
above all our words : and therefore we have
cause to turn our descriptions of it into a
petition for it, and to beseech God that we
raay come at length to enjoy what we are not
able now to express.
To which God be rendered aud ascribed,
as is most due, all praise, might, majesty,
and dominion, both now and for evermore.
Amen.

SEKMON XIX.
*' But eveiy man h tempted, when he is drawn away of his own
lust, and enticed." — James, i. 14.
It is natural for men, in the commission of
siu, to design to theraselves as much of the
pleasure, and as little of the guilt of sin, as
possibly they can : and therefore, since the
guilt of sin unavoidably remains upon the
cause and author of sin, it is their great busi
ness to find out some other cause, upon which
to charge it, beside, themselves. Accordingly
the apostle here directs these words and the
foregoing, as an anticipation of, and an answer
to a secret objection that might possibly arise
in some minds against God hiraself, as if he
were the great impeller and inducer of men to
sin ; in which answer he clears God, by stating
sin upon its true cause and original.
In the prosecution of the words, I shall
only premise the explication of these two
terms, and so descend to their farther discus
sion. 1. What the apostle here raeans hy being
" terapted." 2. What is intended by " lust."
1. For the first of these: it is as certain,
that the Scripture affirras sorae men to have
been tempted by God, and particularly Abrar
ham, as that it is positively affirmed in the
verse before the text, " that God tempts no
man ;" and therefore this word raust needs be
of various signification. In the sense that it
is ascribed to God, it signifies no more than

=J

ON JAMES i. 14.

181

a bare trial ; as when, by some notable provi
dence, he designs to draw forth and discover
what is latent iu the heart of man. In the
sense that it is denied of God, it signifies an
endeavour by solicitations and other means,
to draw a man to the commission of sin : and
this the most holy God can by no means own ;
for it would be to take the Devil's work out
of his hands. But neither does this sense reach
the measure of the word in this place ; which
imports not only an endeavour to engage a
man in a sinful action, but an actual and
effectual engaging him with full success and
prevalence, as to the last issue of the commis
sion. And thus a man can be only tempted
by his owu lust : which is the
Second thing to be explained. By " lust "
the apostle here means, not that particular
inordination or vice that relates to the un
cleanness of the flesh ; but that general stock
of corruption that possesses the whole soul
through all its respective faculties. But prin
cipally is it here to be understood of the prime
and coraraanding faculty of all, the will, as
it is possessed and principled with sinful habits
and depraved inclinations. And this is the
grand terapter, that terapts and seduces, so as
actually to engage and determine a man to
the choice of siu.
Now, though the apostle seems, by stating
the cause of sin upon this, directly and prin
cipally to have it in his design only to clear
and discharge God from this imputation ; yet
the nature of the proposition is of a wider
compass, and carries it to the exclusion of all
other external causes whatsoever. And there
fore, in compliance with this, the business of
the ensuing discourse shall be to demonstrate,
that the corrupted will of man is the sole,
adequate, and entire cause of all his sinful
prevaricatings, and deviations from the law
of God.
The prosecution of which shall lie in these
three particulars :
I. To shew those false causes upon which
men are apt to charge their sins.
II. To shew positively, that lust is the true
and proper cause of them.
III. To shew the way by which it causes
them ; and that, the text tells us, is by
seducing and enticing. " Every man is terapted,
when he is drawn away of his own lust, aud
enticed." I. And for the first of these, the raistaken
causes of sin ; in the number of which we may
reckon these that follow : —
1. The decree of God concerning things to
come to pass, is not a proper cause for any
man to charge his sins upon ; though perhaps
there is nothing in the world that is more
abused by weak and vulgar minds in this
particular. I shall not concern rayself to
dispute how God decrees the event of sins :
but this I shall affirm in general, that be the

divine decree never so absolute, yet it has no
causal influence upon sinful actions ; no, nor
indeed upon any actions else : forasmuch as
the bare decree or purpose of a thing produces
or puts nothing iu being at all. It is, as the
schools call it, an immanent act ; that is, such
an one as rests wholly within God, and effects
nothing without him. A decree, as such, is
not operative or effective of the thing decreed.
Besides, whensoever God decrees that a
thing shall corae to pass, he decrees the
manner of its production also, and that suit
ably to the way of working proper to that
cause by which it is effected : as if he decrees
that a man shall do such or such a thing, he
decrees that he shall do it freely, and agreeably
to that liberty of will that his nature invests
him with.
But it will be replied. Does not every thing
decreed by God certainly and necessarily come
to pass ? And then, how can we prevent it ?
And if so, is there not a force upon us from
Heaven to do the thing that is thus decreed?
I answer. No ; for there is a great deal of
difference between a mere illative necessity,
which consists only in the logical consequence
of one thing upon another, and between a
causal necessity, which efficiently and antece
dently determines and puts the faculty upon
working. But so does not the divine decree :
it exerts no force or irapulse upon man's will,
but leaves it to its owu natural liberty.
However, it is certain, that, by the former
kind of merely illative necessity, the thing
decreed will assuredly have its event. But
this is no greater a necessity, than God's fore
knowledge puts upon the event of the thing
foreknown : for it is irapossible that God
should not foreknow all things that shall
corae to pass; and it is equally irapossible, ' if
God foreknows a thing shall corae to pass,
that that thing should not corae to pass. And
yet, I suppose, that none will say, that God's
foreknowledge of a man's actions does, by any
active influence, necessitate that man to do
those actions : albeit, that this consequence
stands unshakeable, that whatsoever God fore
knows a man will do, that shall certainly and
infallibly be done. Otherwise, where is God's
oraniscience and his infallibility? He knows
the last point to which the will will incline
its choice; he is beforehand with all futurities,
and so takes thera into his view with the
sarae certainty, as if they were present or
actually past.
Now let any one corapare these two, God's
decree and his foreknowledge, aud he will
find, that, as to the event, the same necessity
passes both upon the thing decreed and the
thing foreknown. And therefore if men will
confess that God's foreknowledge does not force
or push a man upon the doing of any thing,
it will follow also, that neither does his de
cree. But if, in the scanning of either, there

182

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Serm. XIX.

occurs any difficulty, to our apprehensions
not resolvable, it is because God is infinite ;
and because an infinite raind, both in its
knowledge and purposes, proceeds not accor
ding to the raethods and raeasures of a finite
understanding. And upon this account, all
the arguments, that, with so much noise and
confidence, are urged against God's decrees,
will be found but popular and fallacious, and
grounded upon the application of raen's ways
of acting and apprehending to God ; and con
sequently tend to disprove God's infinity, as
much or more than any thing else.
Let no bold or ignorant sinner, therefore,
think to take sanctuary here ; or to allege
God's decree as an excuse for those villainies,
which, with full purpose and choice of will,
he coraraitted. If God, by the unsearchable
counsel of his will, designs, foresees, and
orders, what yet the sinner does most freely,
what is that to him? That alters not the
nature of his action, any more than if I had
a design to kill my eneray, and another,
without any knowledge of such a design of
mine, should of his own accord kill him.
Would this free hira from bearing the guilt
of his own action, and undergoing the de
served punishment of a murderer ? None so
apt to babble about predestination and God's
decrees, as the illiterate vulgar ; and from
hence to take reasons for what they are to do.
But what can warrant thera to insist upon
mysteries, when they are called to duty ? And
to pore and break their brains upon the
hidden senses of a decree, when they have the
plain and intelligible voice of a precept ? God
hath shewed thee, 0 man, what is good and
what is evil. He has placed life and death
before thee. This is the rule by which thou
must stand or fall : and no mau will find,
that his fulfilling God's secret will, will bear
him out in the breach of his revealed.
2. The influences of the heavens and of the
stars imprint nothing upon_ men that can
impel or engage them to do evil : and yet
some are so sottish, as to father their vices
and villainies upon these : they were born
(forsooth) under such a planet, and therefore
they cannot choose but be thieves, or whore-
masters, or rebels, all their life after. But it
is strange, that heaveii should prepare men
for hell, and imprint those qualities upon
them, that should hinder them from ever
coming to heaven. This would be highly in
jurious to the great artificer and raaker of
those bodies, that he should provide such
storehouses of raischief, such irresistible con
veyers of the seeds of sin into men's minds.
To be bom under any planet would in this
case be worse than not to be born at all.
And to what purpose should God allow raen
the means to save them, if he places them
under such an influence as must certainly
damn them ?

But these are mere fopperies ; the fables and
follies of old women and astrologers, who are
seldom able to give an account of that which
is under the immediate impressions of the
heavens, that is, of the air and the elements ;
and upon the stock of all their acquaintance
with these celestial bodies, to secure us but
one fair day a month or two hence. It is all
but confident conjecture, and cheating re
duced to an art, grounded upon the ignorance
and credulity of the vulgar, who are always
willing to be deceived, if any oue will but
take the pains to deceive them.
But admitting that the heavens have an
influence and operation upon inferior bodies,
and that those glorious lights were not made
only to be gazed upon, but to control as well
as to direct the lesser world ; yet still all
coraraunication between agent and patient
must be in things that hold some proportion
and likeness in their natures ; so that oue
thing can pass no impression upon another,
of a nature absolutely and in every respect
diverse from it, provided it be also superior to
it ; and such a thing is a spirit in respect of
body. Upon which grounds, what intercourse can
there be between the stars and a soul ? How
can the sun or moon, or any planet, move or
incline the will this way or that way ? and
carry the freedora of its choice to one thing
rather than another? This is absurd and
unimaginable, and contrary to all the princi
ples of philosophy as well as religion. And
therefore let no man think himself under a
necessity of siuuing from any such superior in
fluence ; it is not that whioh he sees over his
head, but that which he feels within his heart,
that he is to look to. The will scorns tiie
control of any creature, either iu heaven or
earth ; next under God it is its own master.
Every man is indeed to look upon God as his
Saviour ; but it is himself only that can be
his destroyer.
3. Neither can any raan charge his sins
upon the constitution and teraper of his body,
as the proper cause of thera. The body was
made to serve, and not to comraand. All
that it can do is only to be troublesome ; but
it cannot be imperious. If the soul will but
maintain its right, and resolve to keep the
throne, it may easily make the fleshly part,
not only its subject, but its instruraent ; not
only qiiiet, but useful. They are not the
humours of the body, but the huraour* of
the raind, to which men owe the irregularities
of their behaviour.
The sensitive appetites having their situar
tion in the body, do indeed follow the pecu
liar complexion and teraper of it : but reason
is a thing that is placed solely and entirely in
the soul, and so depends not upon those in
ferior faculties ; but though it is sometimes
solicited by them, yet it is in its power.

ON JAMES i. 14.

183

whether or no it will be prevailed upon. And
for all the noise, aud hurry, and tumult,
that is often raised amongst them, yet rea
son, like the uppermost regions of the air, is
not at all subject to the disturbances that
are below. And so long as the soul listens
to reason, the inferior appetites may bawl
indeed, but they cannot persuade. Let a
beggar be never so impudently craving and
importunate, yet the door may be shut against
him, and then he must be either quiet, or
only troublesome to himself.
In vain therefore does any man for his ex
cuse allege the solicitations of his appetites,
against the dictates of his reason : it is as if
in a rebellion a man should act by the sum
mons of a constable, against the commaud
and proclamation of his prince. No man is
made an adulterer, a drunkard, or an idle
person, by his body : his body indeed may
incline him to be so, but it is his will only that
makes him so. And be the clamours and re
quests of appetite never so earnest, reason
has still a negative voice upon them ; and if
it shall be pleased but to advise upon the
matter, they cease and are extinct, and can
never pass into action.
If, indeed, reason shall give way to these
sensual motions, and take the bit into its
mouth, and suffer itself to be rid ; there is no
doubt but it may be made a servant of ser
vants, a slave and a dradge to all the tyrannies
of a domineering sensuality. But this will
be no apology before God, who endued it with
a perfect sovereignty, and put the government
of the whole soul into its hands.
And besides, there have been some in the
world, who by the conduct of their reason
have made their way to virtue, through all
the disadvantages of their natural constitution.
Philosophy has done it in many, and religion
may do it in all. Let no man, therefore,
charge his sins upon that part of himself, that
cannot possibly sin without the consent of
his will.
4. And lastly, to proceed yet higher: no
man can justly charge his sins upon the Devil,
as the cause of them ; for God has not put it
into the power of our mortal enemy to ruin
us without ourselves ; which yet he had done,
had it been in the Devil's power to force us
to sin. The Devil can only tempt and allure,
but compel he cannot ; he may inveigle, but
lie cannot comraand our choice ; and no mau
yet ever suffered death, who did not choose
death : the fisher may propose, and play the
bait before the fish, but he cannot force it to
swallow it. And so whatsoever the Devil
does, he does by insinuation, and not by
compulsion. The Spirit of God assures us, that he may
he resisted, aud that upon a -vigorous resis
tance he will fly. He never conquers any,
but those that yield ; a spiritual fort is never

taken by force, but by surrender. And when
a man is as willing to be ruined, as he is to
rain him, it is that that makes the Devil
triumphant and victorious. How slily and
creepingly did he address himself to our first
parents! "which surely his, pride would never
have let him do, could he have effected their
downfall by force, without temptation.
It is confessed, indeed, that the guilt of those
sins that the Devil tempts us to will rest upon
him ; but not so as to discharge us. He that
persuades a man to rob a house, is guilty of
the sin he persuades him to, but not in the
sarae manner that he is who committed the
robbery ; for it was in his power, after all the
other's persuasions, to have forborne the fact,
aud to have maintained his innocence : for no
man is a thief or a villain against his will.
Iu vain therefore do men shift off their sius
upou the Devil, whose greatest arts they may
frustrate, whose strongest solicitations they
may make ineffectual : for it is in their
power (as I may so say) in some respect to
make the Devil himself innocent. But still
the load of all must lie npon him ; and it is
not he that commits, but he that tempts to
sin, that must be the sinner. It seeras to be
with the Devil, in respect of the disorders of
the soul, as it is with the spleen in respect
of the disterapers of the body ; whatsoever is
amiss, or indisposed, the charge is sure to lie
there. But howsoever men may raock theraselves
with such evasions, yet God will not be
mocked, who knows that he left the soul in
its own keeping, and made the will free, and
not to be forced : and therefore these fig-leaves
will fall off, when he shall come to scrutiny
and examination. Every man shall bear his
own burden, and the Devil himself shall have
but what is his due.
And thus I have done with the first parti
cular proposed, namely, to shew aud remove
the mistaken causes upon which men are apt
to charge their sins ; concerning which, before
I proceed any farther, I shall remark this by
way of caution : that though I deny any of
these to be the proper causes of sin, yet it is
not to be denied, but that they are often very
great promoters of sin, where they meet with
a corrupt heart and a depraved will. And it
is not to be questioned, but that many thou
sands now in hell might have gone thither iu
a calmer and a more cleanly way at least, had
they not been hurried aud pushed on by
impetuous temptations, by an ill constitution,
and by such opportunities and circumstances
of life, as mightily suited their corruption,
and so drew it forth to a pitch of acting higher
aud more outrageous than ordinary.
For there is no doubt, but an ill raind in .an
ill-disposed body will carry a man fortli to
those sins, that otherwise it would not, if
lodged in a body of a better and more benigu

184

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Serm. XIX.

temperament. As a sword covered with rust
will wound much raore dangerously, where
it does wound, than it could do if it were
bright and clean. And it is also as certain,
that were it not for the Devil's suggestions,
the bare corruption of man's nature would
not engage him in many of those enormities,
that frequently rage iu the lives of some per
sons. Nor is it to be denied, but that the
circumstances and ways of life, that Provi
dence sometimes casts men under, unavoid
ably expose them to those occasions of sin,
that entangle them in those actions, that they
would never have been guilty of, had they
lived free from those occasions.
All this is very true ; and therefore, besides
those internal impressions of grace, by which
God sanctifies the heart, and effectually changes
the will, many are accountable to his mercy
for those external and inferior assistances of
grace. As, that he restrains the fury of the
terapter ; that he sends thera into the world
with a well-terapered and rightly-disposed
body ; and lastly, that he casts the course of
their life out of most of the snares and occa
sions of sin : so that they can with much more
ease be virtuous than other men ; and if they
sin, they sin merely upon the stock of an
internal, overflowing malice ; which is instead
of a tempter, a devil, and all sinful occasions
to itself.
But, on the other side, where God denies a
man these advantages, and casts him under
all the foreraentioned disadvantages of virtue,
and decoys to sin ; it is yet raost certain, that
they lay upon hira no necessity of sinning.
The will is still entire, and raay break through
all these irapediraents : it may be virtuous,
though indeed at the price of a greater trouble,
and a more afflicting endeavour.
II. I come now to the second particular ;
namely, to shew, that the proper and effectual
cause of sin is the depraved will of man, ex
pressed by the apostle here under the name of
lust. The proof of which is not very difficult ;
for all other causes being reraoved, it reraains
that it can be only tbis. We have the word
of Christ himself, that it is from within, from
" the heart, that envyings, wrath, bitterness,
adulteries, fornications," and other such im
purities, do proceed. To heap up all the
several places of Scripture that bear witness
to this, would be infinite and endless : and
therefore supposing it sufficiently clear from
Scripture, that a corrupt will is the sole cause
of all sinful actions, I shall endeavour yet
farther to evince the sarae by arguments and
reasons. 1. The first shall betaken from the office of
the will, wbich is to command and govern all
the rest of the faculties ; and therefore all
disorder must unavoidably begin here. No
thing can be done without a commission from
the will ; whereupon, if any thing be done

sinfully, the fault lies in him that issued out
the commission. The economy of the powers
and actions of the soul is a real government ;
and a government cannot be defective without
some failure and defect in the governor.
2. The second argument shall be taken from
every man's experience of himself and his
own actions ; upou au impartial survey of
which he shall find, that before the doing of
any thing sinful or suspicious, there passes a
certain debate in the soul about it, whether
it shall or it shall not be done ; and after all
argumentations for and agaiust, the last issue
and result follows the casting voice of the
will. This is that which turns the balance,
that gives the final determination, aud there
fore the guilt of every action must inevitably
rest here.
3. A third reason is from this, that the
sarae man, upou the proposal of the same
object, and that under the same circumstances,
yet makes a different choice at one time from
what he does at another ; and therefore the
raoral difference of actions, iu respect of the
good or evil of them, must of necessity be re
solved into some principle within him ; and
that is his will. Which reraaining one and
the same, according to its own absoluteness
and freedom, sometimes turns itself to one
thing, sometiraes to another.
4. The fourth and last reason shall be from
this, that even the souls in hell continue to
sin ; and therefore the productive principle of
sin must needs be the will.
The consequence appears from hence,
because those sins cannot possibly proceed
from the body, or theirregular motions of the
sensitive appetite, since the soul in this estate
is divided frora these : nor yet from the
teraptations of the Devil, for he tempts only
that he raay bring the soul to hell ; but when
he has it once there, of a terapter lie becomes
a torraentor. Wherefore they must needs
flow from sorae principle inherent in the soul;
and that is the will, which is as inseparable
from the soul, as its own substance.
I shall not insist upon any farther proofs of
so plain a truth : let these suffice to persuade
every man to turn his eyes inward, to seek
for the traitor in his own bosom ; for here is
the source and fountain of all those enormities
that stream forth in a mau's conversation.
And therefore it is a great vanity to declaim
against any thing without us, .as if we were
led captive by some external force ; for neither
the flesh, the worid, nor the Devil, no, uor
all of them together, could be able to annoy
us, if our wills were but faithful to us. Were
the " spirit but willing, the flesh would be
weak " in a good sense ; and were we but
"crucified to the world, the world would be as
much crucified to us." Nay, aud lastly, the
Devil himself would be but a contemptible
adversary, were he not sure of a correspondent,

ON JAMES, i. 14.

18.i

and a party that held intelligence with him,
in our own breasts. All the blowing of the
fire put under a caldron could never make it
boil over, were there not a fulness of water
within it.
Some are so stupid as to patronize their sins
with a plea, that they cannot, they have not
power to do otherwise ; but where the will is
for virtue, it will either fiud or make power.
The truth is, men are in love with their vices,
their will is enthralled, and here is all the
restraint that is put upon them ; they suffer
no violence, but from delight ; no captivity,
but from pleasure. But if a man binds his
own hands, it will be but a poor excuse to
plead that he had no use of them, when his
work shall be required of hira.
III. I come now to the third and last thing :
and that is, to shew the way by which a cor
rupt will, here expressed by the name of lust,
is the cause of siu ; and that is, by drawing a
raan aside, and enticing him.
1. And first, for the first of these : it se
duces, or draws aman aside ; it actually takes
himself from the ways of duty : for as in all
motion there is the relinquishment of one
term before there can be the acquisition of
another ; so the soul must pass from its adhe
rence to virtue, before it can engage in a
course of sin. It must first be unfastened,
and removed from its former bottom, and
then it may with ease be pitched upon any
other. Now the first and leading atterapt of lust,
is to possess the mind with a kind of loathing
and disgust of virtue, as a thing harsh and
insipid, and administering no kind of pleasure
and satisfaction ; all the paths of it are repre
sented as planted with thoms, as full of hor
ror, as made up of nothing but the severities
of discipline, and the rigours of unnatural
abridgments : and by these means lust dis
graces and libels virtue out of practice ; it
brings it out of favour with the will and the
affections ; and then we know that the natu
ral consequence of being out of favour with
them, is to be laid aside by them.
This being done, and the mind clear, it is
now ready for any new impression, and to
receive the offers and proposals of vice : and
vice and virtue are like other enemies ; one
never supplants the other, but with a design
to step into its place ; and araongst contraries,
when one is drove out, the other usually takes
possession. Prevail but with a man to remit the prose
cution of his duty, and he lies open to all
vicious practices imaginable ; he offers his
mind, as it were, a blank for sin to write what
he pleases upon it : and seldom was it known,
that omissions of virtue went alone, hut were
presently followed with enormous commis
sions of sin.
2.. The other course that lust takes to en

tangle a man in sin, is by enticing ; that is,
by using arguments and rhetoric, to set off
siu to him with tho best advantage and the
fairest gloss.
And this it does these two following ways :
1. By representing the pleasure of sin,
stript of all the troubles and inconveniencies
of sin. There is no sin but is attended and
surrounded with so many miseries and adhe
rent bitternesses, that it is at the best but like
a single drop of honey in a sea of gall. Who
cau extract aud fetch it out ? It is to be done
only by fancy and imaginary speculation.
But when a man comes to the real instances
of practice and experience, he will find the
bitter to intermingle wifh the sweet, and that
with a very great predominance : he will find
the sweetness to vanish and disappear, and to
be swallowed up in those unequal mixtures
of sharpness that are conveyed with it.
But now it is the act of lust, to shew the
quintessence and the refined part of a sinful
action, separate from all its dregs and inde
cencies, so to recommend it to the apprehen
sion of a deluded sinner. It will present you
ouly with the fair side, and tell you what
pleasure and satisfaction you shall reap from
such or such an action : but it never reminds
you of the regret and remorse of conscience
that will accompany it ; of the shame and
vengeance that will follow it. No ; lust is
too skilful a sophister, and has at least this
part of perfection, to conceal its imperfections.
Lust never deals irapartially with the choice,
so as to confront the whole good with the
whole evil of an object ; but declairas amply
and magnificently of one, while it is wholly
silent of the other. And it is observable, that
there are few things that present so entirely
bad an appearance, but admit of very plau
sible pleas and flourishes of coraraendation.
Sin prevails upon the affections, not so much
by the suitableness of the thing proposed, as
by the art of the proposal.
As for instance, should I tell a thirsty raan
that I had for him a drink of a noble colour,
a quick taste, and a fragrant smell, surely
there could be nothing in this description but
must raise and inflarae his appetite : but
should I tell hira that it was poison that was
of this so rare a taste, colour, and smell, this
would be a full allay to his desire, and a suffi
cient countercharm to all its other alluring
qualities. It is no question but Judas's covetousness
addressed his sin to hira in this manner, and
struck his apprehension with the convenience
of having so much money, and gaining it with
so rauch ease ; but it told hira nothing of the
black despair and the disastrous death that
was to follow it. For had this been offered
to his thoughts at the same tirae, it is no
doubt but it must have dashed the temptation,
and made it cheap and contemptible.

186

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Srrm. XX,

2. Lust entices, by representing that plea
sure that is in sin greater than indeed it is :
it swells the proportions of every thing, and
shews them, as it were, through a magnify
ing-glass, greatened and multiplied by desire
and expectation ; which always exhibit ob
jects to the soul, not as they are, but as they
would have them be.
Nothing cheats a mau so much as expecta
tion ; it conceives with the air, and grows big
with the wind ; and, like a dream, it pro
mises high, but performs nothing. For the
truth is, even in lawful enjoyments God has
put an emptiness, and made it the very speci
fic and inseparable property of the creature.
So that Solomon, who iiad both the largest
measure of those enjoyments, and of wisdom
to pass a right judgment upou them, has given
the world a full account and declaration of
their vanity and dissatisfaction, upon the
credit of a long and unparalleled experience.
And if the very condition of the creature gives
it such a shortness, and hollowness, and dis
proportion to the desires of a rational soul,
even in the most innocent and allowed plea
sures ; what shall we think of the pleasures
of sin, which receive a farther embasement
and diminution from the superaddition of a
curse ?
They are cursed like the earth, not only
with barrenness, but with briers and thorns ;
there is not only a fallacy, but a sting in
them : and consequently they are rendered
worse than nothing ; a reed that not only
deceives, but also pierces the hand that leans
upon it.
But the exceeding vanity of every sinful
pleasure will appear, by considering both the
latitude of its extent, and the length of its
duration. 1. And first, for the latitude or measure of
its extent : it seldom gratifies but one sense
at a time ; and if it should diffuse an univer
sal enjoyment to them all, yet it reaches not
the better, the more capacious and more ap
prehensive part of man, his soul ; that is so
far from communicating with the senses, that
in all their revels it is pensive and melancholy,
and afflicted with inward remorses from an
unsatisfied, if not also an accusing conscience.
2. And then, secondly, for its duration or
continuance : it is but for a moment ; it af
fects and leaves the sense in an instant, and
scarce affords so much scope as for reflection :
the whole course of such pleasures passes like
a tale that is told ; a tale, that, after it is told,
proves a lie. How transient and vanishing
are the pleasures of the epicure, that expire
with a taste, and determine with the poor and
momentary gratifications of his palate ! And
yet, who thinks he shares so largely of the
pleasures of sin as he ?
But when sin entices, it takes no notice
of these littienesses and flaws in the enjoy

ment: it speaks loftily, and undertakes
largely ; it offers mountains and kingdoms,
and never suffers a man to purchase a right
judgment of it, but at the dear rate of a disap
pointment : and then he finds how those
offers sink and dwindle into nothing ; and
what a pitiful skeleton of an enjoyment that
is, that at first dazzled his apprehensions with
such glistering pretences and glorious over
tures of pleasure.
He, therefore, that would stand upon his
guard against all the enticements of his cor
ruption, must fortify hiraself with this consi
deration, that sin never makes any proposal,
whatsoever show of advantage it raay have,
but it is with an intent to abuse and deceive
hira. And consequently, that it is an infinite
folly to seek for pleasure or satisfaction but
in the ways of duty ; the only thing that
leads and unites to the great, inexhaustible
fountain of satisfaction ; " in whose presence
is fulness of joy, and at whose right hand
there are pleasures for evermore."

SERMON XX.
** For it isa people of no understanding ; therefore he that miide
them will not have mercy on them, and he tbat formed
them will shew them no favour." — IsAiiiH, xxvii 11.
This chapter is one of the eloquent strains
of the most oratorical of the prophets, des
cribing a severe judgment to be inflicted on
the Jews, in the deplorable destruction of
Jerusalem, the demolishing their stately
buildings, and the wasting their pleasant and
delightful habitations. All this is set down
in the 10th and llth verses : " The defeiiced
city shall be desolate :" no defence or muni
tion can keep out a judgment, wheu com
missioned by God to enter. " And the
habitation forsaken :" when God forsakes a
place, the inhabitants do not stay long behind.
" And there shall the calf feed, there shall he
lie down :" when men forget their Maker,
and degenerate iuto brutish affections, it is
but just with him, that they, who have
changed affections with beasts, should change
dwellings with them too. "When the
boughs thereof are withered," &c. For the
exposition of these words, we must note,
that they adrait of a double construction :
1. They may be either understood literally,
and so they set forth the destruction of Jeru
salem in the devastation of the pleasant
gardens and vineyards ; which shall be loft
so desolate, that the vines and trees shall
wither, and poor women shall come and
gather them into bundles, for the making
of fires and heating ovens. Thus we seethe

ON ISAIAH, xxvii. 11.

187

vintage of sin, and the clusters of Sodom ;
tliey destroy the vines, and fire the vineyard.
2. Another sense of these words is figura
tive and raetaphorical ; and so this expres
sion, " When the boughs thereof are withered,
they shall be broken off," signifies thus much :
when the inhabitants have filled up the
measure of their sins, when they are spiri
tually withered and dead, and fruitful to no
good work, then they shall be broken off, and
ruined with the heaviest destruction. And to
aggravate this judgment, to put an edge upon
this misery, it is added in the next words,
that " women shall come and set them on
fire :" that is, a womanish and effeminate
generation of men (for such were the Baby
lonians) shall triumph over them. A hint of
their luxury we have in the seventh chapter
of Joshua ; it was a Babylonish garment that
enamoured Achan. We know how Lucian
brings in Menippus, speaking of Sardana
palus, one of the womanish kings of Baby
lon, ' E'priTpiipou fiiia' Tipfi,ri T'iji Icipha.va.'aiiihaii
%aTa,i,a,i xixto, xoppns. Now a generous spirit,
that has the least spark of honour and virility,
does not feel so much smart in the punish
ment, as in the unworthiness of the hand
that does inflict it. And this was the em
phasis of Samson's disgrace, to be held in
captivity by a woman. And it is the height
and aggravation of this judgment, for men to
be fired aud destroyed by women ; the valiant
to be made a prey to the luxurious.
And thus having described the judgment,
he does iu the next words assign a reason of
it ; " for it is a people of no understanding."
One would have thought that ignorance
should have excused the sin : he that sins
out of ignorance is rather to be pitied than
punished. Is any father so cmel, so hard
hearted, as to disown and cast off his son,
because he is a fool ? No ; au innocent ig
norance excuses from sin, both before God
and man : and God himself will own that
maxim pf equity, " Ignorantia excusat pec
catum." But then there is another sort of
ignorance, which is not an ignorance of an
empty understanding, but of a depraved heart;
such an ignorance as does not only consist iu
a bare privation, but in a corrupt disposition ;
where the understanding is like that sort of
blind serpents, whose blindness is attended
with much venom and malignity. This was
such a blindness as struck the Sodomites ;
there was darkness in their eyes, and withal,
villainy in their hearts. There is an igno-
'rance that could not be remedied, the schools
call itan invincible ignorance, and this excuses
from sin, and that deservedly ; for this is a
nuan's unhappiness, not his fault. But there
is also an affected ignorance, such an one as is
contracted by a wilful neglect of the means ;
and this is not excusing, but condemning.
Such a want of understanding it was, that is

here charged upon the Jews, as the sad occa
sion of this woful punishment : for they had
large and enriching means of grace ; the
mysteries of God, the " arcana cajli," were
intrusted with them, and explained to thera ;
the fountains of this great deep of knowledge
were broken up before them. And in this
case to be ignorant ; in the midst of light to
be in darkness ; for au Israel to have an Egyjit
in a Goshen ; this is highly provoking, and
may justly cause God to lay hold on ven
geance. 'Where, by the way, we observe, that
some want of understanding, some ignorance,
is so far from excusing sin, that it is its
highest aggravation : " It is a people of
no understanding : therefore he tnat made
them," &c.
Here -we ought also to note, in what strange
terras God expresses his anger. It is not said,
the Lord, the just God will punish thera ;
this was not so wonderful : little to be ex
pected from God's justice but a sinner's
misery. No ; God assumes the most endear
ing titles, aud under them gives the severest
judgments : he joins the creator and the
destroyer, such expressions as almost confute
one another : he clothes himself in the robes
of mercy, and in these pronounces the sentence
of death upon the sinner.
From the words thus explained, we may
naturally deduce these two observations :
I. The relation of a Creator strongly en
gages God to put forth acts of love and favour
towards his creature.
This is clear from the strength of the an
tithesis in the words, " he that made them
will not save them :" where, for the advan
tage of the expression, it is redoubled ; " he
that formed them will shew them no favour."
As if he should say. It may seem strange
to you that your Creator, which very name
speaks nothing but bowels of love and tender
ness, should break and ruin, utterly confound
and destroy you. Yet thus it must be ;
though the relation make it strange, yet your
sins will make it true.
II. Sin does totally disengage God frora all
those acts of love and goodness to the crea
ture, that the relation of a Creator can engage
him to.
Or more clearly thus :
There is more provocation in siu for God to
destroy, than there is obligation upon him as
a Creator to preserve the creature.
Conclusion the first, namely. That the re
lation of a Creator strongly obliges God, &c.
The strength of this obligeraent appears in
these two consideratioijs :
1. That it is natural ; and natural oblige-
ments, as well as natural operations, are
always the strongest.
2. That God put this obligeraent upon
himself; therefore it must needs be a great
and a strong one : and this is clear, because the

188

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Serm. XX.

I

relation of a Creator is, in order of nature,
antecedent to the being of the creature ; which
not existing, could not oblige God to create it,
or assume this relation.
There are three engaging things, that are
iraplied in the creature's relation to God, that
oblige hira to raanifest hiraself in a way of
goodness to it :
1st, The first is, the extract or original of
the creature's being, which is from God him
self. It is the nature of every artificer to
tender and esteem his own work : and if God
should not love his creature, it would reflect
some disparagement upon his workmanship,
that he should make any thing which he could
not own. God's power never produces what
his goodness cannot erabrace. God often
tiraes, in the sarae man, distinguishes between
the sinner and the creature ; as a creature he
can love him, while as a sinner he does afflict
him. Hence arises that dearness between the
parent and the child : what wonder is it to
see him in his father's arms, who before lay
in his loins ? or to see that child adraitted to
the bosora, that before lay in the worab ? It
is mentioned as a sign of strange, unnatural
disaffection in the ostrich, that it hardens it
self agaiust its young ones. Job, xxxix. 16.
It has a stony heart without love : a flint
without fire. God is not a heathen god, a
Saturn, to devour his children. It casts an
obligeraent upon the very place where we are
born to regard us ; and if there be no father
known, it ought not only to be our country,
but our parent.
Now the creature's deriving its being from
God, includes in it two other endearing consi
derations :
(1.) It puts a certain likeness between God
and the creature. The foundation of love is
laid in the likeness that is between things :
now the likeness that is between the creature
and the Creator consists in this, that he has
taken it into the participation and society of
that great privilege of being : and it is in re
spect of this that the creature is a copy of
God, a rough draught of some perfection that
is in his Maker. What is written in a large,
fair character in him, is iraprinted upon the
creature in a sraall. Now, although God
loathes and abominates any likeness that we
rnake of hira, yet he loves and erabraces the
likeness that he has drawn of hiraself. And
as, in respect of holiness, it is not the perfec
tion of it only that God accepts, but he is
ready to cherish our very breathings and
longings after righteousness ; he will embrace
purity, not only in practice, but in inclina
tion. So for the perfections of being ; though
he does absolutely acquiesce in the contempla
tion of his own, yet he does not despise those
weaker draughts of it, visible in created
things ; but is ready to own whatsoever he
sees of himself in the creature : and, like the

sun, can, with much serenity, behold his
image in the lowest waters. Every thing hae
a strong interest in that, by which it had its
being and beginning.
(2.) Whatsoever comes from God, by way
of creation, is good ; and so, by reason of the
native agreeraent that is 'between that and
the will of God, there naturally does result
an acfrof love : for where there is nothing but
goodness on the creature's part, there can be
nothing but love on God's. Although' the
acts of God's love do not always presuppose a
moral goodness ; for he loves the persons of
the elect, while they are unconverted : yet it
is probable, that the acts of dislike presuppose
a want of that goodness. Though a man is
not always good before God loves him, yet
many are so favourable as to think, that he is
always evil before he hates him : those espe
cially that are of this judgraent, that in the
very act of man's reprobation, God did not
reprobate hira as a raan, but as a sinner.
Now the creature as such, and immediately
issuing from the hands of God, has no evil
cleaving to it, to provoke his detestation ; bnt,
like a sword, comes shining out of the hands
of the artificer, though afterward it chance to
gather rust. "God made man upright;"
however since, "he has sought out to himself
many inventions." And this is the first con
sideration that endears the creature to God,
naraely, the original of its being.
2d, The second thing that bespeaks God's
love to the creature is, the dependence of its
being upon God. As the fruit is produced by
the tree, so it hangs upon the tree. If by
creation the creature is endeared to God, then
rauch more by its dependence upon him ; for
this is founded upon a continual creation. :
Every creature is upheld from relapsing into !
nothing, by a continual influence of that
creative power by which it was made. A
raoral dependence upon any one, that is, the
voluntary placing of all a man's hopes and
confidence upon the goodness of such an one, |
puts a strong obligeraent upon the party con- ,
fided in, to employ the utmost of his power :
and interest to preserve and defend that man.
For to desert him who relies upon me; to
elude those hopes, that have no refuge but |
myself ; for that reed, upon which I lean, to
pierce my hand ; this is a thing that ordinary
humanity would detest. But now the natu
ral dependence of the creature upon God is
rauch greater, and consequently rauch more
obliging, than the moral dependence of one
man upon another ; forasmuch as that is
necessary, this voluntary, and from choice.
If I desert a man that 'depends upon me, 1 ,
disappoint his hopes ; but if God forsakes the ^
creature, he disappoints his being. Not to ^
give a being to a thing, could be no misery to |
it ; because to be miserable, presupposes first ,
to be : but when it has a being, theu to desert

ON ISAIAH, xxvii. 11.

189

or forsake it, this is a calamity, and an evil to
Uiat very existence of which God himself w.as
author ; aud he will not tiius dejU with tho
creature till he is provoked. The same good
ness whieh did incite him to make a thing
before it was. certainly, now it is made, will
much more oblige him to preserve it. Not to
beget a child, oould be uo injury to it ; but
when it is begot, aud born, to deny it food
and education, this is an inhuman, an un-
fiitherly temper. "He that does not pirovide
for his "family," the Spirit of God counts him
"worse than au infidel," (\ Tim. >. 8 ;) and
the reason is, because his taiiiily has a depeu-
deuoe upou him. Tho creature's depending
upon God, engiiges him to uphold it with love
and mercy. A poor empty bladder, if we
rely upon" it, will keep us from sinking : if
we hold fast upou any thing, it will rescue us
from falling. He " that took Israel, as .on
eagle does her young, and bore him upou his
wiuffs," (as it" is elegantly expressed, Deut.
xxxn. 11.") would ho, think you, without
cause, have let him fall I This wo may be
assured of, that those impressions of love and
eom{>assiou that iire in us, are also in God ;
ouly with this diffierence, tiiat iu him they
are infinite.
S. The thin! consideration that engages the
love of God to the creature is this ; that the
end of the oreaturt-'s being is Goal's glory.
Now Giod, that loves his owu glory, must
. needs also respect the instrument that advances
it. There is uo artificer, th.at intends a work,
that would break his tools. Why does a man
tender and regard his servant, but because he
is for his use ? The ability aud aptness of the
i creature for the serving of God's use, does
! induce God so far to preserve him. For he
tiiat h.as a Tatiou,aI respect to the eud, must of
necessity bear a suitable afliection to the
means. " The being of the creatures stands re-
lateil by the tie of a natural connection to
God's glory ; they are the materials of his
! praise. Hence we have the business excel-
j lently stated by the prophet Is-oiah, (chap.
I xxxviii. 18, 19,) " The grave cannot praise
: thee ; death cauuot celebrate thee : they that
I go down to tho pit caunot hope for thy truth.
The living, the living, he sh:ill praise thee."
God's glory is the motto inscribed upou every
I created being ; and wheresoever Clod rtads,
j he owns this superscription. It is all the
creature has, under God's hand and seal, to
shew for its life, .-^s God stampt a mark upon
I Cain to secure him from men, so it is this
, th.at secures uis in respect of God. Whatsoever
j we !ire, we are not our owu, but his. We are
I by nature servants to the interest of his glory :
j and if ray life, my actions are devoted to sueh
au oiu-'s" service, I may very well claim a
uiaiuteuauce from him whose interest I serve.
And thus much of the third thing that en-
ii dears God's love to tbe creature, namely, the

designation of its being for tho use of his
glory. II. I prooeod to tho second proposition, to
shew how sin disengages and takes oft" God
from all those acts of favour, that the relation
of a creation engaged him to.
1. It turns "that which, in itself, is an
obligation of mercy, to be an aggravation of
the offence. True it is, to make a creature,
to give it being upon a rational ground, is au
argument of love. But for a creature to siu
agaiust him from whom it had its whole
being ; and that a puny creature, the first
born of nothing, a piece of creeping clay, oue
whom, as God created, so he might uncreate
with a breath ; for sueh an one to fly iu his
Creator's face ! this gives a deeper die to sin ;
this makes it ten times more sinful. " What,
my sou ! the son of my womb ! the son ofmy
vows ! dost thou give thy strength to -nomen?"
Wh.at, my creature ! the work of my hands !
the product of my power ! aud the object of
my care ! dost thou sin agaiust me ? dost thou
dishonour me? The treason of au Absalom,
the st.ab of a Brutus, is doubled by the eir-
cumstaneo of so near a relation. The nearer
the party that offends, the distance is so much
the wider. " Nemo t,am prope, t.am pro-
culque ;" none so near in respect of alliance,
noue so far oft" iu respect of the oflence.
Between friends, the same friendship that
passes by some affronts, heightens otheK. It
is the cause why some are pardoned, and why
some cannot, oiight not to be pardoned. Such
an one speaks slightly of me, but my friend
ship pleads his pardon ; yes, but be endea
voured to tiike away my life, my reputation;
the same friendship speaks this iniurv un-
pjirdonable: (Psalm Iv. li:. 13.) "If it had
been .an enemy, I could have borne it ; but it
was thou, mine equal, mine acquaintance."'
The relation of a Creator is alw,ays very
strong, and before siu, this strength appears
in love : but after siu, the s.ame strength vents
itself in revenge. Where it meets -with holi
ness, it protects ; where it raeets with sin, it
destroys ; as the same wind that carries a ship
well ballasted, if ill rigged or accoutred, it
drowns it The same strength of constitution
that keeps oft" diseases from the bodv, when it
comes to be infected, and to comply with a
dise,ase, quickens its dissolution. The same
argument that proves this assertion, by a
subtle inversion of the terms, will prove the
contrary. The same relation of a Cre.ator,
that endears God to the iuuocent, fires him
agaiust a sinner. God looks upon the soul,
.as Amnon did upon Tamar : while it -was a
virgin, he loved it ; but now it is deflowered,
he hates it. We read in the law, that he that
cursed his father w.as to be stoned to death :
we do not read, that if he had cursed .another,
he h.ad beeu dealt withal so severely. Oue
would have thought, that the nearne^ of a

IfeO

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Serm. XX.

father would have saved him ; but it was this
alone that condemned him. Build not there
fore upon the sandy foundation of a false
surmise of God's mercy as a Creator ; for this
relation is (as I may so speak) indifferent,
and may be deterrained, as to its influence,
either to be helpful or destructive, according
to the goodness or badness of the creature.
While thou doest well, it will embrace thee ;
but upon the least transgression, it will con
found thee. The same sword that now hangs
by thy side, and defends thee, may be one
day brought to run thee through.
2. Sin disengages God from shewing love
to the creature, by taking away that sirailitude
that is between God and hira ; which, as has
been observed, was one cause of that love.
The creature, indeed, still retains that resem
blance of God, that consists in being ; but the
greatest resemblance, that consists iu moral
j perfections, this is totally lost and defaced. A
mere existence or being is an indifferent thing,
(it is a rasa tabula,) that may be coloured over
with sin or holiness ; and accordingly it re
ceives its value from these ; as a picture is
( esteeraed not from the materials upon which
it is drawn, but frora the draught itself. Holi
ness elevates the worth ofthe being in which
! it is, and is of more value than the being it-
1 self. As in scarlet, the bare dye is of greater
value than the cloth. Sin debases the being in
which it is ; and makes the soul more unlike
God, in respect of its qualities, than it is like
him in respect of its substance. It is not the
alliance of flesh and blood, but the resem
blance of virtue, that makes the greatest like
ness between the father and the son. Con
sanguinity and likeness of features will not
so much incite him to love, as a dissimilitude,
by reason of vice, will cause him to disinherit
him. Better have no son, than a prodigal,
profane, unclean son ; better not to be a man,
than an irreligious man ; better an innocent
nothing, than a sinful being. God has shed
some of his perfections upon the natural fabric
of the soul, in that he made it a spiritual,
imraaterial substance, refined from all the
dross of body and matter : but the chief per
fection of it consisted in this, that he did
adorn it with holiness. As the temple of
Solomon was glorious, because built with
cedar ; but its chief magnificence was the
overlaying it with gold. But now, wben this
part of God's image is blotted out, he cannot
read his likeness in the soul's other perfections.
Be the soul ever so spiritual in its substance,
yet if it be camal in its affections ; be it ever
so purified from the grossness of body, yet if
it be polluted with the corruption of sin ; it
has nothing to shew why God should not
disown it, even to its eternal perdition. If
we meet with a letter drawn over with filthy,
scurrilous, unbecoming lines, the fineness of
the paper will not rescue it from the fire. It

is not thy strength, thy wit, thy eloquence,
that God so much regards ; these indeed may
adorn thee, but it is thy holiness that must
save thee. A sinner appearing before God,
adorned with the greatest confluence of natu
ral endowments, is like Agag presenting him
self to Samul in his costly robes : the richness
of his attire could not corapound for the vile
ness of his person. When those glorious
pleas shall be produced in the court of heaven;
" We have prophesied, we have cast out devils,
we have wrought wonders ;" God shall answer
thera with one word, weightier than them all,
but " ye have sinned." Howsoever we flatter
ourselves, and misjudge of things, yet God
will overlook all the natural perfections of
the soul, and punish us for want of moral.
3. Sin discharges God from shewing love
to the creature, by taking off the creature
frora his dependence upon God. I know it
cannot dissolve its natural dependence ; for
" in God we live, and move, and have our
being," (Acts, xvii. 28,) whether we will or
no. But our moral dependence, which is a
filial reliance and recumbency upon God, this
it destroys. For in sin the creature quits his
hold of God, and seeks to shift for hiraself, to
find his happiness within the centre of his
own endeavours, totally departing and apos
tatizing from God ; for sin is properly defined,
" aversio a Creatore ad creaturam." It was
an absolute, independent happiness that was
airaed at in the first sin, which made it so
detestable. Our first parents, they would be
as gods, they would have an xuTapxnct, a self-
sufficieiice ; they would stand upon their own
bottora, without the support of divine in
fluence ; they would fetch all their happiness
from within, without repairing to the bounty
of Providence. Now when the creature de
pends upon God, and yet scorns to own this
dependence ; but in a high strain of arrogance
would derive his satisfaction entirely from
himself ; this is the highest provocation. For
oue to live upon au alras, and yet to scorn an
alms ; to be a proud beggar ; through weak
ness to lean upon another, and yet through
pride to pretend to go alone : tbis is odious
and insuff'erable ; a temper made up of those
two aborainable ingredients, pride and in
gratitude. He that pretends to live upon his
own means, does not deserve the continuance
of his pension : he that will not acknowledge
his felicity from his Creator, deserves to lose
it. If we depart and quit our reliance upon
God, it is but equitable for hira to let go his
hold of us ; if we desire to be miserable, cau
we blame him, if he punisheth us with the
answer of our own desires ? God is not so
married to us by creation, but if we leave him
voluntarily, it may be the just cause of a per
petual divorce. "Y'ea, sin proceeds so far, as
that although the creature cannot dissolve its
natural dependence upon God, yet there is

ON ISAIAH, xxvii. 11.

191

nothing that it desires more, and it proceeds
to attempt it as far as it is able, that is, in a
wish. 'What would the damned, forlorn
spirits give to wring themselves out of God's
hand 'by annihilation? What would the
devils give for a full discharge from their
being? Job speaks the natural desire of a
torraented sinner; (Job, vi. 8, 9,) " Oh that I
might have my request ; and that God would
grant me the thing that I long for I even that
it would please God to destroy me !" And
thus we see how sin takes off the creature
frora its dependence upon Qod : first, in the
commission of sin, he let go his dependence,
as to his confidence ; and then in the punish
ment of sin he would willingly let it go, as
-to his very being.
4. Sin disengages the love of God to the
creature, because it renders the creature use
less, as to the end for which it was designed.
Things, -whose essence and being stand in re
lation to such an end, have their virtue and
value from their fitness to attain it. Every
thing is ennobled from its use, and debased
as far as it is useless. As long as a man con
tinues an instrument of God's glory, so long
his title to life and happiness stands sure, and
no longer. But now, sin in scripture, and in
God's account, is the death of the soul ;
(Ephes. ii. 1,) " We were dead in trespasses
and sins." Now death makes a thing utterly
useless, because it renders it totally inactive ;
and in things that are naturally active, that
which deprives them of their action, bereaves
them of their use. The soul, by reason of sin,
is un.able to act spiritually ; for sin has dis
ordered the soul, and tumed the force and
edge of all its operations against God : so that
now it can bring no glory to God by doing,
but only by suffering, and being made
miserable. It is now unfit to obey his com
mands, and fit only to endure his strokes. It
is incapable, by any active comraunion, or
converse with hira, to enjoy his love, and a
proper object only to bear his anger and
revenge. We may take the case in this
similitude : A physician or chirurgeon has a
servant; while this servant lives honestly
with him, he is fit to be used, and to be em
ployed in his occasions ; but if this servant
should commit a felony, and for that be con
demned, he can then he actively serviceable
to him no longer ; he is fit only for him to
dissect, and make an object upon which to
shew the experiments of his skill. So while
man was yet innocent, he was fit to be used
and employed by God in a way of active
obedience : but now having sinned, and being
sentenced by the law to death as a raalefactor,
he is a fit matter only for God to torment,
and shew the wonders of his vindictive
justice upon. In short, sin has uufraraed the
fabric of the whole man ; it has made all the
members and faculties of his body and soul

weapons of unrighteousness, and placed them
in open defiance against God. But now God
made the world, and the fulness thereof, to
display the riches of his glory, and he con
tinues it to this day to advance his great
name, and for no other cause. And it is very
probable (which is worth our observation)
that if other creatures should bring no more
glory to God, within the sphere of their act
ings, than man does, that the world could not
stand, but would certainly provoke God to
throw it back into confusion. So long there
fore as raan continues in sin, he is a useless
lurap, a burden to God that made hira, and
to the earth that bears hira, an usurper of his
being, and a devourer of the creatures that do
God more honour and service than hiraself,
not able to think, speak, or do any thing for
his glory. And can God preserve such a
creature with any credit to his goodness?
Will he strain the riches of his mercy to the
daraage of his honour? Mau would provide
for his credit better than so ; certainly there
fore the wise God will rauch more.
Application. — First use, is to obviate and
take off that usual and common argument,
that is frequently in the raouths of the igno
rant, and in the hearts of the raost knowing ;
that certainly God would never raake thein to
destroy them : and therefore, since he has
made them, they roundly conclude that ho
will not destroy thera. Erasmus said, that he
could not presume so far as to hope for heaven;
but he thought God was too merciful to send
him to hell. Now the very desigu of the
Spirit, iu these words, is to anticipate and
forestall this objection, which he knew was
apt to rise in the hearts of men, who upon
the hearing of God's fiery judgments, are
ready to shelter theraselves nnder such poor,
gr undless considerations. How does a poor
soul strive to dispute and baffle itself into this
persuasion ! but how feeble and inconsequent
are all his arguments ! God made thee, and
formed thee : true ; but since thou hast sinned
against so dear a relation, this very thing is au
arguraent that he should destroy thee : God
has imprinted his image upon thee, but sin
has defaced it. God is the potter, and thou
the vessel ; hut when the potter has made a
vessel, if it chance to leak, or get a crack,
the very same hand that raade it, will break
it in pieces. Thou art God's possession, a
creature designed for his use : true ; but sin
has made thee totally useless. Thy soul was
made a habitation for God hiraself : but sin
and Satan have got it in possession : and
when a house or castle is possessed by the
eneray, the very owner himself will set it on
fire. As long as thou dost remain entire, thou
mayest have recourse to God, and he will re
ceive and own thee upon this score, that thou
art his workraanship ; but if broken and de
filed through sin, he will not own thee upon

192

SOUTH'S POSTHUxMOUS SERMONS.

Sebm. XX.

this account. As when a man makes and
sells a watch, while it is entire we may retum
it, and he will own it, because he made it ;
but when it is broke, there is no retuming it ;
though it were of his own raaking, yet he
will not receive it. All the wheels, the facul
ties of the soul, they are disordered and broke ;
all the motions of it are depraved ; and can
God, who made nothing but what was good,
who gave every thing its due and exact pro
portion, acknowledge and embrace such a
piece of disorder? A child may be so dis
figured and deformed, and changed from its
native visage by some diseases, that the very
father may not know it, but pass it by as
none of his. We can now shew nothing but
the ruins of our creation, the just argument
of our shame before God ; but not at all the
matter of our plea. We can say, indeed.
Here stood God's iraage, these understandings
were the candle of the Lord, these hearts were
the entertaining rooras of Christ, these bodies
were the temple of the Holy Ghost ; but,
alas ! what does all this amount to, but a
"raiserura est felicera fuisse?" Does former
holiness excuse present impiety ? Because
God embraced us in our purity, must he love
us in our sins? Is any person in love with a
face because it was beautiful heretofore?
Now, the reasons, I conceive, from whence
men frame these kind of objections, may be
these two :
1. A self-love, aud a proneness to conceive
some extraordinary perfection in themselves,
which may, as I may so speak, compound for
their misdemeanours. Certainly, says the
proud heart, God could not be without the
service and attendance that he receives from
me ; he could not well want that revenue of
honour that he receives from my prayers and
praises. Though I raay have slipt and sinned,
yet the excellency of my being will out
weigh the merit of my sin : not at all con
sidering, why it should not be as easy for God
to create a new innocent world, as to preserve
an old sinful one. It is natural for every
camal heart, upou the coraraission of siu, in
stead of repenting for sin, to look out for
sorae good in itself that may countervail the
sin. When it lays its sins in one balance,
I it wUl lay its perfections in the other. If it
I must acknowledge its magna vitia, it will
j take shelter here by opposing non minoret vir-
tiitei. What is spoke of true, evangelical love,
may iu another sense be said of this self-love,
"that it covers a multitude of sins." The
soul wiU never view any of its sinful actions,
but through those that are religious ; and we
may be very confident, that many, by reflect
ing upon some of their good performances,
have even by them been imboldened to sin,
thinking that those have set them so far be
forehand with God, that the delinquency of
a few sins may well be tolerated. Question

less the pharisee could not have devoured
widows' houses with so good an appetite, had
it not been for his long prayers. And it is as
little to be doubted, but that we may ascribe
it to the persuasion that many have of their
piety and regeneration, that they dare give
their consciences scope to practise as they do ;
and by their actions so notoriously to confute
their professions. Thus the soul is apt to
deck and paint itself, as Jezebel did, upon the
approach of Jehu ; and then presently to im
agine that God would fall in love with it.
But now the Spirit of God is uo where more
full, than in the beating do-wn this proud self-
esteem ; to this intent it expresses the most
exact of our services by the vilest of things ;
in Isaiah, Ixiv. 6, all our righteousness is
compared to "filthy rags ;" and in Ezekiel,
x-vi. 5, 6, the sinner in his natural condition
is presented wallowing and "polluted in his
blood, to the loathing of his person." And
can we think that these are such amiable
objects iu God's eye ? Can filth and pollu
tion afford any thing that may enamour God's
affections? If a sinner did but dwell upon
the serious meditation of his exceeding vile
ness by reason of sin, he would never be able
to entertain the least thought of meriting ac
ceptance before God.
2. The second reason is, our readines to
think that God is not so exceeding jealous of ;
his honour, but he may easily put up the
breach of it, without the ruin of his creature.
Nay, we are even apt to doubt, whether or no
our sins make any breach npon it at all. For,
alas ! his honour is above the reach of our
sins ; his glory is so solid and entire, that as
it is not capable of receiving any addition
from our choicest services, so neither of suffer
ing any diminution from our -vilest impieties ;
neither our goodness uorour evil doesextendto
him. If we do well, what is he the better? and
if we sin, he is not at all the worse. We know
the very heavens have this royal property, to
be impassible from any thing that is below.
And moreover, what is this sin? Is it nota
mere privation ? a nothing ? so weak, so low,
that we cannot ascribe any active influence or
operation to it ? And shall such a nothings
such a mere deficiency, be expiated by nought
under the etemal ruin of an immortal soul?
Is this such a thing, for which God shonld
keep anger for ever? especially since it is that
which gives him so fair an opportunity for
the glorifying his dearest attribute, his mercy.
For the 'proper, formal act of mercy is to
pardon and to spare : and if the creature had
not sinned, how could Grod have pardoned?
Such reasonings as these the soul is apt to
mutter out against God. Hence it is that GtA
so often in ^ripture sets his face against this
imagination ; he tells us over and over, tbat
« he is a jealous God," (Exod. xx. 5. xxxiv,
14 ;) and " that he will in no wise acquit the

ON ISAIAH, xxvii. 11.

193

guilty," (Nahum, i. 3.) Shall a poor, mortal
man, the best of whose glory is but a fading
flower, I say, shall he stand so upou the punc
tilios of his credit, as to vindicate the least
breach of his reputation with duel and blood
shed ? and shall not the great God vindicate
his honour with fire and sword against all
transgressors? Wc shall one day see, that it
is not so easy a matter to escape God's re
venging justice for sin.
But now to clear off all these pleas and ob
jections of raen, I shall state and answer this
question, naraely, —
Whence is it, that the offence of a child
against a parent does not disengage hira from
acting according to the relation of a father ? I
speak of ordinary offences ; for there are some
that do, as it were, even dissolve this relation,
as has been already specified in him that
cursed his father, that was incorrigible, (Deut.
xxi. 20.) In this case, the hand of the parent
was to be first upon hira, both in his accusa
tion and execution. But now, for ordinary
offences, whence is it, that a father ought not
upon these to cast off a child ? And yet, the
least offence against God so far dissolves the
relation, as to discharge him from raanifesting
himself in any- farther acts of goodness to
wards the creature ; notwithstanding the
mercies of God are infinitely, inconceivably
greater than the most tender compassions of
an earthly father.
In answer to this, to omit this considera
tion, that a man owes infinitely raore to God
than to an earthly father, even in respect of
those things that he received from his father ;
God gave him his life, the parent only con
veyed it. And shall we owe as much to the
casket that brought the jewel, as to the friend
that sent it ?
But I say, to pass by this,
1, The reason that every ordinary offence
does not disentitle a son to the love of his
father, as it does the creature to the protection
and favour of his Creator, is not frora the
obliging nature of that relation beyond the
other, but from the law and command of
God ; which, on this side, commands men to
exercise a rautual forgiveness of injuries, and
so much more obliges the father freely to for
give his son : and, on the other side, the law
says, " that the soul that has sinned, it shall
die." So that God cannot, upon the same
terms, forgive a sinner : there is a word gone
out against him.
2. Every offence of a child against a parent,
though it imraediately strikes him, yet it is
ultimately resolved not into him, but into God,
of whose righteous command and law it is a
breach and violation. But every offence against
God is ultimately resolved into God, and no
other. And therefore a father is not so rauch
concemed in an injury offered hira by his son,
.as God in the offence of the creature ; and,
VOL. II.

consequently, he is not so much provoked by
that, to let fall the tenderness of a father, as
God to lay aside the affection of a Creator.
3. That which hinders an offence from
pardon, is the vindicative justice of him
against whom the offence is coraraitted. But
there is no such thing as vindicative justice in
men one towards another, naturally and from
theraselves ; for they are all equal, and this is
founded in God's essential sovereignty. All
coaction, (as Grotius observes,) of wbich pun
ishraent is the greatest, being peculiar rji
vTipfjcovavi i^ovalcf-. and God himself says,
" "Vengeance is raine." Wherefore there is
not the same reason for God to forgive a sin
ful creature, that there is for one man to for
give another.
I think these considerations sufficiently
clear the question. But before I leave this
use, I shall add this one thing, which may
more fully state the case between God and
the siuner : naraely, —
Wheu I say the sin of the creature disen
gages God from shewing him any favour, it is
not hence to be gathered, that it raust there
fore engage hira to shew hira none ; for this
was no less to put a bond of restraint upon
God, thau if we should admit of a contrary
obligation. As for those that say, that God,
after the sin of man, is so engaged by the
necessity of his nature, that he cau with uo
accord to his justice shew him any mercy, till
a full satisfaction be paid down ; I think they
cannot say, that God's giving of Jesus Christ
did presuppose any satisfaction given before ;
which, if so, it may be left to the irapartial
consideration of any one. Whether for God,
being so offended by raan, yet upon the free,
spontaneous motion of his own will, to find
out, give, and constitute a mediator for hira,
be not as great or greater -raercy, than, when
a raediator is given, to accept of a satisfaction
frora hira in raan's behalf?
Second use. This raay serve to inforra us
of the cursed, provoking nature of sin. Cer
tainly there is something in it more than
ordinary, that should make the great and
merciful God take a poor creature, and shake
it alraost into nothing, to rid his hands of it,
to disown and let it fall out of his protection
into endless, unspeakable wo and misery ; that
should make a Creator the executioner of his
own creature ; a loving father the butcher of
his own child ; that should sour the sweet
relation of a raaker iuto the terrible narae of
a revengeful destroyer. Oh let him that
commits sin with pleasure and delight, con
sider this, and trerable ; him that can please
himself in his drunkenness, his uncleanness,
poor creature ! Does such an one know what
he is now doing? He is now fixing the in
supportable wrath of his great Creator against
his poor guilty soul. He is now dissolving
that bond of love, by which alone his Maker

194

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Serm. XXI.

had bound him to hiraself. Wouldest thou
have all the poison and malignity of thy sin
strained into one expression, take it thus in
short ; it is able to make thy Creator become
thine enemy.
Third use. This may inform us under
what notion we are to raake our addresses to
God ; not as a Creator, for so he is no ways
suitable to our necessities. He is offended
and provoked, and we stand as outlaws and
rebels to our Maker. Under this notion, no
sinner "can see God, and live." He is, to
such an one, a consuming fire, an everlasting
burning, nothing but wrath and vengeance.
And can we find any comfort in a consuming
fire? Is there any refreshraent in an ever
lasting burning ? If we cast ourselves upon
his mercy, his justice will break forth upon
us, and devour us. But you will then say.
What shall poor sinners do ? whither shall
they repair? Why there is yet hope : God's
wisdom has reconciled his justice to his mercy,
and cou.sequently us to himself. And now
he represents hiraself under a more desirable
relation, as "a reconciled God." And although,
under the former relation, he drives us from
him ; yet, under this, he tenderly invites us
to him. He therefore that trerables at the
name of an offended Creator, yet let him
comfort himself in the title of a reconciled
Father. Though we have cause to dread the
tribunal of his justice, yet let us come confi-
deutly to the throne of his mercy : let us
come freely, and spread all our wants before
hira ; lay open our complaints, tell hira all
the distresses and secret anguishes of our
burdened consciences. Believe it, we cannot
be more ready to tell them, than he is to
hear thera ; nor he to hear them, than to
relieve them. Let us anchor our hopes, our
trust, our confidence, upon his goodness : for
although, as our Creator, he will not save us ;
yet, as our Redeeraer, he will.
And could we now have a greater or a
happier instance of his reconcileraent to us,
than the present solemnity that we are en
gaging in ? in which we have the very arts
and inventions of Omniscience to endear us to
himself. Could we have a more pregnant
demonstration of a reconciled God, than a
sacrificed Son ; nay, than the blood of that
Son ? and that so mysteriously, and yet so
really, conveyed to us ? that he does not only
invite us to come to him, but to come within
him ; not only to an erabrace, but to an
union; and by ineffable and seraphic incor
porations, for " us to be in hira," and for " him
to be in us :" not only endearing, but araazing
us with his affection ; and at the same tirae
feeding our necessities, and entertaining our
adrairation. Only let us see that we so come to hira, that
we do not put bim to receive sins as well as
sinners. For though Chjist is willing to make

us part of his body, yet he is not willing to
unite himself to ulcers and putrefaction.
Aud therefore he that comes hither with a
Judas's heart and hypocrisy, will find a Judas's
entertainment ; aud though he may receive
the morsel from Christ's hand, yet he will
fiud that the Devil -will enter and go along
with it. It will be only the nutriment of his
sin, and the repast of his corruption. He that
comes to this dreadful duty profane, unclean,
or intemperate, will go away with quicker
dispositions and livelier appetites to those
sins. Every corruption shall rise and recover
itself, like a giant refreshed with wine. For
Christ has given the Devil full commission to
enter into such swine, and to drive then
headlong to their own destruction.

SEKMON XXI.

' When the young man heard that saying, he went away
sorrowful : for he had great possessions. " — Matt. xix. 22,

It is a truth of general acknowledgment,
because of universal experience, that there is
no misery comparable to that which follows
after a near access to happiness ; nor any
sorrow so quick and pungent, as that which
succeeds a preconceived, but disappointed joy.
Such a sorrow we have here ; for certainly it
mustbe no small matter, that can make a man
sorrowful in the midst of great possessions.
We have this young heir driving a bargain
with Christ, and that for no less a thing than
etemal life ; and driving it so near a close,
that only one thing was lacking ; a thing,
though perhaps in itself great, yet, compared
to the purchase, sraall and inconsiderable : iu
the fourteenth verse, " Go, sell that thou hast,
and give to the poor, and thou shalt have
treasure in heaven ;" here was as vast a dispro
portion betweeu the price and the purchase,
as there is distance between earth and heaven.
Neither was the proposal unreasonable,
because usually practised, even h-f the raost
worldly ; it being frequent with men to sell
an estate in one place, to buy another in a
raore convenient. So that he was not so
rauch commanded to leave, as to change his
possessions. And therefore, the rejection of
this offer was, upon the best terms of reason,
inexcusable ; both because the purchase was
so advantageous, and the person, to whom it
was offered, so rich.
Now the words here importing the yonng
man's sorrow, upon something enjoined him
by Christ ; the natural method of proceeding
will require that we reflect upon the command,
that was the occasion of this sorrow : and we

ON MATTHEW, nix. 22.

195

shall fiud that it branched itself into these
three parts or degrees :
1. 'The first was this ; " Go, sell that thou
hast." This was uot the duty itself, but the
preparative and introduction to it. For barely
to sell his estate, was ouly to alter, uot to
diminish it, aud, as we usually say, to turn a
long estate into a broad.
2. The second branch was, " Give to the
poor." It was not to throw it away, like the
morose philosopher : for the duty here urged,
was not to irapoverish hiraself, but to benefit
others ; not so rauch to cast it from him, as
to secure it to him in other hands.
3. The third aud last article of the com
maud was, " Come and follow rae ;" without
which, the other two were utterly insignifi
cant : like two propositions that conclude
nothing ; or like preparing for a journey,
without setting forth. It is the taking up of
the cross, that raakes our following of Christ
feasible ; but it is our following of Christ,
that makes our taking up of the cross accept
able. We have here seen the comraand ; and we
may be sure that Christ, whose precepts never
outweigh their motives, would second it with
an argument no less ponderous. And there
fore, here he enforces it with a reason as
commanding as the precept ; even the delight
and aim of all created beings, perfection.
"If thou wilt be perfect, go sell that thou
hast," &c. Which words, being much abused
by the papists, may worthily challenge a
farther explication.
They, to establish their works of superero
gation, have invented a distinction between
precepts and counsels. A precept they define
a coraraand, so obliging to duty, that the
omission of it obliges to punishraent. But a
counsel not so much coraraands, as recom
mends some perfection, beyond what is en
joined in the law ; for the omission of which,
a man shall not incur punishraent ; and for
the performance of which, he shall have a
more eminent reward : and therefore it is
called a counsel of evangelical perfection.
That popery underraines the law, and per
verts the gospel, we are not now to learn :
but in this it is hard to judge which is greater,
the arrogance or the absurdity. The first, in
that they pretend to surpass the liraits of all
legal perfection : the second, in that they as
sert, that there may be sorae perfection that
is not contained iu the law, which is the
unalterable rule and standard of all created
holiness. Let them strive, and strain, and stretch the
very sinews of their souls to the highest pin
of austerity and alms ; yet, unless they can
proye that this is to love God raore than
" with all their heart, with all their soul, and
with all their strength," (which the very letter
of the law exacts,) all their evangelical per

fection is already drank up and forestalled in
the vast comprehensive verge and latitude of
the precept. And therefore, this distinction
of precepts and counsels is illogical and ridi
culous, one member of the distinction grasp
ing within itself the other.
Now to these counsels they refer this in
junction given to the young man, to " sell all,
and give to the poor ;" which they farther
prove, because to the performance of it Christ
promises uot only heaven, but " treasure iu
heaven," which imports a more accumulate
degree of felicity. But to this
I answer, that the word "treasure in
heaven" does not of necessity signify any such
superlative degree or pitch of happiness, but
siraply the thing itself ; which appears from
this, that the nonperforraance of tliis precept
not only degrades frora a higher degree of
glory, but utterly excludes from any entrance
into it at all, as in the twenty-fourth verse.
But you will say, if this be not a counsel,
but a command, to which of the ten is it to
be reduced ? I answer, to the first, of serving
God with all the heart and with all the
strength. You will reply then, that all stand obliged
to sell their estates, inasmuch as the obliga
tion of that coraraand is universal.
I answer, that this precept coraraands sorae
things absolutely, which oblige all ; some
things only hypothetically, that is, in case
God shall discover it to be his will to be
obeyed in such particular instances : and
consequently oblige there only, where God
shall raake such discoveries.
Aud here we raust observe, that there is a
vast difference between a new precept and a
new instance of obedience ; one esse formate
(which is that that gives unity to tbe precept)
may extend itself to the whole objective
latitude of many undiscovered particulars.
The precept commands us, in general, " to
love God with all our hearts." Christ bore
requires this young man to shew that love to
God iu this particular instance of selling his
estate : so that, though the comraand of loving
God extend to all, yet the deterraination and
application of it to this matter is particular,
and consequently but of a particular obligation.
Having thus cleared our way to tbe words
themselves, we may observe in them these
four things considerable :
1. The person making the address to Christ,
who was one whose reason was enlightened
to a solicitous consideration of his estate in
another world.
2. The thing sought for in this address,
namely, etemal life.
3. The condition upon which it was pro
posed, and upon which refused ; namely, the
sale and relinquishment of his temporal estate.
4. His behaviour upou this refusal ; " he
departed sorrowful."

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Serm. .\XI.

Having thus, as it were, analyzed the text
into its several distinct parts, I shall here
resume and join them together in this oue
proposition, namely.
He that deliberately parts with Christ,
though for the greatest and most suitable
worldly enjoyraent, if but his natural reason
is awakened, does it with much secret sting
and remorse.
In the prosecution of this, I shall do these
two things :
I. I shall shew whence it is, that a man,
acted by an enlightened reason, finds such
reluctancy and regret upon his rejection
of Christ.
II. I shall shew the causes why, notwith-
st.auding this regret that the conscience feels
upou its rejection of Christ, it is yet brought
in the issue to reject him.
I. For the first ofthese ; that an enlightened
reason is affected with such remorse, upon its
rejection of Christ : it may proceed from these
causes :
1. The first may be taken from the nature
of conscience, that is apt to recoil upon any
error, either iu our actions or our choice.
There are sorae innate principles of tmpe
and honestum ; the standing causes of all reli
gion, that supervise all our actions ; and
according to their agreement to, or deviation
from these principles, there follows in the soul
a coraplacency or regret.
And the verdict of these is so infallible, that
a man ra.ay know the good or evil of his
actions, by the teraper of his raind after their
performance. After a good action, though
never so difficult, so grim, and unpleasfiut in
the onset, yet what a lightsome, refreshing
coraplacency does it leave upon the mind?
what a fragrancy, what a cheerfulness upon
the spirits ? So, on the contrary, an action
morally evil and irregular, though recom
mended with the greatest blandishment and
sweetness of allurement to the appetite, yet
how empty, aud false, and hollow is it found
upon the coraraission ! What a sad damp is
there npon the heart ! wh.at a confusion aud
displeasedness covers the whole soul !
A man no sooner displeases God, but he
presently displeases himself ; according to that
excellent and divine saying of the satirist ;
" Prima est hsec ultio, quod se judice nemo
nocens absolvitur." Hence the expression of
" forum conscientiae" is not a metaphor, but
a truth ; for there is a severe inquest, an
undeniable evidence, an unanswerable charge,
aud a sudden and a dreadful sentence given
by conscience.
No sooner is the action past, but conscience
makes the report. As soon as David cut off a
piece of Saul's robe, how quickly did his heart
smite him ! An impure heart, like a foul
gun, never vents itself in any sinful commis
sions, but it recoils.

It is impossible to se(^uester and divide sin
from sorrow. That winch defiles will as cer
tainly disturb tho soul. As -when mud and
filth is cast into a pure fountain, it is uot so
much said to pollute, as to trouble the waters.
Things good and reasonable have a right to
our choice, and a claim to our obedience.
There is that overawing majesty, that com
manding regency in piety to the conscience,
that there is in truth to the intellect. Con
science will not be defied ; no stifling the first
notions of good and evil, the necessary aud
eternal dictates of reason.
And this is one cause of the reraorse that a
sinner feels upon his rejection of Christ. And
do you think that this young man had not
the experience of this? did not his consoienco
vex and quarrel with hira for his sinful and
absurd choice ? As soon as ever ho turned his
back, these thoughts dogged him at the heels.
He departed, indeed, but it was sorrowful, his
conscience ringing him many sad peals within,
hitting him iu the teeth with the murder of
his soul ; that ho had foolishly and irrationally
bartered aw.ay etemity for a trifle, nnd lost a
never-returning opportunity ; an opportunity,
in its improvement invaluable, and in its
refusal irrecoverable.
2. The second cause of this trouble and
reluctancy that men find in the very instant
of their rejecting Christ, is taken from the
usual course of God's judicial proceeding in
this matter ; which is to clarity the eye of
reason to a clearer sight of the beauties and
excellencies of Christ, in the very moment and
critical instant of his departure. This is, as it
were, a lightening before death, a short
opening of the understanding before he shuts
it for ever.
For when the affections have resolved upon
a refusal of Christ, it is but just with God to
tantalize and vex the understanding with a
livelier discovery of a forsaken advantage.
And here undoubtedly God has many ways
of workiug upon the understanding, even
beyond the understanding ; and can affect it
with a sudden, instantaneous view of a good,
which he no sooner discovers, than with
draws ; which, though it enlightens, and, as
it were, gilds the apprehension, yet it changes
not the will.
It is like a sudden lightning, that flashes in
the face, but alters not the complexion ; it is
rather vision than persuasion. God here
represents the beauties of tho kingdom of
heaven to tho sinner, as Satan did the beauty
and glory of this world to Christ, by a sudden,
transient representation ; which, we know,
did rather amuse thau persuade him ; it struck
his apprehension, but never changed his
resolution. And that this dealing of God should effect
no more upon the uiind is suitable to its pro
per design and purpose ; it being intended by

ON MATTHEW, xix. 23.

197

God not to inform, but to afflict the reason :
that since it refused a full draught of the
waters of life, it might, before the final loss of
them, have its memory quickened with a
taste. Now, this clearer, transient discovery of
Christ made to the sinner in the instant of his
rejecting him, is another cause that whets the
sting, that enhances the vexation, aud sends
him away sorrowful ; for the clearer the
apprehension of a good, the quicker is the
sense of its loss.
3. The third and last cause of the anxiety
that a sinner feels upon his relinquishment of
Christ, if his reason be enlightened, is because
there is that in Christ and in the gospel, even
as they stand in opposition to the best of such
enjoyments, that answers the most natural
and generous discourses of reason.
For the proof of which I shall produce two
known principles of reason, into which the
most severe, harsh, and mortifying commands
of the gospel are by clear and genuine conse
quence resolved :
(1.) The first is, that the greatest calamity
is to be endured, rather thau the least sin to
be coraraitted. That this principle grows
upon the stock of bare natural reason, may
be demonstrated hy the united testiraony of
those who had no other light but that of
reason ; all sealing to the truth of this, that
the evil of sin is greater than the evU of pain
or afflictiou.
So that it grew into a standing maxim in
their philosophy, that uo wicked raan was
happy. But he that is wicked may be rich,
learued, beautiful, victorious ; he may engross
all the perfections, and the very quintessence
of nature. It is clear, therefore, that their
reason told them that these were not happi
ness ; since, notwithstanding these, a man
might be wicked, and consequently, upon
their own principle, not happy.
Hence Cicero reports, that Socrates would
often curse hira that first made that triple
division of good, into " an honest, a pleasing,
and profitable ;" as accounting the pleasing
and the profitable, so far as it cut off from
honesty, to lose the very nature of good. But
now to state a species so, that it should carry
in it a negation of, or a contrariety to its
genus, is certainly, upou all principles of
logic, absurd andpreposterous.
The happiness " of every thiug is to act
suitably to its nature ; and reason tells us, that
those actions most perfect nature, that perfect
the best part of it, the soul. All external
miseries and enjoyments cannot reach this,
hut the morality of our actions does. Every
sin, every moral irregularity, does as really
imprint an indelible stain upon the soul, as a
blot falling upon the cleanest paper.
The satirist calls virtue the end aud design
of living, the vivendi causam ; and to save one's

life with the loss of one's innocence, is to
purchase the means with the loss of the end.
Cicero, iu the first of his Offices, peremp
torily asserts, that nothing can be stated
rightly in that subject, but by those " qui
honestatem propter se dicunt expetendara."
Seneca is full of the like assertions. And
however they might live below what they
spoke, and their practice contradict their
principles, yet their principles discovered their
reason. Having thus proved, that natural reason
suggests the choice of the greatest misery
before the least sin ; as being a thing in itself
irregular, aud therefore irrational, and conse
quently contrary to nature ; it follows, that
we are equally to choose it, rather than to
engage in that which by certain and native
consequence will occasion sin. For the sarae
reason will prove, that whatsoever is done or
suffered against sin itself, holds as well against
the immediate causes of sin.
If reason tells me, that it is more misery to
be covetous than to be poor, as our language,
by a peculiar significance of dialect, calls the
covetous man the miserable man; and if I
find that, retaining my wealth, I cannot avoid
covetousness ; the same reason that tells me,
I raust avoid the sin, will convince rae also,
that I am to wash my hands of the tempta
tion. And had the philosopher thrown his
wealth into the sea upon this motive, it was
more custom than reason that vouched his
action ridiculous ; it being only a throwing
overboard his riches, to keep his conscience
from shipwreck.
That reason which tells one, in honour it
is better to be despised than to be proud, if
with his honours he cannot but be proud, if
the popular air will get in, and taint all ;
why, the same reason will comraand him to
lay them down, and rationally to traraple
upon them : for if we dread being caught, it
is absurd walking upon the snare.
Now what did Christ enjoin in this seera
ingly severe command to the young man, that
a natural reason, acting naturally, might not
upon this principle have enforced? For
doubtless he saw him so riveted into a confi
dence and love ofhis possessions, and perhaps
foresaw what he neither did nor could, that
they would certainly occasion luxury, epicu
rism, with all its impure consequences ; and
that therefore there was no remedy by plas
tering, but by cutting off the sore : nor by
allowing him the use of his possessions, when
he saw something in his temper, or the cir
cumstances of his life, that would unavoidably
necessitate their abuse.
And without questioj), the young raan who,
from Christ's miracles and life, eould not but
collect his intimate acquaintance with the
mind of God, could not but collect also, that
he would propose no coramand, but of which

198

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Serm. XXI.

he knew an excellent reason. No -wonder,
therefore, if he rejected it with reluctancy ;
and if this rejection, being contrary to reason,
was troublesome : for trouble is, when the
object grates upon tho faculty, either by its
disproportion or contrariety.
And thus much for the first principle of
reason, upon which the severest commands of
the gospel do proceed.
(2.) A second principle is this ; that a less
good is to be forsaken for a greater : an apho
rism attested to by tho natural, untaught,
universal judgnient of reason. And this is so
clear, that those who observe how the will is
drawn by its object, find that iu choice, a less
good corapared to a greater, is rejected, not
forraally as a less good, but as absolutely bad.
Hence all deliberation in choice is caused
by our apprehension of au equality of good
ness, in two things proposed ; and as the dis
proportion grows clearer and clearer, a man
begins less to deliberate, and raore to deter
mine. But where this disparity of less and
greater is evident, there deliberation has uo
place, but determination is immediate. And
this is the reason ofthe thiug frora philosophy.
Add weight to one scale, aud the balance
will no longer be indifferent which way to
incline. Did ever .any man iu his wits prefer
brass before gold, a pebble before a pearl?
Thesame inclination that desires good, does as
naturally desire the best. He that deliberates
and doubts, whether ten pounds be better
thau five, may as -well question whether it be
more than five. Do you think, when Samuel
told Saul of the kingdom, that he was any
longer troubled for the asses ? Or that when
David h.ad received tho sceptre, he was solici
tous about his shepherd's crook ?
Suspense in the choice, is from indift'crenco
iu the object, when both parts are equally
attractive; like a needle between two load
stones, it inclines to both, but it adheres to
neither ; but lay it between a loadstone and
a flint, and you shall quickly see to which it
clings. Now to reduce this principio to the case in
hand, we are to demonstrate two things :
1st, That the good proraised by our Saviour
to the young man was really greater than that
which was to be forsook for it. Tho greatest,
the severest, and raost unpracticable duty of
Christianity, is enforced upon this very prin
ciple of reason : as in Matt. v. " the cutting
otF the right hand, and the plucking out the
right eye," is not urged upon the bare obliga
tion of duty, but upon this dictate of reason,
that it is really better. In the 29th and SOth
verses, " It is better" (^<ri>/u,(pepii yap, it is " pro
fitable" for thee) " to go blind and raaimed to
heaven, than having both eyes and both
hands to be thrown into hell." It is an
ev.angelical conclusion, drawn from a natural
medium of self-preservation.

For what person of sobriety and recolleo-
tion would not crucify his sin rather than
damn his soul ? aud endure tho severity, aud
live uuder the discipline of a mortifying pre
cept, than fry eternally under tho iiamo and
tire of a condemning sentence ?
There is no proportion between the mise
ries or the felicities of this life, with thoso that
are exhibited to us by Christ in tho gospel :
and where the disparity of things is so great,
as to meet our first apprehensions, there to
make parallels is superfluous, and to produce
proofs rather supposes the case doubtful, than
m.akes it at all clearer.
Christ opposed eternal life to the young
man's possessions : and what compare is
there between these upon terras of bare rea
son ? between the narrow compass of a few
moraents, aud tho vast spaces of eternity?
between the froth and levity of those com
forts, and betweeu an exceeding weight of
glory, between durable, solid, massy happi
ness ?
What equality between the life of a travel
ler and tho reigu of a prince? between the
transient titillations of a bewitched, sickly
appetite ; aud those ineff.ible pleasures that
stream eternally from tho beatific vision ?
Reason cau say nothing for ono before the
other, unless perhaps it may reply, that a
present good is rationally to bo preferred
before a future. But to this I answer, that a
good is not barely to bo measured by its iin-
raedi.ate preseiitiality ; but by its adequate
coexistence to the soul, whose duration beiug
imraortal, reaches raore to the future, than it,
possesses of the present. And this we have
to say of the greatest temporal happiness,
that though it is present, yet it will quiokly
be past ; and of that which is eternal, that
though it be now future, yet it will once be
always present ; nnd so oven upon this score
also it is to be preferred.
We see therefore that natural light joins in
with divine revelation, acknowledging tho
goods of a future estate, incomparably more
desirable than any in this. So that when
Christ gave this comraand, reason echoed
back the sarao ; and together with the voice
redoubled the obligation.
2dly, Tho second thing to bo deraonstrated
is, that tho good proraised by our Saviour
was not only greater in itself, but also pro
posed as such with sufficient clearness of
evidence, and upon sure, undeniable grounds.
For though a thing be really better in itself,
yet if it does not appear to be so, no mau can
be bhamed for not embracing it. Now it
being proved above, that the eternal life
promised by Christ did by infinite degrees of
difference exceed the young man's revenues ;
tho only thing remaining was, whether he
promised it upon such grounds, that in reason
Le ought to have believed him.

ON MATTHEW, xix. 2-2.

199

Here, to omit other grounds and argu
ments, the truth of the gospel seems chiefly
to be proved upon these two grounds :
1. 'The exact fulfilling of prophecies in the
person of Christ.
2. His miraculous actions.
1. For the first ofthese, it cannot be denied,
but that it affords a solid proof to those that
will be convinced ; but not so convincing to
a sceptical disputer, or to an obstinate Jew.
Forasrauch as those prophecies make the
kingdom of the Messias, as it is represented
in the letter of the Scripture, far different
from what it fell out to be iu the person of
Christ ; so that we cannot apply them to him,
hut by a mystical, anagogical explication :
the liberty of which they may choose whether
or no they will grant us ; and if they should
deny it, perhaps we could not so easily dis
prove them.
2. But, secondly, for his miracles : the con
vincing strength of these was upon all grounds
of reason undeniable ; and that upon these
two most confessed principles :
(1.) That they did exceed any natural,
created power, and therefore were the imme
diate effects of a divine.
(2.) That God cannot attest, or by his
power bear witness to a lie.
Now, when Christ avouched to the world
such precepts, promises, and threatenings for
truths ; aud to prove his words cured the
lame and the blind, raised the dead, stilled
the winds aud the seas with a word, fed four
thousand with three or four loaves ; and all
this before his enemies, who spitefully, and
therefore thoroughly sifted all his actions,
and yet confessed the miracle; if, I say,
Christ did these miracles to confam his doc
trine ; either God must have employed his
divine power to ratify and confirm a falsity,
or the doctrine so confirmed must needs be a
truth. This to me seems so pregnant, so full
'of convincing evidence, that it leaves the un
believer inexcusable.
Undoubtedly, Christ kuew his own strong
est argument, when he still remits his subtlest
and most inquisitive enemies to his miracles;
as in John, v. 36, " My works bear witness
ofrae;" and in John, xiv. 11, "Believe rae
for the works' sake." And I think I may
truly avouch, that if the grounds upon which
the gospel is proposed to our belief, were uot
sufficient to convince our reason, no man
would stand bound to believe it.
Questionless, iu this very instance, the
young man's reason, upon this severe and
startling command of Christ, could not but
discourse the case in this raanner :
" He positively tells me, that if I would
obtain eternal life, I must sell my estate, and
give it all to the poor : is this true, or is it
not? If not, and if he only deludes me, how
could he back his words with such works as

apparently carry in them the finger of God ?
For God does uot hear sinners, he cannot lend
the use of his power to a sycophant, to a
deceiver : therefore certainly, as what he does
cannot but be the works of God, so what he
says cannot but be the mind of God ; and
consequently eternal life, which he promises,
will be a thing of certain event : and since I
cannot have it otherwise, but by relinquishing
my teraporal estate, relinquish it I must, or
never obtain it."
Here observe, that his reason having con
vinced itself, beyond all evasion, of the truth
of Christ's words, aud consequently of the
necessity of his own obedience ; his will not
being able to comply with that coraraand as
good and convenient, which his reason did
enforce as true and necessary, he departed
sorrowful ; there was a turault in his soul, his
judgment and his will were together by the
ears : and hereupon he was full of secret
trouble and horror, upon the terrifying, irk
some, lashing presages of a miserable eternity.
And thus rauch for the first general head,
namely, to shew whence it is that an enlight
ened reason finds such regret in its rejection
of Christ.
But now it may be naturally inquired, that
if there is so much trouble and reluctancy
upou au awakened reason, when it breaks and
parts with Christ ; whence comes it to pass
that they break and part at all ? If they can
not bid farewell but with tears in their eyes,
what necessity is there but that they may
forbear parting, and so prevent the sorrow ?
And this introduces me to the second gene
ral head proposed to be insisted ou, which is,
II. To shew the causes, that, notwithstand
ing all this reraorse of conscience, the soul is
yet brought in the issue to reject, and shake
hands with Christ.
(1.) The first cause is from this, that the
perceptions of sense overbear the discourses of
reason. Reason discoursing upon grounds of
religion, builds only upon auother world ; but
sense fixes upon this. And since religion
borrows much from reason, and reason itself
has all conveyed to it by sense ; it is no wonder,
if all knowle'dge and desire resolves into sense,
as its first foundation.
And here it is unfortunately verified, that
" the elder must serve the younger ;" that
understanding raust veil to sense ; that the
eye must do obeisance to the window, and
discourse submit to sensation.
Yet thus it is, sense rebels against reason,
and like those captains araong the Israelites,
it 'slays its master, and reigns in his stead.
Though reason would argue the soul into
obedience, by mediums grounded upon divine
revelation ; yet sense more forcibly persuades
to sin, upon the undeniable experiment of the
sweetness of worldly objects : which indeed
prevail not because they are more convincing.

200

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Serm. XXI.

but because more suitable ; not that they
satisfy our judgment, but that they close with
our condition.
And herein properly consists the difficulty
Of believing ; that we must part with a good,
which we see, taste, and enjoy, for a good that
is invisible, and of which there is no idea con
veyed to the apprehension ; which therefore
comes recommended to our desires at a great
disadvantage. The happiness of heaven, for which we
are to forego all, is said to be the vision of
God, which we find hardly desirable, because
not intelligible. For we cannot imagine, and
frarae in our rainds, what it is to see God,
since he never was nor can be seen by our
senses. The young man desired eternal life ; but
he had no notion of the pleasure of it, what
kind of thing it was : but he knew and found
the sweetness of an estate, so that the sensi
ble impressions of this quickly overcame and
swallowed up the weak and languid concep
tions that he had of the other.
In short, the very condition of our nature
stakes us down, both to the judgnient and
the inclination of sense : for as there is no
thing to any purpose in the understanding,
but what was first in the sense ; so there is
scarce any thing in the will, but what has
first passed t'ne appetite.
And this is the reason, that men, though
convinced of the excellency of Christ, yet
rather choose the world, of which they have
such strong, lively, and warra apprehensions.
Sense and appetite out- vote reason, in which
thing alone is suraraed up the raisery of our
nature, and the very cause that so few are
saved. For what raan almost is there in the
world, who, upon due observation of his
actions, does not find, that his appetite oftener
foils his judginent, than his judgment over
rules his appetite?
(2.) The second cause or reason of this final
rejection of Christ, is from the prevailing
opposition of some corrupt affection : which
being predorainant in the soul, coraraands the
will, and blears the eye of the judgment ;
shewing it all things in its owu colour, by a
false and a partial representation. It is through
the tyranny of these affections, that when the
will goes one way, the practice is forced
another. Corae to the sensual and voluptuous person,
and convince hira that there is a necessity of
his bidding farewell to all inordinate pleasure,
in order to his future happiness ; perhaps you
gain his reason, and in sorae measure insinuate
into his will : but theu his sensual desire
interposes,and out-votes and ravels all his con
victions. As when by much ado a vessel is
forced and rowed some pretty way contrary
to the tide, presently a gust of wind comes,
and beats it farther back than it was before.

Come to a covetous, worldly raan, and con
vince him that Christ invites him, and he
must come; yet covetousness will stand forth,
and tell you, that he has bought a farm or a
yoke of oxen, and they draw him another
way, and he cannot corae. And the truth is,
it is irapossible that he should, till his corrup
tion is subdued, and the bias of his affections
turned. If Christ ever wins the fort of the soul, the
conquest must begin here : for the under
standing and will seem to be like a castlo or
fortified place ; there is strength indeed in
them, but the affections are the soldiers who
manage those holds ; the opposition is from
these : and if the soldiers surrender, the place
itself, though never so strong, cannot resist.
And this probably was the case of this
young man : had his affection been true to his
reason, had he not been worldly as well as
rich, Christ and he had never parted for a
piece of land, that is, for such a compass of
dirt. But the ruling corruption of his mind,
the peculiar minion of his affections, was
worldliness ; and to tell this temper of mind
of selling all, that he might be happy, it
would have been to that as absurd and ridi
culously incredible, as if he had bid him sell
and give away all, that he might be rich.
This therefore is the second cause, that
though reason and judgment would veil to
Christ, yet the man does not, because his
affections lord it. It is indeed natural for a
raan to have the dorainion over the acts of
his will ; but he is in this thing like the cen
turion ; though he has some under him, and
bids such au one go, and he goes, yet he is
also a raan under authority hiraself : though
he coraraands his will, yet he is commanded
by his affections.
And perhaps this may be one reason, not
contemptible, of the different judgments of
men concerning the freedom or servitude of
the will ; that they are not so ranch deter
rained by arguraents from without, as by ex
perience frora within ; that sorae have strong
natural passions and affections, others but
weak and raoderate : the former of whicb
finding their will so potently swayed by sucb
passions, think it is not free, and cannot but
do what it does. Others finding their affec
tions to have so small an ascendant over their
will, by reason of this their natural weakness,
are apt to think that they have free will, and
a perfect indifference to all actions, to accept
or to refuse whatsoever is proposed to them.
This, doubtless, may 'be one great cause of
men's disagreement in this point.
In sum, the economy of the soul in this
case is like a public council sitting under an
armed force ; let them consult and vote what
they will, yet they must act as the army and
the tumult will have them. In this sense
every soldier is a comraander : in like man-

ON MATTHEW, xix. 22.

201

ner, let both the judgment and the will be for
Christ, yet the tumult of the affections will
carry it ; and when they cannot out-reason
the conscience, they will out-cry it.
(3.) The third cause, inducing men to re
linquish Christ contrary to the judgment of
their conscience, is the force and tyranny of
the custom of the world. It is natural for all
men to live more by example than precept ;
and it is the most efficacious enforceraent of
duty, to clothe it iu a precedent. As a phy
sician by his receipts, persuasions, .and dis
courses cannot win a froward patient to take
a bitter potion ; but by drinking of it him
self, he presently overcomes and shames him
iuto au imitation.
It is the world, and the fashion of it, that
ruins souls. It is the shame of men, and the
vogue of the times, that frights raen out of
their consciences : and could we see the secret
movings and reasonings of men's hearts, when
Christ, by the convictions of his Spirit debates
the case between hiraself and the soul, we
should see the non-conversion of most men
chargeable upou this very cause", and that
they raiss of salvation upon no other account
in the world, than that it is the fashion to be
damned. Christ easily runs down the swearer, the
drunkard, aud the epicure, aud convinces
them of the wretched destructive consequences
of their riots : but then, this whispers them
another lesson ; what would the world say of
me, should I renounce my garb and jollity,
and sneak into a course of severe and religious
living ? How would my companions despise
aud post me for a base, pusillanimous spirit,
as void of the generosity aud air of courtship,
and a stranger to the genius of true nobility !
And this temptation is so rauch the stronger,
because it is founded upou the most unyield
ing corruption of our nature, which is pride ;
a quality, which will put a man upon doing
any thing to keep up the post of his station
and reputation in the world : hereupon, if it
comes to a justle and competition, gentility
must go before Christianity, and fashion take
the wall of religion.
It was this that made the Jews suppress
their convictions, (John, xii. 42, 43,) " Many
believed in Christ, but they did not profess
him openly, because they feared being put out
of the synagogue ;" for it is added, " they
loved the praise of men." This sent Nicode
mus to Christ by night ; the struggles of his
conscience between conviction and sharae
made him, upon the former of these, venture
to do what the latter of these would uot let
him own.
And amongst other dissuasives from follow
ing of Christ, the young man conld not but
be assaulted with such as these : What I part
with all for a new notion of another world ?
sell land to buy hope ? be preached out of my

estate, and worded out of such fair farms and
rich possessions? Aud all this to follow a
despised person, hungry aud naked, and per
haps come at length to beg au alras at ray
owu door ? to be the talk of every table, to
be scorned of ray enemies, and uot pitied by
my friends ; to be counted a fool, au idiot,
and fit to be begged, did I not beg myself ?
No, I cannot bear it ; this is intolerable.
Now observe, here was the eye of the needle
that could not be passed ; here Christ and he
broke ; the power of custom, and the quick
apprehensions of shame, staved him off from
salvation. He would do like the world,
though he perished with it ; swim with the
stream, though he was drowned in it ; rather
go sociably to hell, than in the uncomfortable
solitude of precise singularity to heaven ; the
jollity of the company made him overlook the
broadness aud danger of the way.
Precedency is not only alluring, but authen
tic : for can a man have any greater warrant
for the reasonableness of au action, thau the
practice of the universe ? But certainly, there
will be a tirae one day, when a raan shall curse
hiraself for not having had the courage to out
brave and trample upon the common appre
hensions and censures of the world, when
Christ and that stood rivals for his soul ; and
for having been so stupidly a coward, as to
be baffled of his salvation by words and
opinion. Now, the inferences and deductions from
the words thus discussed are these : —
1. We gather hence the great criterion and
art of trying our sincerity ; which is, by the
test of such precepts as directly reacli our
peculiar corruptions. Observe the excellent
method that Christ took to couvince this per
son. Had he tried him by a precept of tem
perance, chastity, or just dealing, he had never
sounded the bottom of his heart ; for the
civility of his life would have afforded a fair
and satisfying reply to all these : but when
he carae close to hira, and touched upon his
heart-string, his beloved possessions, the man
quickly shews himself, and discovers the tem
per of his spirit raore by the love of one par
ticular, endeared sin, than by his forbearance
of twenty, to which he stood indifferent.
Every man's sincerity is not to be tried the
sarae way. He that should conclude a raan
pious, because not covetous, would bring but
a short arguraent ; for perhaps he may be
lustful or arabitious, and the stream be alto
gether as strong and violent, though it runs
in a different channel.
The reason of this assertion is, because no
raan bears an equal propensity to all sins.
There is not only a contrariety between vice
and virtue, but also between one vice and
another. Nay, perhaps, the distance between
the two latter is far the greater; forasrauch
as there is a longer passage from extreme

202

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Serm. XXI.

to extreme, than from an extreme to the
middle, which we know is the -situation of
virtue. No wonder, therefore, since a man's
cormpt appetite bears not an equal inclina
tion to all sins, that it is not equally to be
tried by all precepts. Things peculiar and
specific are those that must distinguish and
discover. Now as iu a tree, it is the sarae sap and
juice that spreads itself into all that variety of
branches ; some straight, some crooked, some
of this figure, sorae of that : so it is the sarae
stock and furniture of natural corruption, that
shoots forth into that great diversity of vices,
that exert such different operations in different
tempers. And as it is the grand office of
'udgment to separate aud distinguish, and so
to proportion its applications ; so herein is the
great spiritual art of a prudent ministry, first
to learn a man's proper disteraper, and then
to encounter it by a peculiar and suitable
address. Reprehensions that are proraiscuous
are always ineffectual.
But much more ineffectual, if not also
absurd, is a reprehension misplaced. He that
should preach daranation to prodigality and
interaperance before a company of usurers,
what did he else but adrainister indirectly an
occasion to thera, to measure their piety by
their distance from that vice ; while, iu the
meau tirae, they stood chargeable with a
worse. A man raay, with as much propriety,
and success of action, angle for birds, or lay
lime-twigs to catch fish, as think to convince
a man of the siu of prodigality, by loud and
sharp declamations against covetousness.
Both, indeed, are sins ; but their particular
quality makes their agreement, in the general
nature of sin, scarce considerable. Was a
minister to deal with a luxurious, debauched
congregation, how toothless and insipid would
it be to make harangues against faction ; asin
wholly of another nature, and dwelling in
another disposition.
When Paul preached before Felix, he
might have directed his sermon against
idolatry and superstition, against heresy, or
against rebellion ; but he chose rather to dis
course of "justice, temperance, and of judg
ment to corae." Why ? but because he de
terrained his subject by the temper of his
auditor, whose injustice in taking bribes, and
whose lust in keeping another man's wife,
made him fit to be charged home with a
severe and searching discourse of the contrary
virtues ? Which we know so struck his con
science, like lightning, both for its force
and insinuation, that it sent him away
trembling : as Christ before him, by the like
methods of discourse, sent this young man
away sorrowful.
Now it concerns every man to get the best
assurance he can of his sincerity ; to attain
which, he must follow the method that Christ

used towards this young candidate for eternal
life. He must arraign his corruption before
that precept that particularly strikes at it ;
otherwise he will find, that he puts a fallacy
upon his conscience, if he misapplies the rule;
and if his sin being theft, he tries himself by
a law made against murder.
2. The issue of the whole action, in the
young man's not closing with Christ's pro
posals about eternal life, and his sorrowful
departure thereupon, lays before us a full
account of that misery which attends a final
dereliction of Christ. Now the happiness that
man is capable of being twofold, temporal and
eterual, and misery being properly a p4vatioii
of happiness, the greatness of this misery
consists iu this, that it adequately deprives a
man of both these.
(1.) Of that which is eternal. I inentiou
this first, because it is the greatest, and the
best. Unbelief eternises nothing but our
miseries. The terms are short and absolute.
No leaving possessions, no eternal life ; uo
casting away our goods, no escaping the ship
wreck. Our dearest corruptions are to be mortified,
our fairest enjoyments relinquished ; this
world to be left, or no adraission into a better.
Yet though the proposal be so evident, and
the arguments enforcing it so strong and
rational ; men, for all this, will not be brought
to bend under the power and necessity of this
truth : but the heart is still apt to relieve
itself with a secret persuasion, that Christ and
possessions, future happiness and present ease,
are consistent ; and that all assertions to the
contrary are but the brain-sick notions of
melancholy spirits, that would impose un
necessary penance upou the world ; and
therefore they must have their pleasures,
their humours, their profits, and their garb,
and that in the most eager and slavish pur
suit of thera ; though truth itself has expressly
said, that we cannot serve God and Mammon.
And I ara sure, that if they cannot be served,
they cannot he so enjoyed together.
But certainly we shall one day find, that
the strait gate is too narrow for any man to
corae bustling in, thracked with great posses
sions, and greater corruptions.
These are interests that can never be joined :
continual pleasure here and hereafter are in
corapatible. Heaven aud earth are at too
great a distance to be united. And, if so,
then we see where our unbelief leaves us,
even in the regions of horror and despair, in
that place of torment and separation from
God ; where, -who knows but this unhappy
young heir, with the other rich ones of the
world, is now weeping and wailing over his
present estate, cursing and crying out of his
soul-ruining possessions.
The sorrow he felt before was only an
earnest of this daranation, a taste and preliba-

ON MATTHEW, xix. 22,

203

tion of future wr.ath. If men will but con
sider that sad retinue of consequences which
attends the final resolutions of infidelity, the
happiness it bereaves of, aud the misery that
it infallibly condemns to ; surely they would
not stand aud condition with Christ, before
they surrendered their pleasures, honours, and
possessions ; but they would throw them up,
aud count it not a loss, but an escape. But
unbelief will never be counted unseasonable,
till it has made the unbeliever perfectly
miserable. (2.) But, secondly, it bereaves even of
temporal happiness also ; even that which it
promises, and which only it designs, and for
the retaining of which it brings a man to part
with his hopes of that which is future and
eternal. That it does so is evident ; for what
delight, what taste or relish is there in the
greatest affluence of all a mau's worldly pos
sessions, when a grim, offended conscience
shall stand by him, and protest against all his
pleasures ? And however men may put the
best face upon things, yet certainly there is
no such pain or torraent, as an aching, angry
conscience, under a merry aspect.
When a man shall look upon his rich farms
and fair houses, and his conscience in the
meantime whisper him, that this is all that
he must expect for ever ; when he shall eat
and drink the price of his soul, and pay down
eternity for every raorsel ; so that he never
sits down to his full table, but, like Esau, he
sees his birthright served up to him in a mess :
when, by whatsoever he looks upon, whatso
ever he wears, upou whatsoever he treads,
the remembrance of the sad price is still re
vived upou his conscience : this takes away
the heart and life of the corafort ; and the
mirth of the feast is checked by the considera
tion of the reckoning.
Now this certainly is the sum of all miseries ;
and since we can go no farther, we may con
clude that unbelief is entertained upon very
hard terms, wheu it robs the unbeliever of
his last raedicura ; even of that little slender
remain of happiness, that he promised himself
in this world : and not only condemns him
to die, but also, as it were, feeds him with
bread and water till his execution ; and so
leaves him wretched and destitute, even in
that place, where the wicked themselves have
an inheritance.
Now to Him who is able to make us wise
in our choice here, and happy in our enjoy
ment hereafter, the great consequent of a wise
choice here ; even to Hira he rendered and
ascribed, as is most due, all praise, might,
majesty, and dominion, both now, and for
evermore. Amen.

SERMON XXII.
" Who, heing reviled, reviled not again." — 1 Pkter, ii. 23.
If we run over the whole train and catalogue
of duties that are incumbent upon a Christian,
we shall find that they are fully comprised
uuder these two heads ; his active and his
passive obedience. Concerning which, it may
be doubted whether of the two, as to the
worth and value of the thing itself, ought to
have the pre-erainence. For though all
duties expressly enjoined, are by virtue of
such injunction equally necessary, yet it fol
lows not that they are in theraselves equally
excellent. If we here measure the greatness
of the virtue by the difficulty of its exercise,
passive obedience will certainly gain the pre
cedency : for that this is the most difficult
appears undeniably from this reason, that
there is much in human nature that inclines
a man to action, so that -without it there
would be no enjoyment ; but, on the contrary,
there is no proneness or inclination in nature
to suffer, but a great abhorrence and aversion
from it. So that every instance of voluntary
passive obedience must coramence entirely
upon a dereliction of our own will, and a
compliance with a superior.
The Spirit of God in this portion of Scrip
ture reads us a lecture of patience from the
living comraand of Christ's exaraple ; who,
by enduring the wrath of his Father, and the
affronts and conturaelies of raen, made it
evident to the world, that he was able, not
only to do, but also to suffer miracles. He
that never provoked God's justice, could yet
submit himself to the stroke of his anger : and
he that never dispensed any thing but bless
ings amongst men, could yet endure cursings
and revilings from them.
Before I enter upon the words, it may be
questioned, whether or no this particular in
stance of Christ's patience may be a sufficient
ground for our general imitation. For as in
raatters of arguraent we cannot frora a parti
cular infer au universal conclusion ; so there
seeras to be the same reason in matters of
action, that the particular example of one
should not oblige the practice of all.
But to this it may be answered, that divines
usually reduce all Christ's actions to these
three sorts :
1. His miraculous actions, such as issued
from his divine nature. As, his raising the
dead, stilling the sea and the winds with a
word, and feeding thousands with a few loaves.
In all these it is our duty to admire, not to
iraitate him ; for by these he shews us not
what we were to do after him, but only what
we were to believe concerning him.

204

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Serm. XXII.

2. The second sort were his mediatorial
actions ; such as concerned his offices, to which
he was advanced as mediator. As, his govern
ing and disposing of all the world for the good
of his church : his dispensing of the gifts and
graces of the Spirit, which are acts of his
kingly office : his satisfying for sin, and his
continual intercession, which are acts of his
priestly function. And lastly, his teaching
of the saints outwardly by his word, and in
wardly by his Spirit ; which he did as the
great prophet, sanctified, and sent iuto the
world for that purpose. In all these, it is no
more our duty to do as Christ did, than to be
what Christ was.
3. The third and last sort were his moral
actions, which he both did hiraself, and also
commanded others to do. Such were his
praying, his giving alms, and his gentle
behaviour to all men ; and to these we are all
equally engaged. And the reason is, because
Christ performed all these duties, under that
relation in which we all stand obliged, as well
as Christ.
He perforraed them as a raan, as a rational
creature subject to the law of his Creator;
and so we are all. Now, under this rank
coraes his patient endurance of the injurious
behaviour of men. And in this respect every
Christian should be not only a disciple to his
doctrine, but a representative of his person ;
he should transcribe him in his practice, and
make his life a corament and illustration upon
his master's.
Having thus answered this query, let us
now enter upon the words themselves; the
scope aud design of which is to recomraend to
us one excellent branch of the great evan
gelical virtue of patience ; the entire exercise
of which adequately lies in these two things :
First, In our behaviour towards God.
Secondly, In our converse with men.
And this is that which is now to be dis
coursed of; that composedness of mind, that
temper of spirit, that displays itself in a quiet,
undisturbed endurance of scoffs, slanders, and
all the lashes of contumelious tongues. For
though the words speak negatively, yet this is
a known rule in divinity, that there is no
command that runs in the strain of negatives,
but couches under it a positive duty.
Having thus shewn the design and purport
of the words, I shall endeavour to give a full
account of it in the ensuing discussiou of these
three particulars :
I. I shall shew what is implied in the
extent of this duty, of "not reviling again."
II. I shall shew how the observation of
this duty comes to be so exceeding difficult.
HI. I shall shew by what raeans a raan
may work himself to such a composure and
temper of spirit, as to be able to obsei-ve this
so difficult a duty. Of each of which in their
order. And,

I. For the first of these ; what is implied
iu the duty here expressed to us by " not re
viling again." We must here observe, that as
every outward, siuful action is but the con
suraraation of a sin long before conceived in
the thoughts, fashioned in the desires, and
then ripened in the affections ; frora whence
it coraes to birth, by issuing forth in actual
coraraission : so there is no way to secure the
soul from the danger of the coramission, but
by dashing it in the places of its conception
and antecedent preparatiou ; and so to keep
it from seeing the world, by stifling it in the
worab. Accordingly this comraand implies two
things :
(1.) The not entertaining the irapression of
injuries with acrimony of thought aud inter
nal resentraent.
(2.) The not venting any such resentment
in virulent, vindictive language.
Or briefly thus :
1. A suppressing of our inward disgusts.
2. A restraint ofour outward expressions.
1. Concerning the first of which ; no sooner
does the foul tongue give us the alarm, but
straight all the powers of the raind are
awakened, the concerns of reputation begin to
rise, thoughts of defiance to take up arms, and
the whole soul boils within itself, grows big
with the injury, and would fain discharge and
disburden itself iu a full revenge.
This is the posture of the mind in this case ;
and it will quickly proclaim itself by a loqua
city of countenance, and a significance of ges
ture ; and though the tongue perhaps should
forbear, yet a man will speak his mind with
his very face ; he will look satires, and rail
with every glance of his eye.
If the mind be full and imbittered, it will
assuredly have its vent, and, like unsettied
liquors, work over into froth and foulness.
But admit that it refrains, yet still the mau
shall fiud a civil war within hiraself, a great
scuffle and disturbance, his thoughts divided
between contrary principles, the clashings of
prudence and revenge.
But now all these must be composed ; for
God hears the language of the heart, the out
cry and turault of the affections, the slander
of the thoughts, and the invectives of the
desires. And that raan that can entertain the
anger that he dares not utter, and hug the
distastes that he will not speak ; so that, in
that respect, his heart is never at his mouth ;
he may indeed have more prudence, but never
the less malice ; or his malice may be buried,
but not dead.
For suppose that his concealed wrath never
flies out in words, yet the virulence and ugli
ness of the mind, the anarchy and confusion
of the passions, is still the same. It is like
thunder without a shower. The inward
chafings and ravings of the heart raake it a

ON 1 PETER, ii. 23.

205

very unfit seat for reason or religion. Christ
and religion are usually asleep in such a storm,
and do not actually exert themselves in such
a soul. Wrath is wrath, and has all the deformities
of that passion, whether it frets in a concealed
disgust, or speaks out in open slander and
calumny. As a body is altogether as unsound
while it festers by an inward putrefaction as
when it casts broad its rottenness by flux and
suppuration. 2. There is required a restraint of the out
ward expressions. We must hush our discon
tents, put our mouths in the dust, and there
bury our passion.
I confess, when anger and the tongue, that
is, the two unruliest things in the world, and
both so impatient of control, do raeet and
concur, the restraint must needs be difficult
aud arduous ; yet the coraraand of Christ is
here indispensable, the precept high and exact.
We must be all ear to hear our own disgraces,
and be as quietly attentive to an injurious
slander, as to a homily of patience, or a lec
ture of perfection.
Ifa man vents his anger against his brother,
even by those undervaluing terms of " fool"
and " rascal," Christ awards him the sentence
of hell and judgraent, (Matt. v. 22.) " The
tongue," (as Saint James says, chap. iii. 6,)
" is set on fire of hell." Aud here we see, by
a kind of vicissitude and return, it kindles
hell itself for the caluraniator.
Has anger, therefore, prevailed so far as to
fire our thoughts ? Let it not proceed farther,
to inflarae our expressions. If it has been
our unhappiness to be surprised with the
beginnings, let us at least cut short the pro
gress. It is an untaraed beast, and needs a
bridle, without a metaphor. It is loud and
destructive, and, like a lion, first it roars, and
then it devours. Certainly, therefore, it con
cerns us to slop our own mouths, and that to
keep in our peace, our happiness, our reputa
tion from flying out ; and not, in gratification
of a silly, angry humour, to word away our
souls, or declaim ourselves into perdition.
But here, for our regulation both in the
apprehension and practice of this duty, I shall
subjoin this caution ; naraely, that a due ex
pression of asperity against the enemies of
God, the king, and the public peace, is not the
reviling mentioned or intended in the text ;
the seene of which is properly private revenge,
not a zealous espousal of the public injuries.
He that treats a rebel, and a murderer of
his prince, in terras suitable to those actions,
is not a reviler. But he that conceals or
smooths a villain in the execrable practices of
a public raischief, he is truly a reviler and
a slanderer ; for he reviles his conscience, and
slanders his religion. It is a duty that every
man owes to the public, to call vice and vil
lainy by its own name ; which name, if it be

iufamous, the cause is in him that deserves,
not in him that bestows it.
For observe, that the great standard by
which the text bids us measure ourselves in
this duty, is Jesus Christ ; who, though in his
own cause, in his own personal affronts,
" opened not his mouth," but passed over all
with a raeek and a silent sufferance ; yet with
what fervour and sharpness did he interpose
his rebukes in the public concerns of piety
and religion !
When Saint Peter himself went to cross
him in the great business of the world's re
demption, his passion and crucifixion, in what
language did Christ answer hira ? No appel
lation but that of "Satan" was thought fit
for hira.
With what severity of speech did he also
treat those public eneraies of piety, and
patrons of hypocrisy, the scribes and phari
sees ! " Whited walls, rotten sepulchres, gene
ration of vipers," with other such like terras,
were their constant tities ; and raay indeed
serve indifferently forthe scribes and pharisees
of all ages ; eveu those ot ours also, did they
not prevail above their progenitors in the
several arts and more iraproved methods of
hypocrisy. By warrant therefore of the grand exem
plar of meekness and patience, we are em
powered to give great and public villains,
and disturbers of society, names proper to
their actions and merits. He that called
Herod fox, does not coraraand us to call a fox
a sheep, nor a vulture a dove ; nor to give
rebels and raurderers occasion to think thera
selves innocent, by never telling them that
they are otherwise. To sooth and flatter
such persons, would be just as if Cicero had
spoke commendatories of Antony, or raade
panegyrics upon Catiline.
He that comraends a vile person, upbraids
the virtuous ; whose virtue never receives so
fair a character, as by au irapartial represent-
ment of the ugly lineaments and appearances
of vice. Nay, he that commends a villain, is
not an approver only, but a party in his
villainy. Besides, the fruitless frustraneous
vanity of such an essay; for bring all tho
force of rhetoric in the world, yet vice can
never be praised into virtue : a rotten thing
cannot be painted sound. A false gloss is but
a poor corrective of a bad text.
Aud what I say against a commendation,
or smoothing of such unworthy persons, I
may with the same reason affirm of a degene
rous passing over .and concealing their base
actions : to bury tiiem iu silence, is to give
them too honourable a funeral.
To what purpose is a ministry, if the am
bassador of God raust corae with a tongue
and conscience enslaved to the guilt and
pleasure of an obnoxious auditory? when
conscience must be reduced to that which

I

206

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS. Serm. XXIL

fools call prudence, and even that prudence
measured by a sordid compliauce ?
Must robbers and usurpers carry away the
prey aud booty, without so much as a hue
and cry raised after thera ? It is a pitiful
thing to iraitate the lamb in nothing else, but
in " being dumb before those that have
sheared us."
Let this therefore be fixed upon for the
right stating of this duty ; that it reaches not
the sharp reprehensions of public persons, (as
all lawful preachers are,) directed agaiust
public malefactors ; but is properly a re
straint of the expresses of a man's private
revenge. In which, we confess, a man ought
to be wholly passive, to lie opeu to the wrong,
and to turn both ears to the railer, as well as
both cheeks to the sraiter ; answering him as
David did Shiraei, " Let him rail on ;" give
him scope, till he runs himself out of breath,
and wearies himself into silence, and a better
behaviour. Having thus declared the extent and nature
of the duty enjoined in the words, and ex
pressed in this negative terra, of " not revil
ing again ;" and withal annexed a caution
for its due liraitation ; I come now,
II. To the second general thing proposed ;
which is to shew whence it is that this duty
coraes to be so exceeding difficult.
It is so, I conceive, upon these grounds aud
causes :
1. From the peculiar, provoking quality of ill
language. Upon observation, we shall find
that raost of the bitter hatreds and irreconcile
able enraities that disturb the world, and sour
the converse of mankind, have coramenced
merely upou the score of vilifying words.
And what the reason of it is, I know uot ;
yet certain it is, that men are more easily
brought to forgive injuries done, than injuries
said against them. One undervaluing speech
shall dash the service of many years, and be
looked upon as a sufficient forfeit of all the
hopes of a laborious and long attendance.
Have not most of the duels that were ever
fought, been undertook upon the affront of
provoking words ? Have they had any trura
pet to alarm thera into the field, but that of a
reviling tongue ?
But we shall have a more lively discovery
of the provocation of such virulent language,
above real acts of injury, by comparing it with
the contrary effects of smooth and fawning
speeches. "What a strange bewitchery is there
in flattery ! How, like a spiritual opium,
does it intoxicate and abuse the understand
ing, even sometiraes of raen wise and judi
cious ! So that they have knowingly, with
their reason awake, and their senses about
them, suffered themselves to be cheated and
ruined by a sycophantical parasite, and eveu
to be tickled to death, only for love of the
pleasure of being tickled.

Nay, I h.ave known men, grossly injured in
their affairs, depart pleased, at least silent,
only because they were injured in good lan
guage, ruined in caresses, and kissed while they
were struck under the fifth rib. And there
fore it has been observed, that the greatest
usurpers and the falsest deceivers have still
been fair spoken ; in the strength, or at least
in the gloss of which, they have usurped and
deceived successfully.
And, according to the difference of men's
tempers this way, it is really true, that some
judges shall with less offence pronounce sen
tence against a man, than some for him. To
be condemned with words of softness and
comraiseration, is more pleasing than to be
absolved with taunting gibes, insulting sar
casms, and imperious, domineering exprobra-
tions. The world is generally governed by words
and shows : for men can swallow the same
thing under one narae, which they would
abominate and detest under another. The
narae of king was to the old Romans odious
and insufferable ; but in Sylla and Julius
Csesar they could endure the power and abso
luteness of a king, disguised under the name
of dictator.
Certainly therefore there is some peculiar
energy, some charm in words, that they are
able thus to overrule the very discourses of
men's reason, and the clearest discernments of
sense. And I hope that, both by the very nature
of the thing, and the advantage of its contrary,
I have discovered a more thau ordinary force,
a strange power in these verbal assaults; a
power that is operative beyond the seeming
nature and proportions of the thiug : that a
mere word should cut keener than a r.azor,
and strike deeper than a dart ; that a man
should immediately swell, upon the hearing
of it, as if he were bit by an adder, or poisoned
by au asp. Aud this may be one reason that
renders the duty of " not reviling again" so
difficult. 2. Another reason of its difficulty is, be
cause nature has deeply planted in every man
a strange tenderness of his good name, which,
in the rank of worldly enjoyraents, tbe wisest
of raen has placed before life itself. For, in
deed, it is a more enlarged aud diffused life,
kept up by many more breaths than our own.
It is the soul that keeps the body sweet, and
a good narae that keeps the soul. It is this
that recoramends us to converse, and preserves
us from being noisorae to society.
A good narae is properly that reputation of i
virtue that every raan may challenge as his
right and due in the opinions of others, till he \
has made forfeit of it by the viciousness ofhis
actions. But now every slander is an inva
sion upon that, and puts a virtuous person
into the same condition of disrepute with the

ON 1 PETER, ii. 23.

207

vicious, leaving him the severities and difficul
ties of being virtuous, without the reward of
being thought so.
No wonder, therefore, if the mind of man
rises with all its might against such as would
make an inroad upon the prime enjoyraent
and most endeared part of its happiness. No
wonder, if it catches at all means to repel or
retaliate so destructive au opposition, and so
comes, at length, to the remorseless retribu
tion of " an eye for an eye, reviling for re
viling ;" and to bear away the spoils of
another's reputation, to revenge, or at least to
alleviate, the loss of its own.
A man's reputation is his freehold, his
birthright ; and no man will endure to be
tamely bereaved of it by the aspersion of a
calumny, who has wit enough to resent, and
power to revenge it. He that tears away a
man's good name, tears his flesh from his
bones, and by letting him live, gives him only
a cruel opportunity of feeling his misery, of
burying his better part, and surviving himself.
'When a man is dead indeed, he is the por
tion of rottenness and worms, and whatsoever
else will gnaw upon or insult over him ; but
while he is alive, it is but the privilege of his
nature to defend himself. When he shall be
laid in his grave, men may fling what dirt
they will upon him ; but while he is above
ground, no marvel if, to keep hiraself clean,
he throws it back again.
And with the more care and solicitousness
may we allow him to manage his own preser
vation in this respect ; forasmuch as a good
name, though, while it continues whole and
entire, it is bright and glistering, yet it has
the other property of glass, to bo also very
brittie, and being once broke, to admit of no
repair, no perfect soldering, and making up
the breach.
And thus much for the grounds and reasons
upon which I conclude it so hard and irksome
athing for a man, being slandered and re
viled, "not to revile again," and return the
slander. Indeed, nothing under that amazing
Christian duty of absolute self-denial, can
work a raan to an unconcerned behaviour in
this case, and to suffer so dear a portion of
himself to be rent away frora him, without
repelling the violence, and revenging the hand
that did it.
III. I come now to the third and last thing,
which is, to shew by what means a man may
work himself to such a coraposure and teraper
of spirit, as to be able to observe this great
and excellent duty. And here, when we con
sider what obstructions are to be conquered
and removed, we must acknowledge, that
nothing under an omnipotent grace cau sub
due the heart to such a frarae. But as the
workings of God do not exclude the subordi
nation of our eudeavours, so soraething must
he done on our part towards it : and the best

course that reason can find out is to di.scipline
and check our unruly passions by a frequent
consideration of, and serious reflection upon,
the disadvantages of the humour we contest
against, and to discommend this of returning
railing for railing, slander for slander, both to
our practice and affection. I shall fasten only
upon this one consideration, naraely, that it is
utterly useless to all rational intents and pur
poses : and this I shall make appear induc
tively, by recounting the several ends and
intents to which, with any colour of reason,
it may be designed ; and then, by shewing
how utterly unfit it is to reach or effect any
of them.
1. The first reason that would induce a
man, upon provocation, to do a violent action
by way of retum, should be, to remove the
cause of that provocation. But the cause that
usually provokes men to revile are words and
speeches : that is, such things as are irrevo
cable. Such an one vilified me ; but can I, by
railing, make that which was spoke, not to
have been spoke ? Are words and talk to be
reversed ? Or can I make a slander to be for
got, by rubbing up the memory of those that
heard it with a reply ?
Nay, if we look farther, and state the cause
of our anger, not upon the slander itself, but
upon the malicious temper that was the cause
of it ; this is so far from being reraoved, that
it is heightened, blown up, and inflaraed by
such a return.
Possibly that malignity that first threw the
slander, not being exasperated by the rebound
of another, would have vanished and expired
in silence, perhaps in the ingenuities of re
pentance ; and it is not impossible but that,
to make araends, it might, by a kind of anti-
peristasis, have turned into friendship : for
injuries dissembled not unusually are ex
changed for courtesies.
But the injury being once owned by a
retribution, and advanced by defiance, like an
opposed torrent it turaultuates, grows higher
and higher, begins to fix, and so, by an ira
proveraent of the humour, that which a,t first
was but a sudden motion, rises into a violent
rage, and from thence passes into a settled
revenge. 2. Another end, inducing a man to return
« reviling for reviling," may be, by this means
to confute the calumny, and to discredit the
truth of it. But this course is so far from
having such an effect, that it is the only thing
that gives it colour and credibility : all people
being prone to judge, that a high resentment
of a calumny proceeds frora concemraent, and
that from guilt, which makes the sore place
tender and untractable. " Convitia, si iras-
caris, agnita videntur " says Tacitus.
The way of refelling calumnies is very
diff'erent ; they are weakened with contempt,
confuted with innocence. If the calumniator

208

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS. Sehm. XXIL

bespatters and belies me, I will endeavour to
convince him by my life and manners, but
not by being like hiraself. It was a noble
conclusion that Caius Marius made against all
the descants of men's tongues whatsoever ; no
speech, he said, could hurt him : " quippe
vera, necesse est bene praedicet; falsam vita
moresque mei superant."
He that returns " reviling for reviling" does
uot confute the railer, but outdo him ; and
thus to second hira, is to authorize and coun
tenance the action : for either it is good, and
then why do I revenge it? or it is unworthy
and vile, and then why do I iraitate it ? That
certainly is fit first to be done, that is fit after
to be followed.
If it is a base thing to revile, do not I, by
reviling again, repeat that baseness, and credit
an ill copy by transcribing it ? Or do I think
to disgrace an ugly face by drawing its picture?
Surely that will be but a poor expedient, since
the picture is still worse than the original.
And therefore, if it looks ill in my enemy, it
cannot but be much raore uncoraely iu my
self, who had an arguraent to avoid and hate
the ill, by first seeing the ugliness of it repre
sented in another.
And why should I degrade myself so much
below ray eneray, as to judge that fit and
handsorae in rayself, which I first judged so
indecent in hira? and while I hate hira, eager
ly practise that thing for which I esteem hira
hateful? 3. But thirdly, a third end for which a raan
may pretend to give hiraself this liberty is,
because in so doing he thinks he takes a full
and proper revenge of him that first reviled
hira. But certainly there is no kind of re
venge so poor and pitiful : for every dog cau
bark ; and he that rails, makes another noise
indeed, but not a better. What boy, what
woman in the streets, cannot act as full and
as shrewd a revenge as the valiantest soldier
or the deepest politician in the world, if it
lay only in the arts of contumely and reproach
ful language ? When Goliath began to despise
David, and to look upon hira as a boy, then,
and not before, he gives him a puerile, suitable
defiance ; that is, he reviles and scoffs at hira.
Natural instinct has suggested to every
creature to endeavour its own defence by the
use of that part or faculty in which it has a
peculiar strength and force. But surely a
raan's strength does not lie in his treasures of
ill words, in a voluble dexterity of throwing
out scurrilous, abusive terras : no, he has a
head to contrive, and valour to execute a
nobler and raore effectual revenge. But loud
ness and scurrility are the reproach, not the
defence of raen.
Nay, were I to argue against this interape
rance of reviling, even to the revengeful per
son, I need no other arguraents than what are
deducible from the very topic of his own sin.

He that gives ill language does not prejudice
his eneray, but forewarn him : he gives him
fair admonition to double his guards, to
increase his circumspection, and consequently
to frustrate all assaults of his adversary. The
cur that barks gives me opportunity to pro
vide myself that he shall never bite me.
Revenge must uot be heard, but felt, and
never discovered but in the execution ; and
therefore he gave shrewd counsel to the
revengeful, who said, A man should never act
a revenge upon his enemy, unless he did it so
thoroughly as to disable him from a retalia
tion. Upon which ground, let it rather lie still,
and wait its season ; the longer it sleeps, the
more strength it will gather against the time
that it comes to rise aud exert itself. But he
that lets it fly out in angry words, and
spreads his heart upon his lips, he is a trifler
in this action ; he betrays his design, and loses
the opportunities of a well-ripened, satisfac
tory revenge ; and so contracts only the guilt,
but reaches not the supposed gallantry of the
sin. 4. In the fourth and last place, Peradven
ture a man thinks, by thus repaying slander
for slander, to raanifest a generous greatness
of spirit in shewing himself impatient of an
affront. But in this very thought there is a
gross, though usual mistake ; for the scene of
greatness and generosity lies as much in
patience as in action. Contempt naturally
iraplies a raan's esteeming of hiraself greater
than the person whom he contemns : he there
fore that slights, that contemns an affront, is
properly superior to it ; and he conquers an
injury, who conquers his resontraents of it.
Socrates being kicked by an ass, did not think
it a revenge proper for Socrates to kick the
ass again.
Conterapt is a noble and an innocent re
venge, and silence tho fullest expression ofit.
Except only storras and tempests, the great
things of the world are seldom loud. Tumult
and noise usually rise frora the conflict of
contrary things in a narrow passage ; and
just so does the loudness of wrath and revil
ing argue a contracted breast : such an one
as has not room enough to wield and manage
its own actions with stillness and compo.sure.
What a noise and a buzz does the pitiful
little gnat make, and how sharply does it
sting, while the eaglo passes the air in silence,
and never descends but to a noble and an
equal prey I He therefore that thinks he
shews any nobleness or height of mind by a
scurrilous reply to a scurrilous provocation,
measures himself by a false standard, and
acts not the spirit of a man, but the spleen of
a wasp. And thus, I think, I have unravelled all the
pleas that reason can make for a defensive
reviling ; and I am sure there is no sanctuary

ON 1 PETER, ii. 23.

209

for it in religion. We read of none in Scrip
ture that used it in any manner, but are trans
mitted to us with a brand of a lasting infaray.
Shimei, Rabshakeh, and one of the crucified
thieves, are remarked to us for their railing.
And the apostle Paul would have us shun the
converse of such an one, as the fatal blasts of
a pest, or a walking contagion ; (1 Cor. v. 11,)
" I have written to you not to keep company,
if any one that is called a brother be an ex
tortioner or a railer, with such an one no not
to eat ;" but especially at the Lord's table.
This is his conditiou, this is his sentence :
and certainly he who is thus excommunicated
and excluded from the company of the saints
in this world, is uot like to be thought fit for
the society of angels in the next.

SEEMON XXIII.
" Who fcnowetfa the power of thine anger ? even according to
thy fear, so is thy wrath." — Psalm xc 11.
Tms description of God's anger, set forth by
such a pathetical excl.amatiou, seeras to come
from a person that spoke not only his thoughts,
but his experience ; even from Moses, who had
felt the sad effects of his own anger, and there
fore might well be sensible of the weight of
God's. When God shewed hiraself as a legis
lator, it was with all the pomps of terror, and
the circumstances of dread ; but here we have
him in the grimmer dress of a revenging
judge. Then the mountain smoked, but now
it flames. And Moses seeras so possessed with
an awful reflection upon the araazing terrors
of the divine anger, that he can scarce look
up ; hut with fear and distance, as it were,
avoids the sight, and seems to have recourse
to his veil, and to hide his face, not from
being seen by men, but from seeing God.
Before we proceed upon the words, it will
concem us to see how anger can be ascribed
to God : for an infinite and divine nature
cannot be degraded to those affections and
weaknesses that attend ours. Anger is a pas
sion, hut God is impassible. Anger is always
with some change in the person that has it,
bnt God is unchangeable.
Crellius, in his treatise of God's attributes,
asserts the affections of anger, love, hope, and
the like, to be really and properly in God.
Thus they in a preposterous manner deny
Christ to be God, and yet make God to be a
man. For they make him subject to those
passions which the Stoics will not allow in
him who is perfectly wise, and a philosopher ;
hut assert them to be weaknesses dwelling in
vulgar breasts, that have not yet lopped off
the excrescencies of the sensitive appetite,
VOL. II.

nor subdued their passions to the lure and dic
tates of right reason.
Certainly, therefore, anger, and the like
affections, can by no means be ascribed to the
infinitely perfect God in the proper and usual
acceptation of the words, but only by an
anthropopathy ; attributing that tq God,
which bears some analogy and proportion to
what we find in raen. Thus God is said to be
angry, when he does sorae things that bear a
similitude to those effects that anger produces
in men.
It is therefore in God, not as a perfection
inherent in his nature, but only as an effect
of his will. Indeed it is not in him at all,
but is only an extrinsical denomination from
a work wrought without hira ; frora the
raiseries and calamities which he inflicts upon
a guilty creature.
I cannot see any thing else of difficulty in
the words. 'The prosecution of thera I shall
manage in these following particulars : —
I. I shall lay down some preparatory con
siderations concerning God's anger.
II. I shall shew those instances in which it
does exercise and exert itself.
III. I shall consider those properties and
qualifications, that declare aud set forth the
extraordinary greatness of it.
I'V. I shall make some use and iraprove
raent ofthe whole.
I. For the first of these, I shall lay down
these two preparatory, cautional observa
tions, —
1. That every harsh and severe dispensation
is not an effect of God's anger. The same
effect, as to the raatter of it, raay proceed frora
very different causes. Love is sometimes put
upon the rigour of those courses, which at the
first aspect seera to carry in thera the inscrip
tions of enmity and hostility.
God may sweep away a man's estate, snatch
away a friend, stain his reputation ; and yet
the design of all this not be revenge, but
remedy ; not destruction, but discipline.
He sees perhaps soraething evil in us to be
cured, and something worse to be prevented ;
some luxuriancies to be abated, and some ma
lignant humours to be evacuated ; all which
cannot he effected, but by sharp and displeas
ing applications. And in all the hard passages
of Providence, when God strips a man of all
his externals, God's intent raay be, not to
make hira miserable, but to make hira
humble ; not to ruin, but to reduce him.
If you look only upon the outside of an
affliction, you cannot distinguish frora what
principle it may proceed : Gehazi's leprosy and
Lazarus's sores may seera to be inflicted by the
sarae displeasure ; and yet one was a curse for
hypocrisy, and the other a trial of humility.
David's and Saul's afflictions were dispensed
with a very different hand : Saul could not
pursue him so fast, but mercy followed hira
o

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Serm. XXHI.

as close. Saint Stephen was stoned as well
as Achan ; but certainly God did not with the
same arm fling the stone at one, with which
he did at the other.
Consider the saints, (Heb. xi. 37,) " afflicted,
torraented, naked, destitute, sawn asunder."
And what could anger itself do raore against
them ? And yet the God who did all this was
not angry. That very love which raakes God
to be our friend, raakes hira soraetiraes to ap
pear our enemy : to chastise our confidence,
to raise our vigilance, and to give us safety
instead of security.
Persons who are truly holy, and tender how
they offend God, are yet very apt to look upon
God's dealings on the wrong side, and to make
hard conclusions concerning their own state
and condition. David is much an example of
this, who, through the transports, sometiraes
of diffidence, soraetiraes of irapatience, is high
1 in his expostulations with God. (Psalm
¦ Ixxvii. 9,) " Hath God forgotten to be gra
cious ? hath he in anger shut up his tender
raercies?" And (Psalra Ixxiv. 1,) "Why
hast thou cast us off for ever? why. doth thine
anger smoke against the sheep of thy pas
ture?" Now all this, perhaps, was commenced upon
the sense of some outward affliction, not con
sidering (as he does elsewhere) that when
God deals with his chosen ones, with " the
sheep of his pasture," his rod is still attended
with his staff'; and as with one he strikes, so
with the other he supports.
And as persons holy are, upou the sharp
passages of Providence, very prone to conclude
God's anger against themselves ; so, on the
other side, men of a morose, uncharitable,
conscience-pretending temper, from such in
stances of outward raiseries, are as ready to
denounce God's anger against others. If such
dogs meet with a Lazarus, instead of licking
his sores, they will bite his person, bark at
his name, and worry his reputation.
Nothing can befall any man, besides them
selves, but presently it is a judgraent ; and
they have cried out judgraents ! judgments !
so long, that theyare even becorae judgraents
theraselves : indeed the greatest and sorest
that a nation can groan under.
Wherefore let us rest assured of this, that
the roughest of God's proceedings do not al
ways issue from an angry intention : it is very
possible, because very usual, that they may
proceed from the clean contrary. The same
clouds which God made use of heretofore to
drown the earth, he employs now to refresh
it. He may use the same means to correct
and to better some, that he does to plague and
to punish others. 'The same hand and hatchet
that cuts sorae trees for the fire, may cut
others into growth, verdure, and fertility.
This is the first thing to be observed.
2. We must observe, that there is a great

difference between God'sangerand his hatred ;
as great as there is between the transient, ex
piring heat of a spark, and the lastiug, con
tinual fires which supply a fumace. The
nature of hatred is to pursue its object to
death, to a total extinction «f its very being.
And as it is said of God's love, so, I think, it
may be also said of his hatred, that " whom
he hates, he hates to the end."
I do not desire to wade into the depths of
God's decrees ; for our notions about these are
very uncertain, and therefore our determina
tions must needs be dangerous.
But surely we are exceeding ignorant of the
actuality, simplicity, and immutability of the
divine nature, if we thiuk that God can alter
his counsels or revoke his purposes.
But we shall not meddle with God's hatred
as it is bound up in his purpose, but as il lies
open and visible in the execution : and so, it
is the pursuance of a standing enraity against
a sinner, a gradual accoraplishing of his final
destruction, a disposal of all passages, all con
tingencies and circumstances of his life, to
the ruin of his soul, and the fatal issues of
damnation. But God's anger is not of so malign and
destructive an influence ; the choicest of his
saints have shared in some of the severest
instances of it. God was angry with Moses,
angry with David, angry with Hezekiah, and
with his peculiar people ; but we do not read
that he hated them. The effects of his anger
differ as much frora the effects of his hatred,
as the smart of a present pain from the corro
sions of an abiding poison. It must indeed
be confessed, that the heats of it are fierce and
dreadful : but it is such a fire as, though it
"bums," yet it does not "consume" the
bush ; it may affright, but it will not destroy
a Moses. Nevertheless, though it does not
bring God's elect under the " power," it may
bring them into the " shadow of death," into
the suburbs of hell ; and give them a glimpse
of those horrors, a taste of those vials of wjath,
that are poured out in full measure only npon
the sons of perdition.
And thus much for the first general head.
II. I shall now, in the second place, shew
what are those instances in which this unsup-
portable anger of God does exercise and exert
itself. I shall mention three :
1. First, it inflicts immediate blows and
rebukes upon the conscience. There are
several passages in which God converses with
the soul immediately by himself ; and these
are always the most quick and efficacious,
whether in respect of comfort or of terror.
That which comes immediately from God,
has most of God in it. As the sun, when he
darts his beams in a direct, perpendicular
line, does it most forcibly, because most
immediately.

ON PSALM xc. n.

211

Now there are often terrors upon fhe mind,
which flow thus imraediately from God, and
therefore are not weakened or refracted by
passing through the instrumental conveyance
of a second cause : for that which passes
through a thing, is ever contracted according
to the narrowness of its passage. God's wrath,
inflicted by the creature, is like poison admi
nistered in water, where it finds an allay in
the very conveyance.
But the terrors here spoken of, not being
inflicted by the intermediate help of any
thing, but beiug darted forthwith from God
himself, are by this incomparably more strong
and piercing.
When God wounds a man by the loss of an
estate, of his health, of a relation, the smart
is but commensurate to the thing which is
lost, poor and finite. But when he hiraself
employs his whole omnipotence, and is both
the archer, and himself the arrow, there is as
much difference between this and the former,
as when a house lets fall a cobweb, aud
when it falls itself upon a man.
God strikes in that manner that he swears ;
never so effectually, as when only " by him
self." A raan striking with a twig does not
reach so dreadful a blow, as when he does it
with his fist ; and so makes himself not only
the striker, but the weapon also.
These immediate blows of God upon the
soul, seem to be those things that, in Psalra
xxxviii. 2, are called " God's arrows :" they
are strange, sudden, invincible amazeraents
upon the spirit, leaving such a damp upon it,
as defies the faint and weak cordials of all
creature-enjoyments. The wounds which
God himself makes, none but God himself can
cure. And thus much for the first way.
2. God's anger exerts itself by imbittering
of afflictions. Every affliction is of itself a
grievance, and a breach raade upon our hap
piness ; but there is soraetiraes a secret energy,
that so edges and quickens its afflictive opera
tion, that a blow levelled at the body, shall
enter into the very soul. As a bare arrow
tears aud rends the flesh before it ; but if dipped
in poison, as by its edge it pierces, so by its
adherent venora it festers.
We do not know what strength the weakest
creature has to do raischief, when the divine
wrath shall join with it ; and how easily a
small calamity will sink the soul, when this
shall hang weights upon it.
What is the reason that David is sometiraes
so courageous, that " though he walks through
the shadow of death, yet he will fear no evil ?"
as in Psalm xxiii. 4. And at another tirae,
"God no sooner hides his face, but he is
troubled," as Psalm xxx. 7. What is the
cause that a raan soraetiraes"i>reaks through a
greater calamity, and at anothertiraethe sarae
person fails and desponds under a less of the
same nature? I say, whence can this be, but

that God infuses some more grains of his
wrath into one than into the other?
Men may undergo many plagues from God,
and yet by the enchantment of pleasures, the
magic of worldly diversions, they may, like
Pharaoh, harden their hearts, and escape the
present sting of thera. But when God shall
arm a plague with sensible, lively mixtures
of his wrath, believe it, this will not be en
chanted away ; but the sinner, like those
magicians, (whether he will or no,) must be
forced to confess, " that it is the finger of
God," and consequently must bend and lie
down under it.
God raay cast a raan into prison, nail hira to
the bed of sickness, yet still he may continue
master of his coraforts ; because the sun may
shine, while the shower falls. The soul may
see the light of God's countenance, while it
feels the weight of his hand.
But for God to do all these thingsin anger,
and to mark the prints of his displeasure and
his indignation upon every blow ; this alters
the whole dispensation, and turns it from a
general passage of Providence into a particular
design of revenge.
It is like a deep water, scalding hot, which
as it drowns, so at the same tirae it redoubles
its fatal influence, and also burns to death.
An unwholesorae air will of itself make a
man sick and indisposed ; but when it is in
fected, and its native malignity heightened
with a superadded contagion, then presently
it kills.
And such a difference is there between
afflictions in theraselves, and afflictions as they
are fired, poisoned, and enlivened with God's
wrath. And thus rauch for the second way
by which God's anger puts forth itself; it
imbitters afflictions.
3. It shews and exerts itself by cursing of
enjoyments. We may, like Solomon, have
all that wit can invent, or heart desire, and yet
at last, with the sarae Soloraon, sum up all
our accounts iu "vanity and vexation of
spirit." „ . J ,
There is a " pestilence that walks in dark
ness," a secret, invisible blow, that smites the
first-born of all our comforts, and straight we
find thera dead, and cold, and sapless ; not
answering the quickness of desire, or the grasp
of expectation. God can send a worm to bite
the gourd, while it flourishes over our heads :
and while he " gives riches," deny a ' heart
to enjoy them."
For whence is it else, that there are some
who flourish with honours, flow with riches,
swim with the greatest affluence ol plenty,
and all other the materials of delight ; and
yet they are as discontented, as dissatisfied, as
the poorest of men ?
Care rises up and lies down with them, sits
upon their pillow, waits at their elbow, runs
by their coaches ; and the grim spirits of fear

212

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Serm. XXIII.

and jealousy haunt their stately houses and
habitations. I say, whence is this, but frora a secret
displeasure of God, which takes out the vitals,
the heart, and the spirit of the enjoyraent,
and leaves thera only the caput mortuum of the
possession ?
We may be apt to envy such or such an
one's greatness, his estate, his happiness ; but
greatness is not always happiness. It is not
impossible but that he who has this, may
rate it with another esteem, and perhaps feel
that in it which we caunot see. 'The garment
may present fair and handsome, and neat to
the eye which beholds it ; but still it raay
wring the body that wears it.
It was a notable speech of Haraan, (Esther,
V. 11 — 13,) reckoning up his riches, his
substance, and all his grandeur ; and then
bringing up the rear of all with this sad con
clusion : " Yet all this availeth rae nothing,
so long as I see Mordecai the Jew sitting at
the king's gate." God put in a little coloquin-
tida, wliich spoiled the whole mess. A little
spice of contempt from his rival in the king's
favour, soured all the relish which he had
from his other honours and enjoyments.
Christ determines the case fully and philo
sophically in those words, (Luke, xii. 16,)
"A raan's life consisteth not in the abundance
of those things which he does possess." No ;
they are the smiles and favour of God the
giver, that must animate and give life to the
gift. As it is not such a nuraber of hours and
minutes, such a space of time, but it is the
shining of the sun, which makes the day.
If God frowns and is angry, presently the
whole scene of affairs is changed, all is over
cast ; power is a trouble, honour a vanity,
riches a burden ; and gold loses its brightness,
and retains only its heaviness.
Is it any pleasure to a son to have his father
reach hira meat, if he does it with a frowning
countenance, that looks as if he would devour,
instead of feeding him ? It raakes that which
is meat, not to be food ; fit only to fill, but
unable to nourish. God can make a raan
tumble and toss, and be disturbed upon a bed
of down. He can make his silks sit uneasy,
his cup bitter, and his delicacies tasteless and
insipid, and spread a dulness and a lethargy
over all his recreations.
Alas ! it is not the body and the mass of
those things which we call plenty, that can
speak comfort, when the wrath of God shall
blast and dispirit them with a curse. We
may build our nest soft and convenient, but
that can easily place a thom in the midst of
it, that shall check us in our repose.
And this is the third way, by which
God's anger shews itself; it spoils and curses
our enjoyments.
III. Come we now to the next general
head proposed ; namely, to shew those pro

perties and qualifications, which declare and
set forth the extraordinary greatness of God's
anger. I shall instance iu these four :
1. The greatness of it appears in this, that it
is fullycommensurate to the veryutraost ofour
fears, which is noted even in the words ofthe
text ; "according to thy fear, so is thy wrath."
Now we must observe, that all the passions
of the mind enlarge and greaten their objects,
and stretch things from the just standard of
truth to the corapass of iraagination. Hence
love, fear, and hope, always speak in hyper
boles, and return the object greater than they
received it ; being as it were the womb ofthe
soul, where things are no sooner entertained,
but they grow, and are always brought forth
bigger than they were conceived.
Frora this it is that experience judges short
of the judgraent of expectation ; because ex
pectation swells and widens according to the
credulity of passion and desire ; but every
thing coraes stript to its native truth and
poorness iu the severe, impartial verdict of
fruition. And of all the passions, fear in this increas
ing faculty exceeds. Fear does not only
tremble at shadows, but raakes them ; that is,
it gives you soraething larger than the sub
stance. Corapare a danger feared and endured,
and see how much the copy spreads beyond
the original. Fear still supererogates and
overdoes ; and when it is to transcribe the
truth of things, it gives a comment, instead of
a translation. What malefactor is condemned who is not
first executed by his fears ? who does not both
anticipate and enlarge those miseries, which
truth and feeling would quickly contract to
their own proper smallness? So that the
execution endured is not so much a punish
ment for his fault, as a release from his fears.
With how many blows does this kill,
whereas death gives but one ! Lot a man
have but a friend at sea, or in the wars, and
how many storms and shipwrecks, wounds
and batties, does this solicitous passion repre
sent ! Evils crueller thau war, and larger
than the sea ; which, though of all other
things the most remorseless, yet often spare
those upon whom fear has long since passed
the sentence of death.
Let it run through the whole creation, it
still adds, and would go a pitch beyond God
and nature ; uot contracting the world into a
map, but the worid itself at largest is rather a
raap and an abridgment of our fears. And
when at length it coraes to God, it would do
the same by hira, were it not forestalled by
infinity, that stops such atterapts, and makes
enlargeraents irapossible. Such, we see, «
the nature of this vast passion.
But now the wrath of God is the only
thing which fear itself cannot enlarge ; and

ON PSALM xc, 11.

213

eternity, which it cannot raultiply. This
alone equals this passion, and bids defiance to
all additions.
And here let any man call up his invention,
and suraraon his fancy, the only creating
faculty that is given to the creature, and which
finds matter as well as form, and like a little
deity creates things out of nothing ; I say, let
him give scope to his imagination, to rove
over all terrors, and to represent to itself, not
only things existent, but possible, and new
ideas of thiugs, and then unite them all into
one apprehension of fear ; yet here he shall
find, that even imagination is still within the
bounds of truth : the subject is so large, so
inexhaustible, that there is reality enough in
it to warrant the highest reaches of imagi
nation. Herein, therefore, does the divine wrath
display its dreadfulness transcendently above
all created terrors, that it verifies our fears,
and realizes the utmost boundless suggestions
of a fearful mind.
2. The greatness of God's anger appears in
this, that it not only equals, but infinitely
exceeds and transcends our fears. The misery
of the wicked, and the happiness of the saints
run in an equal parallel ; so that by one you
may best measure the proportions of the
other. And for the former of these we have a
lively description of it in 1 Cor. ii. 9 ; " Eye
hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered
into the heart of man to conceive, what God
has prepared for those that love hira." Why,
the very sarae provisions of wrath he has
made for those that hate hira.
Now, what can be raore iu satiable than the
eye, greedier thau the ear, wider and raore
comprehensive than thought? Yet, alas!
both sight and intellect, sense aud reason, are
tired and swallowed up in the vast abyss of
that wrath which spreads itself into all the
spaces of infinity. Endure it we may one
day, (if raercy prevent not,) but never com
prehend it ; as the sun is known, not by our
seeing his full bulk, which is here irapossible,
but by being scorched with his heat.
And herein sense goes a reach beyond un
derstanding, which cannot discourse itself into
a clear notion or theory of 'the divine wrath.
For as God spoke to Job about his framing of
the world, the like discourse we may address
to any curious inquisitor about his wrath.
Where wert thou when God first sealed his
decrees of election and reprobation ? when he
prepared the chambers of death, and the
treasures of his wrath? when he laid the
foundations of the infernal pit, and spread
darkness over it, and covered it with the secret
of horror for ever ?
If we can answer these inquiries, and bring
the matter we speak of under certain descrip
tions, then we may confess that our fear may
reach the full corapass of its object.

Our fear cannot be larger thau our fancy ;
but even curiosity, and fancy itself, fails in
the researches of an infinite. A thing not to
be encountered but by our faith ; and of
which, amazement, ecstasy, and astonishment
are the best expressions.
3. The greatness of divine wrath appears in
this, that though we may attempt it in our
thoughts, yet we cannot bring it within the
coraprehensions of our knowledge.
And the reason is, because things, which are
the proper objects of feeling, are never per
fectly known, but by being felt. We raay
speak indeed high words of wrath and ven
geance, but pain is uot felt in a discourse. We
may as well taste a sound, and see a voice, as
gather an intellectual idea of paisery ; which
is conveyed, not by apprehension, but smart ;
not by notion, but experience.
Survey the expressions of Scripture, and see
it there clothed and set forth in "fire and
brimstone," in " the worra that never dies,"
in "utter darkness," in "weeping and wail
ing, and gnashing of teeth." But what are
all these but shadows ! raere similitudes, and
not things ! condescensions, rather than in
stmctions to our understanding ! poor figu
rative essays, where, contrary to the nature
of rhetoric, the figure is still beneath the
truth. Fire no more represents God's wrath, than
the picture of fire itself represents its heat ;
and for the proof of this, let the notional
believer be au unanswerable argument, who
reads, sees, and hears all these expressions,
and yet is not at all moved by thera ; which
sufficiently shews that there is no hell in the
description of hell.
But now, there is no man who has actually
passed under a full trial of God's wrath ; none
alive who ever encountered the utmost of
God's anger ; and if any man should hereafter
try it, he would perish in the trial, so that he
could not report his experience. This is a
furnace that consumes while it tries ; as no
raan can experimentally inform us what
death is, because he is destroyed in the ex
periment. 4. and lastiy. We may take a measure ot
the greatness of God's anger, by comparing it
with the anger of men. How dreadful is the
wrath of a king ! It is said in Prov. xix. 12,
" to be like the roaring of a lion ;" and when
he roars, all the beasts of the forest tremble.
What a weak thing is the greatest and most
flourishing favourite, when his prince shall
frown him into confusion ! Haman, as the
greatest of thera, found it so. And to take
Inother instance ; how horrible, how amazing
is the wrath of a conquering enemy ! -when
anger sits upou a victorious sword, who dares
approach it, who does not fly before it ?
Are we not sometimes astonished to read ot
whole fields strewed with carcasses, streets

214

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Serm. XXIII.

running down with blood, desolations of
whole cities and countries ; not so rauch as
one stone being left to cover the ruins of
another ? And yet all these are but the works
of a pitiful, enraged, angry, raortal creature,
whose breath is in his nostrils, and whose
rage cannot outlast it.
And if these are so terrible, what can be
said of the terrors of an almighty wrath, of an
infinite indignation ? the voice of which, as
the Psalmist tells us, (Psalm xxix.) tears up
the cedars, shakes the wilderness, divides the
flaraes of fire, and reraoves mountains ; so
that the whole creation bends and cracks under
it, aud the strongest things in nature, confess
ing their weakness, retum to their native
dust, and crouch and sink into their first
nothing. Take and single out the most considerable
man, endue him with as much power as mor
tality can wield, clothe him with as much
majesty as can dwell upon huraan nature ;
and then let his anger swell up to an equal
proportion to both these ; yet still there is as
vast a disparity betweeu this and the divine
wrath, as there is between the persons who
are angry, between a finite and an infinite
being. Aud thus, having despatched the third
general head proposed, corae we now, in the
Fourth and last place, to make some im
provement of the point ; which may be
various ; as,
1. It may serve to discover to us the intol
erable misery of such as labour under a lively
sense of God's wrath for sin. Certainly they
struggle with the quickest pains, and the
most restless, vexatious troubles, that the
nature of man is capable of lying under. Few
do heartily commiserate the condition of such
persons, because few have an experiraental
sense of God's wrath bringing the guilt of
sin horae, and binding it close to their con
sciences. Few know what it is to feel what
they only hear and read ; and to have the
very flaraes of hell flashing in their guilty
faces. Yet some there are iu the world, whom
God is pleased to deal with in this manner ;
such as he follows with all his storms, such as
even weep away their eyes, and grow old in
misery, " and from their youth up suffer his
terrors with a troubled raind." So that the
whole course of their life is a certain wrestling
with God, and a kind of grappling with the
wrath of the Almighty, by which they are
often foiled, and cast, and flung into the very
depths of horror and desperation.
And thus God sometimes thinks fit to dis
cipline even such as he loves, such as he designs
for heaven and a glorious eternity, leading
them through the vale of tears to the land of
promise. For by this he serves many great
purposes, both of his own glory and their
happiness ; it being the most sure, direct, aud

immediate way to possess the heart of such
with a deep and quick sense of the intolerable
evil of sin, and God's unspeakable detestation
and abhorrence of it ; that it should provoke
him to lay on such heavy and afflictive strokes
upon those whom he otherwise so dearly loves;
that it seems, for a time, to shut up the bowels
of mercy itself, and to represent a tender
father in the guise and posture of the fiercest
enemy. 2. This may serve also to discover to us the
ineffable vastness of Christ's love to mankind
in his sufferings for thera. The whole burden
of the divine wrath, which we have been
hitherto discoursing of, he freely took upon
his own shoulders ; he intercepted the blow ;
he took the dreadful cup of God's fury out of
our hands, and drank off the very dregs of it ;
and so great was the strength, so venomous
was the mixture of it, that he sweat blood,
cried out, and was amazed. All that we have
been speaking of, and much more than we can
speak, fell upou him like a pouring, thunder
ing storm from heaven. A storm, from which
there could be no flight nor shelter ; so that it
crushed and quite beat dovyu his humanity,
till the very extreraity of paiu and anguish
dissolved the union between his innocent soul
and body, bringing hira into the blackest
regions of death and darkness for a season.
All the direful stings of God's anger fastened
upon him, all the poisoned darts of his ven
geance struck into his soul ; so that they even
terrified him who was God, and, as it were,
shook and staggered omnipotence itself. And
all this befell him for the infinite love he bore
to the sons of men, who must otherwise have
perished by the justice which they had pro
voked. His love and his sufferings were both
beyond all parallel ; and from one you may
well take the dimensions of the other. Never
was any love equal to his love, because indeed
" never was any sorrow like to his sorrow."
For certainly so great, so pressing, so insup
portable was it, that nothing but an infinite
power could undergo such a burden, and no
thing but an infinite love would.
3. The foregoing discourse speaks terror to
such as can be quiet, and at peace within
themselves, after the commission of great sins.
Nothing, upon a rational ground, can be so
fearful, as such a stupid want of fear. For
upon what solid principles of reason can such
persons be secure ? Do they think that their
sins do not deserve the divine wrath ? or that
they can either endure or escape what they
have so deserved? Do they conclude that
there is perfect peace between God and them,
because the terrible effects of his fury do not
actually roar against them ? Arc they there
fore finally discharged, because they are not
presently called to an account ? No certainly,
these are frail aud fond considerations, for any
ratioual person to build his peace upon ; for

ON PSALM ex. 11.

215

every sin stands registered in the black book
of heaven, and that with all its circumstances
and particularities ; and consequently has the
same sting, and guilt, and destructive quality,
as if it were actually tearing and lashing the
sinner with the greatest horror and anguish
of mind iraaginable. And no man knows
how soon God may awaken and let loose the
tormenting power of sin upon his conscience ;
how soon he may set fire to all that fuel that
lies dormant and treasured up in his sinful
breast. This he may be sure of, that, when
soever God does so, it will shake all the powers
of his soul, scatter his easy thoughts, and lay
all the briskness and jollity of his secure mind
in the dust. A murdering piece may lie still,
though it be charged, aud men may walk by
it and over it safe, and without any fear,
though all this while it has death in the belly
of it ; but when the least spark comes to fire
and call forth its killing powers, every one
will fly from its fatal mouth, and coufess that
it carries death with it. Just so it is with the
divine wrath ; nobody knows the force of it,
till it be kindled.
But now God has, by a perpetual decree,
awarded the sad sentence of " tribulation and
anguish upon every soul of man that doeth
evil," Rom. ii. 9. So that, if he gives not the
sinuer his portion of sorrow here, it is to be
feared he has it in full reserve for hira here
after. Upon which account, the present quiet
of his coudition is so far from ministering any
just cause of satisfaction to hira, that he has
reason to beg upon his knees, that God would
alter the method of his proceeding, and ratlier
compound and strike hira with some present
horror for sin, thau sink him under the in
supportable weight of an eternal damnation.
When a man raust either have his flesh cut
and burnt, or die with a gangrene, would he
not passionately desire the surgeon to cut, and
burn, and lance him, and account hira his
friend for all these healing severities ? This
is the sinner's case ; and therefore wheu, upon
his commission of any great sin, God seems to
be silent, and to connive, let him uot be con
fident, but fear. For one may sometimes keep
silence, and smile too, even out of very anger
and indignation. If the present bill of his
accounts be but small, it is a shrewd argument
that there is a large reckoning behind.
4. In the fourth and last place, the most
natural sequel and iraproveraent of all that
has_ been said of God's anger, is a warning
against that cursed thing which provokes it.
We see how dreadfully it burns ; let us be
ware of the sin by which it is kindled.
Sin is the thing that exasperates goodness,
that makes love angry, and puts mercy itself
into a rage. God's anger never seizes upon
any but a sinner. Christ himself could not
feel it, till he was a sinner by imputation. It
seizes upon the soul, as distempers use to do

upon the body ; which never fasten an infec
tion, but where they meet with an inward
corruption. In a word, I have shewn how devouring
and consuming the divine wrath is, and how
sin is the only thing that it preys upon. And
therefore, all the advice that I think can be
given is, that men would begin here, and not
expect to extinguish the flame, till they with
draw the fuel. Let them but do this, and
God will not fail to do the other.
To whom be rendered and ascribed, as is
raost due, all praise, raight, majesty, and
dominion, both now and for evermore. Araen.

SEEMON XXIV.
*• Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kiU
the aoul ; but rather fear him which is able to destroy both
soul and body in hell." — Matt. x. 28.
Christ, who came into the world to engage
in a spiritual war against the ways of the
world, is here, like a provident coraraander,
despatching a regiment, a little regiraent of
twelve apostles, for this evangelical expedi
tion. And in the first verse of this chapter
we have hira reading to thera their com
mission, whioh runs very full and large ;
extending to the cure of all maladies and
distempers, and the subjugation of the powers
of darkness. Frora the second verse to the
fourth, we have him taking a list or muster
of their names ; and then, from the fifth verse
alraost to the end of the chapter, we have a
more full and determinate explication of their
coraraission, as to its just latitude and extent.
And that,
1. In respect of the place where they were
to administer it ; and that was within the
precincts and bounds of Judea, in the fifth
and sixth verses. They were not to visit the
Saraaritans ; the children were to be served
before the servants.
2. In respect of the doctrine they were to
preach ; and this was a preparatory to the
gospel, afterwards to be preached by Christ
himself, ver. 7 : " The kingdom of heaven is
at hand."
Now, in order to their more vigorous exe
cution of this commission, he does accordingly
instruct and admonish them concerning those
things which might lie as impediments and
obstacles iu their way.
His instructions are reducible to these two :
(1.) A caution against the luxury of the
world, in the ninth and tenth verses.
(2.) An encouragement against the cruelty
of the world, from the sixteenth verse almost
to the end of the chapter.

216

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS. Srrm. XXIV.

Thus he suraraed up his divine instructions,
as Epictetus did his moral, in a compendious
but comprehensive 'Aot^ow xal dvk'jcov. Abstain
and endure; the one for the pleasures, the
other for the troubles of the world.
(1.) He cautions thera against the super
fluities of the world ; " Provide neither gold,
nor silver, nor brass, nor scrip for your jour
ney," (ver. 9, 10.) Christ sent them forth as
preachers (and that by his own special order)
itinerant. Gold and silver, though they are
sometimes convenient, yet they are always
heavy : many travellers, while they have been
anxiously troubled with the thoughts of secu
ring their money, have missed of their way.
Christ sends his disciples also as soldiers ; and
therefore bids them take neither scrip, nor
cloaks, nor staves. We should look upou him
as a strange soldier, that, when he is upon his
raarch, and to go upon service, instead of his
sword, should take his knapsack. These are
all hinderances, clogs, and burdens, and, ac
cording to the proper Latin word, they are
called impedimenta bellica. Christ would take
them off' from all worldly care ; and therefore,
to pursue the raetaphor, he provides them
quarter, free quarter in his service. " The
workraan," says he, " is worthy of his raeat.
And into whatsoever city or town ye come,
inquire who in it is worthy ; and there abide
till ye go thence." Christ knew it was not
convenient for his rainisters, while they
should be engaging all the stress of their en
deavours in so high an employment, to be
carking and caring for a maintenance, and to
be put upon providing for their own bodies,
while they should provide for other's souls.
(2.) He encourages them against the cruelty
of the world. In the former, he forbids them
to be luxurious ; in this latter, to be fearful.
Either of these are absolutely opposite to a
military posture : and he fortifies thera by an
impartial acquainting them what they should
endure. And this is a considerable piece of
armour : for the mind of man is able to endure
raany an evil upon expectation, that it cannot
upon surprise. Where, from Christ's method
in sending his disciples to preach the gospel,
we raay gain this observation by the way,
naraely, that when a man enters upon the
ministry, it is a matter of signal consequence
to be forewarned of, and so in some measure to
be forearmed against, all the discouragements
that he is like to meet with in the faithful
adrainistration of his duty. " Behold," says
Christ, " I send you forth as sheep in the midst
of wolves." In the sixth verse, he had said that
he sent them to " the lost sheep of the house
of Israel." They went to them indeed as to
sheep, but they found them to be wolves : they
were lost sheep ; such as had lost their nature,
and degenerated into a wolvish kind. Now
there could not be a more discouraging speech
than this. To send sheep abroad alone was

discouragement enough : for there be others
ready to oppose and wrong thera, besides
wolves ; and if there was none, yet their own
weakness and wandering were enough to scat
ter them : but to send them to wolves, who
have a natural antipathy against them, an
irreconcileable hatred, not to be satisfied but
by their blood : this is the highest aggravation
of a deplored estate. One wolf is able to
destroy a flock of sheep ; how theu shall a
poor handful of twelve sheep withstand whole
herds of wolves ? Yet Christ did well to let
them know the worst of their entertainment,
that araidst all their other raiseries they might
at least be kept frora that disheartening raisery
of a disappointment. Every man who en-
engages in Christ's service ventures himself
amongst wolves ; such as with reraorseless
fury will prey upon his reputation, tear his
comforts, devour whatsoever is dear to hira ;
and he who expects to find favour amongst
such wolves, raust first cease to be a sheep.
But now Christ, as he tells thera the danger,
so he prescribes the remedy ; and against the
opposition of men, he tells them they must
join the forces of prudence and innocence : in
the sixteenth verse, "Be ye wise as serpents,
but harraless as doves." The brasen, impreg
nable wall of a good conscience is that alone
which is able to withstand and repulse the
injuries of the world. If we raust do penance,
let us do it in the white of our own innocence.
To be free from sin, is the only way to be free
from fear.
But now Christ, to raake his admonitions
the raore particular, and so the more effectual,
descends to those particular things which he
knew they chiefly feared. And these are
three : —
1. Bodily torraents.
2. Disgrace.
3. Death.
Christ lays in an antidote against the fear
of each of these.
1. For bodily torments ; he tells them,
they should be brought before kings and
governors, and be scourged for the profession
of the truth, in the l7th verse ; but in the
22d he gives the encouragement, " He that
endures to the end shall be saved." Salva
tion is a reward sufficient to crown the endu
rance of the most irksome calamity.
2. For disgrace ; he tells them, they would
fare but ill as to their reputations, but yet uo
worse than him.-elf; they might be called
factious, seditious ; but when the master is
called devil, the servant may well endure the
name of rascal. Suetonius, among those
few good things that he said Nero did in his
reign, reckons his persecution of the Chris
tians in these terms : " Affecti suppliciis
Christiani, genus hominum superstitionis
novEe et maleficse." Christ forearms them
against these contumelies, by telling thera.

ON MATTHEW, x. 28.

217

that he partook of the same slanders : and we
know, society in affliction does alleviate it.
However, the society of a raaster enduring the
same with his servant, although it should
afford no cause of comfort, yet it takes off all
cause of complaint. (2.) He comforts them
with the consideration of the day of judgnient,
(ver. 26,) at which time whatsoever is now
covered should be revealed. Though they
are at present aspersed with false calumnies,
and their naraes darkened with the raalign
exhalations that corae from the open sepul
chres of reviling throats f as we may read in
Minucius Felix, and a black catalogue of foul
falsities charged upon the Christians : yet the
day of judgment will clear their innocence,
and wipe off all aspersions. The day is a dis
covering time ; and that which lay hid in the
dark night of persecution, will be laid open
and manifest at the last day.
3. The third thing, which is the (po/iipav
(pa^ipiiTitTou, the terrible of terribles, is death ;
and this he cautions them against in the
words of the text : and that upon the score of
these three reasons :
(1.) Because it is but the death of the body,
aud therefore not the death of the man.
(2.) Because hell is more to be feared, and
the greater fear swallows up the less.
(3.) Because they live under the special
care of God's overseeing providence ; and
therefore cannot be taken away without his
special appointment and permission. The
argument runs strongly a minore ad majus in
the 29th verse. If he takes so great care of so
inconsiderable creatures as sparrows, so that
the hand of the destroyer cannot reach so
much as one of them without a warrant from
his providence ; how much more shall he
preserve you, who have a perfection of nature
much beyond theirs, and a profusion of grace
beyond the perfection of your nature ?
I shall resume sorae of these reasons in the
handling of the doctrine that I shall raise ;
but before I deduce any doctrine from the
words, I shall endeavour to clear off an objec
tion : and it is this, —
Obj. Christ commands his disciples here not
to " fear those that can kill the body." But
how is this consistent with some other of his
commands ? as for instance, in the 17th verse,
he bids thera " beware of men :" and in the
23d verse, when they are " persecuted in one
city," he bids thera " flee into another." Now
to flee from an enemy is someting more than
to fear him.
Ans. 1. The words, " Fear not them that
can kill the body," may be understood com
paratively ; that is. Do not fear them that
kill the body, so rauch as you fear him that is
able to destroy the soul. And so this way of
speaking carries in it an Hebraism ; for the
Hebrews usually express a comparison be
tween two things in respect of some third.

not by attributing of it in a greater degree to
one, aud in a less degree to the other, but by
absolutely affirming it of one, and denying it
of the other. As God says, " ho will have
mercy, and uot sacrifice ;" that is, he will
rather have mercy than sacrifice. Aud this
may be one way of interpreting the words.
2. We may distinguish of a twofold fear :
(1.) A fear of solicitous anxiety ; such as
makes us let go our confidence in God's pro
vidence, causing our thoughts so to dwell
upon the dreadfulness of the thing feared as
to despair of a deliverauce. And with such a
kind of fear Christ absolutely forbids thera to
fear those that kill the body ; it being very
derogatory to God, as if his raercy did not
afford as great arguraents for our hope, as the
cruelty of man for our fears.
(2.) The second sort of fear is a fear of
prudential caution, whereby a man, frora the
due estiraate of an approaching evil, endea
vours his own security. And this kind of
fear is not only lawful, but also laudable.
For to what purpose should God have natu
rally implanted in the heart of man a passion
of fear, ifit might not be exercised and affected
with suitable objects ; that is, things to be
feared ? Now under this sort of fear we raay
reckon that to which Christ advises his dis
ciples in these expressions, " Beware of men,"
and, " Flee from one city into another."
These things thus premised, the words of
the text are full and pregnant with many
great concerning truths. As,
1. That it is within the power of man to
divest us of all our temporal enjoyments ; for
so much, according to the phrase of Scripture,
is comprehended in this word body, Christ
bids thera " not fear those that kill the body ;"
wherefore it is implied, that it is in their power
to do so rauch. Men raay take away all our
temporals : and this should much allay our
affections to these things ; for why should w-e
set our mind upon that which is not ? Happi
ness cannot be placed in these ; inasrauch as
one of the great properties of happiness, even
according to Aristotle, is, tiiat it should be iu
our power, oixiiov d,yMs -. but these things are
not. And why should we then open our
arras, to embrace that which we cannot clasp ?
From the enjoyraent of the least morsel of
bread, even to life itself, we stand at the
raercy of those who oftentiraes have no raercy ;
" Tuse vitae dorainus est, quisquis est con-
temptor suas," says Seneca : He that is so
desperate as to contemn his own life, has
made himself master of yours.
2. The second proposition deducible from
the words is this. That the soul of man is
iraraortal. " Fear not them that can kill the
body, but cannot kill the soul :" this is
beyond the reach of all created power. Now
this is a foundation-truth, upon the removal
of which, religion falls to tiie ground. Re-

218

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS

Srrm. XXIV.

ligion is that which awes the mind to the
doing of good and the abstaining from evil,
from hope of reward, and fear of punishraent
etemal. The thought of these has a persua
sive, and alraost a coercive influence upon all
our actions. But Lf the soul dies with the
body, the hope and fear of these will die
before the soul. If the soul were raortal, our
Saviour's exhortation and argument araounts
to nothing.
3. The third observation that arises from
the words is this ; that God has an absolute
and plenary power to destroy the whole man ;
" Fear hira who is able to destroy both soul
and body in hell." This should silence the
proud regrets and murmurings of our hearts,
at the absoluteness of God's decrees and pur
poses : for why may not his decree be as
absolute as his power ? If he can do what he
will, why may not he decree what he will ?
But all these reasonings proceed from that
innate self-love that we bear to the interest
of our own natures. We would fain have
that unjust for God to do, that is grievous for
us to suffer.
4. The fourth observation, which takes in
the sense of all the rest, and which I shall in
sist upon, is this ; that the thought of darana
tion ought to have greater weight upon us
to engage our fears, than the most exquisite
miseries that the power or malice of man is
able to inflict.
The prosecution of this will lie in these two
things :
I. To shew what is in these miseries, which
men are able to inflict, that raay lessen our
fears of thera.
II. To shew what is that surpassing raisery
in daranation, that ought (as I raay so speak)
to engross our fears.
I. Concerning the first, there are seven
considerations that raay and ought to lessen
our fears of those miseries that may be in
flicted upon us by raen.
(1.) As, first, that they are teraporal, and
concern only this life ; and there is nothing
that can render a being of an eternal duration
miserable, but such a misery as is eternal :
and nothing ought rationally to be feared, but
such a thing as is inconsistent witb the happi
ness of our nature. Now these three things,
this triumvirate of misery, that we apprehend
to bereave us of our happiness, are either,
1. Lo.ss of reputation. But, alas! what
is that, but a raalignant blast of a virulent
raouth upon our naraes? And that whicli is
but a blast, will pass away like a blast. Let
envy and raalice vomit out all the scandals
and reproaches that they can invent, or the
Devil suggest ; let them pursue us with inces
sant scoffs all our days ; yet our dust shall
be at quiet, and our soul at rest.
2. Let it be loss of an estate ; though a
man has neither bread to feed, nor raiment to

clothe him, yet still all these wants are only
commensurate to his life ; and when his life
is but for a moment, his miseries cannot be
long. He must go naked, and stript of all,
out of the world ; and if he is stript of his
estate at present, he is only in a posture of
leaving the world beforehand.
3. Let it be loss of life ; yet this is quickly
past. Aristotle observes, that generation and
corruption are changes that are done in a
moraent : " generatio et corruptio fit in in-
stanti." And should the fear of that be con
tinual, the endurance of which is but for
an instant ? The time of living is short, but
the time of death is much shorter. "When
the misery passes away iu a moment, a mau
has not tirae to be miserable. Let every
Christiau remember, that he is iramortal ;
and let not these things disraay him. He
shall live and abide, when these things are
past and gone. This was a cutting reprehen
sion to Peter ; " What, Peter, canst not thou
watch with me for an hour?" There is no
thing that is momentary, which deserves
either a man's affections or his fears. His
miseries are like a river ; while he looks upon
them, they run frora him. Still let him
consider this, that as his life passes away, so
do his calaraities ; which can no raore abide,
while thisis in flight, thau one in a coach can
remain in this place, while the coach is going
to another. Wherefore, since Providence hatU
coutracted our calaraities, let every man
contract his fears. He is upon a career, as well
hasting from the miseries as the happiness of
this worid. " He is like grass, and the flower
of the field," here to-day, and gone to-morrow;
and what if he meets with a rub or two,
sorae stinging cal.ainity, yet the shortness of
life secures hira. The nettle can stand no
longer than the grass. Let him hug himself
in this thought, that he is a traveller, hasting
through bad ways : his afflictions keep pace
with his life ; he runs the gauntlet ; he does
not stand still while he is struck. Disgrace,
poverty, and death, those dreadful things to
raortality, they are theraselves but mortal.
The blackest line shall have a period. "Where
fore since the shortness of our affiiction is just
matter of refreshment, let us not make the
affliction itself an argument of terror.
(2.) They are not to be feared, because
they do not take away any thing from a
man's proper perfections : for is any thing of
the solid worth of his mind dirainished, be
cause his estate is irapaired ? Is a raan at all
the worse for this or that unjust disgrace ? Is
his skin ever the fouler, because a spot is
fallen upon his clothes ? Or is it any shame
to die ? These things cannot reach the soul,
where all a man's worth and happiness is
treasured. As honour is in honourance, in
him that honours rather than in hira that is
honoured ; so disgrace is in him that casts it.

ON MATTHEW, x. 28.

219

not in him that endures it. Our Saviour
says, "that meats and drinks cannot defile a
man, because they are received into him, and
pass through him ;" so the injuries and dis
graces of this world cannot hurt us, because
they pass over us. And what I instance in
this particular of disgrace, may be applied to
all other calaraities. But now sin and guilt,
they are in the soul, and the wrath of God,
that sinks into the soul, as oil into the bones ;
therefore they destroy it, and consequently
ought to be feared. But raiseries and afflic
tions hurt not the soul, as being without it :
they are like storms and hail rattling upon
the outside of the house, not at all felt, and
therefore not to be feared by those that are
within. We ought to fear nothing, but that
which can rob us of the happiness and per
fection of our being, which is the conformity
of our nature to God, and God has placed
this out of the reach of man ; it is intrusted
in the keeping of the will, which is not to be
forced by any outward compulsion. It is sin
only, and the wrath of God for sin, that can
bereave us of this. In the midst of chains,
and prisons, and bonds, a man's will is free.
In the midst of all Job's miseries, he may,
with Job, keep his integrity ; and hitherto
he is a happy raan. But sin enslaves ; sin
will bring him below the dunghill. The
Stoics, being sensible that the perfection of a
mau was only in the virtuous disposition of
his soul, which they called wisdom, held a
wise man to be so far unconcerned in all the
miseries of this life, that he might sing in
Phalaris's bull, laugh upon the rack, smile
upon a tyrant ; because all these evils could
uot destroy the virtue of the soul, and there
fore not the happiness of the soul. And cer
tainly rauch happier isaconscientious Stephen
amongst the stones, and a raartyr in the flaraes,
than an epicure upon a bed of roses. And
shall a Christiau drop under the fear of those
evils, when a philosopher could sing under the
endurance of thera ? Our fears indeed at
present are correspondent to our apprehen
sions ; atid so much are we led by sense, that
we can now hardly apprehend any thing to be
misery, but that which is pain. But certainly
the day of the Lord will reveal it to be far
otherwise ; there will be more sting and
venom in siu, than ever we found in afflic
tion : then we shall see, that when we were
afraid of the greatest cmelty of man, we
feared where no fear was ; and when we en
gaged without fear in a way of sin, we ven
tured upon the very raouth of hell and
destruction. Let no religious person, there
fore, fear the threats or fury of men, as long
as his innocence is in his own keeping, " his
darling out of the power of the dog." The
archers of a wicked generation may shoot
at hira, and sorely grieve and hate him, as
they did righteous Joseph ; " but his bow

shall abide in strength, and his arms be
made strong by the hands of the mighty
God of Jacob." All the force, the rage, the
spite of a wicked world, cannot force him to
siu ; and therefore caunot force him to be
miserable. (3.) The evils that men inflict are not to
be feared, because in all these they are limited
by God's overruling hand. " The Lord reigns,'
though the earth be never so unquiet."
In those very actions that oppose God and
his glorv, God "has a commanding hand. The
Devil himself could not go the least beyond
God's prescriptions, in his vexing Job. The
Devil, not only in his punishraents, but in his
actions, is held in chains. All the miseries
we so fear, are entirely in God's disposal. He
holds the stars in his hand, as well in respect
of their malignant as their propitious influ
ences. All the great ones of the world are
only God's sword-bearers ; and because they
bear the sword, we cannot hence conclude,
that they have the power and use of the
sword. How should this allay our fears and
compose our jealousies, since our greatest
eneraies can do no more than what our best
friend permits I A child is no more afraid
when he sees a sword, than when he sees a
staff' in his father's haud. Be it a mercy, or
be it a judgment, why should we trouble our
selves? It is in God's manageraent. This
was an abundant satisfaction to David, that
"his tiraes were in God's hands," (Psalm
xxxi. 16.) All his concernments, whether in
prosperity or adversity, his persecution from
house and home, as well as his advancement
to a kingdora, they were all in God's order-
hig. The wicked are said to be God's rod,
(Isaiah, x. 6.) They cannot strike a blow,
but as raanaged by his arra. A weapon that
is in nobody's hand cannot strike ; and that
which is in a friend's hand cannot hurt.
" Thou didst it, therefore I kept silence," says
David, (Psalra xxxix. 9.) It is an argument
sufficient not only to silence our murmurings,
but our complaints ; not only to convince our
reasons, but to confute our fears ; " it is Ged
that does it." He says to this affliction go,
and it goes ; to this eneray, persecute, and he
persecutes ; to another, kill, and he kills : al
attend the nod of his sovereignty. He holds
the winds in his fists ; he lets thera fly mto a
storra, and again crushes thera into a calra, as
he pleases. This, therefore, is an argument
of solid comfort, that in all the miseries -we
endure from our enemies, God is the chiet
actor ; whose power is able to control then-
force, and his goodness to overrule their ma
lice There can be no cause in the sharpest
torments to complain of cruelty, while we are
under the hand of the surgeon ; but especially
if our father be the surgeon. So that tins is
a third reason to allay our fears of all miseries
that may bc inflicted by men, because they

220

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Serm. XXIV

are overruled by the omnipotent arm of a
merciful God.
(4.) The good that may be extracted out of
such miseries as are inflicted by men, is often
greater than the evil that is endured iu them ;
therefore they are not to be feared, but rather
prudently to be managed. The evil that is in
them can only affect the body ; but the good
of thera may really benefit the soul. We
know vipers afford materials for the best me
dicines, as well as the strongest poison ; and
therefore as they are avoided by the fearful
passenger, so they are sought for by the skil
ful physician. There is a spiritual Chris
tianity, by which a soul may extract such an
elixir out of worldly crosses, bring such a
sight out of darkness, that they may prove
greater comforts thau ever they were troubles.
I could instance iu every particular calamity;
but I shall pitch onlyjipon one, which is vir
tually all, and that is death. Let us here
rank the evils of it on one side, and the good
of it on tbe other ; and then see whether it
may raore deservedly exercise our fears, or
incite our joys. Death puts a divorce between
thy soul and thy body : yes, but it also sepa
rates between thy soul and thy sins. It
snatches thee out of this world ; but it trans
lates thee into a better. It takes thee from
converse with men ; but then it lodges thee
in the society of angels. It bereaves thee of
the pleasures of life ; but it also frees thee
from the troubles of life. The emoluraent of
it does so far overbalance the evil of it, that a
Christian may, with rauch resolution, defy
any persecutor ; and instead of trembling un
der the fear of death, triumphantly cry out
with Paul, " For me to die is gain."
(6.) The fear of these evils seldom prevents
them before they come, and never lessens
them when they are come ; therefore it is
irrational. You must remember, according
to the premised distinctions, that I speak of a
solicitous, anxious fear ; such an one as is, for
the most part, attended with a distrust of
Providence. Fear is a passion designed by
nature for the avoidance of evil ; and where
it does not enable us to avoid it, but rather
augments it, there it is absurd. Continual
fear of a calamity before it comes, will exhaust
our strength and spirits so far, as to disenable
us to grapple with it when it is come. And
this is all we gain by such fear ; the burden
of an affliction is still the same, and our ability
to endure it is raade less. As our Saviour
said, " Can any of us, by taking thought, add
one cubit to his stature ?" So I may say, can
any one, by his solicitous fears, dirainish aught
frora the malice of men, alleviate the pangs
of death, or wipe off areproach? Nay, it often
tiraes betrays us iuto all these evils. " Mors
et fugacem persequitur virum," says the poet.
He that trerables at the very sight of his bur
den, with what courage will he be able to

stand under it ? Can the trembling of the
lamb keep off or mitigate the rage ofthe wolf?
He that continually torments himself with
the fear of au approaching evil, does antici
pate his misery, not avoid it. Every strong
apprehension of an object is a certain apprbxi-
raatiou of it to the soul. Fear makes the evil
that is feared present to a mau, in respect of
its trouble, before it can be present in respect
of its existence : wherefore it is so far from
keeping off a calamity, that it brings it before
its time. Wheu Sennacherib approached to
Jerusalem with a dreadful army, we read in
Isaiah, xxxvi. xxxvii. " that Hezekiah was
amazed, and rent his clothes, and the people
trembled." But was it their trembling that
kept off the enemy ? No ; it was not Heze
kiah's fear of his enemy, but his confidence in
his God, that did protect hira. Thus we see
it avails nothing to keep offa calamity. But
will it diminish it, when it is actually upon
us ? No ; says Job, " the evil that I feared is
come upon me," (Job, iii. 26.) Job's antece
dent fear did not at all lighten his present
misery. And thus I have shewn the absurdity
of this fear, which isa sufficient reason against
it ; and certainly that which is so notoriously
contrary to reason, cannot have any agree
ment with religion.
(6.) These evils are not to be feared, because
the all-knowing God, who knows the utmost
of them better than men or angels, has pro
nounced thera not to be feared. And certain
ly we may well venture our lives upon his
word, upon which we venture our souls.
God is too knowing to be ignorant of the
utmost of these things, and too faithful to
conceal what he knows. He that made the
bow, knows how far it will carry. He that
terapted the faculties and powers of man,
knows that he did it with such an equality,
that one man cannot do more than another
can endure. We have God's word for it, that
the tormentors of the body cannot hurt us ;
and should not this take off all pretence of
fear? When our physician tells us that we
may venture upon such or such a dish, we
raay do it with safety and confidence. Hear
what encouragement God speaks in the most
discouraging cases. (Isaiah, vii.) Two mighty
kings invade Ahaz ; so that it is said, in
the second verse, " that his heart was moved,
and the heart of his people, as the trees ofthe
wood are raoved with the wind." For what
iu all likelihood could be expected from fury
joined with force, but certain ruin and desola
tion, bloodshed and captivity ? Yet God says
in the fourth verse, " Fear not, neither be
faint-hearted." And the reason of it is at
hand ; for God could easily either divert these
evils, as he did, or at least easily enable him
to endure them. In Isaiah, xliii. 1, 2, God
says to Israel, " Fear not ; when thou passest
through the waters, I will be with thee ; and

ON MATTHEW, x. 28.

221

through the rivers, they shall not overflow
thee : wheu thou walkest through the fire,
thou shalt not be burned ; neither shall the
flame kindle upou thee." Fire and water are
the most dreadful elements ; but God bids
his children " fear not," while they are iu the
very jaws of these ; for he is able to extinguish
them, or at least to suspend their force : as he
did when the Israelites passed through the
seas ; and when Shadrach, Meshach, aud
Abed-uego, were cast in the fire. In Saint
James, chap. i. 2, the Spirit bids us " count
it all joy, when we fall iuto divers tempta
tions." By temptations is meant the miseries
and tribulations of the world. These things
are so far from being just arguments of our
fear, that, iu God's esteem, they are real
matter of our joy. Now there is no exception
that can with any colour be framed against
the reports that God himself shall make of
any thing. Shall we, then, continue to
multiply our fears of these evils, when we
have the verdict of Truth itself, that they are
not to be regarded ? wheu we have His testi
mony, who is too discerning of the nature of
all things to be deceived, and too true to
deceive ? Now, when we have the deposition
of an exact knowledge, joined with an iufinite
truth, we cannot in reason suspend our belief ;
and if we entertain a belief of these things,
we cannot reasonably retain our fears.
(7.) The greatest of these evils have been
endured, and that withont fear or astonish
ment ; and therefore they ought not to be
feared. This is a maxim of a sure and never-
failing verity : " Ab actu ad potentiam valet
consequentia :" That which has actually been
endured, may be endured. Experience is for
the most part a convincing, but it is always
a confirming argument. Exaraples ought to
animate us. Many will venture upon some
dangers which before they avoided, after once
they have seen soraebody wade through thera.
Leaders in au army are not only for the
direction, but also for the encourageraent of
those that follow. Let us take a survey of
some exaraples : and, first, we shall find sorae
heathens, who, though they were not helped
by grace, yet by a bare principle of moral
honesty were lifted above the terrors of men.
Regulus, rather thau falsify his promise, could,
with an undaunted courage, eudure the bar
barous cruelty of the Carthaginians. Socrates,
rather thau conceal a known truth, could,
with much alacrity, suffer an ignominious
death. And certainly these examples should
make us courageous in the endurement of all
worldly misery, if not out of religion, yet at
least out of shame. But now, for those that
have been elevated by a higher spirit, by a
principle of Christianity, I could produce you
multitudes, troops of raartyrs ; sorae triumph
ing at the stake ; some with joy embracing
the gibbet ; some cheerfully enduring those

torments that others could scarce conceive but
with terror. I could instance in those three
slighting the fumace and the rage of an in
censed tyrant, (Dan. iii. 18.) In Stephen
patiently enduring a barbarous death, (Acts,
vii.) In Paul enduring almost all that could
be endured, (2 Cor. xi. 23 — 26, &c.) The
history ofhis life is the history of his troubles.
Now that Spirit, which enabled these heroes
to conquer the fear of such miseries, is also
ready to enable us. As God calls us to the
same duty, so he will afford us the sarae
assistance. Methinks there should be that
magnanimity in every Christian, that he
should scorn' to be outbraved by any, in point
of spiritual fortitude ; and to make that noble
resolution that Nehemiah did, in chap. vi. 11,
" Should such a man as I flee?" I, who have
the armour of God, the helmet of faith, the
breastplate of righteousness, and the Spirit to
be my second, should such an one as 1 fear ?
especially when so many have gone before me,
both with courage and success? I confess,
that is a piece of daring valour, to encounter
a new, unknown calamity ; but exaraples
and precedents take off from the dread of the
greatest misery. And therefore we must know
that although a Christian's way through these
calamities be a straight and narrow way,
and so consequently troublesorae ; yet it is a
beaten, trodden way, and therefore not terrible.
And thus rauch for the first thing, to shew
what are those considerations that ought to
lessen our fears of these worldly evils : I
proceed now to the
Second thing, to shew what is iraplied in
the destruction of the body and soul in hell,
which makes it so forraidable.
To demonstrate this, I could here enlarge
upon several considerations, which, because
vulgar, I shall not insist upon. As first, in
opposition to the raoraentary duration of
earthly torments, I could oppose the eternity
of damnation ; which is set forth in Scripture
by the grimmest representations that can be,
by the " worm that never dies," (Mark, ix.
44.) Worras are the effects and signs of
mortality ; but this worm is the token of a
miserable eternity. It is also expressed by
fire, that is never quenched, (Revelation,
xiv. 21,) " And the smoke of their torraent
ascendeth up for ever and ever." Who can
thiuk of eternity but with horror? who can
fancy a perpetuity but with araazeraent ? All
the fear that uature has, is not sufficient to
bestow upon such an object. An endless tor
ment it is, such a thing as a man can scarce
wield or master iu his thoughts. Eternity is
that which would raake any thing butthe en
joyraent of God a raisery ; for since the mind
of man is refreshed with variety, what pleasure
is there, that a perpetual enjoyment would not
make loathsome? How dismal then must it
needs be, when a perpetuity concurs with a

222

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Serm. XXIV.

torment ! I could here farther illustrate the
greatness of this misery from the quality of
the torments : and that first for their positive
part ; they are so exquisite, so intense, that
" neither eye hath seen, nor ear heard, nor
hath it entered into the heart of man to con
ceive the greatness" of them. Every faculty and
power ofthe soul shall be then filled with God's
wrath. We have read, that sorae have endured
the greatest bodily torments without shrink
ing, without a tear : but there shall be no soul
so sturdy as to be able to endure the torraents of
hell without etern<al" weeping aud wailing, and
gnashing of teeth." If the daraned could no-w
and then for a while shift their torraents for
the greatest that man cau inflict, those changes
would be so many recreations, so many lucid
intervals ; such an unspeakable difference is
there betweeu these raiseries, and those that
they shall then endure. I could farther shew
the greatness of this punishment from the
privative part, to wit, the total deprivation
of God's presence, which presence would be
able to turn a hell into a heaven, as the want
of it would make a heaven becorae a real hell.
The lost, undone sinuer shall be then eternally
divorced frora the embraces of his God ; not
one act of raercy, not one smile of his counte
nance to be enjoyed for ever. No company
to be had but those that weep under the same
miseries, and the company of their cruel, im
placable torraentors, -who shall execute the
wrath of God upon thera, for those very sins
which they tempted them to ; and in the
midst of these endless flames not one drop of
water to alleviate the rage of them, to relieve
the tongue of a distressed Dives. The miseries
of hell are yet farther set out in Scripture by
that which of all other evils is the raost
grievous to the nature of man ; and that is,
shame and conterapt : (Dan. xii. 2,) "And
many of them that sleep iu the dust of the
earth shall awake, some to everlasting life,
and sorae to shame and everlasting contempt."
From these and many other considerations, I
could set forth the iufinite misery of a con
demned estate ; but instead of exercising our
inventions in describing these miseries, we
should do well to exercise our wisdom in
avoiding them.
But to pass by these considerations, there is
one, I think, that gives weight and a sting to
all the rest, and chiefly renders the destruction
of the body and soul terrible ; and it is this,
because the destroying of the body and soul
in hell is the utraost that the almighty God
can do to a sinner. This is apparent from the
opposition that is between the former and the
latter part of the verse ; for the killing of the
body, which is there mentioned as the utmost
that man can do, is opposed to the destroying
of the body and soul, which from thence is
intimated to be the utraost that God can do.
Now, when au ouinipotence shall do its

worst ; when God shall rally up all the
strength that an alraighty power is able to
inflict, who shall be able to stand under those
strokes ? Where there is no liraitation of the
power of him that punishes, there can be no
end of the punishment. It is not an earthly
judge, a king, a tyrant, but it is a God that we
are to contest withal ; they are not courts nor
armies, but an infinite power that will attack
us. All the ingredients that make a thing
terrible are wrapt up in this one consideration ;
for first, here is an irresistible force, and then
this irresistible force is fired with an irapla
cable auger, both of which are to encounter
the greatest weakness joined with the greatest
guilt ; and when a weak and guilty soul is to
deal with an oranlpotent, angry God, what is
to be expected but the extreraity of torment?
What thought is able to reach the depth of
this misery ! When the living God shall
cease to be God, then such a soul shall cease
to be miserable.
But when I say that the destroying of the
body and soul in hell is the utraost that God
can do, it may be objected, that a total anni
hilation of its being would be a greater punish
ment, and a work that carries iu it a greater
evidence of God's power ; for it argues a Deity
more, to reduce an imraortal soul to nothing,
than of happy to make it miserable.
To this 1 answer, that although annihila
tion argues a greater power, or (to speak more
properly) is a greater argument of power,
than to render a thing miserable, yet it is not
so great a punishment ; for punishment is
properly the inflicting of the evil of pain for
the evil of sin. But now after annihilation
there remains no being ; and where there is
no being, there can be no pain ; and where
there is no pain, there can be no punishment.
It is clear, therefore, that although the reduc
tion of a being to a nonentity be the certain
result of an infinite power; yet the reducing
of it to an eternal misery is rauch the greater
penalty. God will (as I may so speak) with
one hand hold the soul in life and being, that
he may sraite it with the other ; and that he
raay exercise his justice in punishing the
sinner, he will exert his power in preserviug
hira. But it may be here farther objected, that
even in respect of the greatness of the punish
ment, to annihilate a soul is much more
grievous, and consequently a severer punish
ment, than only to make it eternallymiserable.
For to be miserable is only a dirainution of
being; but to be annihilated iraplies a total
privation of it. Now, since the nature of
God is not only the fountain, but also the
standard of happiness, by ivhich all created
happiness is to be raeasured ; according to onr
nearness to which perfection, or our distance
frora it, we are said to be happy or miserable ;
it is clear, that there is a greater distance

ON MATTHEW, x, 28.

223

between God and no being, than between God
and a miserable being. Wherefore it is a
greater punishment to be brought to nothing,
than to be brought to misery.
In answer to this, I confess that this argu
ment seeras raetaphysically to conclude. But
as to the matter iu hand, I shall first oppose
our Saviour's words, which ought to have
greater weight with us than all the arguments
in the world ; who, in Matt. xxvi. 24, speak
ing concerning the damnation of Judas, says,
" that it had been good for him never to have
been bom ;" which words Saint Hierome so
interprets, " Sirapliciter dictum est, melius
esse non subsistere, quam male subsistere."
From whence it is clear that our Saviour
judged it much better not to be at all, than to
be eternally miserable. Aud next to our
Saviour's, I could add the judgment of Solo
mon, (Eccles. iv. 1 — 3.) If Solomon could
esteem it better of. the two not to have been
at all, than to have endured the miseries of
this world ; how much raore did he prefer it
before the endurement of those eternal miseries
of the world to come !
(2.) But, in the second place, this raaxira,
upou which the arguraent is grounded, to wit,
that the degree of diminution is better than
the degree of privation ; better to be miserable
than not to be at all ; does not always hold
true, but admits of raany exceptions, (as a
learned author of our own observes.) And
one exception is, when the degree of dirainu
tion is more sensitive than the degree of pri
vation. So that this answer falls in with the
former ; because to be miserable infers a greater
pain and grief than simply not to be, therefore
it is also the greater punishraent, because the
nature of punishments consists iu the endure
ment of pain.
And thus I have finished the doctrinal part,
wherein I have endeavoured to shew, what it
is that raay render the greatest raiseries that
men cau bring upon us conteraptible, and
what it is that represents the destruction of
the body and soul so dreadful. I shall now
proceed to the
Application. — Though the words theraselves
are an exhortation, and so their own use, yet,
to bring you fuller home, I shall repeat the
exhortation in one word of serious advice,
that when any one is discouraged from duty,
or tempted to sin, by any man, or any thing
that is in the power of man, (as who is not
some time or other ?) he would on this side
conscientiously ponder man's inability, and
on the other, God's infinite power to destroy.
Shall the frowns of a poor weak raan like our
selves terrify us from duty, more than the
anger of the almighty God comraand us to it ?
Shall the fear of racks or gibbets more forcibly
drive us into the comraissiou of sin, than the
thoughts of the never-dying worm and the
unquenchable fire keep us from it? Is the

sword or prison more terrible than rivers of
brimstone kindled by the breath of a siu-
revenging God? Is a few days' sorrow raore
dreadful than eternal weepings and wailings ?
The coraraand lies before us ; raan says.
Break it, or we die ; God- says, Perforra it, or
we die eternally. Let us consult, not so
much our religion as our reason ; and then
fear that which our reason shall tell us is most
to be feared. Man, compared with God, is
not only not terrible, but very conteraptible ;
it is not his strength, but our weakness, that
makes him dreadful. Take him at his best,
he had always more infirmity than authority ;
nay, the greatest and most potent monarch
upon eartli does not owe so much to his own
power, as to his subjects' fear, that he is
obeyed. But now God, upon the best terms
of reason, may challenge our fears ; for as an
all-sufficiency is the only ratioual foundation
of our hopes, as being that alone which is able
to answer all our wants and desires ; so an
omnipotence is the only rational ground of
our fear, as being that alone which is able to
destroy our eternal happiness. How many
duties have been neglected, how many hideous
and vile actions coraraitted, because raen have
not kept fresh upon their spirits a due appre
hension of these things ! Is not this the
natural language of most hearts ? Should I
perforra sueh a strict duty, I should be
derided. Should I bear testimony to such a
truth, I should offend such a great one.
Should I testify to such a one's face of the
vanity of his conversation, and the profane
ness and frothiness of his discourse, I should
disoblige him for ever ; I dare not do it.
Dare not do it ? Then let such an one renounce
his Christianity, but much more the ministry,
or dare to be good when God commands,
" temporibusque raalis ausus es esse bonus."
The very heathen poet could make it the
greatest and the surest test of sincerity, to
erabrace virtue in the midst of discourage
raents ; but for a Soul to be prevailed upon,
by the terrors and persuasions of raan, to
slight the precepts and threatenings of the
great God, what is this but, like that absurd
Balaara, to run after the invitation of a mor
tal king, while God himself stands in the way
with a drawn sword to oppose him? "He
that denies me before raen," says Christ, that
is, he that is afraid to own rae and my ways,
according to the strictness of them, in the
raidst of all the discourageraents of the world,
" hira will I also deny before ray Father in
heaven," (Matt. x. 33.) He that fears the
face of man shall never with any comfort be
hold the face of God. Shall I draw forth this
case in sorae instances, by which it shall
appear, that a due apprehension of the terrors
of the Lord, above the terrors of raen, has
been a preservative against the coraraission of
many sins ; and, on the contrary, that a fear-

224

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Serm. XXIV.

ing of man more thau God has been a cause
of the foulest rebellions ?
1. For instances of the first sort ; it was a
full persuasion of the power of God to destroy
beyond the power of the greatest men, that
kept Shadrach, Meshech, and Abed-nego from
idolatry ; that made them own the cause of
God in spite of a fumace, iu Daniel iii. which
I have already mentioned. It was this that
kept Joseph frora that foul sin of adultery ;
for without question the solicitations of his
mistress were seasoned with threatenings as
well as entreaties. But he had his answer
ready, " How can I do this great wickedness,
and sin against God ?" (Gen. xxxix. 9.) Here
I am threatened with false reproaches, if I
refuse to sin ; but, ou the other hand, God
threatens me with eternal miseries, if I do
comrait it. Here, indeed, there is a dungeon ;
but there is a pit from whence there is no re
covery. It was this also that caused the
apostles to go on preaching the gospel in spite
of all persecution, and to answer all the
threatenings of men in power, hindering the
propagation of it, with this short but pious
resolution, (Acts, v. 29,) "We ought to obey
God rather than raen."
2. We shall see how the entertaining of a
greater fear of raen than of God was the cause
of many notorious sins. It was this that
caused Saul to neglect the coraraand of God
in destroying Amalek, to the ruin of his per
son and the loss of his kingdora. For in his
confession he resolves his sin into the fear of
man, as the cause of it (1 Sam. xv. 24,) " And
Saul said unto Sarauel, I have sinned ; for I
have transgressed the commandment of the
Lord, and thy words ; because I feared the
people, and obeyed their voice." It was a
sinful fear of men that caused the father of
the faithful, even Abraham himself, to strain
his conscience with an equivocation little less
than a lie, (Geu. xx. 2.) It was this that
caused David to take that indirect, sinful, un
beseeming course for his security, to feign
himself mad, (1 Sam. xxi. 13.) And last of
all, it was the fear of the Jews that plunged
Peter iuto that woful sin of a treble denial of
his master, which afterwards cost him so many
bitter sighs and tears, (Matt, xxvi.) I could
add many other examples ; but since it ap
pears sufficiently from these, how dangerous
it is to fear those who can only kill the body,
and in the mean tirae to neglect him that is
able to destroy the soul, let us press that to
our own hearts that Neheraiah did to the
nobles of Judah, wheu they were engaged in
the work of the Lord, and rauch affronted and
discouraged by men, (Nehem. iv. 14,) " Be
not ye afraid of them : remember tJie Lord,
which is great and terrible."
2. I proceed to a second use ; where, from
the qualification of those persons to whom
this exhortation was addressed, who were

Christ's disciples, eleven of which were saints
of God, secure as to their eternal state, such
as were so kept by Christ, as that they could
not be lost, (John, xvii. 12,) we thence gather
a use of inforraation, that it is not absurd to
give cautions and admonitions for the avoid
ing etem<al death, even to those whose salva
tion is sure, and sealed up in the purpose of
God. This is the great arguraent of those
who are eneraies to the absolute decree of
God's election, and the certain perseverance
of the saints : For, say they, to what pur
pose do we bid those fear him that is able to
destroy their bodies and souls in hell, who are
sure never to come to hell ? But this excep
tion is not so considerable ; for first, though
they are sure never to corae to hell, by reason
of God's decree, yet they do not always know
so rauch ; and men's fears follow their know
ledge and apprehensions. Secondly, by these
cautions and admonitions this certainty of
salvation is partly procured. If, indeed, we
did assert such a certainty of their salvation
as did not depend upon the use of means, then
indeed this exception of theirs. Why should
we use the raeans ? why should we give cau
tions and admonitions agaiust hell ? would
conclude something. But since we affirm such
a certainty of salvation as depends upon and
takes in the use of such means, this argument
signifies little.
3. This speaks reproof to that slavish sort
of sinners who are men-pleasers. Flattery of
men always carries with it a distrust or a
neglect of God. If to fear men be prohibited
by God, then a servile pleasing of them must
be equally hateful to him ; forasmuch as this
arises frora fear. It is the raost degenerous
and pusillanimous temper of mind that can
be. It is ignoble, as thou art a man, and
irreligious, as thou art a Christian. Canst thou
prostitute an iraraortal soul to the feeding of
the arabition or revenge of a sinful man like
thyself, by a servile adrairation of his person,
and a false accusation of others ? How will
it upbraid thee with thy forraer flatteries and
thy fears, to see the person now so adored by
thee one day as naked and obnoxious before
God's tribunal as thyself, and perhaps answer
ing for mauy of those injuries that he did to
thee ! It is to debase thyself and to betray
the privilege and dignity of thy soul, to flatter
or fear any man. There is a spiritual gran- ;
deur that God would have every soul main- ]
tain ; and it is below a man to adore or cringe
to any thing but his Maker. To this intent,
it is the design of the Spirit, throughout the ]
whole scripture, to stain the glory of men
with the most undervaluing expressions.
" Cease from man ; for wherein is he to be
accouuted of?" (Isa. ii. 22.) " Fear not, thou
worm Jacob," (Isa. xli. 14.) The life of man
is said to be as " a vapour," (James, iv. 14.)
And certainly, if his life is a vapour, his power

ON MATTHEW, x. 28.

225

cannot bo considerable. What is that which
the mau whom thou so adorest can do for
thee? Why, he raay perhaps gratify thee
with some puny gain or preferraent. But is
he able to speak that comfort to thee that arises
from the conscience of a good action ? Can
he deliver thee from the hand of thy eneraies,
when God shall deliver thee into it ? or can
he cause thee to fall under thy enemies, when
God shall rescue theo from them ? If not,
then adore and please him who is able to do
these things. Conscientiously pursue that
course of life which God has placed thee in,
and trust thy concernments with Providence ;
disdain to step a foot out of it, to gather up
the inconsiderable straws of human favours
or preferments. The God whom thou servest
is able to advance thee.
And remeraber this exhortation, which,
with a little change of the words, makes for
the purpose : Please not thera who are only
able to advance the body, but cannot in the
least benefit the soul ; but rather make it thy
care and busiuess to please him who .is able
with eternal bliss to advance both body and
soul in heaven.
To whom, therefore, be rendered and as
cribed, as is most due, all praise, might,
majesty, and dominion, both now and for
evermore. Amen.

SEKMON XXV.
" For verily he took not on him the nature of angels ; but he
took on him the seed of Abraham. " — Hbb. ii. 16.
If we reflect upon the state of the world
before the coming of Christ, we shall find,
that a long and a dark night of ignorance had
overspread almost the whole universe for
about the space of four thousand years before
God was pleased to permit this great Sun of
righteousness to arise upon it. The improve
ments of their reason were but raean, but
their religion scandalous ; the most advanced
results of both amounting to no more but this ;
that they did, or at least might, by the force
of natural reason, know that there was a God ;
and knowing him to be God, they could not
but know him also to be infinitely wise,
powerful, just, holy, and the like. Upon the
knowledge of this, (as it is easy to glance
from one contrary to the other,) they could
not but consequentially know theraselves to
be impure, unjust, aud unholy. And being
so, whether, upon the stock of nature or tra
dition, they could proceed to collect farther,
that this holy God would be concerned to
punish them for not being so too ; and in case
he should, whether yet he would not accept
VOL. II.

of some other thing as vicarious, to bear the
blow of divine justice due to themselves ; 1
say, whether they gathered this frora the con
clusions of reason or the reports of tradition,
certain it is, that this persuasion put the
world upon sacrifices, as the great propitia
tions of a Deity, and arts of recorapense to an
offended justice.
This was then the sura of their religion, for
thera to sin, and the poor beast to die ; for
the man to do like a beast, and the beast to
suffer for the man. Nay, it improved even to
homicide ; and " to offer up the fruit of the
body for the sin of the soul " was a sublime
satisfaction. To expiate impiety by inhu
manity ; to kill the innocent (as it were) to
get his innocence ; to let others' blood for our
distempers ; . this was all the religion of a
world acted by the dictates of ignorance and
the overruling fallacy of a brutish, inveterate
custora. It was now time for God to commiserate
the absurd aud soul-ruining devotions of a
besotted world, and for Christ to step forth
and declare, that such " sacrifice and burnt-
offerings God would uot, and therefore that a
body was to be prepared for himself."
Hereupon, to rescue the deluded sons of men
frora their sins, and, what was much raore
sinful, from their religion ; as the reserve of
Providence, as the inheritance ofthe last ages ;
as it were to credit the concluding scene and
last going off of the world, in the fulness of
time, Christ was born, and sent by his Father,
to be the great mediator and instructor of
mankind ; both to discourage and to expiate
sin, and to teach the world the worship of
their Maker.
Andall this he was to effect by the strongest
methods and raost miraculous condescensions
to our likeness, by being " God manifested,"
or rather " hidden, in tbe flesh ;" clothing his
divine nature with all the frailties of the
huraan, suppressing his glories, and, in a word,
by " taking upon him the seed of Abraham.
As for the words that I have here pitched
upon, it raust be confessed that the transla
tion represents them very different from what
they are in the original, which runs thus :
Ou y«.p Sjj^rou i'jirAa.pilixviTai tov; dyyt^-oui.
Where we find, tbat what we render by the
preter tense, he tool, the original has by the
present, he takes : and what we render the
nature of angels," the original has only Toi/f
ayyk-Kovi, angelos. Neither is it clear, that to
take on him, or to assume, is the genuine signi
fication of i-jTiKxfi^i.nTxi. This text indeed
is generally used by divines, ancient and
modern, to prove Christ's incarnation, or as
suming the huraan nature, notwithstanding
that this word l5r/?i«^/3««T«/ (as Camero well
observes) is nowhere else in Scripture taken
in this sense. Saint Paul uses it in 1 Tira. vi.
19, but with him there it signifies, " to appro-

226

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Serm. XXV.

hend, to attain, or compass a thing." But
its chief signification, and which seeras most
suitable to this place is, " to rescue and de
liver ;" it being taken from the usual raanner
of rescuing a thing ; naraely, by catching hold
of it, and so forcibly wringing it from the
adversary. As David, when he rescued the
lamb from the bear and the lion's mouth,
might be properly said 'f!ri>.af,i,fiik!/ta6<ici. And
Grotius observes, that the proper sense of this
¦word is, " vindicare seu asserere in libertatem
manu injecta." Though, if he will needs have
that to be the signification of the word in this
place, it may be feared that he does it out of
too much favour to a bad hypothesis.
Before we proceed any farther therefore, it
will, I thiuk, be of moment to settle the right
interpretation of the word, and to see whether
i'7iriKa.fi(iai/iTai may be more properly rendered,
; he takes hold of, or delivers, or he takes on him,,
or assumes. That the word will bear both, is
I certain : and it is also as certain, that if the
I text be considered in itself, abstracted from
what follows, it will properly enough bear the
forraer sense, of delivering or taking hold of:
according to which, it will run thus ; " Christ
verily does not deliver or redeera angels, but
he delivers and redeeras the seed of Abra
hara." Which interpretation surely does not
off'er any violence to the sense of the text.
Those who will not allow Christ to have
had any existence antecedent to his concep
tion, nor a divine nature, which did after
wards assume the human, are earnest for this
interpretation, utterly excluding and rejecting
the other. I have already granted, that the
¦words thus rendered contain in them a truth;
but then we must remember, that everj' true
proposition drawn out of a text is not there
fore the true interpretation of it. The fathers
generally take IT/Xa^/Sai/Era; in the sense in
which it is here translated ; namely, he
assumed, or took on him " the seed of Abra
ham." And besides the influence that anti
quity and general consent ought deservedly
to have upon us in expounding scripture, I
conceive, that there are not wanting also solid
arguraents to evince, th.at this is the proper
sense of the word, as it is here used, and not
the other. \
For the proving of which, I shall premise
this one note, (which indeed is clear of itself
frora the very illative particle therefore,) that
this and the following verse are so joined to
gether, as to raake up one arguraent ; of
which argument this verse is the antecedent,
and the other the consequent, or inference
drawu from it.
Upon this consideration, I thus argue:
1. If in this verse is not signified Christ's
taking on him our n:iture, how comes it to
pass, that, in the next verse, which has an
illative dependence upon this, the " seed of
Abraham" are called "his brethren?" for his

being their deliverer only would not make
them his brethren ; but " his taking of our
nature" properly does. According to which,
the argument proceeds fully thus ; That since
Christ was pleased, by assuming our nature,
to be our brother, it becarae hira to be like
his brethren in all the circumstances of that
nature. 2. In the following verse, which is argu-
meutatively inferred from this, the thing de
signed to be proved is Christ's priesthood; hut
his being barely a deliverer, is not a proper,
specific medium to infer that ; whereas his
assuming of our uature is : forasmuch as a
priest is to have a cognation or conjunction of
nature with those for whom he is to offer
sacrifices. For none but a man can be a
priest to offer for men.
3. In the fourteenth verse of this chapter,
the apostle had already expressed the very
same thing here contended for, in these words:
" Forasmuch then as the children are par
takers of flesh and blood, he also himself took
part of the sarao." So that it is probable, that
the apostle is here still pursuing the same
subject, naraely, Christ's incarnation, or in
vesting of hiraself with the huraan nature.
And therefore 1 cannot see what advantage
it could be to any, to rend away this inter
pretation from the seventeenth verse, when
the same sense is so clear and resplendent in
the forraer verse, that it sets it above the
attempts of any, either to pervert the mean
ing, or to evade the force of it.
Having thus given an exposition of the
words, I shall cast the prosecution of them
into these particulars :
I. To shew what is naturally inferred
from Christ's " taking on him the seed of
Abraham." II. To shew why Christ took on him this,
rather than " the nature of angels."
I. For the first of these, there are four
things that follow, and are inferred upon it :
1. As, first, the divine nature of Christ is
unavoidably consequent from hence. There
are those who assert Christ to be a mere crea
ture, and not at all to have existed before his
conception in the womb of the Blessed Virgin :
to cut asunder which blasphemous assertion
I need use no other argument than this; If
Christ took upon him the seed of Abraham,
or the huraan nature, then he had a being
antecedent to the taking upou him this nature.
The consequence is proved thus : Every action
proceeds frora some being or nature that does
exist ; but to assume the human nature is an
action, and that not the action of the nature
assumed ; therefore it must be the action of
some nature that did exist before. That this
act of assumption could not be the action of
the human nature, is evident ; because in
transient actions the sarae thing cannot be the
agent and the object, in reference to thesame

ON HEBREWS, ii. 16.

227

action. And therefore, since the act of assum
ing did terminate in the human uature, as the
thing assumed, it could uot issue from the
same huraan nature, as the agent assuraing.
This argumentation is clear and undeniable,
that Christ's " taking upon him the human
nature" infers, that he did it by virtue of a
nature preexistent to that ; which, since it
was not the nature of angels, (as is here
expressly denied,) it follows, that it was a
diviue uature.
And tmly, those who confess Christ the
Saviour of .the world, but allow him not this,
make him a Saviour without a power to save.
This is a work to be carried on against enemies
and oppositions insuperable by any thing
under a deity. Nothing can conquer and
break asunder the bars of siu and death but
the arras of omnipotence : the Devil could not
be his captive, had he not beeu his creature.
No conquest to be had over the strong man,
hnt by a stronger ; and nothing stronger than
the angelic nature, but the divine. " The
strength of sin is the law ;" and no strength
can master the law, but that strength which
made it. He must coramand the gates of
heaven who lets sinners iuto it ; otherwise the
seed of Abraham may be like the stars indeed
for number, but uot for place.
2. Upon the same ground is inferred the
reality of Christ's human nature. This cer
tainly is so evident, that one would thiuk it
incapable of being denied : but, between the
contrariety of error and the clashings of
heretics, Christ shall be allowed to be neither
God nor man. Incredibly strange and ridi
culous, and even monstrous, are the several
opinions of heretics conceming this matter.
The Marcionites and the Valentinians affirmed
that Christ had no real, but an imaginary,
aerial, celestial body ; and that he appeared
only under the external form and shape of a
man, but was never really uuited to man's
nature. But this fancy is irrefragably refuted
by this, that Christ is said so to have took
npon hira the nature of men, as not of angels ;
but that Christ, under the Old Testament,
frequently appeared to the patriarchs as an
angel, has been always held by the church.
From whence it follows, that he took upon
him the human nature, iu a way much be
yond a bare appearance under it ; forasmuch
as thus he might be said to have took upon
him the uature of angels, under which, here
tofore, he appeared so ofteu.
The same Valeutinians also, together with
the Apollinarians, affirmed that Christ re
ceived not his body from the Blessed Virgin,
but brought it with hira from heaven. But
how then could he have been said to have
" took upon him the seed of Abraham," since
he could Dot do it any otherwise, but by
descending from Abrahara, according to the
; nor could he pretend to any such

descent from him, but as he was the natural
son of Mary ?
Others, as the Arians and the Eunomians,
admitting that Christ took ou him a real
huraan body, yet denied that he took on hira
a human soul ; asserting that his divine
nature supplied the functions of that. But
upon this supposition, with what show of
reason cau it be affirmed that he took upon
him our nature, since the human nature is
adequately compounded and made up of body
aud soul, as its two essential, constituent
parts : so that a body is uo more a man's
nature, without the concomitance of a ra
tional soul, than a carcass is a man ; or that
two units can raake up a perfect number of
four. Others, as the heretics of Armenia, affirmed
that the body Christ had from his mother
Mary was absolutely impassible ; incapable
of suffering, or being injured by any external
irapression. Which, as it is a bold and absurd
falsity, confuted by the whole history of
Christ's life, which was nothing else but a
series of sufferings ; so it is particularly dashed
in Heb. iv. 15, where it is said, " that he was
terapted like unto us in all things, sin only
excepted." And iu the seventeenth and
eighteenth verses of this second to the Hebrews
it is eminently affirmed, that he " was made
like uuto his brethren, for this very cause,
that he might suffer, and by his sufferings be
come a merciful high-priest."
He took not only the privileges, the excel
lencies, and perfections of the human nature
upon him, though these had been degrada
tions enough to hira, who was the express
iraage of his Father's brightness ; but he
clothed hiraself with all its weaknesses and
infirmities, bowed down his glories to the
limited meanness'of our faculties, to the poor- j
ness and affliction of our appetites ; he hung
ered and thirsted, and was weary ; lay open !
to all the stings of grief, and the invasions of
paiu. So that whatsoever the boldness or
ignorance of heresy may affirm of him, by all •
the instances of a sad experience he fouud [
hiraself to be really a raan. |
3. The third thing deducible frora the sarae
ground, is the tmth of his office and the divi- 1
nity of his mission. For by thus being of
the seed of Abraham, he gave one grand evi
dence that he was the promised Messiah : for
asrauch as frora the loins of Abraham was to
issue this universal blessing, " the desire of
the nations," and the centre of all the promises
and prophecies, uniting all the remote and
scattered predictions in himself.
Now as the thing that fulfils the prophecy
proves the truth of it, so the prophecy mutu
ally confirras and proves the truth of the
thing that fulfils it. And therefore, as the old
prophecies, finding an exact completion in
Christ, yield an invincible argument against

228

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Serm. XXV.

all atheists, (Macbiavel himself confessing an
utter impotence to resolve the problem of
prophecies, without allowing a Deity ;) so
Chi'ist's giving an event to them, undeniably
proves, that he was intended by them against
the Jews. Of whom, in this controversy, we
have this vast advantage, that wo profess not
to prove Jesus Christ to be the Messiah, but
by those records and arguments which they
have in their own custody ; nor to evince the
truth of our New Test.ament, but by mediuras
drawn from their Old.
For is it imaginable, that all those various
prophecies, comraenced in such different pe
riods of time, could meet so exactly in Christ by
mere accident ? and be drawn down through
so many generations to a concurrence in his
person, only by a lucky hit? Can chance be
so uniform, and casualty so certain? This is
against the notions of reason, the course of
nature, .and the voice of experience ; and con
sequently, to any considering mind, incre
dible, because in itself morally impossible.
4. The fourth and last inference that wo
shall gather from thence, shall be to discover
to us Christ's voluntary choice and design, to
assume a condition here upon earth, low and
contemptible. One would havo thought, that
if he had resolved to be a m.an, and to choose
an alliance to dust and ashes : yet that he
would at least have been framed out of the
best clay, and cast iuto the noblest mould :
but, that ho might humble himself to the
nethermost state of conterapt, he chose to
descend frora " the seed of Abraham ;" who,
if wc set aside their religious privileges, (which
yet they enjoyed only, but neither improved
nor deserved,) were certainly, both upon a
raoral and political account, the raost sordid
and degenerate race of raen upon the earth.
For, first, to rate thera by tho reports made
of them by the penmen of holy writ, who,
being Jews themselves, cannot be supposed to
have been partial in transmitting the infamy
of their countryraen to posterity; yet, how
ugly do they appear, even in their own story !
their whole narrative containing nothing but
a continued vicissitude of their idolatry, ira
purity, and rebellion. Who would have
thought that raen, with the reraembrance of
such prodigious miracles, and immediate dis
coveries of the divine power and favour to
them iu Egypt, new .and fresh in their minds,
could, as soon as ever Moses had turned his
back, deify a golden calf, and debase thoir
reason to such a low and ridiculous instance
of idolatry? How- were they alw.ays murmur
ing after raercies, and doubting after expe
rience ! No sooner had God done one miracle
before them, but they doubted whether he
could do another. How unworthily did they
treat Moses and Aaron, and most of their de
liverers ! particularly Gideon ; after his death
deserting threescore of his lawful issue, and

giving the kingdora to his base son ! How
causelessly did they relinquish David, and
revolt to Absalom ! and then, how ridiculously
and meanly did they cringe to him, to resume
the kingdom ! It were infinite to pursue all
their b.aseness. There was scarce a prophet
or messenger of God sent to them, but they
murdered him : and at length, to consummate
•and heighten their villainy to the utmost,
they imbrued their bauds in the blood of their
long expected, but at length mistaken Messiah.
And, which yet advances thoir sottishness,
where.as they rejected Christ, notwithstanding
that he had done thoso miracles, that were
never done by any before hira : yet wheu
several impostors and false Messiahs rose up
after him, who shewed thom neither sign
nor wonder, except of madness and impu
dence ; yet (as appears out of their owu Jose
phus) they were still acknowledged by a con
siderable number of followers.
And, to add the judgment of men to matters
of fact, (of which those that havo been men
tioned are but very few,) there is no nation
in the world, alraost, but hates and con
temns them. As early as the time of Jacob,
we read, " that they were an abomination to
the Egyptians," (Gen. xliii. 32.) And since,
they have been successively loathed by all
the great and civilized nations, as the Chal
deans, the Persians, the Grecians. And as
for the Romans, no Latin writer ever mentions
them, but it is with scorn and contempt :
Cicero, Suetonius, Tacitus, Pliny, Lucius
Florus, Martial, Juvenal, all havo left thom
branded with a mark of ignominy. Aud at
this very day, how much are they disgusted
in all those kingdoms and dominions where
they are dispersed I They are lilce dung upon
the face of the earth ; and that not so rauch
for their being scattered, as for being bo
offensive. Now certainly this may be rationally col
lected, that it could not be, that all nations,
in all ages, should thus conspire in a detesta
tion of them ; but that there was sorae pecu-
lar vileness essentially fixed in the genius »f
this people, contrary to those natural and
generous principles of morality aud converse,
which universally possess and act the beha
viour of the rest of mankind. Nothing could
be more full and expressive than Saint Paul's
testimony of them, (1 Thess. ii. 1.5,) "They
please not God, and arc contrary to all men."
This is properly the Jewish temper and dis
position. I conclude, therefore, that it is one great in
stance of Christ's hurailiation, that he derived
his nativity frora this race : so that the pro
phet Isaiah raight justiy say, " that he should
spring up as a plant out of a dry ground."
As one that had drained all the worth and
goodness of that nation into hiraself; which
made those who lived both before and after

ON HEBREWS, ii. 16.

229

him to havo so littie of it. He appeared
amongst them, like a single star iu a dark
night ; or, indeed, as a sun : aud that not so
much shining upon, as rather shining out of
a dunghill. II. I come now to tho other general thiug
proposed for the handling of the words ;
namely, to show why Christ took upou him
the nature of raan, and uot of angels.
In things that are the immediate results of
the divine will, it is a bold venture to search
iuto the causes of them ; and wheu we speak
either of God or of the king, to assign an an
tecedent reason of their actions, and to be
pereraptory in alleging why they should do
this or this.
The divine will is absolute ; it is its own
reason : it is both the producer and the ground
of all its acts. It moves not by the external
impulse or inclination of objects, but deter
mines itself by an absolute autocracy.
And therefore as to the present inquiry,
why Christ rather assumed the nature of men
thau that of angels ; it is a full, abundant,
and satisfactory answer, that so it seemed fit
to the good pleasure of the all-wise God. Yet
since God is sometimes pleased, in his trans
acting with man, to descend some stops frora
the throne of his majesty, and to bring down
his great counsels to the level of our apprehen
sion, so as to subrait his actions to be can
vassed and cleared, even at the bar of reason
itself; it will be found, tbat thero are not
wanting arguments to evince the reasonable
ness and equity of this his proceeding.
The reasons, therefore, why Christ took upon
him the nature and the mediatorship of men,
and uot of angels, may be these two :
1. The transcendent greatness and malignity
of the siu of the angels above that of men.
What that particular sin was, for which the
iragels were thrown down from their station,
is hard, and perhaps impossible, to be deter
mined ; yet men inquire after it as freely, as
if it might : .and some pitch it upon pride ;
though, iu their confident asserting of that
which is no -where delivered, they seera to
discover no small pride and arrogance them
selves. But whatsoever that sin was, (which
to determine is not here material,) certain
it is, that it did much exceed the guilt and
provoking qualities of the sin of man ; and
that in these two respects :
(1.) As being committed against a much
greater light, which is to be the proper guide
and ruler of the will in .all its choices. The
light of mau's understanding, while inuoceut,
was clear indeed, but sraall .and diminutive,
subject to the clouds of fallacy and inadver-
teucy. But the angelical intellect was strong
and intuitive, above tho reach of those raists
and clouds, that the lower region of the
human faculties w.as subject to. Now, pro
portionable to the means of avoiding sin, is

the guilt of falling into it. Man stumbled,
and fell uuder the light and direction of a
star ; but the angels fell headlong uuder the
light and guidance of a sun : so that no plea,
no rational extenuation of their offence could
be alleged. Whereas the different nature of
man's transgression might afford such grounds
to the ratiocinations of divine mercy, as
though they did uot excuse man's sin, yet
might excite God's compassion.
(2.) The siu ofthe angels coraraenced upon
a greater liberty of will and freedom of choice.
Thero was no devil to tempt them to becorae
devils ; no seducer, of a stronger reason, to
irapose upon theirs. They moved entirely
upon the motives of an intrinsic raalice.
But man was circuravented with fallacy and
tempted with iraportunity : and so great a
share of the guilt may be devolved upon
the temptation, that it is very possible, that
if ho had not been tempted, he had not fell.
I confess there is that inseparable prerogative
of absoluteness in the will of every m.au,
that it defies coaction, and cannot be forced
by any extern.al impression : nor, indeed, if
it might, so far it could not be said to siu, no
action being sin that is not voluntary.
But then, the vehemence of pei-suasion, the
restlessness of importunity, are great invasions
upon this freedom and indifference of the
will : .and though they cannot wound or im
pair the faculty itself, yet they much hinder
.and perplex the actual use and exercise of it ;
and consequently, though they are not suffi
cient to acquit the siuner in .an ill choice, yet
they afford many grains of .allowance, make
great abatements, and alter the measures of
his guilt. Strong and importunate persua
sions have not the nature and formality of
force ; but they have oftentimes the effect of
it : and he that solicits earnestly, sometimes
determines as certainly as if he did force.
The will of man, brought to sin by the
tempter, is like a bowl running down a hill :
its own weight and figure is, indeed, oue
cause of the motion ; but the haud that threw
it, is another.
2. The next, and perhaps the grand cause,
that induced Christ to take upou him the
nature and mediation of men, and not of
angels, might be this ; that, without such a
Redeemer, the whole race aud species of man
kind had perished, as being .all involved in the
sin of their representative : whereas though
many of the .angels sinned, yet as mauy, if
uot more, persisted in their innocence ; so that
the whole kind was not cashiered by a uni
versal ruin, nor made unserviceable to their
Creator, iu the uobler instances of active
obedience. Which mankind was, aud had so continued,
.as in that estate : h.aviug no other motives to
act thera, but a horrid despair, aud expecta
tion of future torment : the material issue of

230

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Serm. XXVI.

which could have been nothing but a con
firmed malice against God, exerting itself in
the lives of men, to the overflowing of the
world with an uncontrolled torrent of the
highest villainies and enormities.
But now, was it not a proportionable ob
ject for the designs of divine mercy to rescue
so great and noble a part ofthe creation from
a total perdition ? "Was it not pity, that so
fair a writing should be all dashed, and for
ever defaced by one blot ? that sin should be
able to do so much mischief, and, as it were,
to counterwork the divine power aud good
ness, by lopping off one of the masterpieces
of his work at a blow !
This had been more destructive than a
deluge ; it had beeu a universal ruin, without
the mitigation of any exception. But this is
uot the genius and way of God's working,
who designs particular mercies in the midst
of general judgments. Still he has a reserve
of favour ; and the flood that drowns the
world bears up the ark.
Christ saw us ruined in the loins of our
first parents ; and it moved his compassion to
behold our death, earlier than our nativity.
Even amongst raen, if a woraan with child be
condemned, there is yet mercy for the unborn
infant ; and it extends so far as to reprieve
the guilty parent. No wonder, then, if the
divine mercy was not inferior in the raethods
of salvation, and if the mercies of a judge did
not exceed the compassions of a saviour.
And now, what can the result and upshot
of this whole transaction be, but to quicken,
or rather transport us in our returns of gra
titude : to advance gratitude into admiration,
aud admiration into astonishment? Why
should the Son of God disrobe hiraself of his
eternal excellencies, to come and wrap hira
self iu dust and ashes, to converse with car
casses, with weakness and mortality, with
vile creatures and viler sinners? and all this
to rescue and pluck some wretched, smarting
firebrands out of the eternal flame, where
otherwise they must have lain consuming, but
not consuraed, for ever.
With what face or heart can any one, hav
ing this thought fresh upou him, resolve to
sin ? Has Christ passed over the fallen
angels without any comraiseration ; so that,
for want of a redeeraer, they are passed into
the state of devils ? and shall we, by having
and abusing a redeemer, make ourselves
worse ?
Still let us remeraber, that Christ so redeems
us from wrath, that he will first redeem us
from our vain conversation : and that, by
this stupendous incarnation of the divine
nature, he made himself " the Son of man,"
that by the change of our uature, we might
become " the sons of God."

SERMON XXVI.
** And his disciples asked him, saying. Master, who did sin, this
man, or bis parents, that he was born blind ?
Jesus answered. Neither hath this man sinned, nor hia parents :
but that the works of God should be made manifest in him."
John, ix. 2, 3.
The evangelist here presents us with a
signal miracle, done by Christ upon a blind
man. To advance which in the esteem of
believers, and to confirm it against the cavils
of atheists, he remarkably sets down that he
was blind from his birth : so setting forth the
greatness of the cure, from the circumstance
of the malady.
A blindness accidentally contracted, as by
over-much watching, excessive rheums, or a
film growing over the eyes, or the like, may
sometimes find a remedy from art ; but to
cure such a blindness as is born with a man,
(as one well observes, and as properly ex
presses it,) " non artis, sed potestatis est ;" it
is uot a work of skill, but an effect of power ;
not so much the removing of blindness, as the
creating of sight. Which did not, as some
may atheistically imagine, shew Christ's
knowledge in physic, but prove the divinity
of his call.
For as it is in the 23d verse, " Since the
world began was it not heard that any man
opened the eyes of one that was born blind."
And, I think, that may be pronounced natu
rally impossible to be done, of the doing of
which, from the very first beginning of nature,
there has been no instance.
Now the circurastance of this blindness,
thus expressed in the words of the first verse,
was the occasion of these words that follow in
the two next : in which we have,
1. A question of Christ's disciples.
2. The answer, or rejoinder of Christ.
The disciples' question is contained in these
words, " Did this mau sin, or his parents, that
he was born blind ?" The scope and intent
of which interrogatory is not agreed upon by
all ; but the desigu of the proposal of it may
be twofold :
(1.) That they simply and positively pro
posed it as their opinion, really judging all
maladies of the body to come from the ante
cedent demerit of sin : according to which
supposition, looking upon all raen's sufferings
as the effects of their personal sins ; and see
ing here, in this raan, the evil inflicted before
the sin could be coraraitted ; they were much
gravelled in resolving how this man's blind
ness could relate to sin as the meritorious
cause. Hereupon they asked, whether God
inflicted it " for his own sin, or for the sin of
his parents ?" which words may be understood
two ways.

ON JOHN, ix. 2, 3.;

231

First, Of sin considered by God as past,
and actually committed : and so if we under
stand it of the parents' sin, we know that
God sometimes avenges the sin of the parent
upon the child ; as we find in David, aud his
child, who died for his murder and adultery.
But if we understand it of sin already com
mitted in his own person, so it savours ofthe
opinion of Pythagoras, then common amongst
the Jews, as also at this day, that there is a
metempsychosis, or transmigration of souls
from oue body -to another successively ; and
accordingly as the soul had behaved itself iu
one body, after the death of it, it was disposed
of into another, suitably to its former beha
viour : that is, if it had done virtuously, into
a body fair and healthful ; if viciously, into
a body maimed aud deformed, as here. So
that the soul of this man, for some fault done
in that body in which it was before, raight
be conderaned to such a blind habitation as it
enjoyed at present.
Secondly, It may be understood of his siu,
not as past and committed, but as future and
foreknown by God : so that the sense of their
question would be. Whether God inflicted this
blindness upon him for some offence of his
parents, or for some sin of his own, which,
whUe he was yet unborn, Grod foresaw he
would afterwards coramit ; and for the merit
of which foreseen sin he inflicted this severe
judgment upon him, as to send him blind
into the world, eveu from his nativity ? If
they proposed this question as their opinion,
it might indifferently be grounded upon either
of these acceptations.
(2.) Some thiuk that they did not propose
this as their opinion, but only for arguraent
sake ; and that, occasioned by a former pas
sage recorded in John v. where Christ, having
healed a man, " bid him go and sin no raore,
lest a worse evil befell hira." Whereupon
they collected, that it was Christ's judgment,
that every such evil or distemper befell men
meritoriously for their sin ; but not being
able to reconcile this instance with the reason
of that opinion, they argued the case with
Christ iu this dilemma : If every evil befalls
men for their sin, then how could this man
be blind ? for if it were for sin, it must be
either for his own sin, or for the sin of his
parents : but uot for his own siu, because it
befell him before his birth, and consequentiy
before he could commit siu ; nor yet for his
parents' sin, because God had said that the
child should not suffer for his father's sin,
" but the soul that sinned should die." There
fore certainly sin is not always the cause why
men are sick, afflicted, or unfortunate ; but
there must be some other cause to which
these evils ought to be ascribed, as appears
from the example of this raan.
Now this sense is also probable, were it not
for this, that the argument is founded upon

the impossibility of God's punishing the
children for the parents; the contrary of
which is positively asserted in scripture, as
in Exod. xx. 5 ; where God says, that " he
would visit the iniquities of the fathers upon
the children, unto the third and fourth gene
ration." Besides that this way of arguing
seems but little agreeable to the modesty
and distance becoming disciples thus to dis
pute with their master upon the catch ; as
also too artificial for their abilities, it being
well known that they were never bred to the
niceties of logic either in making syllogisras
or dileraraas.
The next thing to be considered, is Christ's
rejoinder, in these words, " Neither did this
man sin, nor his parents :" which words must
needs be elliptical ; and therefore the fore
going sentence is to be repeated with it,
" Neither did this man nor his parents sin,
that he was bom blind." Otherwise, the
words, barely considered, would contradict
those scriptures that affirm all men to be sin
ners. But howsoever words may appear, it is
certain that the sense of one scripture cannot
contradict the sense of another : besides, the
words, " neither did he sin, nor his parents,"
caunot be understood simply, that he did not
sin, but that sin was not the cause of his
blindness. Otherwise the answer does not
reach the scope of the question, which in
quires, not barely whether he sinned, but
whether his sin procured him this malady ;
which Christ, in this answer, appositely
denies. But you will say, is not the fall of Adam,
and our original sin emerging from thence,
the cause of all the miseries and diseases that
are incident to mankind ?
I answer, It is indeed the remote aud gene
ral cause, or rather the causa sine qua non; for
were it not for Adam's fall, and for original
sin, there would be no such maladies or dis
tempers. But the question here is not of the
remote and general cause, but of the proper,
particular, and iraraediate cause of this blind
ness. And this cannot be original sin, for so,
wheresoever it was, it would have this effect ;
and consequently all men would be born
blind, inasmuch as all have original sm ;
which is absurd, and contrary to experience.
Christ, therefore, having removed the false
cause, subjoins the true, "that the -works of
God should be made manifest in hira. borae
lay an eraphasis upon the plural word, that it
is not said, work, but works: for first, in his
blindness, God had manifested a work of abso
lute power ; and then, in his restitution, a
work of mercy. Sorae also frora hence dra-w
an arguraent for Christ's divinity, that his
work is called "the work of God." But I
shall not insist upon these, as neither being
very firm in themselves, nor relating to my
purpose.

232

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Skrm. XXVI.

But it may bo of some concernmoiit to .-.talo
the import of tho particle tiMt, in tho Griick
ha,; whether it denotes tho cause, or only the
event and consequence of the thing, as in tho
39th verso of this chapter, " I came into the
world, that seeing they might not see."
Whero wo cannot say, that the hardening of
any was the cause or end why Christ camo
into the world ; but an event or consequence,
that, through the pravity of their hearts, hap
pened upon his coming. So the manifesting
the works of God might not be the cause why
this man was born blind, but a thing that
occasionally fell out upon his being so.
But still, the common reason of discourse
does compel us to measure the sense of tho
answer by the nature of the question. Now
the disciples' question was about the cause of
this man's bliridiiess, and therefore Christ's
answer must be so too ; and not, when they
asked him about the cause, to answer them
about tho consequent of it. This would havo
been to make them a.sk Christ one thing, and
Christ to resolve them in another : which, if
he had, though what he .said might have been
a truth, yet it could not have been .an answer.
I conclude, therefore, that Christ moans, that
the manifesting of God's power in this mira
culous cure, was the final cause moving God
to inflict this blindness upon him from his
birth. And thus there is a way cleared through the
exposition of the words, which briefly exhibit
to us the erroneous curiosity of the disciples
in their pragmatical inquiry into tho reason
of God's judgments, anil the state of another
man's soul. And, on the other h.-iml, they
shew both tho divine knowledge and excel
lent strain of charity that shined in Chriiit's
reply; in which, by a reprehensive hhortness,
he both clears the man's innocence, and vin
dicates God's proceed iiig.s, and .so fctates them
both upon a right foundation.
I shall now draw forth and prosecute tho
design of the words in those three jiroposi-
tions : —
I. That men are prone to charge God's
judgments upon false cause,".
II. That not always the sin or merit of the
person afflicted, but sornetinies tho will of
God, who afflicts, i-j the sole and sufficient
reason of the affliction.
III. Though God's will and power be a
sufficient reason of any evil inflicted upon
man, yet he never inflicts it, but for the great
end of advancing his own glory ; and that
u.sually in the way of their good.
In the prosecution of these it will appear,
how each of them is deiluced frora the text.
1. For the first of those, though it bo a
universal, drawn from a particular instance
of the disciple.-, yet the r<-a.-on and principles
inducing them thus to judge belrij,' common
to all, 1 think the ca.5e, though particnilar.

may not illoglcilly yield a uiiivorsal deduc
tion. Besides, it amounts to an argumctil
drawn a fortiore, that if tho disciples, who
were continually under tho nurture and in
struction of Christ himself, were yet apt to
lash out into such extravagant consurcH, then
certainly other men will be so much uiore,
who havo not tho advantago of so near an ac
cess to his person, nor of such familiar acquain
tance with his precepts.
In the handling of this proposition, I shall
show, — '
1. The false causes to which men are apt tn
refer God's judgments.
2. The principles inducing them to pinkc
such false referoiiccfl.
Tho causes, in short, aro these two : —
(1.) Sin ou his part that suff'ers. There in
a gener.ation of men who havo built their
faith upon the ruins of charity, and wholly
cried up ono, while they sufficiently acted
down the other. TIioho, upon tbe hearing of
any judgment or disaster fallen upon any
man, iramediately second it with theso cen
sures : " As for this man, we know that he is
a sinner ;" for docs not God single him out,
and expose him as a spectacle to men and
angels? Does ho not punish hira as he did
Cam, so as to " mark his sin in his very fore
head ?"
As soon as over the blow is given, then thoy
fall to judge and guess at the cause : first they
kill, and then condemn ; first do execution, and
then pass sentence. Certainly such a man is
rotten at tho heart ; otlierwise do you think
that Go<l would have thus tiirown hira away?
Ho has not "the power of godliness;" for if
ho had, would God havo seen him stript,
pluiiilereil, and imprisoned?
And if, perhapH, such an one had been
severe to aclvance discipline and suppress the
factious, then, to be sure, they worry him
home. Do you not remember how he pcrHc-
cuted such and such a precious man, such a
saint, such agospol-prea«hiiif.Miiiiii»ti;r'!; Now,
I think, the vengeance of God has overtook
him. Thus, when Cicero, the prcKorver of hi»
country, was banished by a prevailing faction,
then the rabble and rascality of Rome cried
out, that tho gods revenged his cruelty to
Catiline and hib coiiipanioiiH.
And moreover, according to the example in
tho text, they will arraign oven the dead also,
and charge upon a man the sins of his ances
tors. Thus the curne must lineally descend
frorn the father to the bon, ai part of the
inheritance : one must be conderaned in the
other : if the son is miserable, tho father, no
doubt, was very sinful. Does his estate perish
and moulder away? QucstionlesH it is be
cause hih father got it by bribery, or extor
tion, or the like.
Thus the name of the dea<l, which should
be sacred and reverencd, but alwajS bpared.

ON .lOHN, ix. 2. 3.

233

IS unchristianly, inhumanly torn nnd tra
duced ; the poor father, in the meantime, as
It were, sutVeriiig in his son, and iu a uumner
being executed in effigy ; and the .afflicted sou
having this farther lojid addeil to his afflic
tion, to hejir the defiimiug of his decoiiseil
father. But theu, when thev come also to charge a
man's misei-ies upon liis personal sins, how
many surmises, presumptions, and whispers
shall theri> be of his supposed guilt? diarging
hiiu with such and such secret sins : "and
those, indeed, oftentimes so secret, that God
himself knows uot of them. In short, thoy
do tho most unjust thing in the world ; they
argiie what a raan h.as done by what he suffers.
(-.) The second fiUse cause, ou which men
charge Oo<rs judi;nieiits, is hatred on God's
uart. They argue, as Gideon to the angel. If
Uod loveil them, how could it be thus with
tiioui ? For cau God toriueut in love ¦! can
ho kill with kindness ? does the noise of his
strokes and the sounding of his bowels spe.ak
tho sjuue thing ? Certainly an enemy's be
haviour must needs irajKirt an enemy's heart ;
and tho violence of his owu actions .are caused
and influenced by the hatrtxl of his affections.
But such disputers should know how remote
their areument is fr^uu tho truth; for God
may strike, aud yet not be angry ; and farther,
ho raay be angry, and > ot "not hate. The
hand of a father in;,y do the one, and his
.1 heart msiy entort.-uti tho ether ; but to hate a
sou consists not with tluit relation. God nuiy
suiite his creature, and yet tenderly love him
•It tbe same time. The .air may be clear and
wholesome, and yet very sharp. God may
roci>ter the same name in the book of his
eternal election, which he sufltrs lo be pros
cribed hero iu tlio course of his providence;
and eternal s;iIvatioii in another world is very
filirly consistent with certain destriietion in
this. 'VS'hile nothing but storras .and teiuin^sts
encounter a man in these lower regions, thert^
may be a perfeot calm aud serenity in the
m.a]isious above.
But let us sift this argument a little fiwther;
«"o will not from GIhI's outwiinl, earthly
fjivours colhvt his lovo, and from the mercies
of the left luond tirx'ue a title to those of the
right, AVhy, theu, on the contrary, do we
not use the sjiuio arsrumcut whero there is tho
same reason ; and ?rom the severity of God's
outwanl dealings, not conclude the oerlaiiity
ofhis hatroill Solomon arcnos iqually on
both sides, (Eccles. ix. 1.) " So man 'Kiii>weth
either love or hatred by r.li thu is before
him." And he that slmll make Goa's out
ward, primiiseuor.s providences the m.arks of
his inwanl .affections, will sfvll that meaning
out of than, that neither they signify, uor
Gotl intends.
This, thervforo, is tho sivond nii?t;ikou
«iuse upou whieh men .arc .apt to cliarge tl-.e

divine judgments ; namely, God's hatred of
the person whom he so atflicts. If a raan is
signally brought lo-w, he is presently a repro
bate and a c^istaway, an aboraination to the
Lord, oue whom G^d has laid aside, and will
never use moro ; which were tho terras and
language by which many excellent pereons
were uot long since treated by a generation of
men, who, by rapine aud reforni.ation being
possessed of their places and estates, were as
bold to promise themselves as sure a perseve
rance iu temporals as they did iu spirituals.
Such pel-sons, when Gotl has done execution
upon any, then in a preposterous way they
pronounce the sentence, and after he is
executed, then set upon him aud condemn
him. But blessed be God that he is uot forced
to write after their dictates, and that man's
hatred is not God's. Wherefore we may take
shelter iu the word of truth from all such
wandering, roving, and impertinent censures.
(Prov. xxvi. 2.) " As the bird by wandering,
jis the swallow by flying," and I may add, as
such men by judging, " so the curse causeless
shall not eome," unless perhaps upou the
head of those who thus pronounce it ; but
then it ceases to be causeless.
2. The secoud thiug is to shew the prin
ciples inducing men thus to charge God's
judgments upon false causes ; aud these are
three :
(1.) The fallibility of the rule, and tho
fiilseiiess of the opinion by whieh they judge.
The rule is providence, and the opinion is,
that God's providence is an evidence of his
love. For the first, iu this they lay the
ground of necessary error ; for he must equally
err who follows a false rule, and who follows
none. Now a rule, in the nature of it, implies
certainty ; and certainty in actions cousists in
a perpetual infiillible ivpetition of the sarae
insraiue, at least supposing tiie same circum
stances. But now God's providence, though it is cer
tain to him, all the windings .and varieties of
i t being clearly aud infiillibly represeuteil to his
oniniMMonee, yet to us it is uucort;un, as no'.
always producing the s;ime instances in tlie
same' eases. Sueli au one is iu a strait, aiu'.
pr.ivs. and is delivereil ; but is this a rule for
lue to judge, that whosoever is in the same
stniit, and pnivs, sh.all meet with the sjiuie
deliverance >. Exi>erienee she« s the contrary,
and there is no confuting of experieuee. In
short, provideiu-os I'tiuuot be brought uuder
anv -general rule, exeoj-t only this, that they
art- a"eii>rdiiig to God's will ; which will is no:
rovealevl, and thorot'ore cannot l>e kuowu tid
the event declares it.
And as for the opinion that is toundetl upon
this rule, that God's lo\e and hatred are writ
upon his'proNi>l<-iU!:il de.alings ; it is not only
TO Ik." deni.^l ;is fal.-e. but to be detes;t\l as im-
l-io'.'.s and unoh:iritab!e. :is that which tends to

234

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS

Serm. XXVI.

extirpate brotherly love aud civil converse out
of the world.
For since even nature will couvince us,
that our love ought to follow God's love, and
our hatred to secoud his, wheresoever he is
pleased to fix it ; then collecting God's love
where I see a man prosper, I must love him
too, which indeed is profitable ; and on the
other side, concluding his hatred -where I see
any low and afflicted, I am engaged to hate
him too, which indeed is safe ; but neither of
them is Christiau, huraane, or indeed tolerable.
Besides, those that are the most liberal in
judging by this rule, when the instance comes
to be made in themselves, they will admit it
ouly by halves, and cut off oue half by excep
tion. For if they prosper, then it is an argu
ment of God's love ; but if those whora they
hate prosper, they will ascribe that to chance.
If their enemies are affhcted, then God's
judgments argue his hatred ; but if themselves
are brought low, judgments then are but only
chastisements, or at the most casual con
tingents. Nay, by this prevarication with their own
opinion, they will elude and slip out of any
argument that cau be brought against them
from providence. For -when they flourish in
the world, tbey say, this is the witness of
providence sealing to their saintship and the
justness of their doings ; but if things go cross,
why then they say, it is the lot of the saints
to suffer affliction. So that you see it is im
possible to lay hold of them either way.
There is no reason, therefore, if they can
not bear the inconvenience of the utraost
latitude of their own rule retorted upon
theraselves, that it should be adraitted to bind
others. For if it do not hold in all, the
obligation cannot reasonably be forced upon
any. But besides the apparent folly of it, if
the external procedures of God's providence
be the rule to raeasure his love or hatred by,
then it cannot be .avoided but that the rich
and powerful have the fairest pleafor heaven,
and the martyrs the ^hrewdest marks of re
probation. (2.) The second principle, inducing men
thus to misplace God's judgments, is their
inability in discerning, joined with their con
fidence in pronouncing. For can those that
are slow to apprehend, and hasty to give sen
tence, be iraagined likely to pass a right
judgraent? But the latter temper is usually
attended with the former ; forwardness to
speak, with slowness to apprehend ; for indeed
it is not only attended with, but caused by it ;
rashness being the effect of shallowness ; and
because men understand not the intricacies of
a providence, they are bold and sudden in
their sentence. " Qui ad pauca respicit, de
facili pronunciat." Where they cannot untie
the knot by severe scrutiny, they presently
cut It asunder by a sharp censure.

Men who arrogate to themselves an aposto
lic spirit, and look upon themselves as dictators
in religion, and think they see through all
God's dealings, whereas they have the same
infirmities and weakness of understandiug
with other men, and have no greater super
natural helps and revelations ; yetjoiuingthe
former confidence with this weakness, no
wonder if they mangle God's dealings, and
fling about blessings and curses at random ;
ofteu blessing where God curses, and cursing
where he blesses.
But let us see into what ridiculous censures
ignorance acted with rashness betrays men.
In Acts, xxviii. 3, the barbarians, who
doubtless looked upon themselves as no ordi
nary persons in judging of such things, when
they saw the viper fastening on Paul's hand,
after that he had escaped shipwreck in the
fourth verse, see how judiciously they inter
pret that strange accident ! They said amongst
themselves, "No doubt this man is a mur
derer, whom, though he hath escaped the sea,
yet vengeance suffereth not to live." Here
they quickly found out the matter ; Paul
" was a murderer ;" the case is clear, for the
viper fastened upon his hand ; and it seems
all that are seized upou by vipers must of
necessity be murderers. But now, what if
Paul shakes off the viper without auy harm,
as it fell out that he did, why then iu the
sixth verse, when they saw no harra come to
him, they ch.anged their minds, "and said
that he was a god." Aud this as wisely as the
other. A strange turn, you will say, both of their
opinion and of Paul's coudition ; from one
that deserved not to live, to oue that could
not die. This is like the heathens deifying
of Mars, from a murderer to make him a god.
Thus we see how they interpreted providen
ces ; and the truth is, those that iuterpret
them alike, will .also judge like barbarians,
not like Christians, but make a man a god and
a murderer the same hour ; a saint to-day,
and a reprobate to-morrow. We see, there
fore, that this proceeding is both impious and
ridiculous ; and those who take this course,
do not so much iuterpret God's judgments,
as shew the defect of their own.
(3.) The third principle, inducing men to
misplace God's judgments, is the inbred malice
of our nature. There is a spice of brutish
envy in most, and a sordid jealousy for their
own good upon the sight of another mau's,
which causes them to make morose, unpleasing
reflections upon all events, and even to lose
truth while they pursue their humour. This
teraper, mixed of jealousy aud malice, is that
which raakes these two odious actions so fami
liar to men, to suspect aud misjudge.
Now what an unhandsome face must be set
upon God's providences, measured by an un
derstanding so weak, that it cannot, and a

ON JOHN, ix. 2. 3.

235

temper so partial, that it will not judge
rightly, is apparent. It bends them to its
own obliquity ; and that which passes through
a crooked thing, must needs contract a crook
edness in the passage. This temper of mind
causes men, in all their censures of providence,
not to speak God's actions, but their own
wishes. They desire, that every affliction of
their adversary were sent by God iu hatred,
and therefore they will vote it so in their
apprehensions. When a man's professed
enemy is his judge, whatsoever his. cause is,
you may foresee the sentence.
The will has prejudged the case, before ever
it comes to the understanding ; and when there
is any raalicious averseness iu that, as it is
seldom but there is, judgment cannot be com
mitted to a worse hand. For the will is both
a blind and a commanding faculty, and there
fore has the two worst of qualities in conjunc
tion, not to discern, and yet to domineer.
And certainly, wheu this interprets provi
dences, they cannot but be direful ; and he
who is censured, very unhappy, when God
must be angry with him as often as his ad
versary is pleased to be malicious.
There is scarce any thing in the world so
entirely bad, but may be much qualified by a
fair acceptance ; and nothing so absolutely
good, but may be detorted and soiled at least
by a raalign interpreter. What can be raore
beautiful, perfect, aud equal, than the ways
and works of the oranlpotent, all-wise God ?
And yet what raore harsh, unequal, aud de
structive, when they are in the dispensing of
men, and distributed to each raan by his
enemy ! They are like the rain, which falls
pure from heaven, but arriving to the earth,
turns into mud. Even the divine dealings are
not privileged from the prejudices of raalice ;
but God's works are like his words, liable to
be wrested : malice is the bias of the soul,
that sways it in all its operations.
To judge properly is to apply a rule, aud
a mind possessed with malice is under great
disturbances ; so that a malicious person is as
fit and able to make a right judgment of
things, as a shaking hand to take exact mea
sures ;''or a person that is drunk, to study
the mathematics, and to resolve problems.
And when the decrees of Heaven shall be
examined by the partiality of perverse, mali
cious, and discontented persons, we must
expect nothing else but the ugly issues of
passion, darkness, and confusion.
And thus I have shewn the principles in
ducing men to pass false and uncomely sen
tences upon God's judgments. For the first
inevitable foundation of this erroneous judg
ing, is the uncertainty of the rule by which
they judge ; but supposing the rule were cer
tain, yet there follows weakness in the under
standing attended with rashness, that raakes
it unable to apply the rule. And lastly,

though both the rule were certain, and the
understanding apprehensive and steady ; yet
there being malice in the will to pervert the
intellect in its sentencing God's judgments, it
follows, that we have always most false aud
deformed reports made concerning God's
dealings with men. Whence it is, that thero
never happens any calamity, but the suffering
is by this redoubled ; men suffering by tho
uncharitableness, God by the falseness of the
censure. And thus mnch for the first proposition.
II. I proceed now to the second, namely.
That not always the sin or raerit of the per
son afflicted, but the will of God that afflicts,
is soraetiraes the sole, but always the sufficient
reason of the affliction.
That this is so, is apparent from several
scriptures ; and to produce one instead of all,
see the whole series of Job's sufferings resolved
into this, and that by the impartial deterrai
nation of God hiraself. His friends charged
him sometiraes with the sins of his life, some
times with the hypocrisy of his heart ; but
still they rested upou this as a certain maxim,
" that God never smites, but for sin ;" which
was the sum of all their discourses. But God
confutes this strange divinity, declaring withal
his severe auger against them, (Job, xlii. 7,)
because " they had not said that which was
right of him as his servant Job had." So
that we have the testimony of the Father in
the Old Testament, ratified by the testimony
of the Son in the New, that God does not
always afflict for sin.
And here we must observe a necessary dis
tinction between punishments and afflictions.
Punishment is properly the evil of sufferance
for the evil of siu ; and therefore is always
founded in the merit of some precedent sm,
inherent or imputed. But affliction is only
God's bringing the evil of pain upon the
creature, whatsoever the cause may be for
which he does it. So that we see, though
every punishment include in it affliction, yet
every affliction is not convertibly a punish
ment. Now, since this raay seera to grate nara
upou huraan nature, which cannot but love
itself ; I shall clear this proceeding of God
frora injustice, upon these reasons :
1. The first shall be drawn frora his abso
lute, unaccountable dominion and sovereignty
over the creature. God is an absolute lord
over all things ; and we know, even in earthly
kingdoras, as here in ours, it is a received
raaxira in the law, "regem nee errare posse,
nee cuiquam injuriam facere. God has as
much power over his laws, as over his sub
jects ; and he that has a right over all things
can do uo injury ; and he that cannot go
against a law can do no wrong ; as he thtit
cannot tread out of his own land can commit
no trespass. So that the creature, upon no

236

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Serm. XXVI.

suffering whatsoever, can implead his Maker.
He that can do what he will, may do what he
-will ; for the supreme law is the will of the
supreme power.
Let not therefore auy think, that God must
fetch a licence for his actings from our merit
or demerit. Sic volo, sic jubeo, howsoever
tyrannical and intolerable frora raen, yet,
uttered by God, is the greatest reason iu the
world. As God's truth is the reason of our
faith, so his will is the reason into which we
must resolve our obedience. Those who can
stand upon terms with God, and question and
arraign his proceedings, manifest but low and
unworthy thoughts of the infinite, essential
majesty of his nature, and too arrogant ap
prehensions of their own.
Do we not see, amongst ourselves, the owner
use his cattle as he pleases, employ them as
he thinks fit, keep what he will alive, kill
what he will, and in what manner he will ;
and all this without any injury to them, only
by virtue of a grant and charter from both
his and their Maker ? And yet they are his
fellow-creatures, and the distance between
thera is not considerable ; neither is the good
of man the utraost end of these creatures,
which he makes such a free use of. What
shall we then say of the power of God him
self to dispose of raen ? little, finit<", obnoxi
ous things of his own making ? Is not his
right over thera inconceivably greater? May
he not, as an absolute raonarch, pull down
whom he pleases, and whora he pleases set
up ? And who can tax the reason of his pro
ceeding in all this.
That which has its being only for another,
may be used, preserved, destroyed, as may
best advance that thing, to which, both in
being and well-being, it is subservient. Were
I as free from sin as Adam in his innocence,
and had never in the least provoked the curse
of the law, and God should be pleased to smite
me with all the pains and plagues that torture
the body, and should divest me of all liveli
hood, and reduce me to hunger, nakedness,
and the rage and scorn of my enemies, and
fill ray mind with as much horror and desp.air
as could consist with a being, and after that
throw rae into eternal flames ; I might say
indeed, I was ruined, but not injured ; neither
could I therefore be ch.arged as sinful, because
God is pleased to deal with me as if I were.
And these dealings of God, if you would give
them their right and proper name, cannot be
called cruel, but strange ; unusual indeed, but
not unrighteous. Now this consideration raay
regulate the behaviour of one raan to another,
and of all towards God ; for if the dealings of
God do uot presuppose the merit of our sin,
theu we cannot charge any man as sinful,
because he suffers. And then also, since God
has an absolute dominion, he, who suffers,
cannot charge God, who afflicts, as unjust ;

for God's laws are intended for the rule of our
actions, not his own.
2. The second reason may be drawn from
the essential equity of God's nature. The
practice of justice, on man's part, is indeed
at the free choice of his will ; hut God's is
fixed in the necessity of his being. And
though God cannot be subject to auy positive
law, as springing from the sole determination
of his own will, yet his uature is to him
instead of a law : that is to say, as the crea
ture is, by a law, both obliged and directed
to do well ; so the native rectitude of tho
divine will necessarily deterraines him to
the exactest proportions of justice in all his
actions. An absolute power in men is, for the most
part, sinful and injurious : because of the
imperfection of their will, which is not able
to bound the exorbitances of that power : aud
if it does not prove actually the cause of sin,
yet it is always a temptation to it. But God's
dorainion is so absolute, as to be also infinite;
and to be infinite in one perfection, of neces
sity draws after it an infinity in all others.
And therefore, having proved an infinite
]iower, by that very thing we prove an in
finite justice: wherefore we are not necessarily
to seek for the reasonableness of God's trans
acting with mau, from any thing that m.an
has done well or ill ; but to place the ground
of his actions within hiraself.
It is confessed there are some astonishing
passages in Providence, and such as are above
the weak logic and narrow maxiras of the
creature ; so that to reconcile them to justice
has nonplused the wisest and most sanctified
persons. (Jeremiah, xii. 1,) " Righteous art
thou, 0 Lord, when I plead with thee : yet
let me talk with thee of thy judgraents :
Wherefore doth the way of the wicked pros
per ?" &c. And David, we read, stumbled
against the sarae stone ; " his foot had well-
nigh slipped," (Ps<alra Ixxiii. 2, 3.) And
parallel to the prosperity of the wicked has
been the affliction of the righteous, which has |
always been a problem of as hard resolution j
as the other. |
This is certain, that God is infinitely just, I
whether or no we apprehend how he is so. It i
is irapossible for God to do any thing but what i
is right ; but it is very possible for us, who
are weak and fallible at the best, not always
to discern it. When we think his ways
are iraperfect, we should remeraber, that I
the imperfection is only in our understanding.
It is not the ground or the trees that turn
round ; but the truth is we are giddy, and
think so.
For us, in all God's dealings, to acknow
ledge the undoubted equity of his principles,
and our ignorance of his methods, is not only
huraility, but philosophy ; for it shews that
we have arrived to the top of knowledge.

ON JOHN, ix. 2, 3.

237

even to understand both God and ourselves.
Much to conteraplate in God, frequently to
consider him, and study his nature, though
we do it but as philosopliers, is a sovereign
way to be satisfied and resolved about the
reason of all his actions. Because I cannot
see the light, shall I say, that the sun does not
shine ? 'There may be many reasous that may
hinder rae. Something may cover the eye,
or the clouds raay cover the sun, or it may be
in another horizon, as iu the night ; but it is
impossible for the sun, as long as it is a sun,
not to shine.
Now this tends to compose men's doubts,
and to confute their murmurings, and to set
God clear in their esteem, upon supposition
of any of his dealings -nhatsoever. For
although God's ways are intricate and un
searchable, yet we may undertake to give a
reason of them so far, as to take off the cavil
aud the reprehension, though uot the wonder.
Wherefore, when such difficulties occur, we
should reraember to cast one eye upon God's
absolute power, and the other upon his essen
tial righteousness ; through the forraer of
which, he may do what he will, through the
latter he cannot will any thing but what is
just. 3. The third reason is from the unerring,
all-disposing wisdom of God. Though God's
actings may seem coufused, aud his judgments
misplaced ; yet they are managed by such an
infinitely wise contrivance, that, could we
tjike a view of them as they lay disposed in
God's counsel, and compare the design with
the proceeding, we should confess, that they
were put into the most beautiful, exact, and
orderly frame that could be. Sometimes the
destruction of particular natures tends to pre
serve and advance the universal. As a mon
strous, misshapen thing is, in itself, most de
formed ; bnt could we have a sight of the
whole universe, and see how this ugly thing
stood related to those which were perfect and
comely, we should acknowledge, that howso
ever it did misbecome itself, yet it did adom
the world.
We see God's judgments pursuing aud over
taking a man iu his righteousness : let us not
now raurraur, and say. How can God justly
afflict the upright ? But let us acquiesce in
the rational acknowledgment of this, that
God's wisdora may outreach ours. We see the
dispensation, but we do not see the desigu of
it; and therefore let us suspend our censure.
If we should seea goldsmith cutting, break
ing, or filing a piece of gold, and come and say
to him. Friend, what do you mean to spoil
your gold ? Do you not know the value of
what you thus ciit and file away ? What a
ridiculous question would this be to him, who
knows that iu what we call spoil, he pursues
the rational purposes of his owu art ; that to
the excellence of the raetal, he raay also add

the curiousiiess of the figure ? But now is it
not, think you, much more ridiculous for such
blind, silly worms as we, to call God's works
to an account? aud to censure whatsoever
thwarts our humour, or trausceuds our appre
hensions ?
God has put darkness under his feet, that
we caunot spy out his ways ; but his wisdoin
gives us good security for thoir reasonableness.
The greatest artificers, we know, will often,
eveu iu the day-time, immure themselves in
a dai'k roora, and work by a candle : and what
wonder is it, if God is more careful to conceal
the arts and mysteries of his providence from
the inquisitive eye of those, whose duty is to
adraire, rather than to understand them ? It
is one great piece of art, to conceal art.
God delights to pose and baffle the bold
reasons of men with the riddles of his actions;
to try their humility, where their discernraent
fails ; and to lead them, by an implicit faith
in the wisdom of the doer, where they see not
the reason of the work. Let therefore the
consideration of the divine wisdom be a third
ground to warrant the righteousness of God's
strangest actions, beyond all human exception.
And this n.aturally introduces the third pro
position, namely, —
III. Though God's will and power be a
sufficient reason of any evil inflicted upon
men, yet he never inflicts it, but for the great
end of adv.ancing his glory, and that usually
in the way of their good.
This is sufficientiy clear in the present in
stance : for God inflicted a native blindness
upon this poor man, not only because he
raight, and because he would, but that after
wards, by this wonderful removal of it, both
the Messiah should be discovered, and himself
and others should have a pregnant occasion of
being converted to him, the advantage of
which was infinite. And questionless, the
man had cause to congratulate hiraself this
fortunate affliction : for had it not been for
tbis blindness, he might have been like the
rest of the Jews, " having eyes, but not seeing
nor perceiving," but remaining spiritually
blind and obstinate. And to have open eyes,
but a sealed heart, would have beeu like a
window opened in the night-time which,
however it was open, would have let in no
light. But by this unusu.al providence, Christ
takes occasion to dart a beara of saying light
into his understanding, and so gave him wiuse
of ever blessing God for that bodily affliction,
which was the happy occasion of such aspiri-
tu<al deliverance. „ ^ , • v •
Now this glorious design of God, in bring
ing these calamities on men, is expressed in
those words of the text, "that the ^vorks of
God might be made manifest in him. And
the works that God intends thus to glorify
are usually these : , „ , .
1. The rairaculous works of his power.

238

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Serm. XXVI.

Had uot God suffered Shadrach, Meshach,
and Abed-nego to be cast into the fumace, he
had not had that opportunity to have con-
¦vinced the heathen of that power, which was
able to overrule and control natural agents in
their most necessary operations ; to counter
mand the burning in the midst of the flame ;
and when the furnace was seven degrees hot
ter, to canse it to operate below the degree of
four. God sometimes by his power inflicts a
sickness, that he may shew a miracle in the
cure. That God decreed so many years' cruel
bondage to the Israelites, it was the absolute,
entire resolve of his own will, not their merit :
for it was foretold by God to Abraham, long
before they had auy being, aud therefore
before they could merit any such doom by
their sin. But then it was to usher in those
stupendous miracles, by which God professed
to get hiraself a narae, and transrait a never-
dying awe and reuown of his power to all
posterity. He was (as I may so say) now
building himself a pyramid in the midst of
Egypt : and what if he was so long afflicting
his people, and took so great a compass of
time to prepare hiraself a narae, that was to
last to eternity !
Now what man is there, that can arm him
self with reason and subraission, who would
refuse to be raiserable, when his raisery is
matter of God's glory ? He is made by this a
kind of sharer with God ; for as long as God's
action shall be spoke of, he also shall be
mentioned as the subject of it. For in all
curious works, the matter upon which they
are wrought wears some of the glory of the
artificer ; and there is no admiriug the image,
but you must also see the wood, stone, or
metal upon which it is carved.
Besides, in the things that we are discours
ing of, it is not pain that is misery, but the
sting of sin that envenoms it ; for sin is not
only the sting of death, bnt also of every
affliction ; and take bnt away this sting, the
serpent may bite, bnt he cannot poison us.
It is rare to see the notions of the very heathen
abont this. Cicero, speaking of Regulus, who,
I think, suffered as rauch as mau could well
suffer, says, that in the midst of all those tor
ments, Regulus could not properly be called
miserable ; because he neither procured nor
bore them sinfully. Hence brutes are not
properly capable of misery, because not of sin.
The poor beast or fowl that is tom, hunted,
and slaughtered, is not miserable ; but he
that slaughters and devours him for his luxury
and his sin, he is properly and truly miser
able ; he has the misery, though the other has
the pain.
And there is as much difference between a
man's suffering for God's pleasure, and for his
own sin, as there is between burning upon
the altar, and burning in hell. So long there
fore as the cre.ature suffers barely from God's

will and for his glory, he is only made to quit
his own pleasure, to serve a greater and a
better ; and thia is not his misery but hii
privilege. 2. The other works that God raanifests are
the works of his grace. The word h signifies
not only in, but upon, or about. And I have
thought good to husband the sense so, as to :
take in both acceptations. In the former I |
shewed, that God took such strange courses, to i
glorify his miraculous works upon men. I
shall now shew, that he takes these ways
sometimes to glorify his gracious works within
them. We know the bowels of the earth are
rent and tom, before the riches of the earth
can be discovered.
Grace would lie dormant and concealed, did
not God sometiraes eraploy as strange a power
to discover, as he does to infuse it. How
could that excellent spirit and ruling wisdom, '
that Joseph was endued with, have shined
forth to the world, had he not been led through i
such a raaze and compass of troubles and dis- i
tracting afflictions by the special disposal of
Providence ? G«d's power might have war- j
ranted the whole proceeding ; for when he '
sold him to the Egyptians, he only sold what, \
upon the best terras of propriety in the world, !
was his own. When he put him into prison,
and the dungeon, we know, that even the
suprerae power amongst men raay, for some
causes, imprison those that are not guilty ; ¦
and who knows but this iraprisonraeUt of
Joseph was uot so much intended for a
punishraent as a preservative ; for a tempta
tion ma)' be repulsed once and again, and yet
rally aud return, and prevail at last.
But God, in all this, drove at a divine pur
pose. He had conferred great gifts, illustrious
faculties upon Joseph, and therefore was re- '
solved not to lose the glory of their discovery.
And was it not worthy his being hated of his
brethren, and being sold out of his country,
to give such a noble example of fidelity and
chastity, as to stand a monuraent of it in
holy writ, for the adrairation and imitation
of all following ages ? Was not the iron and
the dungeon tolerable, when it was a means
to shew forth that spirit to the world, which
made Joseph the possessor of it, next to
Pharaoh ; and declared the God of Joseph,
the giver of it, to be above him ? Tbe truth
is, neither those that sold, nor those to whom
they did sell him, but Joseph who was sold,
had the best bargain.
We have shewn, that it was uot for Job's
sin that God afflicted him ; but because he
was freely pleased to do so ; yet there was a
reason of this pleasure, which was, to discover
that grace of patience, given him by God, to
the astonishment of the world, and the con
futation of the Devil ; whom we fiud so impu
dent as to bear God down to his face, that he
had never a servant in the world who would

ON JOHN, ix. 2, 3.

239

suffer such things from him, without sinning
against him. And was it not worth the sit
ting upon a dunghill, and seeing his substance
scattered, his children struck dead, and hira
self mocked in his misery, to vindicate the
honour of that God, who gave him all these
things, from the Devil, the true common ene
my ? and to be recorded as a mirror of patience
to all posterity? and to convince the world
that there is something in virtue better than
possessions, truer than friends, and stronger
than Satan ? Though this dealing was not an
effect of God's vindictive justice, but of his
absolute power ; yet it equally served both
God's glory and Job's advantage.
For had it not been for this, he had lost
that experience of his own temper, and of tho
malice of the Devil, and the baseness of his
friends, and of the gooduess of God, and tho
uncertainty of the world ; he had lost also tbat
overplus of wealth that he had in the end ;
and lastly, if nothing else, he had lost the
pleasure of being freed from such sorrows.
Thus God suff'ered Moses to be unworthily
dealt with by his brethren, and oftentimes
afflicted by the unruly rebellious of the Is
raelites ; not to punish his sin, but to mani
fest his meekness, and consequently to glorify
the power that gave it. Por we raust know
th.at there are some graces which cannot be
exercised, at least not manifested, but in
calamities ; as we cannot see a man's patience
unless he is afflicted ; uor his meekness, un
less he is affronted.
No wonder, therefore, if every afflicting dis
pensation cannot be ascribed to sin ; for some
times it is so far from this, that it coraes from
the contrary. And I think I have made it
appear, that though sin only cau be the cause
of punishraent, yet even grace itself may bo
the occasion of an affliction.
The use and improvement of the doctrine
hitherto discussed, shall be a confutation and
reproof of the bold, uncharitable interpreters
of God's providences. A reproof cannot be
better bestowed than upon an unjust reprover,
nor charity more shewn, thau in a just repre
hension of those who have none.
What strange reports have we had in these
late tiraes about prodigies, in which indeed
nothing was so prodigious as the falseness of
the report ! What monstrous births has the
world lately seen, begot by discontent, brought
forth by raalice, and fostered by credulity !
What unreasonable, unchristian censures !
¦Such an one, for being of such a way, that is,
perhaps, for following his conscience and the
church, is fallen sick, another dead, another
struck suddenly ; iu most of which, the very
niatter of the report has been contrary. And
if people talk of judgments, I think it is a
great judgraent to be delivered over to report
lies, and yet a greater to believe thera.
But suppose things were really so, and that

the very curse of Egypt were corae upon us,
even so far as to have one struck dead in every
faraily ; yet who art thou, O raan, that durst
to pry into the secrecies of thy Maker's pro
ceedings? or conderan another's servant, who
stands or falls to his own master ? How dares
any man put his own sense upon God's ac
tions? which, though it may happen to be
true in itself, yet is certainly uncharitable in
him ; and that man will one day find it but
a poor gain, who hits upon truth, with the loss
of charity.
Let us rather apply this resolve of Christ, in
tiie words of the text, to all the rugged in
stances of Providence. Does God think fit to
banish and afflict a Joseph ? and yet it is not
for his own or his father's sin, but for his own
honour, and his father's sustenance, and to fit
him to rule, and to save a kingdora. Do we
see Providence send a blast upon our neigh
bour's estate, or a fire upon his house ? Per
haps that fire is not so rauch to consume the
house, as to try the raan ; to destroy the
possession, as to refine the owner.
God, peradventure, thinks fit to afflict a
Job, and to exalt a dunghill ; but what reason
have I to descant upon the action, when I am
ignorant of the purpose which directed it?
Let us leave God to hiraself. It is possible
that, though we judge never so right, God
raay not approve our judgments ; and it is
certain that he cannot need thera. Or shall
we confess God's ways to be " unsearchable,
and past finding out ;" and yet, at the same
time, attenipt to give a reason of them, and so
to the arrogance add a contradiction ?
" Cur bonis male, et raalis bene," was the
grand old difficulty that has exercised the
learned men and philosophers of all ages;
and if experience or reason could have decided
it, they had as great a share of both, as we
can pretend to. But now we, having the
superadded light of God's word, cannot excuse
ourselves, if we inherit their doubts, and seek
for any other reason of the dispensation be
sides the will ofthe dispenser.
But that I may reduce a general reason to
a particular instance, I would have those
seraphic masters of reason, who think thera
selves able to bring all God's providences even
under deraonstration, clear up and deraon
strate to rae this one passage of it, naraely.
Why the best of kings, and the most innocent,
virtuous, and truly religious, that we find in
history ever sat upon a throne, was yet rebel
led agaiust, imprisoned, mocked, tried, and
condemned, and at last cut off by Ins own
subjects before his own palace ; and his mur
derer who had violated all laws human and
divine, broke all oaths, oppressed the state,
torn in pieces the church, defied God and dis
turbed his neighbours, should reign in his
stead peaceably and successfully, and at length
die in his bed ; .and, for a conclusion of all, be

240

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Serm. XXVIL

magnificently interred. Let them, I say, give
a competent re.ason for all this, and if they
cannot, let them stand and adore, and not
pretend to iuterpret.
In the mean time, this peremptory \\ay of
judging, as it is highly odious to God upon
many accounts, so more peculiarly is it so for
the cursed cause of it, curiosity ; for it is this
which, above .all other qualities, makes men
presume to look into the ark, and therefore
will be sure to provoke God to strike. Curi
osity, in the true nature of it, is, and may bo
properly accounted, the incontinence of the
mind, and but oue remove frora the rebellion
of it ; as breaking through all the bounds God
: has set about the secrets of his counsel. So
I that, next to the disputing of God's revealed
. will, the greatest invasion, doubtless, that can
¦ be raade upon his royal prerogative, is to iii-
! trude into his secret.
To whora be rendered and ascribed, as is
most due, &c. Araen.

SERMON XXYII.

' But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest bo
feared." — Psalm cxx.x. 4.

After man had once sinned, and so was
for ever disabled to stand before God upon
terms of the law, which spoke nothing but
irrecoverable death to hira who transgressed in
the least iota, and so carried more thunder in
its curse, than it did in its proraulg.ation ; had
God continued this inexorable sentence, and
held man irreversibly under the doom which
he incurred ; since there is in every thing by
nature an indelible principle of self-preserva
tion, and consequently a love to all things
that advance its being and comply with its
happiness, and a hatred to whatsoever would
destroy it : such a remorseless behaviour iu
God, meeting with such a principle in man,
would of necessity have wrought in him these
two thiugs : —
1. Horror of despair.
2. Height of malice.
1. For the first of these, it would have re
duced him to horror of despair. When a man
sees au oranipotence agaiust him, and knows
that an unchangeable Grod has sworn his de
struction, nature must needs despond, all the
doors of hope, all the avenues of comfort,
being stopped ; so that his raisery adraits no
possibility of the least relief, no, uot so much
as of a reprieve.
The thoughts dwell, and as it were brood,
upon those sad representations of a punish
ment not to be borne, .and yet not to be
avoided. He knows the sin to be committed,

and tiiat therefore it ainnot be recalled ; he
also sees God implacable, and that therefore it
cannot be forgiven. Hereupon ho throws up
all, aud sinks under the burden.
He is like a man in the midst of the sea ;
which wav soever he looks, he sees nothing
but air and water before liiin, uo land upon
which to save or repose hiniself. And in this
case we have the verdict of God hiraself,
(Isa. Ivii. 16,) " That if he should always be
angry, if he should contend for ever, the
spirit would fail before him, and the souls
which he had made."
No-sv, in this condition of despair, man
would have been utterly unserviceable to
God, as being wholly incapable of those mo
tives by which the creature is drawn to his
service. For every man is brought to duty, either by
the engagement of some reward, some good
that is to follow his performance ; hut this
has no influence upon him, who believes that
his condition shall never be better; or he
must be moved to duty by the fear of some
evil, that will pursue the omission of it ; but
neither can this work any thing upon him
who knows his condition am never bo woi-se.
Hereupon ho is utterly careless, obstinately
regardless of his happiness or salvation ; in
asmuch as no man oither does or can seriously
intend or endeavour what ho .apprehends au
impossibility. 2. Together with this horror of despair suc-
eeeds .also height of malice. God indeed is
infinitely amiable in himself, made up of a
confluence of the most endearing perfections ;
there is nothing in him but what is the object
of love and tho allurement of desire.
But inasmuch as we cannot view him hero
by an iraraediate inspection of his nature, but
as he reaches us by his works and effects ;
which as they cither gratify or afflict us, do
.accordingly move in us suitable affections : it
is impossible for any man to apprehend God
his irreconcileable enemy, and at the same
time not to hate hira. Whatsoever is destruc
tive is also odious. What raakes the devils
prosecute God with a direct hatred, but that
they apprehend their destruction remediless?
And put raan in the sarae condition with
thera, and his malice will be the sarao with
theirs. For this is not an affection that depends
upon the freedom of nian's will, but it streams
from him by a necessary egress of nature ; it
is as unconquerable as antipathy. When a
man sees a thing evil and hurtful to his being,
he hates it not by choice, but by the con
straint of his first inclinations. As it is im
possible for !i man not to disbelieve what he
knows to bo false, so it is equ<ally impossible
for hini not to hate and abhor what he appre
hends to be hurtful. " Thou shalt love thy
friend, and hato thy enemy," is a principio

ON PSALM cxxx. 4.

241

writ aud engraven in every heart by the finger
of nature. And God, as a Creator, has put
that into the heart of man which will force
him to hate God himself as an enemy.
Clothe God with vengeance, arm him with
terror, and represent him inplacable, and at
the same tirae shut all the passages of escape,
by which a guilty person may run frora hira,
and secure liimself ; and you shall see, that,
with the forced fortitude of despair, he -will
defy hira, curse hira, and fly in his face, and
proportion his hatred, not to the finiteness of
his own nature, but enlarge it to the infinity
of God's, whom he hates. In Revel, xvi. 11,
we read of those who blasphemed God, be
cause of their pains and their sores.
That God is to be served, and virtue to be
loved for themselves, sequestered from all
consideration of advantage to the persons that
do so, is a maxim, I am afraid, more glorious
in the notion, thau true in the experiraent.
For it is the voice of human uature in all
man's actions, " Who will shew us any good ?"
And if a man finds himself ruined or tor
mented, he considers only the evil that he
feels, and not the hand from which it comes.
And he hates as heartily for the execution,
whether his father or the hangman be the
executioner. Now the case standing thus, that God
might not eternally lop off so great and so
worthy a part of the creation, nor for ever
bereave hiraself of the service of mankind, by
keeping them, like the devils, iu eternal de
fiance of himself, and under a necessity of
abusing an imraortal soul and an excellent
nature, to the dishonours of siu and the cer
tainty of damnation :
He was pleased to relax the rigours of jus
tice, and, after the terror of the sentence, to
issue out the promulgation of pardon ; not
ouly amiable iu itself, but raade so much
more, by the vicinity of destruction.
Thus the darkness not only gives place, but
also commendation to the day ; the horrors of
the night setting off the returns of the morn
ing : and despair itself quickens the relish and
heightens the fruition of an after-deliver.ance.
Here, therefore, in these words, we have
God assuming to himself the most endearing
description, arrayed with the robes of mercy,
and holding forth the golden sceptre of par
don ; the terrors of majesty being swallowed
up in the sweetness of mercy, and justice dis
appearing in the abyss of corapassion.
The words consist of these two parts :
I. A declaration of raercy in these words,
"There is forgiveness with thee."
II. The end of such a declaration, which is
fear and obedience: "There is forgiveness
with thee, that thou mayest be feared."
I. We shall begin with the former of these,
" God's forgiveness ;" which being here so
signally attributed to God, certainly must
VOL. II.

needs carry in it something very great and
notable. And the greatness of it we shall
display in the consideration of these three
things :
(1.) The principle from which it flows.
(2.) The sins that are the subject-matter
ofit. (3) The persons upon whora it shews and
lays out itself.
(1.) For the first of these, the cause and
principle frora which this forgiveness proceeds.
It is from God's tvlaxla,, from the free, spon
taneous motion of his good pleasure. 'Which
that we raay make out the more clearly, it
will require something a larger discussion.
We must here observe in the words of the
text that though some read it " condonatio, —
forgiveness," yet others read it " propitiatio,"
which signifies " atonement ;" and indeed the
Greek is ixaafio;, which siguifies properly
" propitiatio aut placatio." And so the word
imports both forgiveness itself, and the cause
of it ; which is an atonement through the
satisfaction of a mediator.
It has been much disputed, whether God
punishes sin freely, or by the necessity ofhis
uature ; so that he cannot, by a free act of
pardon, pass it over without satisfaction.
And here the question is not concerning
God as he lies under the present obligation
of bis own decree and word, by which he has
positively declared tbat he will not acquit the
guilty without satisfaction ; for this enga,ges
him to do so upon the score of his veracity.
But the question is, whether God, considered
barely in his nature, without any engage
ment from his own -word or decree, but
merely by virtue of his justice, be so forced
to punish sin, that, without the interposal of
a satisfaction, he cannot pardon it ; or whether
the exercise of his justice be so free, that, by
his absolute prerogative, he may pardon it
without any atonement.
There are arguments on both sides : but
the best of the school-divines, and tho greatest
masters of controversy, so assert God's justice,
as also to maintain his prerogative, by which
he raay at his pleasure either punish, or,
without sfitisfaction, pardon the sinner.
And for this, araongst many other reasons,
these may be given : . , ,
1. If it be free to God to remit the degrees
of punishment, then i*^ must be free for him
also to remit the whole punishment. But
the former all grant, and the consequence is
evident, because every degree is of the sarne
nature with the whole ; aud justice not only
exacts punishment, but exacts it also in the
very utmost degree : so that if God may dis
pense with one, he may by the same reason
dispense with the other. , , . , ^ . .
2 If God could shew the highest act ot
mercy to the sinner, before any satisfaction
was given him, then he might also pardon
Q

242

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Serm. XXVII.

sin without it. The consequence is clear,
because the highest act of mercy (if any thing)
is sufficient for the pardon of sin : and that
he could do the forraer is evident frora this,
that God first found out and provided a satis
faction for the sin of raan, than which there
could not be a higher instance of his love and
mercy. Nay, it is greater goodness, upon his
own free motion to provide the sinner with a
satisfaction, than to pardon his sins, that
satisfaction being made.
3. If God punished sin by a necessary
egress of his justice, then he must punish it
to the utmost that justice requires, and the
utmost that the sin deserves. But this is evi
dently false ; so every man, upon the com
mission of his sin, withoutanydelay or respite,
must immediately be damned. The reason
is, because sin deserves, that immediately, and
upon the very first moment after its commis
sion, execution be done upon the sinner.
4. Add to this, in the fourth place, that
our sins are debts ; but every creditor has
absolute and free power, without any pay
ment being made, to rerait the debt, and dis
charge the debtor.
Besides, God being absolute sovereign, has
power over his own law, to pardon any breach
or violation of it. Neither as a governor is he
bound to see the injury done to the commu
nity by the sin revenged by the punishment.
For though earthly governors are obliged to
this, yet God is not, because he is not, as they
are, only a trustee, but also the proprietor of
all things under his government ; so that
there is no right of community distinct from
his own. For, as both tho schoolraen and
civilians raost truly .affirm, "in Deo sunt jura
omnia." And then nature .asserts this freedom
to every one, that he may quit and recede
from his own right : for indeed he is sole and
.absolute lord and owner ofit.
And thus I have proved God's natural free
dora, either in punishing or forgiving sin ;
but yet, as to the economy of God's present
proceedings, we must know, that God, by his
own word and decree, having tied up his
liberty, he cannot now forgive sin without a
satisfaction. And therefore, according to the
various readings of the text, propitiatio must
go before condonatio; and there must be
atonement before there can he forgiveness.
But now there is a sect of men who peremp
torily deny, that Christ satisfied God's justice
for the sins of men : and, amongst other argu
ments, much insist upon this, that God is said
freely to h.ave forgave us our sins. And they
say, that a free forgiveness of sin, and a satis
faction for sin, are inconsistent, inasmuch as
one excludes the other : for no man can be
said freely to remit, or pardon a debt, v.'hen
the debtor, either by himself or his surety,
has made him full payment.
In answer to this, it must be confessed, that

the reconcileraent of these two is not so easy
as sorae raay imagine. But all that either is
or can be said in this matter amounts to this :
That the forgiveness of our sins is not totally
and in every respect a free pardon and remis
sion. But only in respect of those from whom
this satisfaction is not in their own persons
exacted ; now, inasrauch as they pay nothing
to God's justice for their discharge, it is a free
reraission to thera.
If it be replied, that it cannot be called a
free reraission, since, as to tho nature of a
payraent, it is all one, whether it be raade by
a man in his own person, or in the person of
his surety : to this I answer, that it is so,
when a man provides himself of a surety, and
by his own means procures the payment.
But here, since God freely of himself, aud by
his own contrivance, provides a surety for
man, all that is done or paid by that surety is
in respect of man a free remission. In short,
when the creditor provides hiraself of a pay
ment, without the least recourse or trouble to
the debtor ; it is as to the debtor a free abso
lution, at least equivalent to it.
And therefore, though God, in the pardon
of sin, would so fairly comport with all his
attributes, as to do it without injury or detri
ment to his justice ; yet even in the satisfac
tion of that, he shews forth the glory of his
other attribute, his mercy, in these two re
spects : —
First, in the relaxation of the law, which
required of every sinner a satisfaction in his
own person. It did not only denounce death
to sin, but it ran thus : " 'The soul that sin
neth shall die, and every man shall bear his
own sin." But then God, by the prerogative
of his mercy, was pleased to transfer the obli
gation, and to receive satisfaction from a
surety. This was the first great instance of
mercy. The second w.as, that as he w.as pleased to
be satisfied by a surety, so (as I have already
shewn) he hiraself found and provided this
surety. And certainly this was a glorious and un
speakable piece of raercy, a thing beseeming
an infinite goodness.
For put the case ; When raan had sinned,
and upon that siu stood obnoxious to the sen
tence of the law, and the fatal stroke of God's
vindictive justice ; had God stood forth, and
according to the first degree of mercy made
this agreement and capitulation with the
sinner ; and told hira, that notwithstanding
he had broke the law, affronted his justice,
and so becarae liable to death, the punish
ment that the law awards to all transgressors,
and that in their own persons : yet out ofhis
free goodness he would recede from the rigour
of that law, and accept of a satisfaction from
the hands of a surety. And therefore, if he
should provide such au one, he should be dis-

ON PSALM cxxx. 4.

•2^3

charged ; otherwise he must expect to lie
under the execution of that inexorable sen
tence. What would man have done in this case ?
Here was mercy indeed, but infinitely short
of his necessity. What should he do, whither
should he go for some to bail him, much more
to rescue and save him from the curse of the
law, and the severity of his judge?
As for any thing that he could do himself,
he could never be able to bribe or buy off an
infinite justice. " Should he come before God
with burnt-offerings, with thousands of rams,
or with ten thousands of rivers of oil ? Should
he give his first-born for his transgression, the
fruit of his body for the sin of his soul ?" Why
yet all this would be as short of satisfaction,
as it is of infinity.
He must therefore be forced to look abroad,
and iraplore aid from some others ; but from
men he could have none : for as it is iu
Psalm xlix. 7, " None of them cau by any
means redeera his brother, nor give to God a
ransom for him."
No creature had such an overplus of right
eousness, as to lay it out for another, lest, as
the wise virgins said to the foolish, in Matt.
xxv. 9, " they bave not enough for them
selves." For all that they have is required
ofthem ; and so being due from themselves,
they could not produce it to merit for another.
It would have passed the wisdom of men
and angels, to have found out a mediator
that might have paid the full debt to God's
justice. For could any created invention
have ascended up to heaven, and fetched the
ouly begotten Son of God out of his father's
bosom ?
Could a finite understanding have contrived,
much less brought about the incamation of a
Deity? clothed the Almighty with flesh and
blood ? and abased the King of kings to the
form of a servant ?
Could we ever have thought of such a
mediator, as raight be both man, to enable
him to suffer for us, and also God, to give au
infinite value to his sufferings ? as might have
a human nature to undergo God's wrath,
and also a divine, to keep him from sinking
under it. Such an one as might not only by
his passive obedience loose the bands of death,
and rescue us from hell, but also by his active
righteousuess entitle us to the joys of heaven.
Assuredly none but God, whose wisdom
was as iraraense as his mercy, could have
found out such a miraculous, stupendous
means of our redemption.
But now, since God has been pleased to
satisfy his injured justice, shall we therefore
upbraid and detract from the freedom of his
mercy ? Cannot he vindicate one attribute,
without eclipsing the glory of another ?
See how the whole Scripture almost sets
forth and commends to us God's mercy and

forgiveness, under this one endearing property
of its freedom. In Rora. iii. 24, we are said
to be " justified freely by his grace." Ephes.
i. 7, we are said to " have received forgiveness
of sins, according to the riches of his grace."
And in Matthew xviii. in the parable where
the servant is brought in unable to pay a
vast sura, in which he was indebted to his
lord, it is said in the 27th verse, that " his
lord, being raoved with raere corapassion,
loosed hira, and forgave hira the debt."
And iu Isaiah, Iv. 1, where the graces and
spiritual benefits which God confers upon his
saints are set forth by wine and milk, and
men are called upon to buy them, yet it is by
a strange and a new way of purchase ; " Come,
buy wine and milk without money and with
out price." Now if his very selling be so free,
what then must be his gift ?
And thus much for the first thing, in which
the greatness of God's raercy in the forgiveness
of sin shines forth ; that the principle of it is
his own free inclination ; that no irapulsive
cause from without engages aud induces him
to it by auy external impression. There can
be no other reason assigned why God is mer
ciful, but because he will be raerciful. His
mercy is like a fountain, which, though it
flows freely and continually, yet there is no
other cause of its flowing but its own fulness.
(2.) The second thing from which we are
to take an estimate of the greatness of this
forgiveness, is the sins that are reraitted.
Now the greatness of a pardon, as it relates
to the sins and offences that are forgiven by
it, is advanced according as they are heightened
by these two properties :
1. Number.
2. Greatness.
1. For the first of these, they so far partake
of this property of number, till they even
contradict it, aud becorae nuraberless. David,
who was none of the greatest sinners, yet
finds the account of his sin in Psalra xl. 12,
to amount " to more than the hairs of his
head ;" and certainly that is more thau the
head itself can number.
In Matthew, xviii. 22, we shall find our
Saviour stretching a human forgiveness to
an offence " seventy-seven times repeated.
And certainly then the pardons that issue
from an infinite raercy raust needs keep the
distance of a suitable proportion.
And truly, if we come to compute the
number and to audit the account of our sins,
from Gen. vi. 6, where "the thoughte of
man's heart" are avouched to be " evil, and
" only ovil, and that continually ;" the sum-
total must swell to such a vast, enormous
multitude, that none can number them but
the sarae infinite God that forgives them.
In Proverbs, xxiv. 16, " the justest man
living falls seven tiraes a-day," a sraall pro
portion compared to the licentiousness of

244

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Serm. XXVII.

some sinners, who lash forth into criminal
acts every moment. Yet to what a high
reckoning will even this small proportion
grow in the space of threescore years and ten,
the common period of man's life I
Yet -when God comes to forgive, he cancels
the entire bill, and by one act of grace dashes
the whole handwriting that is against us.
The soul of man is naturally restless, always
doing something, whether in the retirements
of thought and desire, or upon the open stage
of practice ; and where the heart is unsancti
fied, unrenewed by grace, (as in most men in
the world it is, for some considerable part of
their lives,) there, so long as the soul is doing,
it is doing evil ; and that natural activity of
the mind is as sinful as it is restless.
There is a tinder of concupiscence in all our
natures, apt to catch at every spark that is
struck from sinful objects. And we are sur
rounded with these, so that the constant
emissions of the one, falling upon the ready
receptions of the other, must needs make the
flame continual.
Now, where the faculty of sinning is rest
less, the opportunities to draw it forth per
petual, must not the sinful actions flowing
from that faculty needs be innumerable?
If there be a fire burning, and a bellows
always blowing, certainly the sparks flying
from it will be numberless.
We may be able to " number our days,"
but not the sins committed in those days.
This would baffle all our arithmetic, all our
ciphers, and arts of computation. And I am
afraid that we should stand at ,aii infinite,
eternal distance frora forgiveness, if God
should promise to forgive us our sins only
upou this condition, that we should first
reckon them.
But now, must not that forgiveness needs
be glorious, which rises not only to the remis
sion of tiijeiits, but of teu thousand talents?
that multiplies itself beyond wh.at is number
less ? that oven outdoes our thoughts and out
runs our desires?
We may well fail in our expressions of it.
But surely, when our sins are for number
like the sands of the sea or the stars of
heaven ; the raercy that forgives them must
needs be deeper than the one, and higher
than the other.
2. The second property of sins that heightens
their forgiveness is their greatness. 'We have
compared them to stars for number, and they
may equal them also for m.agiiitude.
Wo have them painted out to us in their
colours, (Itai.ah, i. 18,) with a "crimson
tincture" and " a scarlet dye ;" with a redness
and a blushing ; sin thus wearing the colour
of shame. Yet in the same verse -we have
"forgiveness," changing their hue to the
¦w'ldteness of snow and the innocence of wool.
There is not usually any thing more pro

voking, or so hardly pardoned, as tho con
tumely of words, and reviling Language ; and
yet we have the divine mercy enlarging itself,
even to a total remission of this in Matthew
xii. 31, "All manner of sin .and blasphemy
shall be forgiven unto men, except the blas
phemy against the Holy Ghost." Now, blas
pheray touches God in his honour, that is, in
the apple of his eye, in that of which he is
jealous, and in which he admits of no rival.
And when God will put up such blows at our
hands, such affronts, and such wounds inflicted
upon his good name ; it is a pardon peculiar
to a diviue nature, and which men may enjoy
indeed, but seldom imitate.
Again, in 1 Cor. vi. 9, we have a muster-
roll of as vile sinners as sin could make, or
hell receive : " Fornicators, idolaters, adul
terers, thieves, covetous, drunkards, extor
tioners." And yet the rear of all hrought up
with this in the llth verse, " And such were
sorae of you ; but ye are washed, but ye are
s.aiictified." And if so, you raay be sure that they aro
also pardoned ; for grace never purifies, but
where it also pardons. Sanctification and
justification are insepar.able.
Now, one would tliink that a railder punish
ment were a sufficient act of favour to such
notorious criminals ; aud that a mitigation
might pass for a pardon, where the siu seems
too great for a total absolution.
Yet, as if God seemed to take advantage
frora our baseness, aud by his providence per
mitted men to be such wretched sinners, that
they might be fit materials for an infinite
compassion, he passes over all, receives them
into favour, and by his pardon makes them
as free as those who never needed pardon ;
thus considering, not what was fit for them
to obtain, but what was glorious for himself
to do.
But now farther to deraonstrate the great
ness of the sins which God remits, we raust
take the dimensions of thom from the great
ness of their object, which is no less than an
infinite majesty, the Lord of the universe, the
glorious maker and governor of all things.
Aud every affront to a king greatens and en
larges, according to the condition of the person
that is offended ; a blow given to majesty, an
injury done to the throne, it is presently
stampt with u, new superscription : every
offence is treason, and every stubbornness
becoraes rebellion.
Take in also the aggravations of the sin,
that it was against the endearraents of a crea
ture, against him that gave the sinner a being,
brought him out of nothing, gave him life and
reason, a rational soul, and a free will ; yea,
to whom the sinner is beholden, even for this,
that he is able to sin against him.
But this is not all : it is also against tho
more obliging relation of a preserver ; against

ON PSALM, cx.\.\-. 4.

245

him, who continued and upheld that being,
that he might have took iu forfeit for the
breach of his law : against him that causes
his sun to shine and his rain to fall upon his
professed enemies ; that sows their fields with
plenty, and spreads their tables with abun
dance ; and returns them one increase for
auother, the increase of blessing for the in
crease of sin.
So that now every sin which is committed
by man, puts on the nature of that quality
which coraprehends iu it all other instances
of baseness, which is ingratitude. And if the
sin be so great, the forgiveness must needs be
proportionable. And thus rauch for the second thing, in
which is displayed to us the largeness of God's
pardoning mercy : namely, the number aud
greatness of the sins pardoned by it.
(3.) The third thing iu which it appears is,
the persons ou whom this pardon is conferred,
who are men ; that is, very worthless and
inconsiderable creatures, iu comparison of
those to whom the same pardon is denied.
Those excellent and glorious spirits the
angels, they fell without recovery : those
glistering sons of the morning, those more
lively representations of the divine nature,
they are set under a perpetual night, never
to rise and return again to their former lustre.
As it is ill the 6th verse of the Epistle of
Jude ; " They are reserved under everlasting
chains of darkness, to the judgraent of the
great day." And in Heb. ii. 16, " Christ took
not upon him the nature of angels, to be a
mediator for them ; but he took upou him the
seed of Abraham."
Now that God should pass over the glory of
the creation, and cast the skirt of his pardon
ing mercy upon poor vile creatures, that lay
wallowing in their blood, to the loathing of
their persons ; that he should prefer " dust
and ashes" before "principalities and powers ;"
aud choose " vessels of honour" out of the
lowest objects of contempt : this is an act of
forgiveness, mixed of mercy and prerogative,
and of which no reason can be assigned, but
the good pleasure of him who works all things
according to the counsel of his own will.
It is as if a man should pass over and trample
upon pearls, aud in the meantime stoop down
to take up pins : for the distance of the angeli
cal and the human uature is as great, aud
their perfections fall uuder the same dispro
portion. Certainly, God could not intend the ad
vancement of his service in this unequal pro
ceeding ; for correspondent to the creature's
abilities, such will be the measure of his
service. And could the narrow compass of
human wit and power do as much for God as
the activity and intellectuals of au angel, who
had none of these clogs of flesh and blood to
allay their fervours, and to slack their devo

tions, God would have beeu served without
lassitude or weariness : for as it is in Psalm
civ. 4, " he has made those ministering spirits
a flaming fire ; aud therefore they can be no
more weary of serving him, than a fire can be
weary with burning."
It reraains, therefore, that this difference of
God's dealing with men aud angels is entirely
frora the differences of his own purposes, by
which he was pleased to design raercy for one,
.and to deny it to the other ; and since he was
free to have denied it, it enhances the kiud-
uess of the gift.
Aud thus I h.ave done with the first gene
ral p.art of the text, namely, the declaration
of the divine forgiveness ; the greatness and
latitude of which we have laid open, from
those three several respects and considera
tions, by which all pardons are to be mea
sured. II. Pass we now, therefore, to the second
part of the words, the end and design of this
forgiveness, the fear of God : " there is for- !
giveness with thee, that thou mayest be [
feared." In which we are to do these two things : — ¦
1st, To shew what that fear is, which is I
here intended.
2dly, To shew what there is in this forgive- j
ness, by way of reason or argument, to enforce [
this fear.
For the first of these, we must distinguish
of a double fear.
1. Au anxious, distracting, amazing fear ;
in respect of which, Moses upon the sight of
God, in the terrible and fiery promulgation of
the law from mount Sinai, in Heb. xii. 21,
said, " I exceedingly fear and tremble." In
respect of this also, David saj's, iu Psalm
cxix. 120, " I .am afraid of thy judgments."
Such an oue also was it that possessed Christ
iu his agony, and in the time of his derelie-
tion, wheu he cried out upou the cross, (Matt.
xxvii. 46,) "My God, my God, why hast
thou forsaken me ?" In short, it is such a
kind of fear as possesses those who lie under
the tortures of a guilty, troubled conscience ;
such an one into wbich is infused all the
malignity of this afflicting passion. It is
the first-fruits of despair, and may, with
more significance, be called horror aud dis
traction. .
Now this cannot be the fear intended in
the words ; for the motive of this cannot be
forgiveness, but the divine wrath and anger.
Besides, the proper eff'ect of this fear is uot
duty, but despair ; not obedience, but aflright-
ment ; not an adherence to God, but a flight
aud a departure from him. But now we shall
presently shew, that the fear spoken of iu
the words, is to be a sovereign means of duty,
an argument of piety, and an instrument of
obedience. 2. There is a slavish and servile fear ; such

246

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Serm. XXVII.

an one as, (Rom. viii. 15,) is called the " spirit
of bondage ;" and in respect of which, John
says, (1 John, iv. 18,) that " he that fears is
not perfect :" and in the same verse, that
" love casts out fear." As, ou the contrary,
where this fear is predominant, it expels and
casts out love : for there is so direct a contra
riety between these two affections, that the
increase of one is always built upon the de
crease of the otber. And indeed fear, for the
most part, is the cause of hatred, bnt always
the concomitant.
Now this cannot be the fear that is meant
in the text ; for God hates that his service
should proceed from this principle. Fear
properly, both in a natural and a spiritual
sense, contracts the heart : but it must be an
" enlarged heart, that runs the ways of God's
commandments." Fear ties up the spirits,
checks the freedora, and dulls the motion of a
more active devotion.
3. And lastiy; therefore there is a filial,
reverential fear, such an one as is enlivened
with a principle of love, quickened and acted
with that contrary affection, that is in Romans,
viii. 15, styled "the spirit of adoption."
Now there is this difference between these
three sorts of fear ; that the first is properly
the fear of a malefactor, the secoud of a slave,
aud this last of a sou.
Which is that alone that is designed in
these words ; and indeed there is good reason
that God should require it, since he intends
to tum all his servants into sons. And is it
not equal to require a son's affection, where
he resolves to bestow a son's inheritance?
Besides, this affection is of all others the
most sedulous, diligent, and serviceable, and
therefore there is a more than ordinary signi
ficance in those words, (Mal. iii. 17,) where
God is said " to spare and pity those that fear
him, as a man spareth his son that serveth
him." There is a great deal of difference
between the service of a son, and of a slave or
hireling ; it i- done with raore accurateness,
raore concernment and activity.
And if we consider well the scope of the
words, we raust acknowledge that the word
fear is used here hy a metonymy of the cause
for the effect, and signifies rather that obedi
ence whieh is the effect and product of this
fear; God therefore manifestinghisforgiveness,
that he may gain the creature's service and
j obedience. For it is this only that God regards, this
! alone, by which the creature owns and con-
feises his homage and subjection to his Maker.
I All other pretences vanish into air and no-
ll thing, as being neither available to God's
i| glory nor man's salvation.
And thus I have shewn of what stamp,
what kind, that fear is, which is intended in
the words. It is such an one as is qualified
with a prevailing mixture of love; such an

oue as does uot shake, but settle tbe soul ;
not terrify, but compose the mind. And
lastly, it is such an one as does not cramp
and restrain our operative faculties ; bnt
shines in duty, and displays itself in perfor
mance. Having thus shewn what the fear is that
stands mentioned in the text ;
2dly, I come now to the second thing pro
posed, which is to shew, how God's forgive
ness may be an argument to enforce this fear.
And it does it in these two respects:
(1.) Because the neglect of the fear of God,
npon supposal that he has forgiven us our
sius, is highly disingenuous.
Forgiveness is an after-game of mercy ; a
i thing that the first rigours of the law neither
knew nor admitted. It stood upon the nar
row precipice of exact obedience or certain
damnation. It w.as all severity, without the
: least allay of mercy. It was a thunder with-
', out lightning. Mercy was a miracle that Moses
I never shewed ; and pardon, an absurdity in
the documents of mount Sinai.
I But man not being able to come up to the
I command, the gentle compliances of mercy
] were pleased to bring down the command to
us, and to allow tabulam post naufragiwn,
refientance and forgiveness to stand in the
breach, and to supply the impossibilities of
indefective obedience.
Bnt shall we now tum our table into a
snare, and offend because -we maybe forgiven,
and so make the sinner's asylum an argument
for the sin? Shall we kick at our father's
bowels, only because they can relent ?
This is irapiety heightened into inhuraanity,
such a behaviour as even good-nature would
detest between man and raan, in which we
treat our Redeemer below the endearments of
a friend. The sum of all must be this : Had not God
been merciful, he had not beeu dishonoured ;
and sin had not abounded, but by the anti-
peristasis of grace. Pardon is made a decoy
to the crime, and a possibility to be saved
trepans into a certainty of being damned.
(2.) The second reason is, because the
neglect of God's fear upon the account of his
forgiveness, besides the disingenuity of it, is
also most provoking and dangerous.
There is nothing that any person disgusts
with so keen and tender a resentment, as the
rejections of his love, and the abuse of his
favour. There is soraething in God's greatness,
majesty, and justice, that may indeed terrify
and command, but it cannot endear : but the
caresses of love and pardon should make a
closer insinuation, and attract the very heart;
whereas the other perhaps only tie the hands.
Justly therefore do^ God's jealousy bum
where his love is despised ; and one flame
kindle, to revenge the contempt of another.

ON PSALM, cxxx. 4.

247

Because God has shewn hiraself so much a
father, shall he therefore cease to be a master?
Shall his coudescensious to us take away our
honour to hira ?
Truly, he that sins against tbe first Mosaical
dispensation of an inflexible law, and he that
takes heart to offend because of the gracious
allowances of forgiveness aud restoration,
differ as rauch as he who sins against a
prince's justice, and he who sius agaiust his
acts of indemnity.
The economy of God's attributes is such,
that from sorae of them we may appeal to
others ; but there are some again, from which
there lies no appeal. As when the divine
power and justice threatens us, there is yet a
refuge in his mercy ; but he that is bankrupt
upon the score of mercy, has uo other relief
to rest upon. He has sinned against his last
remedy : he has poisoned himself with a
cordial* : he has sturabled at that stone upon
which he should have built. Wheu corapas
sion condemns us, who shall be our advocate?
Now from the words hitherto discussed, we
may raake these two deductions :
1. We raay learn hence the different nature
of Christ's spiritual kingdom, from all other
kingdoms in the world ; and that not ouly in
respect of the external administration of it,
that it is not bolstered out with pomp aud
shew, and other little assistances of grandeur
aud secular artifice ; but chiefly in respect of
that which is the main instrum'ent and hinge
of governraent aud subjection, the fear of the
subject. 'Where there is no fear, there can be no
government, that is certain. But how does
Christ work this ? Why, not by the rack,
the prison, or the sword of justice, but by
new, strange, and supernatural methods of
pardon and compassion. His goodness shall
bind our hands; and his very forgivenesses
shall make us fearful to offend.
But how incongruous an argument would
this be to an earthly potentate, " There is
forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be
feared?" Who ever was formidable for his
pardons? And who ever was great and
secure, that was not formidable ?
Such is the baseness of meu, that from im
punity they take occasion rather to insult
than to obey ; aud being forgiven, look upon
their prince's forgiveness rather as a spoil ex
torted from his fear, than as a favour issuing
frora his goodness.
Guilt is eternally suspicious; and suspicion,
even after a pardon, will be still standing
upon its guard, still in a posture of defence ;
neither will it ever think itself sufficiently
defended, till it has ruined and removed the
injured person, whom its own unworthiness
makes it fear. He that receives an injury
may pardon it ; but he that first does the
injury is irreconcileable.
il  ^.

But how coraes Christ then to state so sure
a subjection upon so different a ground? And
why do not men, when they have offended
him, for ever after hate him ; aud having
once presumed, for the future despair? Why,
it is because he is God, the great Creator of
the heart, and so at his pleasure can change
it : and by the secret energy of his Spirit,
conquer it in its strongest notions and incli
nations. This is the only way by which he
reconciles the sinner to himself. And so may
any earthly prince make his enemies become
his friends", when he can get the power of
changing man's nature, but hardly before.
2. We raay learn from hence, upon what
ground every man is to build the persuasion
of tho pardon of his sins. It is the temper of
raost persons, to be more busy about their
assurance than their obedience ; and to be
confident of their reward, while they should
be solicitous about their duty.
But now to discover whether such men's
confidence be sound and rational, or vain and
fallacious, I should recommend to them this
one criterion and mark of trial ; namely, to
reflect upon aud consider what effects this
persuasion of God's raercy works upon their
spirits. Do they find that it begets in thera a greater
tenderness to displease God, a greater caution
and circuraspection iu their behaviour? a
greater abhorrency of sin, and a more ardent
inclination to virtue ? Do they find that the
raore confident they are of God's mercy, the
raore fearful they are to offend the pure eyes
of his holiness ?
If so, they have great cause to conclude,
that these persuasions are not mere delusions,
but the attestation of God's Spirit to their
spirits, transcribing the decree of Heaven
upon their hearts in the great designs of their
salvation. But if men, from the persuasions of mercy,
grow impudent and bold in sin, presume
upon God's patience, and venture far upon
the stock of a supposed forgiveness, they must
know that they are under the power ot a
destructive infatuation.
Mercy was never intended to serve any
man in his vice, to sraooth him in his sm,
and by abused hopes of pardon, to strengthen
the hands of his corruption. And therefore
he that from God's mercy gathers no argu
ment f'or his fear, may conclude thus much,
that there is indeed forgiveness with God,
but no forgiveness for hira.

248

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS. Serm. XXVIIL

SEKMON XXVIII.
PREACHED AT ST MAEt's, OXFORD, SEPT. 12, 1658,
A PEW DAYS APTER CROMWELL'S DEATH, WHO DIED ON
THE THIRD INSTANT BEFORE.
"Yet the Lord has not given you an heart to perceive, nor eyes
to see, nor ears to hear, unto this day."— Deut. xxix. 4.
To complete the sense of the words, we must
have recourse to the two precedent verses ;
which being compared with the text, present
us with a description of such a brutish and
irrational temper, such au invincible hardness,
as is not to be found in any people mentioned
throughout the whole book of God, or any
history whatsoever. Israel, the peculiar in
heritance of God, the darlings of heaven ; yet
by their strange deportment under God's
dealings, may leave this report of themselves,
that they were the greatest enjoyers and the
greatest abusers of mercy that ever lived.
The whole story of the transactions betweeu
God and them is a continued miracle. On
God's side there is strange unheard of power
and goodness, ou theirs a prodigious unheard
of stupidity. Here we have rairacles of
strength and wisdora, there we have miracles
of disobedience. None ever possessed mercy
so much to the reproach of mercy as they did.
Miracles are the rarities and the reserves of
Heaven, kept to bear testiraony to the power
of God, and to convince men, when a con
templation of his works in the ordinary
course of nature will uot serve turn. Yet
God was pleased to make these common with
his people, that he might engage their hearts
to him beyond all plea of unbelief. He
delivered them by miracles, (Exod. xiv. 29.)
He led and guided them by miracles, (Exod.
xiii. 21.) He fed them by rairacles, (Exod.
xvi. 13, 17.) He clothed them by miracles,
(Deut. xxix. 5.) And, what was the greatest
aud the crowning miracle of all, he did not
consume thera in the midst of their frequent
rebellions. Yet they had hardness and un
belief enough to encounter all these dealings :
they still remained the same, a perverse,
obstinate people, whose neck (as the Spirit's
expression is) was an "iron sinew," and
their "brow brass." In short, the bare
report and fame of those miracles made many
proselytes and converts, the very sight where
of could not convert them. It will not be
amiss, to take a short survey of their strange,
unreasonable unbelief in some particular
passages of it. When God had delivered them
out of Egypt by an outstretched arm, by such
wonders as never were before, nor ever since ;
aud while the memory of these was yet fresh

upon their mind, eveu theu, upon the pursuit
of Pharaoh, they distrust and murmur, (Exod.
xiv. 11.) Hence David puts such a repeated
emphasis upon this, (Psalm cvi. 7,) "They
provoked hira at the Red Sea, even at the
Red Sea." As if the same power that could
deliver them from au enemy, when he actually
possessed thera, could uot rescue thera from
hira when he only pursued thera. After this
deliverauce they murmur for meat : " Can
God furnish a table in the wilderness?"
(Psalra Ixxviii. 19.) "Can God?" They
question uot only his will, but his power, of
which they had au immediate experience.
Well, God gives them meat, even the bread
of angels, aud then they murmur for flesh :
(Psalm Ixxviii. 20, "Can he provide flesh
also for his people?" Still they doubt of his
power ; they live upon it one day, and they
question it the next. An interchange of
raercies on God's part, and raurraurings on
theirs, was the continual custom aud manner
of their whole life. But the most horrid, and
almost incredible passiige of their unbelief,
was when, after all the -wonders, both in
Egypt and out of Egypt, when Moses had but
only turned his back — as if in Moses they
had lost their God, as if he had been the only
Deity they acknowledged, and all their wor
ship and religion had been directed to his per
son — iu his absence they address themselves
to Aaron, with this irapious, absurd argu
ment ; " Moses is gone, therefore make us
gods," (Exod. xxxii. 1.) I am confident, if
an intelligent infidel should read this history,
the miracles here mentioned would not seem
so iraprobable to him, as their carriage and
behaviour upon these miracles. From the
consideration of this, Moses raight here very
well proem the repetition of the covenant
with this upbraiding reprehension : " The
Lord hath not given you an heart to perceive,
nor eyes to see, nor ears to hear." Which
words are only an increpation of thera, not
any reflection upon God, as shall appear
afterwards. As for the explication of the words, I
suppose I need not tell you, that they cannot
be understood strictly according to the letter :
for if God had given thera no bodily eyes to
see, nor ears to hear, they had not had sin ;
but because they saw bodily, and were blind
spiritually, herein the siu of their obstinacy
did consist.
We have here several phrases, but they all
concentre iu the sarae signification. "A
heart to perceive, eyes to see, and ears to
hear." It is a pleonasm, a figure usual in
Scripture, by a multiplicity of expressions, to
signify sorae one notable thing : so that frora
this congeries of sirailar words, we may col
lect the exceeding stupidity and total igno
rance of the Jews, in apprehending the
divine dispensations.

ON DEUTERONOMY, xxix. 4.

249

Or, secondly, we may refer these several
expressions to those several means which God
suited to every apprehensive faculty of their
soul. He proposed an excellent law to their
understanding or their heart ; he declared
himself iu prodigious miracles visible to the
eye. He spoke to them in a wonderful man
ner from mouut Sinai, in thunders, and a voice
audible to the ear. He did (as I may so speak)
lay siege to every faculty, if through any one
of them he might force his convictions into
the soul. He proposed that which might win
the eyes and infoiin the ear, and that which
might strike the understanding through both;
but nothing could find entrance, where the
duors both of sense and reason were shut
through gross unbelief.
And thus we see the words have no diffi
culty in them. They will aff'ord us these ob
servations : —
1st Observ. That the heart may reraain
unaffected and unconvinced in the midst of
convincing means.
That this is so, scripture and experience
leave it beyond dispute. But the reason why
it is so, is this : because the clearness and
perspicuity of the object does not at all supply
or repair the defects of the faculty. The good
ness and excellency of the things proposed to
be understood and embraced, do not give auy
ability to a hard heart to apprehend or era-
brace them ; as the raost visible, conspicuous
thing contributes no power to a weak, indis
posed eye to discern it.
Now I term these raeans convincing,
(1.) Because they do actually convince
some, although they miscarry in others.
(2.) Because they have a fitness or aptitude
to convince all.
2d Observ. issuing from the words, is this, —
That such a frame of spirit, such a perceiv
ing heart, as enables the soul to apprehend
and improve the means of grace, is totally
and entirely the free gift of God : " Yet the
Lord hath not given you an heart to perceive."
It is a product of that mercy which has no
arguraent but itself.
I say, it is a free gift ; and that,
1. In respect of the motive, wbich is the
mere compassion of God : there is nothing in
man that could engage God to bestow grace
upon him. We are by nature wholly in a
state of sin and enmity against God ; and
how these qualifications should merit grace at
his hands, 1 know not, unless by an unheard
of, strange antiperistasis, the most hateful
object should excite an act of the greatest
love. 2. It is free, in respect of the persons upon
whom it is conferred. When God comes first
to work upon us, we are presented to him in
the lump, all equally odious, equally desirable.
And that God gives grace to one, and denies
it to another, it is uot from any precedent

difference in thera ; for it is only the gift and
grace of God which raakes thera to differ. But
as God's decree in choosing Jacob aud reject
ing Esau is most free, and without relation to
any good or evil done by them ; so the execu
tion of that decree in conferring grace upon
one, and withholding it from the other, is
equally free and irrespective.
Sd Observ. arising from the words, which
I intend more fully to prosecute, is this, —
That God's denial of such a disposition of
soul, such a perceiving heart, does certainly
infer the nnsuccessfulness of all the means of
grace. I say, it does infer it, not cause it, as I shall
deraonstrate by aud by.
In the handling of this, I shall shew, —
I. 'What is meant by God's giving to the
soul a perceiving heart.
II. Whence it is, that without this gift the
soul cannot make any saving improvement of
the raeans of grace.
III. I shall shew, that although, upon God's
denial of a perceiving heart, the soul does
inevitably remain unprofitable under the
means of grace, so as " not to hear nor per
ceive," yet this hardness or unprofitableness
cannot at all be ascribed to God as the author
of it- . „
IV. I shall shew, how God can rationally
reprehend a soul for not erabracing the means
of grace, when he denies it a heart, by which
alone it can be enabled so to do. The neces
sity of clearing this I take from the strain of
the words, which run in the nature of a repre
hension ; and this always supposes a fault as
the ground and foundation of it. But if God
denies a hearing ear and a perceiving heart, it
raay seera not to be the soul's fault, if it does
not hear nor perceive.
Having despatched these in their order, I
shall proceed to the uses that raay be drawu
from hence.
I. Concerning the first ; what is meant by
God's giving to the soul a perceiving he.art.
We have grace here set out by such acts as
are properiy acts of knowledge ; as understand
ing, seeing, hearing; not because, as sorae
imagine, grace is placed only in the under
standing, which, being informed with such a
principle, is able to govern, and practically to
determine the will, without the help of any
new principle infused into that ; for grace is
a habit equally placed in both these faculties :
but it is expressed by the acts of the under
standing, 1 Because the understanding has the pre
cedency and first stroke in holy actions, as
well as in others; it is the head and fountam
from whence they derive their gjjodness, the
leading faculty : and therefore the works of
all the rest raay, by way of erainence, be
ascribed to this, as the conquest of an army is
ascribed to the leader only, or general.

250

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Serm. XXVIII.

2. Because the means of grace are chiefly
and most frequently expressed by the word
of truth ; (1 Tim. i. 15,) " This is a faithful
(or a true) saying, that Christ came into the
world to save sinners." And (John, iii. 33,)
" He that believeth hath set to his seal that
God is true." And (John, xvii. 17,) "Thy
word is truth." Now, since the understanding
is that faculty whose proper office it is to
close iu with truth as such, the receiving or
embracing the means of grace, which are
called truth, is most properly set forth by the
acts of the understanding.
I shall now endeavour to shew, from
some places in Scripture, what is to be here
understood by " a perceiving heart" and
" a hearing ear." (John, vi. 45,) " Every one
that hath heard, and learned of the Father,
cometh unto rae." Such a hearing of God's
will as is attended with the learning of it,
such a learning of it as powerfully brings the
soul to God, is that alone which Christ esteems
effectual. (Johu, v. 25,) "The dead shall
hear the voice of the Son of God : and they
that hear shall live." Such a hearing as
enlivens a dead soul, as conveys into it a spiri
tual vigour, declaring itself in spiritual opera
tions ; this only, in God's account, is hearing.
Again, (Acts, ii. 37,) " When they heard this,
they were pricked in their heart, and said,
Men and brethren, what shall wo do ?" To
hear, so as to be thoroughly and deeply affec
ted with a sense of sin ; so as to be put upon
an immediate inquiry and endeavour for the
securing our eternal state : this is properly
" to hear and to perceive." To hear, so as in
practice to follow and prosecute the things
we hear ; this only is " hearing" in a scrip
ture sense. Thus Moses is said to have
hearkened to his father-in-law, because he
followed his counsel ; and Rehobo.am is said
not to have hearkened to his old counsellors,
because he never practised their advice. In
short, in Matthew xiii. we have an account of
the nature of hearing, which then ouly is true
and genuine, when it ends "in the bringing
forth of fruit." Wherefore so to hear God's
will, as spiritually to understand it ; so to un
derstand it, as to be really affected with it ; so
to entertain it in our affections, as to manifest
it ill our actions ; and so to act, as to continue
in a steady, fruitful perseverance, is that alone
that can justly be reputed hearing ; other
wise, upon a defect of these, it is all one to
the soul, as if it had not heard at all ; nay, in
some respects, much worse.
From hence, therefore, I collect,
1 . That to understand and receive the word,
according to the letter and notion, by a bare
assent to the truth of it, is not to have a
heart to perceive, nor an ear to hear : because
it is evident, both from scripture and ordinary
observation, that such a reception of the means
of grace is not always attended with these

spiritual effects : as for instance, the Jews
heard Christ, and admired hira, but after
wards they rejected his doctrine, and cmcified
his person. Who more versed in the law and
the oracles of God than the scribes and ph<a-
risees?. yet we may easily gather, frora the
whole course ofour Saviour's carriage towards
thera, that he looked upon thera as raen igno
rant of God. The papists indeed make saving
faith to be only au assent ofthe understanding
to gospel truths ; according to whose tenets a
man may believe like a saint, and practise
like a devil. In short, there is nothing more
common tiian to see men of rare knowledge
and raised speculations in the things of God,
yet not at .all to have any relish and savour of
them upon their hearts and affections. So that
their practices oftentimes bid defiance to their
knowledge ; for they never knew God, so as
to obey hira ; and therefore, in effect, never
knew hira at all. To hear the word of God,
and to hear God speaking in his word, are
things vastly different.
2. Therefore, iu the second place, to have
" a perceiving heart" and " a hearing ear," is
to have a spiritual light begot in the mind by
an immediate, overpowering vvork of the
Spirit, whereby alone the soul is enabled to
apprehend and discern the thiugs of God
spiritually, and to practise them effectually :
and without this, we may see and see, aud
never perceive, and hear again and again, and
never understand. Christ may discourse
with us, as he did with thoso two disciples
going to Emmaus, and in the mean time our
eyes may be so held, as not to discern him.
For, as the apostie says, " the natural mau
cannot apprehend these things, because they
are spiritually discerned." And the reason
of this is clear, even from nature ; because, in
order to apprehension, there must be a pecu
liar suitableness between the object and the
faculty. Things sensible must be appre
hended by sense ; things intelligible, by the
understanding and the reason : and so things
spiritual, by some spiritual principle that is
infused into the soul from above. And look,
as the inferior faculty cannot apprehend the
proper, formal objects of the superior, sense
cannot reach up to the things of reason ;
so neither can reason take in or perceive
those objects which properly belong to this
spiritual principle. Hence it is, that some
souls can discern that spiritual, secret, per
suading force in the word, tbat shall strongly
engage and almost constrain the affections
to embrace aud follow it : so that the
whole man is insensibly fashioned and mould
ed into it, while others, void of this spiritual,
discerning faculty, feel no such force and
power in it. Sorae also, from the help of
this, spy out that tme loveliness and beauty
iu the ways of God, as to enamour them
to a practice of them, and that even with

ON DEUTERONOMY, xxix. 4.

251

delight : while others, void of this power, do
indeed see and behold those ways, but see " no
beauty in them why they should desire them."
Hence two sit together, and hear the same
sermon ; one finds a hidden, spiritual virtue
in the word, by which he lives, and grows,
aud thrives : auother finds no such extr.aordi-
n.ary virtue in it ; but if it be rationally and
well composed, it pleases his reason, aud there
is an end. And this proceeds from the want
of a spiritual, perceiving heart. As for in
stance, whence is it that a mau is so affected
with music, that all the passions of his mind
and blood in his body is moved at the hear
ing of it, and the stupid brutes not at all
pleased? but because iu man there is a prin
ciple of reason concurring with his sense,
which discovers that sweetness and harmony
in those sounds, that bare sense is not able to
discern. Thus it is proportionably between
mere reason, and reason joined with a spiri
tual disceriimeut in respect of spiritual things.
And so I have endeavoured in some measure
to display the nature of " a perceiving heart
and a hearing ear." But the truth is, when
we have spoke the utraost concerning it that
we can, yet those only cau know what it is
who have it : as he only knows what it is to
see, who can see. As the groans, so also the
graces of the Spirit are unutterable. Grace is
known by its own evidence. It is the white
stone, shining to hira only that does possess
it ; for a raan is no more able to express
this work, so as to convey a full notion
of it to the mind of him that has it not,
than by words and discourse to convey au
idea of colours to him who was born blind,
or the proper relish of raeats to him who
has no taste :
II. Whence it is, that without this gift of
a perceiving heart, the soul cannot make any
improvement of the means of grace. It arises
from these two reasons :
1. From its exceeding impotence and in
ability to apprehend these things.
2. From its contrariety to thera.
1. It cannot close with the raeans, because
of its impotence to apprehend them. Reason
attended with the highest iraproveraeuts of
art and endowments of nature, is not able to
search into the things of God ; it raay indeed
dive into them so as to drown itself, but never
so as to fiud and apprehend thera. For if it
be so posed and nonplused, in pursuing the
knowledge of natural causes, that the greatest
philosophers, after all their search into these
things, are forced to sit down in confusion and
disagreeraent ; I say, if nature thus falter in
earthly things, how will it be able to reach
heavenly, betweeu which there is a greater
distance than between earth and heaven ? If
it be also so much to seek in the disquisition
of moral truths, that few can agree in stating
what is the greatest good, but one says virtue.

another pleasure ; I say, how then can it be
able to comprehend truth spiritual, which as
far surpasses the raost elevated raorality, con
sidered as such, as that transcends the gross
dictates of the raost swinish sensuality ? Every
spiritual truth, as spiritual, so far it is also
mysterious. Nature is weak, and feeble, and
blind, wben it comes to the mysteries of faith ;
it never appears so weak, .as when, by its own
strength, it atterapts tho understanding of
these. Nature prying into spirituals, is like
Pompey, a heathen, looking into the ark of
God ; seeing indeed, but not understanding.
There is a certain " secret of the Lord," locked
up frora the view of bare reason ; and it is
only "with thera that fear hira." See in
what a posture of weakness the Spirit presents
a natural understanding, (John, i. 6,) " The
light shineth in darkness, and the darkness
comprehendeth it not." Let the light shine
round about him who is blind, yet the dark
ness, which he carries about hira, hinders him
frora perceiving it. Sooner may a dark room
enlighten itself, without the irradiation of a
candle or the sun, than a natural understand
ing work out its own ignorance in matters
of faith. The Spirit says expressly, that a
man in this state " cannot know the things
of God," (1 Cor. ii. 14.) There is an irapo-
tence rising into au irapossibility. Again,
(2 Cor. iii. 5,) " We are not sufficient of our
selves to think any thing." A good thought
is the lowest strain of piety, but the first step
to grace ; yet we see it is higher than nature
can rise unto. How is a natural understand
ing towering, aud pleasiug itself in the orna
ments and riches of its own notions ! yet
represented by the Spirit as " poor, and
wretched, and blind, aud naked," (Rev. iii.
17.) Come to Nicodemus with a gospel-
mystery, raake it out to him by the most
obvious similitudes iu nature, yet how is that
great doctor void of " a heart to perceive,
and an ear to hear !" Instead of understand
ing and assenting to it, he will reply upon
you, " Hovv can these things be ?" They seera
to him absurd, irrational, impossible ; and
whosoever searches into the great things of
the gospel by the bare strength of reason, he
will find that, like Nicodemus, he comes t.i
Christ in the dark. Wherefore, if, in the
judgment of the Spirit of truth itself, the best
of huraan knowledge, when it ventures upon
the things of God, is uo more than weakuess,
insufficiency, and wretched blindness, theu
for ever let it sit down in its own darkness,
and deplore its impotence and inability, and
not wonder that it is unable savingly to per
ceive, hear, or see, the great depths of the
gospel. Those expressions usual amongst us,
" strength of parts," "force of reason," since
the ruins of a broken, crippled nature, are
solecisms in divinity, no where the language
of the scripture. It was Adam's doom to

252

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Serm. XXVIII.

return to the earth, and his soul fell to the
ground first. But now, that our not perceiv
ing nor discerning the things of God, proceeds
from the impotence of our own hearts, and
not from any obscurity or unfitness to be un
derstood in the things theraselves, is apparent,
and that from the foreraentioned Johu, i. 6,
where these things are called " a light, a shin
ing light," and therefore most easily to be
seen, if it was not for our own darkness. The
most refined and the sublimest beings are the
most intelligible. It is God's nature to dwell
in light, but it is our weakness that makes
that light inaccessible ; as the fruit that grows
upou the top br.anches, the highest boughs of
all, is the fairest and the sweetest, if we could
but reach it.
The great disproportion between our intel
lect and these things, is the cause that we
cannot apprehend thera. Every such truth
has a brightness to dim, and a largeness to
exceed the understanding ; as the sun is both
too bright and too great for the eye. What
master of reason or subtlety is .able to unriddle
the mysteries of the gospel? to track the mys
terious workings of the Spirit in conviction
and conversion ? Sooner may wo spy out the
raotions of the wind, frora whence it coraes
and whither it goes ; and view the first con
ception, and observe the growth of an infant
in the womb, which the Spirit mentions as a
thing irapossible ; than to coraprehend these
wonders : things fitter to amaze, than to in
form a natural understanding.
2. The second reason why the soul can
not make .any saving iraproveraent of the
means of gr.ace, without this special gift of a
perceiving heart, is because of its contrariety
to these things. And there are two things iu
the soul, in which this contrariety chiefly
consists :
(1.) Carnal corruptions.
(2.) Carnal wisdora.
(1.) Concerning the contrariety that arises
from carnal corruption, it is expressed in tho
scripture by the greatest that can be, namely,
that contrariety which is between enemies ;
yea, and such an one as breaks out into an
ojieii war : " 1 have a law in my members,
warring against the law of my mind, and
leading nie captive into the law of sin,"
(Rom. vii. 23.) Paul speaks this iu his own
person. Now if concupiscence is so strong as
to captivate him at some turns, -who was truly
changed and sanctified, how then will it reign
and rage, by a strong opposition of the things
of God, in such a person as is yet unchanged
and unsanctified ? Concupiscence domineers
in most men, and it is lively in the best. As
for the seat of it, it is placed in the sensitive
part of man, and therefore, according to the
regular tenor and state of nature, was made
to serve, and to bo subject to reason : but we
know that since sin entered into the world, it

has got the dominion over it ; and hence, a
from a ruler, we road of its laws, " the law of
the merabers." Now there is no such tyrant
as a servant, when he steps into dorainion.
Hereupon the sensitive appetite, with so
much fury, commands tho whole man to ful
fil its lust ; it outfaces and traraples upon all
the commands of reason to the contrary.
Whence we argue for the truth in hand thus:
If concupiscence so much opposes the dictates
of huraan reason, which are much inferior in
purity aud strictness to the spiritual injunc
tions of the gospel, then with how much
stronger a prejudice must it resist these? For
if the yoke that reason puts upon siu be
heavy, that which tho gospel puts upon it is
much heavier. If reason prohibits tho actions
of concuipscence, upon the score of incon
venience, the gospel does it upon paiu of
eternal damnation. As for the works of car
nal concupiscence, the apostle gives us a
catalogue of thein in Galat. v. 19, 20,- "The
works of the flesh are envyings, strife, and
emulation ; uncleanness, drunkenness, aud
the like." Now lot us m.ake a particular
accomraodation of gospel precepts to each of
these, and see what an entertainraent they
aro like to find, in a heart that is held in
captivity under such lusts. Christ in the
gospel says, " Learn of me ; for I am meek
and lowly in heart," (Matt. xi. 29.) " Bless
them that curse you, do good to thera that
hate you," (Matt. v. 44.) Can we now ima
gine that this can suit the huraour of a wrath
ful, contentious person, who is so far from
blessing those who curse him, that ho is ofton
re.ady to curse those who bless and befriend
him? Ag.ain, Christ says, "How can ye
believe, which receive honour one of an
other?" (John, V. 44.) And, " Whosoever
will be groat among you, let him bo your
servant," (Matt. xx. 26.) Is it possible for
an envious, emulous man, in his heart to ap
prove, or in his practice to follow this|)rccept
of humility ? Could he by a voluntary con
descension stoop to be a servant, whose con
tinual desire and restless endeavour it is, to
be great in the world ? Again, Christ enjoins
" watching and jiraying" to such as are his
disciples, (Matt. xxvi. 41.) For it is clear tiiat
this command is general, though delivered to
particular persons, because the reason of it
was general, " that ye enter uot into tempta
tion," which equally concerns all. But can
the unclean, sensual epicure brook the excel
lency of this precept? cau he like the rigour
of these duties? will he break his sleep, or
spend any portion of the night in reading
and wrestling with God iu prayer, whenever
w.atches but to serve his cups and his intem
perance ? Every such precept proposed to
concupiscence is a pearl cast before a swine :
it can find no admission with such a man as
is led and ruled by his corruption. It is abovo

ON DEUTERONOMY, xxix. 4.

253

his principles, and so he cannot apprehend it.
It is contrary to his appetite, and so he cannot
receive it.
(2.) The second thing from whence this
contrariety arises is carnal wisdom, which
carries in it a greater opposition to the means
of grace than the former ; inasmuch as there
is more hope of the conversion of a sensualist,
than of a resolved atheist. For since the
notions of camal wisdom are more refined,
and always seem to wear the face of reason,
which has more to say for itself than concu
piscence has or can have ; hence it is, that
one thus principled is raore hardly convinced
than auother. In this chiefly are reared those
strong holds and principalities which stand
out against the workings of the Spirit : " The
camal raind is enraity against God, for it is
not subject to the law of God, neither indeed
can be," (Rom. viii. 7.) The subtlety of the
world loathes the simplicity of the gospel :
hence, in the nuraber of those who are to be
saved, we have " not mauy wise, not many
great, not raany noble," (1 Cor. i. 26.) And
for the most part these are the men who are
so rauch acted by this carnal wisdom. Such
men are usually too wise aud politic to be
saved. " The cross of Christ is to the Greek,"
to the learned Athenian, " foolishness," (1
Cor. i. 23.) He caunot find any convincing
reason, why a man sbould prefer duty before
interest ; despise the splendour of worldly
I enjoyments, to assume a cross. Policy, the
great idol of a carnal reason, is that which
I insensibly works the soul to a despisal of
I religion. We have an exact account of tbat
temper of mind, that indifference in things
spiritual, that it usually begets in the rainds
of its worldly-wise followers, in Acts, xviii.
When a controversy about religion was
brought before G.allio, a Roman deputy, it is
said in the 17th verse, " But G.allio cared for
none of these things." Now that in which
carnal wisdom and religion stand at an eternal
distance is this, that the design of religion is
continually to urge a denial of self; but all
the maxims of carnal wisdom tend to and
terminate in the advancement of self. It is
this alone that is more amiable thau either
the practice or the rewards of holiness. Purity
must here give place to profit : love of present
possessions outweighs the hope of future feli
city. From this principle also proceed those
hideous raaxiras, — that religion is only a poli
tic invention, a lackey to government ; that
the appearance of it is advantageous, but the
substance hurts. Hence are these expres
sions of a known author in his heathenish
politics, — that good raen, advanced to govern
ment, raust of necessity defend themselves,
and those they govern, by deceit and violence ;
that a Christian, living under a heathen
magistrate, may deny Christ in word, so he
does acknowledge hira in his heart ; the nature

of faith being internal, and lodged in the
mind, and uot at all depending on outward
professions. These pestilent sayings, issuing
from the fountain of carnal wisdom, suffi
ciently shew what a cursed abhorrence it has
to a submission to spiritual gospel truths.
Now this principle is more or less in all men ;
every raan is naturally wise to catch hold of
auy present enjoyraent, rather thau venture
his' happiness upon expectation. There is
none that will forsake father or mother, the
least piece of the world, the raost inconsider
able profit or pleasure, that he raay secure an
interest iu Christ, and in the great things of
the gospel, if he should be ruled by the guid
ance of his carnal wisdora. Frora hence it is
clear, that there is such a fixed antipathy in
nature against the spirituality of the ways of
God, that unless it be wrought out by the
Spirit's giving us " a new heart to perceive,
and eyes to see," there is no possibility of
ever reconciling these together.
III. I proceed to the third thing, which is
to shew, that although, upon God's denial of
" a perceiving heart," the soul does inevitably
remain unprofitable under the means of grace,
so as "not to hear nor perceive;" yet this
hardness, or unprofitableness, cannot at all be
ascribed to God as the author of it. In order
to the clearing of this, we must know, that
God's not giving " a heart to perceive" may
admit of a double acceptation.
(1.) As it implies only a bare denial of grace.
(2.) As it does also include a positive act of
induration. (1.) Now as for the first, God cannot be
said to cause our rejection of the means of
grace that ensues upon the denial of " a per
ceiving heart ;" because this denial is not the
cause of that rejection, but the iraraediate
sinfulness of the heart that resists grace. This
rejection, this " not hearing," follows indeed
upou the denial of grace, certainly, and of
necessity ; but tiien it follows only by way of
certain consequence, and not of casual influ
ence. As when a thing is falling, if nobody
reaches forth, and stands to catch it, and stop
the motion, it must of necessity fall to the
ground ; vet the not reaching out of tbe hand,
is not the cause of its falling ; it adds no im
pulse to it, but the inherent gravity of the
thing is the only cause of the motion, which,
if not hindered, will certainly carry it so far.
In short, God's denial of grace gives the same
necessity to our " not hearing, not perceiving"
the word of God, that the divine prescience,
or foreknowledge, gives to free actions ; that
is, a necessity in respect of the event and
future existence of the action, not in respect
of the power producing it. That is, there is
a certain connection between God's denial of
" a heart to perceive," and our " not perceiv
ing :" if he gives us not such a heart, the
event and issue will certainly be, that we shall

254

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS. Serm. XXVIII.

uot perceive uor understand. But in the
meantime, it puts no necessity upon the
power, it does not by any physical influence
determine that to a necessary suspension of
the acts of perceiving and understanding.
Wherefore, since the denial of grace does only
infer, not cause the soul's unprofitableness ;
God, who is the cause of this denial, is not
also the cause of this unprofitableness.
(2.) And herein the chief difficulty does
consist, how God can by a positive act harden
the heart, and yet not be the cause of those
sins that issue from that hardness. I shall
here premise that for a truth, that a learned
divine, in his treatise of predestination and
the grace of God, lays down as a previous
consideration to that work ; That God is just,
eveu when we are not able to comprehend
the manner how he is just. His infinite justice
is not to be measured by the standard of those
frail shallow notions, which men have of
justice ; but it transcends them as far as bis
nature transcends ours. But to the matter in
hand, we must here first note, that the " not
hearing, not perceiving," mentioned in the
text, are not bare sins of omission, and a mere
privation of these acts ; but they are rather
positive sins, implying an active resistance, a
disapprobation, and a rejection of the means
of grace. Now we are to jshew, how the
righteous God can actively harden the heart
to a producing of such actions. Certain it i.s,
that he does not infuse or beget auy evil dis
position in the heart, which may incline or
deterraine it to such actions. 'We may ob
serve, therefore, that there are throe ways,
whereby God may be said to harden the heart
to sin.
First, God affords a general influence or
concurrence to those persuasions or sugges
tions, whereby Satan or sinful men may en
deavour to bring others to sin, so far as those
persuasions or suggestions are natural acts ;
there being no positive thing, in the produc
tion of which the first cause has not a share.
Secondly, God in his providential rule of
all things disposes and offers such objects and
occasions, which, though good in themselves,
yet, concurring with a corrupt heart, have a
fitness to educe that corruption into act. As
his putting D.avid into such a condition of
misery, and by his providence causing him to
pass that way where he should meet with
Shimei. His low condition was a fit occasion
to cause Shimei to vent his inveterate hatred
in curses and railings. So by his providence
disposing the children of Israel under such
straits, where sometiraes their enemies pur
sued them, and sometimes they wanted food ;
these calamities gave occasion to their infide
lity to exert itself in murmurings and disre
garding the testiraony of God's rairacles ; so
as " not to hear, nor see, uor perceive" what
God spoke in them.

Obj. But it may be objected here, if God
propose such objects to men, as are fit to pro
voke and actuate their corruption, then God
persuades to sin, and so is the moral cause of
sin ; since he that persuades only acts per
modum objecti, hy proposing such objects to
the mind, as are apt to entice and gain upon
it. Ans. To this I answer, that God cannot be
said to persuade to sin ; because though he
proposes such objects, yet he does not withal
interpose his authority, so as to desire or
comraand the soul, which carries a greater
weight and moment with it to induce to sin,
than the provocation of any sinful object
whatsoever. In short, for one to work in the
nature of a moral cause, there is not only re
quired a presenting of a suitable object that
may affect a raan's mind : but there is required
also that he who persuades, should so far own
that object, as to desire or comraand bim to
coraply with it, wherein the chief nature of
persuasion consists ; and it is far frora tho
righteous God to do thus.
Thirdly, God hardens to sin by affording
his influence and concurrence to those actions
and motions, that such objects and occasions
stir up in the soul, so far forth as they are
positive and natural. And these ways con
curring, God is said to harden the heart, not
by creating any sinful dispositions in the
heart, nor yet by affording a special influence
to any sinful action as such ; but by disposing
of objects, and affording a general influence to
the material part of the action, which is the
subject-matter of that obliquity. It is not to
be hoped, that these things cau be so explained
as to take off all cavils ; but this may suffice
to those who desire to be wise to sobriety, and
had rather embrace than dispute the truth.
IV. The fourth thing is, to shew how God
can justly reprehend men for not hearing nor
perceiving, when, upon his denial of a heart,
there is a necessity lying upon them to do
neither. Now there can be no just reprehen
sion, but for sin ; .and nothing can be sin, but
that which is voluntary and free : and how
can that be free for a m.an to do or uot to do,
which from necessity he cannot do?
For the clearing of this, I have already
shewn, that God's denial of a heart is uot
the cause of the necessity of the soul's not
perceiving, but its own native hardness. But
here then the question will be, how it can be
blamed for this hardness which is not volun
tary, but lies upon it by a necessity of sinful
nature? Some here restrain that maxim,
" whatsoever is sinful is also voluntary," only
to sinful actions ; but it may be also true of
sinful habits, which, though congenite with
our natures, may be yet said to be free and
voluntary. For a thing is said to be free,
either formally, as an action produced by the
free will ; or by interpretation, as that which

ON DEUTERONOMY, xxix. 4.

255

is consequent upon such an action. Now
this general and native hardness upon all
men's hearts is the inimediate product of the
siu of Adam, which was most free and volun
tary ; and every mau is as really guilty of
this siu, as he was really represented in
Adara. So that although at present he be
naturally under a necessity of rejecting the
means, yet this necessitj' is in effect voluntary,
and therefore sin, inasmuch as it follows upon
that which was properly so. If Jephthah by
a rash vow bring himself under a necessity of
one of these two sins, either to break his vow
or kill his daughter ; yet, inasmuch as he
himself procured this necessity by his own
voluntary vow, it is virtually, and by con
sequence, no less voluntary. He that freely
brings upon himself a disability of erabracing
the means of grace, is liable to that repre
hension and punishment which is due to a
voluntary rejection of them. And thus
much concerning the fourth thing.
Application. — Use I. This doctrine speaks
refutation to that opinion, that states a suf
ficiency of grace in the bare proposal of things
to be believed and practised, without a new,
powerful work of the Spirit upon the heart,
that may determine and enable it to believe
and accept of these things. The assertors of
this opinion hold, that the mind of God
clearly revealed, and urged with due persua
sions, is a suitable object to a rational under
standing, which has power enough to close
with every object agreeable to it. If this were
true, why does the Spirit here give this as a
reason of their " not hearing nor perceiving,"
because God has denied thera " a heart to
perceive, and an ear to hear." Certain it is,
that the Israelites had the same abilities of a
natural understanding and a will that others
had ; and if this had been able to do the
business, they could not have been said to
have wanted " a heart to perceive." How
hardly is proud nature convinced of its own
weakness ! Assuredly, if those Scriptures,
that so frequently inculcate the total blind
ness and darkness of a natural understanding,
and the irapotence of the will in things
spiritual, be true, then this opinion must be
false. Whatsoever in these things is attributed
to mere nature, so much is derogated 'from
God. Those who espouse the defence of
nature in this particular, present their opi
nions, as to the manner of expression, vari
ously ; but the thing they drive at is still
the same.
(1.) Some say, that nature of itself indeed
is not able to apprehend or close in with
these things ; but there is a universal grace,
that does generally repair aud make up the
breaches of nature, and enlightens every man
that coraes into the world, as thej' misapply
that scripture. So that as Adam's sin brought
upon his posterity a total disability to appre

hend the thiugs of God, so Christ's death,
which was of an equal latitude, purchased
that general assistance of the Spirit that
should take off that utter disability, and
recruit nature so as again to put it in a capa
city of apprehending the things of God when
discovered to it ; of which things also there
is a general discovery made in the sun, raoon,
and stars, preaching the gospel. But this
opinion also directly contradicts the text : for
if there was such a universal ability in men
to conceive aright of things spiritual, why
does the Spirit here say, that God had not
yet given these meu " a heart to perceive ?"
Therefore there was either no such universal
grace bestowed upou all men, or the children
of Israel were exempt from this general cor
poration of mankind. But that such men,
when they use the word grace, intend not the
thing, is clear, as from all their writings, so
more particularly frora a late author, who, in
this case, expresses his raind to this effect :
that when he says, reason is able to corapre
hend and comply with the things of God,
reason is not to be understood as abstracted
and separate frora the concurrence of God, but
as seconded aud assisted by it : as the sun is
said to know the time of its risiug and going
down ; not that the sun abstracted from God's
concurrence cau do this, but as directed by it.
Aud he adds, that as this assistance never fails
to direct the sun in his course, unless by a
miracle, so neither does God ever fail to
vouchsafe that assistance to reason, whereby
itraaybe enabled toapprehend things spiritual.
From hence it is clear, that the word grace is
here used to express nature, as Pelagius used
j it, "ad frangendam invidiam;" th.at an
opinion equally venoraous might appear the
less odious. For according to this assertion,
it is no raore supernatural for a soul to believe,
I than for the sun to rise and set in his ap-
j pointed tirae.
j (2.) There are others who say, indeed, that
I it is not in the power of man's will to believe;
but they explain their meaning thus, that it
is uot iu man's power to believe when he
will ; that is, a man engaged and hardened in
a way of sin, cannot imraediately in that con
dition advance into such a spiritual act as
believing, till he has gradually disposed him
self to it. So that they hold, that a man, in
the raost sinful condition, raay dispose hira
self to be better, and frora thence arise to be
yet better ; and so lay such a series or tram
of good dispositions, that shall at length end
in belief. And I think it is apparent to any
ordinary reason, that, to assert this, is to strike
in with the known eneraies of God's grace,
who, by pretending to enlarge it, do indeed
really subvert it.
But now, beside the conviction that these
men might meet with in the clear current of
the scriptures, certainly their ov/n experience

266

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Serm. XXIX.

may convince them, that a perceiving heart
is a new and special gift of God : for although
at present they may find it in their power to
believe, yet if they reflect upon the former
part of their life, they will find a tirae wheu
they lay bound hand and foot ; wheu they
were no more able to get their heart thoroughly
affected with the sense and hatred of sin, nor
to believe and fasten their reliance upon
Christ in the promises, than for a dead
man to rise from the grave. And if they
never found that it was thus with them, I
believe there are few who understand these
things, that for all the world vvould venture
the eternal concernment of thoir souls upon
such a faith. But if their own experience
will afford them uo light, let thera view the
condition of some of God's saints, who, when
they have been in a state of grace, and tho
seed of faith has remained within thera, yet,
when God has hid his face, and suspended the
fresh influence of his Spirit, they h.ave beeu
uo more able to act, nor exercise that grace,
nor excite their faith, when tho promise has
lain before them, than to remove raountains.
Now, hence we raay argue thus : If holy raen,
endued with the principle and seed of faith,
without a new gift frora the Spirit, have lain
as it were dead, uot able to act suitably to
that principio ; how theu will those, that are
iu a state of nature, and void of this principle,
be able "to hear or perceive" the mind of
God in the gospel ?
Use 2. is of e.xhortation ; that iu theenjoy-
nieiit of the means of grace, we should not
terminate in the raeans, but look up to God,
who alone is able to give a heart to improve
them. This should make us not only pr.ay,
but also hear, with our eyes lift up to heaven.
The greatest persuasions, the most molting
and affectionate expressions, that can drop
from man, cannot give a heart ; every such
gift is a little creation. But certainly, when
we have got our hearts wrought upon and
heated by the external preaching of the word,
then we should be chiefly importunate with
God to preach tho same word over internally,
that then he would strike the stroke, then he
would make such an impression as should
abide. For without this, after tho most
powerful preaching of the word, nature will
return to itself. Happy those, who do not
only hear the report of the gospel, but " to
whom also the arm of the Lord is revealed."
When we have heard the word, read tho
scriptures, and enjoyed the richest means of
salvation, yet, in order to our believing, we
should as much depend upon God, as if we
enjoyed none of these at all. Still addressing
ourselves uuto him, as Jehoshaphat did upon
auother occasion ; " Lord, as for us, wo know
uot what to do, but our eyes are upon thee."

SERMON XXIX.
PREACHED AT WORCESTER HOUSE, MAY 29.
*' But when the Comforter is cnme, whom I will send unto yoi
from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth
from the Father, he sliull testify of me." — John, xv. 20.
These words contain in them two general
parts :
I. The promise of sending the Spirit.
II. The end of his being sent ; which was
to testify of Christ.
In the words containing tho former of thoso,
we have a full description of the Spirit ; and
th.at, 1. In respect of his person.
2. Of his office or eraployment.
The account of his person we have in this,
that he is said to proceed " from the Father."
And his employment, iu these two things :
(1.) That ho is tho Comforter.
(2.) That ho is the Spirit of truth.
Of all these in their order.
1. And first, conceruing his procession from
the Father. Thero has been a long .and a
great controversy between tho Latin and the
Greek church conceruing this : whether the
Holy Ghost proceeds equally from the Father
and from tho Son ; which tho Latins, aud all
tho other western churches hold : or whether
he proceeds from the Father only by the Son,
which alone the Greeks admit ; and for this
cause stand utterly unchurched by the church
of Rome, as erring in a prime and fundaraental
point of faith.
But hero I cannot but thiuk, that in articles
relating to such things, of which the reason
of man can frame no explicit apprehension, it
is a daring, uncharitable, and perhaps a very
irrational thing, to condemn any one for ex
pressing the sarae thing in difterent terms.
And that the Greek church does no more,
seems jirobable from hence :
1st, Th.at they deny not the Spirit to be
consubstantial with tho Father and the Son.
2dly, That they acknowledge that ho is as
properly the Spirit of the Son as of the Father.
And if, when we say, that the Spirit proceeds
from the Son, -we intend uo moro but that .
hc is the Spirit of the Son, which they grant j
aud profess ; what is it more than a difference
in the expression, whore they seem to bo very
near a perfect coincidence as to the thing?
I am sure some of the most reputed authors
in the L.atin church avouch so much. Peter
Lombard, in the first of the Sentences, llth
distinction, declares his raind thus : — "Sane
sciendum est, quod licet in praeseiiti .articulo
a nobis Grmci verbo discordeut, taniou sousu
nou diffcrunt." And Scotus u])on the same

ON JOHN, XV. 26.

257

place of Lombard speaks to the sarae purpose :
"Antiquorum Grsecorum a Latinis discre-
pantia lu voce potius est, et modo explicaudi
emanationem Spiritus Sancti quara iu ipsa
re." The like is to be found iu Aquinas,
Bonaventure, and others, conceruing this dif
ference betweeu the Greek and Latin church,
in expressing this article.
Besides, it is observable, that after Patre the
word Filioque was added by the Latin church :
and since the Greek church raay allege this
in their defence, that it is no where iu Scrip
ture expressly said, that the " Spirit proceeds
from the Sou ;" this may be farther pleaded
for them, that in things, the belief of which
cau have no foundation but the testimony of
Scripture, it is there safest, precisely aud
strictly, to adhere to bare Scripture expres
sion. And thus much briefly concerning the per
son of the Spirit. The next thing is his em
ployment, represented to us under a double
notion :
1. And first of a Comforter. Christ suits
his gifts to our exigencies and occasions. No
thing so opportune to the sorrowful as a com
forter. Aud as for Christ's disciples, we know
that upou the very prediction of his departure,
" sorrow had filled their hearts." But then,
this being actually corae to pass, those clouds
began to gather over their heads thicker and
blacker, and at length to break forth into
violence and persecutions : and therefore,
under so raany discouragements from with
out, they must needs have sunk, had they
not had sorae supporter within. Aud their
support was to be internal, that so it raight
be above their adversaries' power to bereave
them of ; (John, xvi. 22,) " Your joy uo raan
taketh frora you." It is out of their sight,
and therefore out of their reach ; like a foun
tain lurking iu the bowels of the earth, secret,
plentiful, and continual.
It is a sad and a poor condition, when there
is provision raade only for being, uot for cora
fort ; for life, not for refreshraent. And there
fore in the spiritual, as well as in the natural
life, there are subliraer fruitions, as well as
bare sustenance. For such is the nature of
mau, that it requires lucid intervals ; and the
vigour of the raind would flag and decay,
should it always jog ou at the rate of a coni-
niou enjoyraent, without being sometimes
quickened aud exalted with vicissitude of
some more refined pleasures.
But what kind of corafort is this, that the
Spirit of God conveys to believers ? Why, it
is very strange and peculiar, but raost signi
ficantly set forth in that place, in Mark, x.
29, 80, " There is no man that hath left house,
or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother,
or wife, or children, or lauds, for my sake,
and the gospel's, but he shall receive au hun
dredfold now in this time, houses, and breth-
VOl. II.

ren, and sisters, and raothers, and children,
and lands, with persecutions ; and in the
world to come eternal life." 'What ! receive
all these things with persecution, when it
cannot be persecution, unless it deprive us of
all these ? Why, yes ; God will give us the
comfort of these things, even without the
enjoyment of thera. He can extract the
spirit of these things from their bulk, and
convey it single without the possession.
For as in the food that we take into our
bodies, it is but verj' little that passes into
nutriment, and so is converted into our sub
stance ; so iu the greatest affluence of plenty,
it is not the mass of the enjoyment, but the
elixir or spirit that is derived through it, that
gives the corafort.
Now it is a standing rule even in philoso
phy, that whatsoever God does by the medi
ation of secoud causes, he can do iraraediately
by himself, and without thera. And there
fore it is uo wonder, if God can torraent where
we see no tormentor, and comfort where we
behold no comforter? he can do it by irarae
diate eraanations from himself, by continual
effluxes of those powers and virtues, which he
was pleased to implant in a weaker and
fainter measure in created agents.
They, indeed, do all things by gross convey
ances and raaterial assistances ; as, au earthly
parent caunot refresh his son without the
raeans and instruraents of refreshraent, as
rae.at, clothes, raoney, and other such accora
raodations : but whatsoever we do by the help
of these, that God does by a plenitude and
all-sufficiency flowing from hiraself. Thus
the irapure sublunary fire conveys neither
heat nor light, but as it kindles upon sorae
earthly materials of wood, stubble, or the
like ; but the nobler and celestial fire in the
body of the sun, that works all these effects
by a communicatiou of its owu virtue, with
out the interposal of those culinary helps : it
affords flame and light, and warmth aud all,
without fuel.
Now this certainly should compose the
murmurs and distrusts of infidelity. Men are
apt to confine God to their own thoughts, and
not to allow him a scope of acting beyond the
measure of the visible raeans ; nor to think
that he can be a coraforter, any longer than
they have those things about thera, by which
they raay be their own comforters. If God
should promise plenty iu a dearth, and ful
ness of bread when the earth denies her in
crease, would not unbelief presently presume
the impossibility, and laugh at the promise
in that question of the doubter, (2 Kings, vii.
2,) " If God should make windows in heiiven,
how could this thing be?" Yet the objector,
we see, was answered with a full, though a
sad confutation.
Sometimes we see no means by which God
may corafort ; but cau he not therefore do it
B

258

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Serm. XXIX.

without means? There are uo wagons nor
conduit pipes to bring down the influences of
heaven to us ; yet at their stated seasons we
find, that they visit us certainly and univer
sally. And thus much for the first part of
the Spirit's employment, naraely, that he was
to be a Comforter.
2. The second was his being the Spirit of
truth ; upou which account it is said of him,
(John, xvi. 13,) " that he should lead the
disciples into all truth." He is the great
guide of souls, and discoverer of the myste
rious depths of the gospel. Christ indeed had
sufficiently preached these divine truths to
the world by an external promulgation : but
the Spirit was to preach them over again, by
the inward illuminations of the mind.
Hereupon also the grand property of truth
is ascribed to the Spirit, which is conviction.
It is said of hira, (John, xvi. 8,) that " he
shall convince the world of sin, righteousness,
and judgraent." Now conviction is not only
truth, but the predorainance of truth ; the
triumph of a well-managed arguraentation.
The raeaning of those words being this, that
tho Spirit ofGod shall bring home those con
cerning truths to men's understanding, with
such a prevailing sway and evidence, that
they shall not be able to deny their assent to
them ; which way soever their corruptions
may force their practice.
Nay, truth is such a peculiar characteristic
note of God's Spirit, that this gives it one
great discriraination frora the evil spirit, who
is properly the spirit of falsehood, the deceiver
and the seducer ; and a liar from the begin
ning, both the parent and the patron of lies.
Yea, and as if he had the monopoly of all
fallacy and falsehood, it is said of him, that
when he speaks a lie, he speaks it of his owu.
It is his peculiar, his inheritance; and the
whole race of liars is said to descend from
him, as their grand original, and head of their
family. Justly, therefore, does God exhibit
his Spirit to us, under the noble denomination
of truth.
But here, since these two titles given to
the Holy Ghost, namely, ofthe "Comforter,"
aud of the " Spirit of truth," seem to have
some eraphatical relation one to auother, so
as to found a mutual dependence between
them ; I shall here endeavour to shew, that
his being a " Coraforter" depends upou his
being the " Spirit of truth ;" and particularly,
how truth comes to have this coraforting in
fluence upon nian's mind. I conceive it
derives this virtue from these two things :
(1.) From the native, congenial suitable
ness that it has to raan's undei'standing. And
frora the application of a suitable object to a
well-disposed faculty, there naturally arises
corafort. If you now deraand, how truth
comes to be so suitable to the raind ; I answer,
that there can be no farther reason given, but

that it is the nature of it so to be : and ofthe
nature of thiugs there is no reason to be as
signed, but the will of the Creator, who was
pleased, in ordering the great economy of the
world, to plant au agreeableness between
some natures, and a disagreeableness between
others. There is that agreement between truth and
the mind, that there is between light aud the
eye ; which is the sense of pleasure, of the
purest and the most sublime pleasure. And
surely, of all the creatures that have issued
from the workmanship of oranipotence, there
is none so pleasing, so refreshing, or rather so
enlivening as the light ; which is that, that
gives a seasoiiage to all other fruitions, that
lays open the bosom of the universe, and
shews the treasures of nature ; and, in a
word, gives opportunity to the enjoyraent of
all- the other senses.
It is reported of a certain blind man, that
he yet knew when a caudle was brought into
the room, by the sudden refreshment that he
found caused by it upou his spirits. Now
give me leave to shew, that truth is as great
a comfort to the soul. For what makes the
studious raan prefer a book before a revel, the
rigours of contemplation and retirements, be
fore merry-meetings and jolly company ? Is
it because he has uot the same appetites with
other men, or because he has no taste of plea
sure ? No, certainly ; but because a nobler
pleasure has rendered those inferior ones
tasteless and contemptible.
For is there any delight compar.ableto what
reason finds, when it pursues a conclusion
into all its consequences, and sees one truth
grow out of anotiier, and by degrees rise out
of obscurity into evidence and deraonstration ?
Do you think that the intent speculations of
Archiraedes were not infinitely more pleasing
than the carouses of Epicurus? And if the
embraces of natural truth be so transporting
to a philosopher, what must the discovery of
the supernatural revealed truths of the gospel
be to a Christian? where the pleasure is
heightened .according to the diff'erent worth of
the object : where every truth comes recom
mended to the soul with a double excellency,
its greatness aud its concernment.
(2.) Truth comes to have this comforting
influence upon raan's raind, from the peculiar
and sovereign virtue it has to clear the con
science ; and that, frora the two great annoy
ances and disturbances of it, guilt and doubt
ing : which two are the causes of all the
trouble and perplexity of raan's raind.
First, It clears it from guilt. Sin is the
standing and etemal cause of sorrow, and that
not ouly from those outward, penal effects
that it draws after it, but from the very re
flection of the mind upon it. It is trouble
some, offensive, and opposite to the principles
of nature. The conscience shrinks, and feels

ON JOHN, XV. 26.

259

a kind of horror within itself, when it thinks
of a vile action. Every sin upon the appre
hensive conscience is like a dust falling upon
the ball of the eye ; how pungent, sharp, and
afflicting is it to that tender part !
Now truth discharges the conscience of the
trouble of guilt, by being the great means to
prevent the sin. Hence the way of holiness
is frequently in Scripture called " the way of
truth :" and it is worth our observation, that
there is no sin ever committed, but it is usher
ed in by some error of the mind, and a false
judgment passed upon things. For, notwith
standing that in most sins the mind has a
general judgment of the evil of the thing that
it is about to do, before the sin comes to be
actually coraraitted : frora all circurastances
and particulars put together, as, the present
gratification, and yet withal future safety upon
repentance, the raind passes a particular prac
tical judgraent, that it is better for it to do
that sin, than not to do it. And here is the
deception, after which follows the sinful ac
tion. But now, did the mind proceed by the
unerring rules and inforraations of truth, it
would judge otherwise, and consequently do
otherwise ; and thereupon be secured frora
that trouble, horror, and anguish of conscience,
that God by an irreversible decree has entailed
upon the commission of sin.
Secondly, Truth clears the conscience of
doubt ; and this frequently exerts its perplex
ing quality, where there is no other founda
tion but a mere surmise of guilt. For how
come the consciences of the most pious and
the strictest persons to be ofteutimes iu such
plunges of horror and amazement, but from
misgivings about the safety of their spiritual
estate? And what is the cause of doubting
but the disappearance of truth ? How comes
the mind to be frighted and amazed, but be
cause it is in the dark? When tmth wraps
itself in a cloud, and shuns the eye, theu the
reason of man is in suspense, and uuder
various fluctuations which way to deterraine ;
but it is certainty alone, that is the bottom
of all rational determinations.
There is no weariness like that which rises
from doubting, from the perpetual jogging of
au unfixed reason. The torment of suspense
is very great ; aud as soon as the wavering,
perplexed mind begins to determine, be the
determination which way soever, it will find
itself at ease. But now it is the Spirit of
truth that gives assurance, assurance that
cashiers doubt, and consequently restores
comfort. And thus much for the first part of the text,
in which is contained the promise of sending
the Holy Ghost, the Comforter. I proceed
now to the
Second, namely, the end of his being sent,
which v/as to testify of Christ.
In which we are to consider two things, —

1. What it was that the Spirit was to
testify of Christ.
2. By what ways and raeans he was to
testify this of hira.
1. For the first of these, the Holy Ghost
was never sent to testify any thing of Christ,
but what he had testified of hiraself before ;
as, that he was the Son of God, the Messias,
and Saviour of the world. In all that the
Spirit was to do or spe;ik, he was but to act
the part of an ambassador : in John, xvi. 13,
Christ says, " that he should not speak of
himself." Aud again, in the next verse,
" He shall receive of mine, and shall shew
it unto you." All the suggestions of the
Spirit in this case were not invention, but
repetition. 2. As for the ways and means by which
the Spirit testified of Christ, they were the
gifts conferred by him upon the disciples, to
enable and fit them for their apostolic em
ployraent ; of the memory of which action,
this day is the soleran celebration. Now,
though it is not to be doubted, but the gifts of
the Spirit were so universal, as to reach and
cure all their unfitness ; yet there were three
that seeraed more eminently designed, and
more peculiarly effectual for the great purpose
of preaching the gospel.
(1.) The first was the gift of miracles.
Every miracle is the suffrage of Heaven to the
truth of a doctrine. And as Christ had done
greater " miracles than any before him," so
he proraised his disciples a power of doing
greater miracles than hiraself. The acts of
the apostles were so raany demonstrations of
the truth of Christianity ; for all those signs
and wonders were done in Christ's name,
which retained a surviving efficacy, even after
his departure. His name was enough to
supply his presence ; a name to which every
knee bowed, either by way of adoration or
subraission. The devils confessed hira, his
enemies oftentimes acknowledged him, even
when their interest denied him, (Acts, iv.
16.) Yea, every raalady and disease pro
clairaed the truth of Christ's doctrine, while
they felt the curing influence of his power.
Every preacher was then a physician, without
changing his profession.
(2.) The second was the gift of tongues.
That a raan should learn all tongues in a
day's space, one would think it impossible ;
yet we have seen it done when the Spirit was
the teacher : so easily can God in an hour's
tirae outdo the acquisitions of huraan industry
for many years. And this surely was a con
vincing, amazing arguraent of the truth of
the Christian religion to all its adversaries ;
and the tongues by which the aposties spoke
were a sufficient deraonstration of the truth
of what they spoke ; neither was it any more
than suitable to the nature of this doctrine,
that what was to be known to all nations

260

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Serm. XXIX.

should be proclaimed in all tongues, should
speak a universal language. The wisdom
of Heaven did not think fit to bespeak raen
in an unknown tongue ; nor, what had been
more miraculous than all miracles, that men
should be saved by what they could not un
derstand. (3.) The third and great raeans by which
the Holy Ghost testified of Christ, was by
that strange, undaunted, and supernatural
courage that he infused into the disciples.
Truly so great, that, upon a due consideration
of raan's nature, I look upou it as a proof of
Christianity, so far as that religion depends
upon matter of fact, comparable to the highest
miracle. Every lie is weak, and he that promulges a
lie, knowing it to be so, is naturally diffident
and fearful. But so invincible a persuasion
possessed the disciples of the truth of what
they asserted, that it bore them above the
highest conturaelies, the greatest hardships,
and the sharpest persecutions. (Acts, iv. 20,)
" We cannot but speak the things which we
bave seen and heard." They spoke, as it
were, by a necessary irapulse, whether they
would or no.
Neither were they naturally such resolute
persons, that this hardiness of theirs might
be reputed .an effect of their teraper and com
plexion : for it appeared, upon several occa
sions before, that they were men of a timorous
and a poor spirit. How did they cry out
when they saw Christ walking upon the sea !
" thinking that they had seen a spirit," (Matt.
xiv. 26.) And last of all, when Christ was
apprehended, "thev all forsook him, and
fled," (Matt. x.xvi. 66.) And Peter, who was
the boldest of thera, yet bow cowardly did
he deny his master! for the bfiseness of that
action could be resolved into nothing but his
fear. But after the diffusion of the Holy Ghost,
we find that no opposition could quell them ;
no terror affright, nor any prison or torment
silence thera. And therefore, wheu Christ
commanded them to stay at Jerusalera, and
expect the gift of the Holy Ghost, (Luke,
xxiv. 49,) he very properly tells thera, " that
they should be endued with power from on
high ;" that is, with such a gift of resolved
constancy and courage, as should make them
superior to all fears within, or oppositions
without. In a word, the Holy Ghost so fumished
and enabled Christ's disciples to " testify of
hira," that they were the raost qualified wit
nesses of the truth of what they avouched,
that ever appeared upon the stage ofthe world ;
nor was any doctrine or religion besides the
Christian ever attested with such illustrious
proofs, and such unexceptionable reasous of
credibility. I suppose a full reflection upon what has

been delivered cannot but furnish us with an
infallible rule, by which to try men's pre
tences of the Spirit, It is comprised in this
short interrogatory : Do they testify of
Christ ? Does their doctrine only tr<anscribe
what stands already written in the word?
Otherwise, if they invent and substitute
soraething in the room of gospel ; if they
find not only coraraent but text also, and
plead the spirit in defiance of the letter ; it is
not the Spirit of God that acts thera, but
the spirit of darkness and desolation, that
ruins government and subverts kingdoras ;
and if it had not been for such a kind of
spirit, this day had not been by a third part
so rauch a festival as it is.
For had not the king been driven out of his
dorainions, he could not have been so glori
ously restored ; and had it not been for the
furious spirit of enthusiasm, those confusions,
the fatal cause of his expulsion, had never
happened. For was not the prime leader
and artificer of this successful villainy the
professed father of enthusiasts ? Did he not
still plead inward instigations, in opposition
to express commands? And were not all his
legions possessed by the same spirit ; by whose
teachings they thought themselves sufficiently
discharged from the abrogated precepts of
allegiance ? But since it is our duty not to
violate the memory of our oppressors, but
silently, thankfully, and forgetfully to accept
the oppression ; we will commemorate only
the king's restitution.
And this I think may not improperly coin
cide with the very business of the day, which
is to celebrate the sending of the Holy Ghost;
who also raust be acknowledged the cause of
this great transaction ; so that we raay with
a peculiar eraphasis and propriety express
the king's restoration in those words of the
prophet, (Zech. iv. 6,) " Not by raight, nor by
strength, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord."
For the king returned uot a conqueror,
but a conquered person, borne upon the
backs of his conquerors ; and brought in by a
body of men, who at that very tirae wanted
neither force nor will to have devoured him ;
but by a strange surprise and infatuation upon
their spirits, were prevailed upon to do they
knew not what, nor why.
It was an action, that carried in it such
bright testimonies of a supernatural power,
so much above, nay against the means and
actors visibly appearing in it ; that I know no
argument from metaphysics or natural philo
sophy, that to my reason proves the existence
of a Deity more fully, than the consideration
of this prodigious revolution : which, if it
does not leave lasting impressions of gratitude
in men's minds, manifesting itself in the re
turns of a pious life, tmly the delivered
persons will be yet a greater wonder than the
deliverance.

ON JOHN, XV. 26.

261

But whether omo it has had this effect, and
whether many have not returned rather har
dened than reduced by their afflictions, and
brought out of the furnace with them that
dross which first cast them iuto it ; God
knows, and their own consciences kuow, and
their lives iu a great measure testify.
It is a sad aud a fearful consideration, but
too obvious to escape any observing mind,
that atheisra, obscenity, and a professed scorn
of religion, has so wrought itself into the
behaviour, the discourse, and the very genius
of the times, that if God can be provoked
again, they carry in them the threatening
presages and dismal prognostics of an im
pending national judgraent, which God of his
infinite raercy avert. Aud since nothing less
will do it, raay he continue to preserve us by
a greater rairacle of goodness, than that by
which he first restored us.
Trinity Sunday.
Now, though (as I have already shewn) the
chief subject of the text was the Holy Spirit ;
yet, as if it carried in it a conjunction of two
great festivals, it seems to point both at the
Pentecost and the Trinity.
For in the words we have,
1. The person sent, which was the Holy
Ghost. 2. The person sending him, which was the
Son. 3. The person from whom he is said to pro
ceed, which was the Father.
So great a mystery have we lying in so
small a compass ; that which neither the
heaven of heavens can contain, nor the grasp
of human reason comprehend, we see here
wrapt up and represented in one period of this
sublime evangelist.
But you will say. Does not our creed tell
us, " that the three persons of the Godhead
are coequal ?" How then comes the Son to
send aud employ the Holy Ghost, which
argues a distauce and superiority ?
I answer, that their equality is to be under
stood only in respect of their nature ; and an
equality of nature hinders not an inequality in
point of order and office, especially being vo
luntarily undertook : iu respect of which, the
Spirit may be properly said to be sent by the
Son, though otherwise as to the divine nature
they are absolutely coequal.
'We have here the three persons, as it were,
met in council about the grand affair of man's
salvation. The Father contriving, the Son
ordering, and the Spirit performing. One
would almost think, that it were lawful for
man to be proud, when it is thus raade the
interest of Heaven to look after aud to pro
raote the concerns of his happiness. It is like
the sun, that vast and glorious body, wheeling
about the earth to give warrath and influence
to a poor plant or a little flower.

God is pleased to make it his business that
we should be saved. The Father, the Sou,
and the Holy Ghost are all eraployed, and
every person has shared out to himself a dis
tinct office in the management of that great
action ; and that with such a stated order,
that the manner of doing is as admirable as
the thing done. The Father could have trans
acted the whole business of man's salvation
by himself ; but he was pleased to honour the
work with a mystery, and by allotting to each
person his part, to recoraraend order to our
iraitation. In short, from this whole passage, by way
of deduction, we may collect and learn these
two things : —
(1.) God's gracious love and condescension
to raan.
(2.) The worth of souls.
(1.) For the first of these, was it not won
derful that the whole Trinity should thus stoop
down to regard and advance us ? It is, as if a
king should call his parliaraent to invent ways
and means how to prefer a few beggars.
Twelve poor fishermen were those to whom
the Father and the Son first sent the Holy
Ghosttobetheircomforter. And were uot these
worthy persons, to whom God should send au
erabassy frora heaven ! Yet the love of God
thought all this little enough to carry on the
good of mankind. The Trinity is indeed a
great mystery, yet it is a question, whether
God is not yet more wonderful iu his love,
than in the way of his subsistence.
(2.) We learn hence the worth of souls.
Though the divine nature is so glorious, that
there is room enough for condescension, even
in his treating with the most excellent of his
creatures ; yet surely the Lord of the universe
does not busy hiraself about trifles, uor lay
designs and use great counsels to pursue the
air and the wind.
We can quaff away a soul, swear away a
soul, and squander away etemity upon brutish
and senseless gratifications of the flesh ; but
the oraniscient, all-wise God has another judg
raent of souls ; he looks upon thera as worth
his own taking pains upon. Shew rae so
much as one footstep in scripture, where God
with such soleranity expresses a design to
raake any mau rich or honourable ; those
things he scatters abroad with a looser, a pro
miscuous, and more careless hand.
But the salvation of souls is never left to
chance, nor to any thing like contingency.
All the persons of the Trinity are ready (as I
may speak with reverence) to wait upon us
in our way to heaven ; solicitous to secure us
in our passage, and by all ways, raethods, and
encouragements, to corafort us in this world,
and at length to waft us to a better.
To which, God of his infinite mercy, vouch
safe to bring us.

I 262

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Serm. XXX.

SERMON XXX.
" But a wounded spirit who can bear ?" — Prov. xviii. 14.
The corrnption of man's nature is, by sad
experience, found to be so great, that few are
kept frora sin, but merely by the check of
their fears, representing to them the endless,
insupportable torraents of another world, as
the certain consequent and terrible reward of
it. Which fears, if men arrive to such a pitch
of atheism as to be able to shake off, (a per
fection now-a-days attained to by many, and
aspired to by more,) there seems to be nothing
left farther to work upon such persons, iu the
way of fear, nor consequently to control, and
put a stop to the full career and fury of their
lusts. Upon which account it will (I conceive)
be no ill service to religion, to let such profli
gate wretches know, that their infidelity can
not set them so far out of the reach of ven
geance, but that, while they endeavour to
cast off all dread of future damnation, God can
antedate the torments they disbelieve, and
couvince them of the possibility of such
miseries hereafter, by an actual foretaste of
the same here ; that he can kindle one hell
within them, before they enter into another ;
and by what he can make thera feel, teach
them the certainty of what they refuse to
fear. It is indeed none of the least of God's titles
and prerogatives, that he is " the God of the
spirits of all flesh ;" and that, as he first made
the soul, so be retains an immediate, irresis
tible power over it, so as to be able to turn
the inclinations, and to dispose of the comfort
.and the sorrows of it, as he pleases ; and all
this independently upon any of those objects,
which by the ordinary course of nature it
converses with. The usual materials, of which
the soul makes up its comforts and satisfac
tions here on earth, are the felicities of this
world ; and the ordinary cause of its sorrows
are the adverse and cross accidents of the
same : nevertheless, God can infuse comfort
into the soul, in spite of the sharpest earthly
calaraities, and, on the other hand, sraite it
with the severest anguish and bitterness, in
the midst of the highest affluence and pros
perity. The text presents us here with a short but
full comparison between the grief that afflicts
the outward man, and that which preys upou
the inward ; together with the transcendent
greatness of the latter above the former, as
shall be made out presently in the grand in
stance of both these sorts of sufferings, even
our blessed Saviour himself. For let this

outside, or shell of nature, the body, be under
never so much pain and agony, yet a well-
settled and resolved mind will be able to buoy
it up, and keep it from sinking : the spirits
will bear, and, by bearing, will at length
master all these infirmities. But when the
spirit itself is wounded, aud struck through,
the grief presently becomes victorious, and
intolerable. The soul in this case being like
a bird wounded iu the wing, the proper in
strument and natural engine of its support,
this immediately puts an end to its flight, and
makes all striving vain ; for fall it must to the
ground. In the words there are two things to be
explained. I. What is meant by spirit.
II. What is iraported by its being wounded.
1st, For the first of these, we aro to observe,
that Isoth scripture and philosophy hold forth
to us in the soul of man an upper and a lower
part ; not indeed in respect of its substance,
for that is indivisible, but in respect of its
faculties. Aud as this lower, or inferior part,
consists of those sensitive faculties and appe
tites, whose operations being wholly tied to
the organs of the body, do accordingly con
verse ouly with bodily and gross objects ; so
there is a higher and more noble portion of
the soul, purely intellectual ; and in operation,
as well as in substance, perfectly spiritual.
Which is called by philosophers to iiytfiouixou,
that is, the leading, ruling, and directing part
of the soul ; and by the scripture, " the spirit
of the mind ;" that is, the raost exalted, re
fined, .and quintessential part of it, in Ephes.
iv. 23, " Be ye renewed in the spirit of your
raind." For that the soul is a spirit, that is
to say, a substance void of raatter and diraen-
sions, I suppose none will deny, but those
who (with your oracle, Hobbes, in the head
of them) admit of no substance, but body ;
and having fully subdued faith to senses, and
so (like Thoraas) resolving to believe no
farther thau your eyes and hands can reach,
will perhaps in religion, as well as natural
objects, make the tube, the still, and the tele
scope, the sole measure of their creed. In
defiance of which atheistical notions, 1 affirra,
that there is a certain noble and refined part
of the soul expressed to us in the text by
spirit, and here said to be wounded. Which
is theSecond thing to be explained by us ; and, I
suppose, is so far and fully explained by us
already, frora the very nature of the subject
to which it is here ascribed, that every one
presently apprehends it to be an expression
purely figurative ; and that the soul being
wounded, signifies nothing else, but its being
deeply and intimately possessed with a lively
sense of God's wrath for sin, dividing, enter
ing, and forcing its way into the raost vital
parts of it, as a sword or rapier does into the

ON PROVERBS, xviii. 14.

263

body. I say possessed with a sense of God's
wrath for sin ; forasmuch as there is no grief,
but meritoriously presupposes sin as the cause
of it: not that I deny, but God by his absolute
prerogative, without any violation of his other
attribute, could and might grieve and afflict
an innocent person, if he so pleased ; but that
by the stated rule of his transactings with
nien, he has resolved the contrary, and never
afflicts or torments any rational creature that
is not a sinner, either by actual coraraission,
or at least by imputation.
Now this brief explication of the words
being proraised, the sense of them lies full
aud clear in this one proposition ; namely.
That the trouble and anguish of a soul
labouring under a sense of God's displeasure
for sin, is inexpressibly greater than any
other grief or trouble whatsoever.
The prosecution of which I shall manage
under these followiug particulars :
I. I shall shew what kind of persons are
the proper subjects of this trouble.
II. I shall shew wherein the excessive
greatness of this trouble doth appear.
III. I shall shew by what ways aud meaus
it is brought upon the soul.
IV. What is God's end aud desigu iu cast
ing men into such a perplexed condition :
aud, V. and lastly, I shall draw some useful in
ferences frora the wliole.
Of each of which in their order.
1st, Aud first, for the persons who are the
proper objects of this trouble. These I affirra
to be indifferently both the righteous and the
wicked, both such as God loves, and such as
he hates ; but with a very different issue in
one and in the other. The reason of which
assertion is, because these troubles and spiri
tual terrors are not, as such, either acts or
figures of grace, by which alone persons truly
pious and regenerate are distinguished from
the wicked and degenerate ; but they are
properly effects of God's anger, striking and
afflicting the soul for sin, and consequently
are alike incident to both sorts, forasmuch as
hoth are sinners ; and even the most pious
person in the woHd has fuel enough in his
guilty soul for the wrath of God to flame out
upon in all these terrible rebukes. Nay,
where there is uo inherent guilt, these effects
of wrath may take place : as in the case of our
Saviour, who, without the least personal in
herent guilt, suffered the utmost that an
angry God could inflict upon him in this
world. And therefore nothing certain can be
concluded of any man's spiritual estate, in
reference to his future happiness or misery,
from the present terrors and amazeraents
that his conscience labours under: for as Cain
and Judas, and many more reprobates, have
suffered, so Da-vid and many other excellent
saints of God have felt their shares of the

same ; though the issue, I confess, has uot
been the same in both ; but that alters not
the nature of the thing itself.
Nay, I shall add farther, that according to
the present economy of God's dealing with
the souls of men, persons truly good and holy
do raore frequently taste of this bitter cup
thau the wicked aud the reprobate ; who are
seldom alarumed out of their sins by such
severe interruptions ; but, for the most part,
reraain seated up iu ease and security, to the
fearful day of retribution. And therefore I
should be so far from passing any harsh or
doubtful sentence upon the condition of a
person struggling under the apprehensions of
God's wrath, that I should, on the contrary,
account such an one a much fitter subject for
evangelical corafort, than those sons of assur
ance, that, having been bred up in a constant
confidence of the divine favour to them, never
yet felt the least doubt or question arising in
their secure hearts about it : .and consequently
should think the balsam of pardoning mercy
the only proper infusion for such " wounded
spirits," while the gall and vinegar of the
curse, the caustics and corrosives of the law,
were the fittest applications to be made to
such brawny, unrelenting hearts, as never yet
smarted under any remorse, nor experimen
tally knew what it was to be troubled for sin.
And thus, having shewn upon what kind of
persons this trouble of mind may fall, I come
now to the
Second particular ; which is to shew, wherein
the strange, excessive, and sometimes super
natural greatness of it does appear. In which,
though I may seera to contradict that in the
prosecution, which I had asserted in the doc
trine ; naraely, that this trouble was beyond
expression ; it being of the nature and nura
ber of those things that are rather to be felt
than described ; yet, so far as the dimensions
of it can be taken, we raay collect the sur
passing greatness of it frora these following
discoveries :
1st, From the behaviour of our Saviour
himself in this condition. It was indeed a
sense of God's wrath for siu that he was
uuder ; but for sin never coraraitted by hira,
for guilt that was none of his, but only by
iraputation, and account of law, founded upon
his own free act, in the voluntary assuraing
of the person of a surety, undertaking to dis
charge that vast debt of raankind to the divine
justice, in his own body upon the cross.
Upou which account alone, the -wrath of God
for sin could have any thing to do with hira,
who in his own person and actions was abso
lutely, perfectly, and entirely innocent, or
rather even innocence itself.
Now I think I may with great truth affirm
this ; in all the sufferings that sin can possibly
bring upon the sinner, there is, without all
peradventure, something more grievous and

264

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Serm. XXX.

corroding to the miud of man, frora his being
conscious that he has actually coraraitted the
sin he suffers for, thau in all the sharpest and
most afflicting impressions of pain, of which
that suffering, as to the matter of it, does
consist. Otherwise surely the voice of rea
son, in the bare discourses of nature, could
never have risen so high, as to affirm that a
wise or dexterous man could not be miser
able ; that he was unconcerned in all bodily
paiu ; and might sing in Phalaris's bull.
But Scripture, which is the best, and expe
rience, which is the next philosophy, have put
the matter past all doubt ; the first telling us,
that it is " siu only is the sting of death ;"
and the other perpetually ringing this sad
peal in every suffering sinner's conscience,
" Perditio tua ex te ;" that his misery is but
the due and just consequent of his owu ac
tions, the genuine fruit of his own free, un
constrained choice. And this is that, that
envenoms the cup of God's fury, and adds
poison to the bitterness of that fatal draught.
But now this part of suffering for sin, or
rather /row sin, Christ neither did nor could
undergo ; it being a contradiction, that he,
who never coraraitted sin, should feel in his
! conscience those stings and remorses that can
spring only from a,senseof having committed
it. No : these are the natural, essential results
of a sinful act, and so rest wholly within the
person of the agent ; the primitive rewards of
sin, which consist properly in those pains
which by positive sanction of law are adjudged
to every sinful action, aud to which alone
Christ did or could subject himself.
And J'et we see the sense of the divine
wrath exerting itself upon Christ only in
i these latter, and stripped of the poison of all
personal guilt, w-as so direful and intolerable,
that it made hira, who was God as well as
raan ; " him, to whom all power in heaveii
and eartii was given ; hira, by and for whom
God made the world, and in whom the very
fulness of the Godhead dwelt bodily ;" even
this infinite, mighty person, this " man of
God's right hand," (as the prophet David calls
hira,) did it raake to crouch and languish, to
roar and to despond, and at length to sink and
die under the overpowering, confounding
pressures of it.
And surely a greater argument of the force
and fury of this sense of God's wrath for sin
could not be, than that it should have such
dismal effect upon one, who personally was no
sinner, but only lay under a borrowed guilt ;
one who had all the advantages of strength,
and the supports of innocence, to keep his
mind firm, serene, and irapenetrable. But all
this availed him little, when the deadly in
fusion had once got into his soul, seized the
main arsenal and strong hold of his humanity ;
and, iu a word, cut the nerve of its great and
last supporter, the spirit. And in this case.

human nature, thuugh advanced to a personal
union and conjunction with the divine, yet
was but human uature still ; that is, a poor
feeble thing, forced to confess its native weak
ness, and after a short conflict with the divine
wrath, to break, and fall under its own ruins.
So that it raay justly put that high and dole
ful exclaraation iuto the raouths of all who
shall consider Christ upon the cross ; " Lord,
who knoweth the power of thine anger?"
God ouly can kuow it ; and he only, who was
much more than man, could endure it.
2dly, The strength and greatness of this
trouble of mind for sin appears from those
most raised and passionate expressions, that
have been uttered from time to tirae by per
sons eminent in the ways of God, while they
were labouring under it. For a notable
instance of which, instead of many, let us hear
David, a person frequently iu these deep
plunges, roaring out his spiritual grievances
in most of his Psalms. And I single him out
before all others, because he was certainly and
signally a type of Christ, both in respect of
many things belonging to his person, and
many passages relating to his life ; and parti
cularly that dolorous part of it that contained
his sufferings, and imraediately before his
death. Which sufferings we have hira with
great life and clearness representing, iu seve
ral of his diviue hyrans ; which, howsoever
uttered by him, in the first person, as if he
were still speaking of hiraself ; yet, without
all question, iu the principal desigu and pur
port of thera, pointed at the Messiah, as their
most proper subject. The 22d Psalra is very
full, as to his bodily sufferings ; but in none
of all the Psalras is the spiritual partof his
passion set forth to that height that it is iu
the 77th Psalra, from the first verse to the
10th : in which it will be well worth our
while distinctly to consider sorae of the raost
reraarkable expressions.
As in the third verse, " I complained," says
he, " and my spirit was overwhelmed."
Which is the language of a sorrow rauch dif
ferent from that of a comraon worldly grief ;
a grief that would have expressed itself far
otherwise : as " I complained," I vented a
few sighs and a few tears, and the cloud was
presently over ; when the shower was fallen,
all was clear : sorrow perhaps lasted for a
night, but it broke with the day, and the re
turn of joy carae quickly in the raorning. But
the spiritual sorrow here mentioned was still
making a progress, still upon the advance,
from the tongue to the spirit, frora outward
expressions to raore inward apprehensions.
Every sigh aud groan rebounded back to the
heart, from whence it carae. The penitent
eye, like the widow's cruse, the raore it pours
forth, the fuller it is ; finding a supply (as it
were) in every effusion.
But this sorrow stops not here ; it does not

ON PROVERBS, xviii. 14.

266

only alarm his complaints, but also break his
natural rest. In the fourth verse, " Thou
boldest mine eyes waking." Just as In that
black night before our Saviour's cruciflxion ;
in which it is said of him, that " he began to
be sorrowful, and very heavy ; nay, exceeding
sorrowful, even unto death ;" we fiud that
he continued watching, frora the beginning to
the end of it, without any sleep, wheu yet the
disciples were not " able to hold their eyes
open." Now this is an undoubted argument
of .an overpowering grief: for when Darius
-was excessively troubled for Daniel, it is said
of hiin, (Dauiel, vi. 18,) " that he passed the
night fasting, and his sleep went frora hira."
And then for Job, (chap. vii. 13, 14,) " When
I say. My bed shall comfort me, and my couch
shall ease my complaint ; then thou scarest
me with dreams, and terrifiest rae with
visions." When a raan's sleep is his torraent,
what can be his rest? The tirae of sleep is the
only season in which an afflicted person does
(.as it were) seal sorae little reprieve from his
cares, and for a while deceives his sorrows.
But in this case, the workings of the soul be
come too potent for the inclinations of nature.
For though sleep be designed by nature to
repair and make up the expense of a man's
spirits : and withal, nothing spends the spirits
comparable to sorrow ; yet here we see the
anguish of this spiritual sorrow joins two con
trary effects, and at the same time both ex
hausts the spirits and hinders all repose ; for
cibly holding up the eyelids, and by a
continual flow of tears keeping them still open.
A watchful eye aud a mournful heart are
usually corapanions.
But neither is this the utmost effect of this
sorrow ; it comes at length to swell to that
excess, as to be even too big for utterance ; as
appears from the following words in the sarae
verse ; " I ara so troubled, that I cannot
speak." Words, to none raore applicable than
to him, " who, when he was led as a sheep to
the slaughter, was, like a sheep also, durab
before his shearer, and opeued uot his raouth,"
(Acts, viii. 32.) Which is yet a higher de
claration of an overpressing grief, than the
loudest outcries. For nature has not only
given a raan a voice, but also silence, whereby
to raanifest the inward passions and affections
of his mind. And such a silence speaks the
heart so full of sorrow, that, like a vessel, its
very fulness sometiraes hinders all vent. It
is a known saying, that ordinary, slight griefs
complain, but great sorrows strike the heart
with an astonished silence. Thorns make a
crackling blaze, and are quickly gone ; but
great wood lies a long time, and consumes
with a silent fire. A still grief is a devouring
grief ; such an one as preys upon the vitals,
sinks into the bones, and dries up the marrow.
That wound is of all others the most deadly,
that causes the heart to bleed inwardly.

Thus we have seen this sorrow, both in its
greatness and variety ; soraetiraes sallying
forth in restless clamours and complaints, and
sometimes again retreating into a silence, and
(if you will admit the expression) eveu pro
claiming itself in dumbness aud stupefaction :
though, whether rising in one or falling in the
other, like a man whether standing upright
or lying down, it loses nothing of its propor
tion aud greatness ; as the sea when it ebbs,
uo less thau wheu it flows, has still the fulness
of an ocean.
But neither does it continue long under
this amazed silence ; but we have it presently
again rising up, aud boiling over iu coraplaints
rauch raore vehement and passionate than the
forraer ; as appears frora the seventh to the
tenth verses : " Will the Lord cast off for ever,
and will he be favourable no raore ? Is his
mercy clean gone for ever ; and doth his pro-
raise fail for everraore ? Hath God forgotten
to be gracious, and hath he in auger shut up
his tender raercies ?" And what was all this,
but a prophetic paraphrase upon those words
of our Saviour upou the cross ; " My God, ray
God, why hast thou fors.aken rae ?" Certainly
there is something in thera more than ordi
nary. For could a coraraon grief have in
dited such expressions?" Every word is a
strain above nature ; every sentence is the
copy of such a sorrow, as rather would express
itself, thau either does or can. And surely he
that shall duly ponder the weight, relish the
paths, and consider that spiritual vigour that
sparkles in every period of thera, will find
them greater and higher thau any expressions
that the sense of an external calaraity could
suggest. They are the very breathings of
despair, and the words of a soul scorched with
the direful apprehensions of God's wrath, and
a total eclipse of his favour. The truth is,
they sound like words spokeu at a rate or
pitch above a raere man, and I doubt not were
dictated by the Holy Ghost, to set forth the
sufferings of hiin who was so.
3dly, The excessive greatness of this trouble
of raind appears from the uninterrupted, in
cessant continuance of it. It does not come
and go by fits, or paroxysms : it has no
pauses, or vicissitudes ; for then the respite
of one hour might lay in strength to endure
the troubles of the next. From the very
first minute of our Saviour's passion, from the
first arrest and seizure of his righteous soul,
the anguish of this sorrow never left it, till it
had forced that to leave his body. Nothing
could make the "powers of darkness" quit
their hold of so great a prize. As David again
has it, (and still, no doubt, prophetically of
Christ, in this his last and great scene of
misery,) in Psalm xxii. 2, " I cry in the day
time, but thou hearest not, and in the night
season, and ara not silent." He seeras here
to describe this " man of sorrow" at his night

266

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Serm. XXX.

agonies and devotions iu the garden, as well
as groaning out the inward pangs of his soul
on the day of his crucifixion. 'There -was no
distinction of night and day, during his suf
ferings ; but, without any lucid intervals of
comfort, he was under one contiuued dark
ness of desertion. Hence we have the like
pathetical outcry again in Psalm xxxix. 13,
" O spare me a little, that I may recover my
strength." He begged of God bnt to grant
him so rauch as a little breathing-tirae, and
for a while to intermit the strokes of his fury.
For wheu there is no release to be had from
wrath, the next mitigation is to have some
respite under it : the nature of mau being so
very irapotent and feeble, that it is uot able
to bear a continual pleasure, and much less a
continual sorrow. This it was that made Job's
affliction hardly to be paralleled or expressed,
that so many killing mischiefs and disasters
came thronging (as it were) one in the neck
of another. Nosooner was one sad story ended,
but another presently began. So that his
heart was so employed and taken up in ad
mitting and drinking in the sorrow that still
carae flowing into it, that it had no truce or
relaxation to utter or discharge it : like a
man receiving money faster than he can tell
it ; his incomes nonplus his accounts. In
which and the like cases, God's hand does not
only strike, but, as it is emphatically in Psalra
xxxviii. 2, " it also presseth the soul." And
what is pressure, but the continuation of a
blow ? nay, what is hell itself, but sorrow
without intermission ?
4thly, The height and greatness of this
spiritual trouble appears frora its violent and
more than ordinary manifestation of itself on
outward signs and effects. A strange and
supernatural instance of which we h.ave in
our Saviour, in the sad preliminaries of his
passion. The inward chafings and agitations
of his struggling soul forcing a way through
his body, by <a sweat even of blood, and open
ing all his veins, by an inward sense of some
thing sharper than the impression of any
lance or spear from without. And generally,
in the verj' course of nature, when a thing,
lodged or enclosed any where, breaks forth,
it is because it finds no room for an abode
within. Outward eruptions are the undoubted
arguments of an inward fulness. Nor does
this at all contradict what I had said before
of such a veheraent sorrow's manifesting itself
in silence and astonishment ; for that is only
at some times, and at some certain degrees,
frora which it often varies : as even our Savi
our hiraself, while upon the cross, was not yet
always crying out. Bnt, besides, even in the
midst of this silence, there are other ways by
which such a trouble will sufficientiy declare
itself to the discernraent of an ordinary eye.
For while the tongue is silent, the countenance
and conversation may speak aloud ; and when

we cannot hear sorrow speak, yet we may
hear it groan : and when it is not to be known
by its voice, it may bc traced by its tears.
Shame and sorrow, those twin children of sin,
are seldora deep in the heart, but they are
apparent iu the face. It is hard to stifle or
suppress any luatural affection. But this
trouble of conscience, as it is above a raan's
strength to conquer, so it is beyond his art to
conceal it. It is scarce possible for a man to
lie under the torraents of the gout or the
stone, without roaring out his sense of them ;
but the torments of conscience are as rauch
sharper and raore affecting than these, as the
perceptions of the soul are quicker than those
of the body. It is the load upon the heart
that gives vociferation to its grief, like tho
weights of a clock, that cause it to be heard.
Add to this the drooping paleness and de
jection of the looks, the mournful cloud upou
the brow, the damp and raelancholy covering
the whole face ; all of thera the infallible signs
of such a grief as will be sure to discover its
abode by its effects ; aud such as made Christ
himself so doleful a spectacle of misery, as
to draw that corapassionate exclaraation, even
from Pilate, (John, xix. 5,) " Behold the
man !" " My moisture," says David, who
(as we have observed already) spoke most of
these things typically of our Saviour, " is
turned into the drought of summer," (Psahn
xxxii. 4.) His grief had sucked up all his
radical juices, and reduced him even to a
skeleton. So that he might well say, (Psalm
xxii. 17,) " I may tell all my bones ;" while
one raight not only st.and staring and looking
upon him, but through him also. Such impres
sions will trouble of conscience make some
times eveu upon the body ; all which outward
syraptoms will be found undeniable arguments
of the surpassing greatness of it, even upon
this account, that they are sure indications of
the excess of any worldly trouble. For how
easily may the loss of a friend or an estate be
read in the countenance ! When wo are be
reaved of our earthly contents, prorumpunt
lacrymce ; and it is not iu our power to stop
those floodgates of sorrow.
Now, though I must confess that the spiri
tual sorrow that we have been discoursing of
does not alvvays work over in such sensible,
passionate signs as worldly grief uses to do,
and consequently is not certainly and univer
sally to be measured by them ; yet sometimes
it has them all, and, if genuine and true, can
never be wholly without some of them. And
that man who lias tears to spend at the
meraorial of a lost friend, but none to shed at
the thoughts of a lost innocence, a wasted
conscience, and a provoked God, has but too
rauch cause to suspect the truth of his sorrow
and the goodness of his heart.
othly and lastly. The transcendent great
ness of this spiritual trouble may be gathered

ON PROVERBS, xviii. 14.

267

from thoso horrid effects it has had upon per
sons not upheld under it by divino grace.
This indeed could not be the case of our
Saviour ; no, not in the greatest height of his
]);ission ; God (as I raay so speak) supporting
liim with one arra, while he was smiting him
vvith the other. But the force and activity of
every cause is to be discerned and measured
only by its utraost eft'ect. And this trouble
of raind actually does its utmost only upon
such persons as are abandoned of the foremen
tioned supports of grace. For in others, whom
Heaveii deals with upon different terras, as
soon as it has worked itself almost up to its
fatal crisis, mercy steps iu, stanches the bleed
ing wound, and will not suffer it to destroy,
where God intends it only to prove.
Now both history and experience testify
what tragical ends men deserted by God,
under the troubles of a " wounded spirit,"
have been brought into. One raan, after ho
has beeu grappling with these terrors for some
tirae, has at length drowned hiraself. Another
has been so pursued aud wearied with the
torraenting thoughts of his sin, that he has
sought for an antidote in poison, and eveu
chose to eud his grief with his days. Which,
surely, are proofs clear enough to evince
the insufferable torments of a guilty, inflamed
conscience in persons finally forsook by God.
Nor are those troubles at all less in persons
truly pious, during a state of desertion : as
may appear from those near approaches that
even such persons, in such a condition, have
made to these dismal outrages upon them
selves. For sorae have been so far left to
themselves, as even to intend and resolve upon
self-murder ; aud nothing has been wanting
but the last execution. Though they have
not actually drowned themselves, yet they
have stood pausing upon the brink of destruc
tion ; and though they have not used the
fatal knife, yet they have prepared it. From
whence it is evident, that, for the tirae, they
suffer the same troubles of raind that the
wicked do : and that one do not perish under
thera, as well as the other, it is not because
some lie under a greater measure of these ter
rors, and some a less ; but because, under the
sarae equal proportion, God powerfully up
holds some, and lets others fall.
And thus I have done with the second
thing proposed ; which was to shew, whereiu
the excessive greatness of the trouble of a
"wounded spirit" manifests itself; I proceed
now to the
Third; which is to shew, by what ways
and means this trouble is brought upon the
soul. I shall instance in four :
1st, The first is, by dreadful reflections upon
the divine justice, as provoked. As soon as
ever the soul h.as eaten of the forbidden fruit
pf sin, the flaming sword of vengeance pre

sently appears ; for sin being, properly, a
breach of the lavv, aud the law being under
the defence and tuition of God's justice, the
soul cannot reflect upon its sin, but it must
also cast its eye upon that which it does essen
tially relate to, the law : and in a violated
law it cannot but see an affronted lawgiver.
And in this case the divine justice does as
naturally catch hold of and prey upon sin, as
a devouring flarae does upon flax or stubble.
" If thou, Lord, shouldst mark iniquity," says
David, (Psalm cxxx. 3,) " 0 Lord, who could
stand?" Justice is a plentiful arguraent of
terror, considered by any one that has guilt
and understanding too : for all the calaraities
in the world, which so afflict and pester raan
kind, are but the products of justice. Justice,
raeeting with sin, is a word comprising all the
evils that God can afflict or raan endure. For
when we view prisons, dungeons, hospitals,
those habitations of raisery, the general raotto
and superscription upon thera all ought tobe.
Justice. It goes about the world, like God's
destroying .angel, with a sword in its hand.
Read over all that long, black catalogue of
curses in Deut. xxviii. and they are all but a
short essay, or speciraen, of that vengeance
that divine justice has iu reserve for sin, and
but a slight foretaste of those pains that
this life, indeed, may begin, but extremity
and perpetuity must coraplete.
But neither can the miseries of this world
or the next, or both together, represent the
justice of God half so terrible to any appre
hensive mind, as the sufferings of our Saviour
upon the cross. For if, when justice called
for satisfaction, God spared not his only Son,
the Sou whom he infinitely loved, (Matt. iii.
17 ;) the Son who pleased 'him in all things,
(John, iv. 34 ;) but gave him up to the most
barbarous treatraent that rage and malice
could invent, and, after tbat, to a cruel, igno
minious death ; what can the conscience of a
sinful man find out to ski-een itself by from
the same justice appearing against it in vindi
cation of atransgressedlaw, calling for nothing
less in recorapense than the soul of the trans
gressor ? Not only conscience, but common
sense, raust and will make this dreadful infe
rence ; If these things were " done in a green
tree, what shall be done in a dry ?" The flame
that could but scorch that, must inevitably
consume this.
2dly, Those wounds are inflicted upon the
spirit or conscience, by fearful apprehensions
of the divine niercy, as abused. God's justice,
we have seen, is of itself sufficiently terrible ;
but when raercy, tiie only thing that should
interpose, and ward off the fiery blows of it,
is gone, it raust needs be intolerable ; it must
break in upon the soul like a raighty, over
bearing torrent when the bauK is down ;
nothing can oppose or hinder the fury of its
progress. Offended justice ministers abundant

268

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Serm. XXX.

reason of fear ; but abused mercy seems to
cut off all grouud of hope. For a man to
affront him who is to be witness in a cause
against him, justly renders the success of it
dubious : but to injure his advocate, who
alone is to stand between him and his accuser,
must, of doubtful, make it desperate aud de
plorable. To siu against mercy is to sin
against our last remedy. For is there any
third attribute in the divine nature, that cau
save him, who has God's justice for his enemy,
and his mercy uot for his friend ? Is there
any thing that can restore that person who
stands lost and bankrupt, both upon the score
of law and gospel too ? If mercy conderans,
what can pardon? But, above all, if the
mercies and tenderness of a Saviour, bleeding,
suffering, and at length giving up his very
life a sacrifice for sin, and a ransom for sin
ners, cauuot speak corafort to a wounded
spirit, must not the wound prove deadly and
incurable? And yet, since the benefit of all
those sufferings is dealt forth only upon cer
tain conditions, may not the remembrance of
some sins justly render the conscience very
doubtful, whether a man may plead any inte
rest in them, or not ? For what is Christ upon
the cross to one that will not be crucified vvith
him ! or what is a Saviour dying for sins, to
a man that delights in them ? Can he claim
any benefit by that blood which his conscience
is charging him with the guilt of?
These are such considerations as cannot but
wound and terrify a thoughtful conscience :
next to which, in the present case, come in
also the stings and remorses of natural inge
nuity ; a principle that men scarce ever wholly
shake off, as long as they carry any thing of
human nature about them. And when this
shall appear as a second to conscience in God's
quarrel, and upbraid a man for all his back
slidings and apostasies, telling hira, with the
greatest bitterness of taunting reproach, These
are the corapassions thou hast abused, these
are the bowels thou hast kicked against, these
the wounds thou hast renewed upon thy Savi
our, and this the blood that thou hast trarapled
upon ; reminding him also of the most signal
and eminent deliverances vouchsafed him
throughout his life by the same hand of mercy :
how that at such a time, uuder such a distress,
wheu his siu mocked him, and the world de
spised him, wheu his heart failed him, and
his friends forsook him, yet the goodness of
God still stood by hira to comfort .and support
hira : how that it delivered him from such a
danger and such au eneray, such a sickness
and such a plunge, from which all his own
act and reason could never have contrived his
escape : how, I say, when the Spirit of God
shall enliven and stir up those remainders of
natural ingenuity in the sinner's breast, thus
to expostulate and debate the case with him
in the behalf of abused mercy, every such

word will pierce like a dagger to his heart,
and strike like a dart into his entrails. Com
mon humauity will be his judge, aud con
science his executioner.
Sdly, The spirit comes to be wounded and
brought under this extreme anguish, by
God's withdrawing his presence and the
sense of his love frora it, as he does soraetiraes
for a season eveu from the best of raen ; hiding
himself from those whom it is impossible for
him to forsake ; which was the very case and
condition of our Saviour, making that vehe
ment outcry under a present apprehension
that God had forsook hira, and cast off all the
tenderness of a father, while he was inflicting
upou him such exquisite torments as one
would think it too much for a father but to
look upon. " Thou didst hide thy face, and
I was troubled," says David, (Psalra xxx. 7 :)
for all the joy of created beings streams by
natural and iraraediate efflux frora the divine
presence, as that vital heat and warmth, that
animates all thiugs here below, comes by
direct emanation from that plentiful fountain
of it, the sun. Aud consequently, when a
cloud shall interpose between us and the
presence of God, the terrors of the law, and
the fears of provoked justice and affronted
mercy cannot but rush in upon the conscience
with a much greater force than at other times.
As raalignant vapours that infect the air have,
after the sun is set, and the light withdrawn,
a rauch more powerful influence upon it, than
they can have in the day, God's suspending
the light and beams of his countenance will
cause such " a darkness as may be felt :" and
even the strictest livers and most iraproved
Christians are forced to feel the heavy, dispi
riting damps of it, when God deserts them.
The ways by which God discovers hiraself to,
and hides himself from the souls of men, are
strange and inconceivable ; but whensoever
he does either, the soul is so nearly aud
sensibly affected with it, that it presently and
certainly understands its condition : indeed,
as certainly as a man finds and feels in him
self, when he sickens and wheu he recovers.
God soraetiraes writes bitter things against
a man, shews him his.^old sins in all their
terrifying, crimson circumstances, leaves hira 1
in the sad deeps of despair to himself, and his |
own pitiful strengths, to encounter the threats
of the law, the assaults of his iraplacable |
eneray : in which forlorn estate is not such a |
one much like a poor traveller losing his way
at midnight, and surprised with a violent
storm besides ? He has darkness round about
hira, hears nothing but storms aud thuuder
above him, and knows uot oue step of his
way. Such an one is aman deserted by God,
whether he looks inwards or upwards ; nothing
but horror and darkness, confusion and rais
take, attends his condition.
It is reported to be the custom in some

ON PROVERBS, xviii. 14.

269

countries, that when a judge sits upon the
condemnation of a raalefactor, there is a cur
tain drawu before him, so that the condemned
person cannot see his judge. And thus it is
often betweeu God and a " wounded spirit :" it
hears indeed frora him a condemning voice,
but caunot see his face ; and this is horror
upou horror ; it heightens the conderanation,
aud raakes the sentence of death sharper than
the infliction.
4thly, aud lastly. These wounding per
plexities are brought upon the soul by God's
giving coramission to the terapter raore than
usually to trouble and disquiet it ; for Satan
is truly and properly the great troubler of
Israel. He was so eveu to bira " who kuew
no sin :" for as in our Saviour's very entrance
into his ministry he terapted him, (Matt, iv.)
so, towards the close, both of that and his life
too, he troublerl hira : for all that was done
by the cruel instruraents of his bitter passion,
was done by his direct instigation, (Luke, xxii.
63,) "This is your hour," (Says Christ,) "and
the power of darkness." There is a certain
hour, or critical tirae, in which God suffers the
" powers of darkness" to afflict and vex those
that are dearest to him. And if it could be
so with one perfectly innocent, how much
worse must it needs be, when this raortal
eneray of raankind has to deal with sinners?
whoni it is as natural for hira to trouble for
sin, as to terapt to it : and as it is coraraon
with him, before sin is committed, to raake it
appear less in the sinner's eye than really it
is, so, after the commission, if it be possible,
he will represent it greater. When God shall
leave the computing of our sins to him, where
the law writes our debts but fifty, this unjust
steward will set down fourscore. If the malice
of hell, the wit, industry, and importunity of
the tempter, having such a theme as the guilt
of sin, and the curse of the law, to enlarge
upon, can do any thing, then shall the sinner
find, by woful experience, that he could not
with more art and earnestness allure to pre
sumption, than he can now terrify into
despair. He that so fawningly enticed the
soul to sin, will now as bitterly'upbraid it for
having sinned, 'ihe same hand that laid the
bait and the corn to draw the silly fow-l into
the net, when it is once in, will have its life
for coming thither.
Satan never so cruelly insults and plays the
tyrant as in this case. If God casts down the
soul, he will trample upon it. He will set a
new stamp and name upon every sin. Every
backsliding shall be total apostasy. Every
sin against light and knowledge shall be
heightened into the siu against the Holy
Ghost. The conscience shall not be able to
produce one argument for itself but he will
retort it. If it shall plead former assurance
of God's favour, from the inward witness of
his Spirit, Satan will persuade the soul that

it was but a spirit of delusion. If it shall
argue an interest in God's promises from
former obedience, as a fruit of that faith that
never fails, Satan will tell the soul, that it
cannot prove its former obedience to have
proceeded frora such a faith, since even a
hypocrite raay go very far. And lastly, if it
would draw corafort frora that abundant
rederaption that the death of Christ offers to
all that are truly sensible of their sins, Satan
will reply, that to such as, by relapsing into
sin, have " trarapled under foot the blood of
the covenant, there reraains no farther pro
pitiation for sin." Now with these and the
like rejoinders will he endeavour to baffle and
invalidate all a sinner's pretences to pardon.
And when God shall not only permit, but,
what is more, judicially bid him use his
diabolical skill in troubling and vexing a
wounded spirit, those arguments, that of
theraselves were able to amaze the heart,
being urged horae by such a sophister, will
ever break and confound it.
And thus I have shewn four several ways
by which the spirit coraes to be thus wounded
and afflicted ; which was the third thing pro
posed to be handled. Pass we now to the
Fourth, which is to shew, what is God's
end and design in casting men into such a
perplexed condition.
Concerning which, as we are to remember
that I shew at first that the subject of these
excessive, heart-wounding troubles were both
the elect aud the reprobate, both the godly
and the wicked ; so we are to know faither,
that God has a very different design in bring
ing these terrors upon each of thera. And
1st, For the wicked or reprobate. It is evi
dent, that whensoever God brings these into
such a condition of horror, it is to them but
the beginnings of sorrow, and an entrance
into those torments which shall abide upon
them for ever. It is but the first fruits of hell,
and the earnest of their damnation. But
then, 2dly, For the pious aud sincere. God some
times brings this anguish upon their spirit for a
twofold end, very different from theforraer. As,
1st, To imbitter sin to thera. Nothing does
or can leave a more abiding impression upon
tbe mind than misery escaped. He surely
cannot but remember the battle, who is al
ways looking upon his scars. A man, by
revoking and recollecting within hiraself for
raer passages, will be still apt to inculcate
these sad memoirs to his conscience : This is
that sin that cost me so many doubtful, dis
tracting thoughts about ray eternal condition :
this is that sin that nailed ray Saviour to the
cross, that forced the thorns into his head,
and thrust tiie spear into his heart ; and shall
I now, after all this, cast a pleasing eye upon
a raortal, known, experimented mischief?
Shall I take that fire into my bosom that was

271

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Serm. XXX.

so likely to have consumed me? Shall I again
parley with that serpent that has so often
beguiled me?
If the sight of other men's calamities will
add a caution where it finds consideration,
should not the remembrance of our owu do it
much more? Propriety in misery notes it
with a lasting character. And this let every
one, who wears the name of a Christian,
know, that he does but usurp that name, that
can look upon Christ's sufferings otherwise
thau his own, or pretend to auy benefit frora
them without first owning a propriety in
them. And then, if all those sufferings were
but the final consequents of sin, -with what
heart can that man, who accounts himself
really a sharer in them, fall afresh to the cora
mission of those sins, of the direful effects of
which he stands convinced by so terrible a
demonstration ? Certainly such an one (un
less deserted by humanity, as well as religion)
cannot but continually carry about him argu
ments enough lying close at his heart where
with to answer and repel either the most
furious or most plausible teraptation. He
would baffle and cast off the tempter frora the
very topic of his own raalicious methods, and
stab and fling back the base proposal in his
own face ; from this very consideration, that
he hiraself would be the first and fiercest to
accuse hira for that very sin which he was
now enticing hira to.
For if God has implanted such a principle
of caution in the very brutes, from a mere
suggestion of uature, that the net or the snare,
once escaped and got out of, will not easily be
entered into again, certainly these mere ani
mals raust not be presuraed to act more warily
from a bare natural instinct, than a regene
rate person shall from a principle infused
frora above. Though the truth is, one would
think, bare nature raight be enough to pre
serve a man in this case : for he who has but
a memory cannot possibly want arguments
against his sin. To consider and reflect will
secure hira frora a relapse.
2dly, God's other end iu wounding the
spirit of a truly pious and sincere person, is to
endear and enhance the value of returning
raercy : for nothing can give the soul so high
a taste of mercy as the consideration of past
mercy. Wheu a man stands safely landed
upon the desired haven, it cannot but be an
unspeakable delight to him to reflect upou
what he has escaped ; they are the dangers of
the sea which commend and set off the plea
sures aud securities of the shore. The passage
out of one contrary estate into another gives
us a quicker and more lively sense of that
into which we pass ; for as when the wicked
perish, the remembrance of their former plea
sures and enjoyments mightily heightens the
apprehensions of their present torments ; so
when the righteous are le-adraitted into fresh

assurances of God's favour, all the former sad
conflicts they had with the dreadful sense of
his wrath serve highly to put a lustre upon
present grace. A reconcilement after a falling
out, a refreshing spring after a sharp winter,
a glorious and triumphant ascension after a
bitter and a bloody passion, are things not
only commended by their own native good
ness, but also by the extreme malignity of
their contraries ; things that raise enjoyment
into rapture, and common pleasure into trans
port and ecstasy. As that which put a pecu
liar honour aud circle of glory about the head
of Christ, was uot so much God's exalting
and giving him " a name at which all things
in heaven and earth should bow," as that he
should rise to such a stupendous height of
royalty by a wretched, infaraous, and accursed
death ; that from being the scorn of raen, he
should command the adoration of angels ; and
from suffering amongst felons and raalefactors,
ascend " far above principalities and powers."
Such are the astonishing methods of diviue
mercy, where God afflicts with the miud of a
father, and kills for uo other purpose but that
he raay raise again.
In Psalm cxxvi. 1, 2, "When the Lord turn
ed the captivity of Sion, (says the Psalmist,)
theu were we like to thera that dreara." So
here in this spiritual deliverance, when a man
passes from the agonies and distresses of a
wounded spirit into a condition of joy and
sereneness of mind, grounded upon a rational
hope of God's reconcilement with him, he is
so overcome and ravished with delight, that
he doubts alraost of the reality of what ho
sees aud feels, and even questions the truth of
actual fruition.
And thus much for the fourth particular
proposed frora the words, which was to shew
what God's ends and designs are in casting
men into such a perplexed coudition. Pass
we now to the
Fifth and last, which was to draw some use
ful inferences frora the whole. And for this,
to prevent both the raistakes of the weak, and
the misconstructions of the reverse, we shall,
from the foregoing discourse, infer these three
things by way of caution :
1st, Let no man presume to pronounce any
thing scoffingly of the present, or severely of
the final estate of such as he finds exercised
with the distracting troubles of a wounded
spirit. Let not all this seem to thee but an
effect ofthy brother's weakness or raelancholy :
for he who was the " great and the holy One,"
he whom God is said " to have made strong
for himself," he who was " the Lord mighty to
save," and lie who must be thy Saviour if ever
thou art saved ; eveu he passed under all
these agonies, endured all these horrors and
consternations ; and to that extremity, that
wrath, and death, and hell itself seeraed all
with oue united force to have poured in upon.

ON PROVERBS, xviii. 14.

270

and took absolute possession of his amazed
faculties. We live in an age of blaspheming all that is
sacred, and scoffing at all that is serious : God
forgive us for it, aud revenge not upon us
those uncontrolled blasphemiesaudlewdnesses,
which, in the sense of all wise and good men,
proclaim us ripe for judgment. But surely,
to scoff iu this case, over and above the ira
piety of it, is cruel, barbarous, and inhuman ;
indeed, more cmel by far than to jeer a mau
upou the rack, or under the last executions of
the most reraorseless justice : it is indeed to
act over the execrable raalice of the Jews,
mocking aud flouting at our Saviour upon the
very cross. Besides that, it raay chance to
prove a dangerous piece of raillery, to be pass
ing jests where God is so rauch in earnest,
especially since there is no man breathing but
carries about him a sleeping lion in his bosora,
which God can, and may, when he pleases,
rouse up and let loose upon hira, so as to tear
and worry hira to that degree, that in the
very anguish of his soul he shall " choose death
rather than life," and be glad to take sanc
tuary iu a quiet grave. But then, farther, as
this disraal estate of spiritual darkness is a
condition by no raeans to be scoffed at, so
neither ought it to represent the person under
it to any one as a reprobate or castaway. For
he who is in this case is under the iraraediate
hand of God, who alone knows what will be
the issue of these his dealings with hira. We
have seen aud shewn that God may carry on
very different designs in the same dispensa
tion ; and consequently that no man, from
the bare feeling of God's hand, can certainly
understand his mind.
2dly, In the next place, let no secure sinner
applaud or soothe up himself in the presuraed
safety of his spiritual estate, because he finds
no such trouble or anguish upon his spirit for
sin. For as the best aud most beloved of
God's saints have lain under this doleful and
desponding condition, so, for the most part,
the vilest persons breathing have passed their
lives freely and jocundly, without the least
raisgiving or suspicion about their eternal
concems, who yet at length have met with a
full payment of wrath and vengeance in the
other world for all their confidence and
jollity in this.
It is a common saying and observation in
divinity, that where despair has slain its thou
sands, presumption has destroyed its ten
thousands. The agonies of the forraer are
indeed raore terrible, butthe securities of the
latter not at all less fatal. And he who is
carried off by a lethargy or an apoplexy,
though he dies more easily, yet he dies as
surely as he, whose soul is forced and fired
out of his body by the ragings of a burning
fever. The most confident sinner living knows not

how soon God may deal with hira in this
raanner ; and then the sins that lie still and
quiet in his mind for the present, when the
fire of God's wrath comes to be applied to
them, will be found to be quite other things.
It is the very sarae water that cools and re
freshes at one tirae, and that is made to scald
and kill at another.
All whieh considered, if any one can be
secure in his vice, let him be secure still ; only
let him know, that if ever God thinks fit to
wound his spirit, and to set the sense of sin
horae to his conscience, it will, of the most
profane, daring, and resolved debauchee, raake
hira the most pitiful, abject, broken-minded
creature under heaven ; and take too fast a
hold of his stout heart, to be either hectored,
or drunk, or drolled away.
Sdly and lastly. Let no person, on the con-
trary,exclude hiraself frora the number of such
as are sincere and truly regenerate, only be
cause he never yet felt any of these araazing
pangs of conscience for sin. For though God,
out of his unsearchable counsel, is soraetiraes
pleased to bring these terrors upon his saints,
yet in theraselves they are not things neces
sary to raake raen such. God knows the pro-
perest ways of bringing every soul to hiraself ;
and what he finds necessary for one, he does
not always judge fit for another. No more
trouble for sin is necessary to salvation, thau
so rauch as is sufficient to take a raan off from
sin. And if that be once done, he who is
troubled for this, that he is not, as he thinks,
troubled enough for his sins, gives au infal
lible proof that he is not in love with thera.
And therefore let such persons rather ac
knowledge the gooduess of God towards them,
and not quarrel with the great physician of
souls for having cured them by easy and
gentie methods. It is the sarae God who
speaks in " thunders and earthquakes" to the
hearts of some sinners, and in a " soft still
voice" to others. But whether iu a storra or
in a calm, in a cloud or in a sunshine, he is
still that God who will in the end abundantly
speak peace to all those, who with humility
and fear depend upon hira for it.
To whom, therefore, be rendered and as
cribed, as is most due, all praise, might,
majesty, and dominion, both now and for
everraore. Amen.

SERMON XXXI.
" trntowhom I sware in my wrath, that they should not enter
into my rest." — Psalm xcv. II.
In these words we have au account of the
severest proceeding of an angry God against
sinners. What Calvin says of reprobation,
that it was " decretuin horribile," a dreadful.

272

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Serm. XXXL

amazing decree, the like may be here said of
this sentence pronounced against Israel. For
certainly, if such decrees are so terrible in the
constitution of them, they cannot but appear
much more terrible in the promulgation.
We have, in the precedent verses, a narra
tive of the Israelites' provoking sins, like a
black cloud gathering over their heads, and
here we have it breaking out into this dread
ful thunder ; a thunder much more dreadful
than all those that sounded in their ears at
the promulging of the law from mount Sinai :
for if the terror of the Almighty was so great
in giving the law, no wonder if it was rauch
greater in pronouncing the curse.
The words in theraselves seem very plain
and easy ; and by this expression, " I sware in
my wrath," is meant God s peremptory declar
ing his resolution to destroy those murmuring
and rebellious Jews. The word "swearing"
is very significant, and seeras to iraport these
two things :
First, The certainty of the sentence here
pronounced. Every word of God both is and
must be tmth ; but ratified by an oath, it is
tmth with an advantage. It is signed irre
vocable. This fixes it, like the laws of the
Medes and Persian.s, beyond all possibility
of alteration, and m.akes God's word like his
very nature, unchangeable.
Secondly, It imports the terror of the sen
tence. If the children of Israel could s.ay,
" Let not God speak to us, lest we die," what
would they have said, had God then sworn
against them ? It is terrible to hear an oath
from the mouth but of a poor mortal ; but
from the mouth of an omnipotent God, it
does not only terrify, but confound. An oath
from God is truth delivered in anger ; truth
(as I may so speak) with a vengeance. When
God speaks, it is the creature's duty to hear ;
but when he swears, to trerable. As for the
next expression, " that they should not enter
into my rest," we raust observe, that the word
rest may have a double interpretation:
1st, It raay be taken for a teraporal rest in
Canaan, the promised land ; or, 2dly, for an
eternal rest in the heavenly Canaan.
Concerning which, sorae who interpret
spiritual truths according to the raodel of
their own carnal conceptions, will have the
whole sense of these words to be no more than
God's excluding that generation of the Jews
that murmured frora a temporal possession of
the land of Canaan, by destroying thera in
the wilderness. But this does not reach the
matter. For since the church of the Jews, as
to the whole econoray and design of it, was in
every thing typical : (so that it is observed
by all writers, that there was no dispensation
tluat befell thera from God, in respect of any
temporal blessing or curse, but it did signify
and couch under it the sarae in spirituals :)
frora the w.ari-ant of this rule we must admit.

in this scripture, as well as in many others
of the like nature, both of a literal and of a
spiritual, or mystical sense. And,
1st, Considered according to the literal
meaning of the words, as they are an histori
cal passage relating to God's cutting off that
murrauring generation of the Jews in the
wilderness, set down in Nurab. xiv. 21 — 23,
so questionless they signify onlj' God's deny
ing thera an entrance into the temporal
Canaan. For to affirra, that all those that
fell in the wilderness were excluded from
heaven, would be both a harsh and an unwar
rantable interpretation. But then,
2dly, Considered according to the spiritual
or mystical sense of the words. So the mean
ing of thera runs thus : as God in his fierce
anger destroyed raany of the children of
Israel for their raurraurings in the wilderness,
and so denied thera an entrance into the
promised land of Canaan ; so he will eter
nally destroy all obstinate unbelievers, and for
ever exclude them from an enjoyment of a
perpetual rest with himself in heaven. This
I pitch upon as the prirae intendraent and
sense of the words, though not so as wholly
to exclude the other ; and I ground it upon
the apostle's ovvn interpretation of these words
in Heb. iv. 5. compared -with Heb. ix 11,
where he interprets this word rest, of such a
rest as a man may fall short of through un
belief. But now unbelief does not so rauch
exclude from a temporal, as from an eternal
rest. He applies it also to the Jews his con
temporaries, living in the sarae age with
hiraself ; and thus could not possibly be said
to raiss or fall short of the earthly Canaan,
since they and their ancestors had possessed
that long before. It is clear, therefore, that
it is to be understood chiefly of the heavenly.
The words thus explained, I shall draw into
this one proposition, namely,
That God sometimes in this life, upon ex
traordinary provocations, may and does inevi
tably design and seal up obstinate sinners to
eternal destruction.
The prosecution of which I shall manage
under these following particulars:
I. I shall shew how aud by what means
God seals up a sinner to perdition.
II. What sort of obstinate sinners those are
that God deals with in this manner.
III. I shall answer and resolve one or two
questions that may arise from the foregoing
particulars. And,
IV. and lastly. Draw some uses from the
whole. Of these in their order. And,
I. For the first of these. There are three
ways by -which God usually prepares and
ripens a sinner for certain destruction :
1st, By withholding the virtue and power of
his ordinances : and when God seals up tho
influences of these conduits, no wonder if the

ON PSALM, xcv. 11.

273

soul withers and dies with drought. For,
abas ! what isa conduit by which nothing is
conveyed ! The ordinances of theraselves
can do nothing but as they are actuated and
enlivened by a secret, divine energy working
iu thera. Now God, while he freely dispenses
thera, can suspend the other ; and as he cau
give rain, and yet deny fruitfulness, and eveu
send famine with a harvest ; so he can fix
such a curse upon the meaus of grace, that a
man may really want them, while he enjoys
them : that is, he may want them in their
force aud power, while he enjoys them in the
letter : as a man may eat, and yet uot be
nourished ; for it is not the bread that nou
rishes, but the blessing. Thus the Israelites
had leanness in their bones, together with
their quails ; the hidden, nutritive power of
the divine benediction being withheld. So iu
spirituals, a man raay have an unthriving
soul in theraidst of thegreatest evangelical pro
visions, because unblest ; and in the raidst of
such plenty, suffer a real scarcity and faraine.
The truth of this will appear frora those
different effects that are ascribed to the same
word in Scripture. For is not that which is
a " savour of life " to sorae, that is, to those
that are within the purpose of God's love,
and whom he intends effectually to call, and
to convert to himself ; I say, is not the same
termed " a savour of death" to others ? that is,
to the obstinate and irapenitent, and such as
God leaves to themselves. That which God
uses as an instruraent to save, raeeting with
the corruption of some obdurate hearts, is
made a means to ruin : as it softens some, so
it hardens others. The chosen of God are
qualified by it for glory ; the reprobates pre
pared for wrath. So contrary are the work
ings of the same principle upon different sub
jects. As the sarae rain, that, falling upon a tree
or plaut, makes it growand flourish, falling up
on wood cut down and dried, raakes it rot .and
decay. By this raeans God does very power
fully fit the " sons of perdition" for their final
sentence. For wheu men grow worse and
worse by sermons and sacraments, and under
the continual droppings of the word preached
produce nothing but the cursed fruits of sin,
like " the earth, that, drinking in the rain
that cometh often upon it, beareth nothing
but briers and thorns ;" what cau be expected,
but that, as they resemble the earth in its
barrenness, so they should be like it also iu
its doom, which is, " to be nigh unto cursing ;
whose end is to be bumt," (Heb. vi. 8.) The
apostle draws a peremptory conclusion con
cerning this, (2 Cor. iv. 3,) " If our gospel be
hid, it is hid to them that are lost." When
the word shall be exhibited to the soul, like a
dark lantern, not to display, but to conceal
the light, no wonder, " if seeing, we do not
see," but wander through the darkness of a
soul-destroying blindness, to such a darkness
VOL. II.

as is perpetual. God can order even his word
and precepts so, and turn them to the destruc
tion of the unprofitable, unworthy enjoyers of
them, that, as it is in Isaiah, xxviii. 13, " they
shall go backward, and be broken, and snared,
and taken." And certainly we have cause to
conclude him, who receives no benefit at all
by the word of life, a lost person. He whom
the very means of salvation do uot save, raust
needs perish.
2dly, God seals and prepares a siuner for
destruction, by restraining the convincing
power of his providences. God's providences
are subservient to his ordinances : they are
(as it were) God's word acted and raade visible
to the eye. For God speaks, not only in his
word, but also in his works. And as Christ
says of his rairaculous, so we may say also of
God's providential works, that " the works
that he does, bear witness of him." There
are such fresh marks and signatures of the
divine will in the many occasional passages
of our lives, that such as have their senses in
any measure spiritually exercised, do not only
see the haud, but also hear the voice of hira
that sent them . And it would not be difficult
to draw forth sundry instances frora history,
shewing how several persons have been con
verted by a serious reflection upon some
strange passages of providence, that have so
directly thwarted, and even melted them in
their sin, and withal carried with them such
undeniable evidence of the divine displeasure,
that the persons concerned have been forced
to cry out, that it was the apparent finger of
God ; and so to submit to it by a conscien
tious reformation of their lives. Now I shall
instance in three sorts of providence, in which
God often speaks convincingly :
1st, In a general, comraon calamity. In
respect of which it is said, that " when God's
judgraents are abroad iu the land, the inhabi
tants will learn righteousuess," (Isaiah, xxvi.
9.) Now that which concems all, concems
every particular ; as iu a general rain every
twig, every single spire of grass shares in the
influence. Judgments, that are general iu the
sending, are to be raade particular by a dis
tinct application. Thus Ezra aud Nehemiah
made the common desolation and captivity of
the Jews the subject-matter of their personal
sorrow. Thus also Jeremy, (Lament, iii. 1,)
considers all the words and griefs that were dif
fused here and there in a coramon, universal
calaraity,and theu raakes them all concentre in
his own breast : " I ara the man," says he, " that
have seen affliction." And what is the whole
book of the Lamentations, but tbe doleful ex
pression of the sorrows of one man for the
misery of all ? The convincing sense of a cala
mity should spread wider a great deal than the
actual endurance of it, and the terror proceed
farther than the sraart. As the sunbeams,
though directly and imraediately they may

274

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Serm. XXXI.

strike only this or that thing, yet they are
sure to reach many others iu the rebound.
But now, when Qod, as it were, blunts the
edge of a common calamity, so that it makes
no impression, or hardens the heart, so that
it admits none, this is a pregnant sign of a
soul fitted and prepared for destruction. See
the truth of this exemplified in one or two
particulars. Aud first, could any thing be
imagined more irapious and absurd, than that
which we read in 1 Sara. xv. of Agag king of
Araaiek ; that iraraediately upon tbe conquest
of his kingdom, the slaughter of his subjects,
and the captivity of his own person, like a
man wholly unconcerned in all these distresses,
he should venture to adorn and trick up him
self, and conclude presently, that " surely the
bitterness of death was past ?" But behold,
even then, in that very moraent, sudden de
struction rushes in upon him ; which (by the
way) is then usually nearest to our persons,
when farthest from our thoughts. But, to
proceed to a higher exaraple of villainy ;
could there be a more prodigious, horrid in
stance of incorrigible lewdness, than that in
Nurab. xxv. 6, of one Zimri, of whora it is said,
that in the very midst and height of a plague
from heaven, raging over the whole carap of
Israel, " he brought into his tent a Midian-
itish strurapet in the sight of Moses," his
prince, " and in the sight of all the congrega
tion of the children of Israel, who stood weep
ing before the door of the tabernacle of the
congregation ?" Neither any touch of coramon
humanity, upon the sight of his brethren's
mourning and misery, nor any awe and
reverence of that great lawgiver, could give
check to his fury ; but that, in defiance of the
plague, and of the wrath that sent it, in spite
of all shame and scandal, and in the face ofGod
and of the world, he charges on resolutely
and audaciously, to the satisfaction of his im
pure desires. But wheresoever we meet with
such a rate of sinning, we may be sure de
struction cannot be far off, but even at the
door. And accordingly here, in ver. 8, we
find the vengeance of God overtaking this
vile person, by a sudden and disastrous death;
a death that carried away body and soul to
gether. For when raen are killed iu their
sin, flagrante crimine, death temporal is by
consequence etemal. But now, had these
two daring wretches duly and rightly con
sidered these dreadful, public dispensations of
God, they would quickly have reflected upon
their own personal danger, and cried out, with
surprise aud horror, as those sinners of Sion
did, upon the sight of God's judgraents round
about thera, (Isaiah, xxxiii. 14,) "Who araong
us shall dwell with devouring fire ? who
among us shall dwell with everlasting burn
ings ? ' This, together with the fears of
mature repentance, had been the only sure
way to have extinguished them. But persons

that will uot be concerned, uor moved, nor
wrought upon by the loud alarms of God's
judgments upon others, are ripening apace for
perdition. 2dly, The second sort of convincing pro
vidences is by particular, personal, and dis
tinguishing judgments. Wheu a man is
singled out for misery, in the midst of a gene
ral prosperity, this, surely, cannot be accounted
accident. Wheu God hits one in a company,
you may very well conclude that he airaed at
him. Distinction and discrimination was
never yet the effect of chance. Now in every
such judgment the voice and command of
God is, that we should either begin or renew
our repentance. And wheu God speaks with
his hand, certainly he speaks most forcibly.
But when he binds up, and withholds the
healing force of this also, and inflicts the rod,
but denies jurisdiction ; and uses that to kill,
that was first raade to correct ; this is another
speedy and effectual way to destroy.
Those many rubs aud crosses that befell
Saul, both in his persecution of David, and
his other .affairs, were certainly the voice of
God, audible enough to any spiritual ear : aud
though God answered him not by " Urim and
Thummira," yet he spoke aloud to hira in
vocal blows ; which were both reprehensions
of what he had done, and admonitions what,
for the future, he should do. But we know,
none of all these things had any effect upon
hira, unless only to make him worse. It
appeared to be God's purpose, all along, by a
continual increase of guilt and hardness, to
train him up for destruction. The event did
still demonstrate what God designed hira to.
The same judgments that in the hand of God
are sovereign means to polish and iraprove a
well-disposed raind, are as efficaciously used
by him to inflame the accounts of the wicked
and the obdurate ; who take occasion from
thence, to make themselves ten times more
the sons of reprobation than they were before.
As in bodies, those that are solid and excel
lent, as gold and silver, the more you beat
them, the brighter and better they grow : but
in flesh, that is presently subject to corrupt,
the more you strike it, the blacker and nearer
it is to putrefaction. See the desperate resolve
that a wretched king of Israel made under a
pressing judgraent, incurabent upon him from
God, in 2 Kings, vi. 33, "And he said,
Behold, this evil is of the Lord ; why should
I wait for the Lord any longer ?" When a
man, instead of being humbled by an evil, is
enraged ; and, instead of lying at God's feet,
flies in his face ; we may be sure that his
final "judgment and daranation lingers not."
For if such works of God, as have in them
naturally a convincing quality, do not actually
convince ; but that the sinner can account
"all God's arrows as stubble, and laugh at
the shaking of his spear ;" we may look upon

ON PSALM, xcv. 11.

275

that man as one that " hardens himself against
God." And what will prove the issue of such
a behaviour is not difficult to conclude, from
that in Job, ix. 4, " That none ever hardened
hiraself against God, and prospered."
Sdly, The third sort of providences, in
which God often speaks convincingly, is by
signal, unexpected deliverances. These aro
both the strongest and the sweetest ways of
conviction : they are properly God's " drawing
us with the cords of a man :" all persuasion,
without any mixture of terror or compulsion :
by these, God does, as it were, allure, aud
even court us iuto subjection.
Now all deliverance, in the nature of it,
presupposing some evil, frora which we are
delivered ; God first brings us under an evil,
that we may see our sin, and then rescues us
frora perishing by it, that we raay repent.
He shews us death in the punishraent, to
affright, and afterwards reraoves it in the
deliverance, to endear the soul. And surely,
upon all the accounts of reason and coramon
humanity, it should be natural from hence to
draw an argument for repentance. For to sin
against raercy, shining in a deliverance, is
disingenuous ; and, since it provokes the
judgment to return, equally dangerous. The
most proper and genuine deduction that is to
be made from God's mercy, is his fea/r, in
Psalm cxxx. 4, " There is forgiveness with
thee, that thou raayest be feared." But now,
if any man, from a deliverance from punish
ment, shall draw a consequence for boldness
in siu ; and if, from compassion, he shall
argue himself into presumption, this is not
the discourse of his reason, but the sophistry
and baseness of his corruption. And such a
way of arguing as God reproached the children
of Israel for, as equally wicked and irrational,
in Jerem. vii. 10, " Will ye stand before
me, and say. We are delivered to do all these
abominations?" For can we imagine that
the great and just God should concern hiraself
to deliver us, and to knock off our shackles,
only that we raay sin against hira so rauch
the raore freely? When God has got the
sinner upon the advantage, and is raaking
him feel, in some raeasure, the evil of his sin,
in the smart of his punisbment, what is it
that makes God, after all this, let him go,
and choose rather to release, than to despatch
bira ? Is it because he could not destroy him
in justice ? or because it would not stand with
the reputation of his goodness ? No, assuredly ;
it was wholly out of free, spontaneous, unde
served raercy, to see whether or no he will
improve such an act of favour into a motive
and occasion of araendraent. But if, for all
this, the sinner will not hear what God speaks
in such a dealing ; but shuts his eyes and
stops his ears, and, after so raany endearraents,
loves God never the better, nor his siu at all
the worse, (as this frarae of spirit often befalls

sturdy, overgrown sinners,) we raay assuredly
conclude, that God is taking another course
with such an one ; and fairly fitting him for
the final stroke of his revenging justice.
And thus much for the second way, by
which I shew that God seals and prepares a
sinner for destruction ; namely, by restrain
ing the convincing force of his providences.
The 3d and last that I shall raention is, by
delivering up the sinner to a stupidity, or
searedness of conscience. And here it will be
requisite to shew what this searedness of con
science raeans : which I shall endeavour to
explain from that place of Scripture (1
Tim. iv. 2,) "having their consciences seared
with a hot iron ;" xexavTripicca/iiiiau T'/jv iii'xy
avi/tilmi«. Where some, by "a seared con
science," understand a prostitute, branded,
filthy conscience ; alluding to such notorious
criminals as are branded for their villainies :
which, though it be in itself a truth, yet
others, I think, more significantly, raake it
au allusou to the practice of surgeons and
physicians, who use cuttings and burnings for
the healing of corrupt flesh : which being
once thus cauterized, or seared, becoraes after
wards insensible. And like such flesh are the
consciences of sorae raen ; which are, as it
were, seared into a kind of insensibility.
Now for the nature of conscience, we raust
know that it is God's vicegerent in the soul,
placed there by him, as superintendent over
all our actions, severely to exaraine and super
vise them, and irapartially to excuse or accuse,
according to their conforraity or inconformity
to the rule prescribed by God's law. And it
is, withal, naturallyof the tenderest, the quick
est, and the most exact sense of any of the
faculties ; impatient of the least irregularity^,
and not conniving at the smallest deviation
from the rule a raan ought to act by.
But nOw, when this becomes gro.ss, stupid,
and insensible, the soul may sin on as it
pleases ; for what can hinder sin frora reign
ing, when conscience is hardened, and cannot
so ranch as check it ? If, when the watchraan
is but asleep, the city or castle committed to
hira is in danger of a surprise frora the enemy,
how rauch raore raust it needs be so, when he
is blind ! When there is a benumbedness, or
searedness, upon the grand principle of spiri
tual sense, so that, as it is expressed iu Ephes.
iv. 19, we come "to be past feeling," no
wonder then if sin and Satan inflict blow after
blow, iu the raost fatal manner upon the soul ;
for this is raost certain, that unless we feel the
evil of sin, we shall never resist it. Such a
conscience will brook and digest the foulest
sins. As when a raan has lost his taste, any
thing will go down with hira.
But still we raust here note, that it is not
at ouce, but by degrees, that the conscience
coraes to be trained on to this insensible,

276

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Serm. XXXI.

obdurate teraper. As first, if a man's con
science will serve him to be worldly, from
thence it shall allow him to proceed to ambi
tion and covetousness ; and theu, following
the scent of gain through thick and thin, he
shall be able to mould and cast himself into
any kind even of the wickedest and the basest
compliances ; and frora thence, at last, if need
be, he shall not stick at perjury itself. And
now, when conscience, by going this cursed
round, is become hardy, and the man made
au experienced, thorough-paced siuner ; what
sin will he not dare to commit? Any lie, any
oath, any treachery, shall be readily swallowed
and digested by hira.
But how dangerous, and even desperate, is
such a frarae of mind ! and yet God some
tiraes delivers up sinners to it ; as he did
Pharaoh, to " hardness of heart." But hovv ?
not by any positive infusion of such an evil
habit into the conscience ; but by substracting
his grace, as also providentially adrainistering
occasions, by which the sinner, thus deprived
of grace, is more and more hardened. And
farther than this, I see uot how any evil or
sinful disposition iu the creature can be said
to be from God. It is sufficient that God
effectually works his end upon sinners this
way. As the sun is the cause of night and
darkness, not by any casual influence produc
ing it, but only by withdrawing his light ;
the corruption of a man's heart, unrenewed
by grace, is the cause of its own hardness : as,
when you raelt wax, reraove but the fire, and
the wax will harden itself. But now, there
is no way so sure and dreadful, by which God
binds over a sinner to death, as this. For thus
God dealt with the Jews : " He gave them
eyes, that seeing, they might not perceive;
and ears, that hearing, they might not under
stand : but made the heart of that people
gross, that they might not be converted, and
healed ;" that is, that they might be hardened
and ruined ; as it is in Isaiah, vi. 9, 10.
Tbe same appears also from that opposite
way that God takes to save. Because God
had thoughts of mercy for king Joshua, there
fore he gave him a " tender heart," to relent,
upon the hearing of the law, (2 Kings, xxii.
19,) " Because thine heart was tender, &c.
therefore have I heard thee, saith the Lord."
This hardness growing upon the conscience,
is like a film growing upon the eyes ; it blinds
thera. Aud that which raakes the conscience
blind to discern its duty, raakes it bold to
venture upon siu. But, whosoever it is that
God shuts up under such a frame of spirit,
that mau carries the raark of death about
hira, and the wrath of God (in all likelihood)
abides upon hira.
And thus I have done with the first thing
proposed ; which was to shew, how, and by
what means, God seals up a sinner to perdi
tion. Come we now to the

Second, which is to shew, what sort of ob
stinate sinners those are, that God deals with
in this manner : I shall instance in two.
1st, Such as sin against clear and notable
warnings frora God. Before a sinner coraes
to have finished his course, if he can but
reflect upon and trace over the several dealings
of God's special providence, he will find that
there have been many stops and rubs thrown
in his way ; which m'ight have given him fair
warning to raake a stand, at least, if not to
retreat. For God sometimes hedges in a sin
ner's way, so that it is really very difficult for
hini to proceed, and not only more safe, but
also more easy for hiin to return. How many
men have gone to church, with their hearts
fully engaged in a resolution to pursue some
secret, beloved sin ; and there have been
strongly arrested with the convincing force of
some word, so seasonably, and, as it were,
purposely directed agaiust that sin, that they
have thought the preacher to have looked into
their very hearts, and to have been as privy
to their most inward thoughts and designs, as
their own consciences ! Now this is a raani
fest admonition aud caution, cast in by God
himself; which to balk, or break through,
greatly enhances the sinner's guilt. Some
times God warns a siuner from his course, by
m.aking strong impressions upon his mind of
its unlawfulness, and contrariety to the divine
will : which irapressions are so strong and
cogent, that they overbear all the shifts and
carnal reasonings that the subtilty of a wicked
heart can make in the behalf of it. Again,
sometiraes God meets the sinner with some
heavy, threatening sickness, lays hiin upon
the bed of pain aud languishing, and scares
hira with the fears of an approaching death,
and the weight of au endless confusion. And
then he pleads with hira, opens the book of
conscience, and sets before him his sins, repre
sented with all their killing circumstances and
dismal appearances, together with their hide
ous, destructiveconsequences iu theeverlasting
endurance of an infinite wrath. In which
case, as the condition of sickness and diinger
is usually a relenting condition, so no doubt
but at that time glorious designs of repen
tance are took up by the sinuer. But as soon
as he is released of his sickness, he quickly
grows sick of his repentance ; and, as the
Roraan orator says, " TiHior uon diuturni
magister officii :" nothing is more common,
than for the violences of fear to return to the
inclinations of nature. Possibly, after all this,
God meets the sinuer again, scatters his estate,
makes a breach upon his reputation, and so
disciplines him with poverty and disgrace,
till, at length, he resumes his forgot repen
tances, and recovers hiraself iuto soberer
thoughts and severer principles.
These are the methods that, for the most
part, God takes to reduce obstinate sinners, j
 .   i

ON PSALM, xcv. 11.

277

But yet there both have been and still are
men in the world deeply engaged, and, as it
were, fixed and riveted in their sins, notwith
standing all these and the like admonitions.
But whosoever they are that can frustrate and
defeat all these arts and attempts of grace for
the recalling of sinners, you raay write them
hopeless : for, where admonition cannot enter,
nothing but death and destruction can.
2dly, the other sort of sinners are such as
sin against special renewed vows and promises
of obedience made to God. This is uot only
to break God's bonds, laid upon us in convic
tion, but also those bonds and ties that we
have laid upon ourselves, by our own volun
tary protestations. A vow, or proraise, is the
most binding thing that cau limit or restrain
a free agent. And from raere natural prin
ciples, raen generally bear such a reverence to
them, that they must be far gone in a con
tempt of nature, as well as religion, before
they can wholly break, or cast them off. For
if these caunot bind, corruption must needs
be boundless. Solomon gives us an excellent
admonition, (Eccl. v. 4,) "When thou vowest
a vow unto God, defer uot to pay it ; for God
hath no pleasure in fools." 'Where we may
observe, that he supposes that men are not of
such prostitute consciences, as wholly to deuy
the perforraance of a vow ; and therefore he
fastens folly and wickedness upou the very
delay of it. And if so, what can we think
that he would have said to a downright breach
of a vow ? and that in a raatter of such indis
pensable necessity as obedience ? To break it
here, is therefore so transcendently wicked,
because this was due upon the account of God's
law, before, aud without our proraise. It
obliged, of itself, as a duty ; but a vow, or
soleran promise, superadded, sets horae duty
with a farther obligation.
Moreover, the -violation of these is raore
than ordinary sinful ; not only from the neces
sity of the matter to which they oblige, but
also from the occasion upon which they were
made. For men seldom make such vows, but
upon extraordinary cases ; as upon the receipt
of sorae great endearing raercy, or some notable
deliverance ; which causes them, by way of
gratitude, to bind theraselves to God in closer
and stricter bonds of obedience. Whereupon,
such as make a custom of affronting God, by
frequeut and familiar breach of these, are
justly very odious to hira, and, from odious,
quickly become insupportable.
Where sin is grown inveterate, and the sin
ner unconquerable, so that he can endure no
restraint, nothing can hold hira ; but, like
the man possessed with a legion of devils, he
breaks all chains and fetters that have been
cast upon him ; we may be confident that evil
is designed for hira ; he stands as a conderaned
person before God already. God has pro
nounced his doom. And though he has fre

quently broke proraise with God, yet iu this
thing he shall find, that God will certainly
keep his word with hira.
And thus much for the second thing pro
posed ; which was to shew, what sort of obsti
nate sinners those are that God seals up to
destruction. I come now to the
Third, which is to answer and resolve two
questions that may arise from the foregoing
particulars, —
1st, Whether the purpose of God passed
upon an obstinate sinner, (here expressed to
us by God's " swearing agaiust him,") be ab
solutely irrevocable ?
2dly, Whether a man may know such a
purpose to have passed upon him antecedently
to its execution ?
For the first of these, I affirra, that the
scripture is full and clear for it. As for in
stance ; God un.alterably proposed the taking
away the kingdom from Saul : of which pur
pose Sarauel speaks thus, (1 Sara. xv. 29,)
" The strength of Israel," says he, " is not a
raan, that he shonld repent :" where, by re
penting, is raeant only God's altering his
counsel, or reversing his purpose.
Aud now, if God may pass such a purpose
upon a man with reference to his temporal
estate, why may he not also with reference to
his eterual ? Since the motive inducing God
to one (which is the high raalignity of sin)
maybe advanced to such a degree of provoca
tion, as equally to induce him to the other ;
especially, since the difference of the subject,
namely, that one is about a teraporal, the
other about an eternal estate, does not at all
alter the nature of the action. For is it any
ways strange in reason, absurd in divinity,
or, indeed, in any respect derogatory even to
the divine goodness itself, for God, upon un
usual sins, frequently repeated, pertinaciously
continued in, and beset with circumstances of
the highest aggravation and defiance, to take
up a purpose concerning such a person, cer
tainly to exclude hira frora salvation? This
is so suitable, even to the raost just and equal
transactious between man and man, that I
find no paradox to assert it, iu respect of
God's dealings, at all.
But some perhaps will urge ; Suppose such
an one should repent, change his life, and
break off his sins by a sincere and constant
devoting of hiraself to the duty of piety and
mortification, would the purpose of God
stand still iu force against such an one ?
I answer, no ; but I add withal, that this in
the present case is both an improper and an
irapossible supposition ; for supposing that
God once coramences such a purpose against
any sinner, he always withholds and denies
that grace which should render the raeans of
repentance effectual, after that ; so that it is
certain, that such an one will never have a
will or a heart to repent and turn from his

\^-

278

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS. Serm. XXXI.

sius. And therefore in the foregoing dis
course, I shew, that God puts this purpose in
execution chiefly by withdrawing the secret
converting energy of his word ; for to me it
seeras clear, that the word does not convert
by anj' mere suasive force naturally inherent
in it ; but by a divine power concoraitant to,
aud co-o]ierating with it. It being otherwise
hard to imagine how a raan can be barely
persuaded out of his nature, or, at least, out
of that which sways him as strongly. I
shew also, that God took away the convincing
edge and impression of his providences ; so
that they never became effectual to reduce
such au one.
Frora all which it follows, that upon these
grounds the foregoing question is impertinent.
For though God proraises salvation upon a
certain conditiou ; yet if he alone, by his
grace, is able to effect that condition, and
upon great provocation refuses to effect it ; it
is evident that be may, upon failure of that
condition, irreversibly purpose to condemn a
sinner, and yet stand firm to the truth of his
former proraise.
This is raost certain ; that both these pro
positions may, and are, aud raust be unalter
ably tme ; namely, " That whosoever repents,
and leaves his sins, shall be saved ;" and yet,
"That he, whosoever God has sworn shall
never enter into his rest, can never enter into
it ;" and .all pretences to the contrary are but
harangue and declamation, and fit to move
none but such as understand not tbe strength
of arguments, or the force of propositions.
And thus much in answer to the first ques
tion. The second is, whether a raan raay
know such a purpose to have passed upon him
antecedently to its execution ?
In answer to which, we raust observe, that
the ordinary waj's by which God iraparts the
knowledge of his will to men are only these
two :
1st, God's decharation of it by his word.
2dly, Men's collection of it frora its effects.
Now, for the first of these, I shall lay down
this assertion : That every pereraptory and
absolute declaration of something to be done
by God, does not always infer God's absolute
purpose to do that thing, as to the event of it.
The due consideration of which is of so
great moment, that without it we cannot
rightly understand many of the promises and
threatenings of God, which run in terms abso
lute and peremptory, and yet never come to be
fulfilled. As for instance ; in that first great
threatening raade to Adam (Gen. ii. 17,) " In
the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely
die ;" -we find that the execution did uot reach
the letter of the denunciation : forasrauch as
Adam long survived the violation of that pre
cept to which this threatening was annexed.
And then, in the next place, for proraises.
Let us take that erainent one made by God to

Elijah, (1 Sam. ii. SO,) where God repeats
his own promise in terms very absolute:
" Wherefore the Lord God of Israel saith, I
said indeed that thy house, and the house of
thy father, should walk before me for ever ;"
yet he adds in the very next words, " Far be
it from me." Strange ! that when God had
proraised a thing absolutely, he should add
afterwards, " Far he it from me" to perform
it. How are these things reconcileable to,
and consistent with his immutable truth and
veracity? For the explication of which,
1st, We must observe, first particularly,
conceruing God's threatenings ; that fre
quently they do not signify the event of the
thing threatened, but sometimes declare only
the merit of the action and the will of God,
that such a punishraent should be due to such
an offence ; not that it should be eventually
inflicted for it : so that those words in Genesis
signify only thus much, " In the day that
thou eatest," thou shalt certainly be obnoxious
and liable to death : and so Adam really was,
and might have been proceeded against accor
ding to the tenor of that sentence, had God
been pleased to take him upon the advantage.
2dly, We must observe jointly both pro
mises and threatenings, that they often run
in absolute terra.?, when really they imply a
condition. So that the promise raade to Eli
and his faraily implied the condition of their
obedience and pious behaviour towards God ;
which failing, and the promises thereupon not
being performed, it appeared, that however
in words it was absolute, yet in sense and
design it was but conditional. Frora all
which I affirm, that proraises and threaten
ings, though expressed in never such absolute
terras, yet cannot be known to be absolute
or conditional, till such tirae as they are put
in execution. And yet therefore upon this
ground no sinuer can conclude that God has
took up such a purpose against him, till he
finds it actually fulfilled upon him. To which
I add farther, that God now-a-days makes no
such declaration of his purposes to any parti
cular persons.
In the next place, then, if any will pretend
to gather the kuowledge of such a purpose of
God against him, it must be from sorae effects
of it. Such, as I shew, were God's withdraw
ing his grace, and that secret, convincing
power that operates in his word aud in his
providences : but this cannot iramediately be
know by any man ; since it is (as We here
suppose it to be) altogether secret. Or,
farther, he must gather this knowledge from
sorae qualifications or signs, accompanying
those persons that are in such a wretched
condition. Such, as I shew, were sinning
against particular warnings and admonitions
from God ; as also against frequently renewed
vows and promises of araendraent and obe
dience. But these I mentioned not as certain.

ON PSALM, xcv. 11.

279

infallible marks of such a forlorn estate, but
only as shrewd signs of it. For besides that
the scripture declares no man absolutely and
finally lost, as soon as these qualifications are
found upon him, unless they continue so till
his death ; so it is farther raanifest, that the
grace of God is so strange and various, in its
working upon the heart of men, that it sorae
tiraes fastens upon and converts old overgrown
sinners, such as to the eye of reason were
going apace to hell, and alraost at their
journey's end.
Frora all which it follows, that no man, iu
this life, can pass any certain judgraent con
cerning the will of God in reference to his
own final estate ; but ought, with fear and
trerabling, to attend God's precept and reveal
ed will ; and so gathering the best evidence
he can of his condition frora his obedience,
with all huraility to expect the issue of God's
great counsels and intentions.
But here, to prevent all raistakes about
what has been said, you must observe, that
there is a wide difference between the purpose
of God, that I have been hitherto discoursing
of, and that which the schools call God's decree
of reprobation ; concerning which I shall only
remark this by tbe way. That there is so
much to be argued, both from scripture and
reason, grounded upon the actuality and im-
rautability of the divine nature, for it ; and so
much, on the contrary, from the difficulty of
its seeraing to some to make God the author
of sin, and to cross some received principles
of morality, to be urged against it, that had
not authority raost wisely and justly restrain
ed all discourses of it frora the pulpit, I think
none could shew a better understanding of
it, than by not presuraing to deterraine any
thing about it. And therefore my business
rather is only in a word or two to shew that
the purpose of God, that I have been hitherto
speaking of, is quite another thing from that
decree considered according to the hypothesis
of the schools, and that in a double respect :
1st, Because that decree is said to commence
entirely upon God's good pleasure and sove
reign will, and not upon any compulsive cause
from witiiout him : but this purpose com
mences upon the provocation of the sinner,
as an impulsive cause moving God to make
such a determination against him.
2dly, Because that decree is said to be from
all eternity ; but this purpose is actually took
up iu time ; naraely, after some signal provo
cation. And because the schools will not
admit of any new imraaneut acts, new pur
poses or, decrees in God, therefore I call it a
purpose only in a large and popular sense :
for indeed, in strictness of speech, it is pro
perly but au effect of God's will, actually dis
posing the sinner under such circumstances,
as, meeting with his corruption, will certainly
end iu his perdition.

And thus having cleared these two ques
tions, which was the third thing proposed to
be handled, I descend now to the fourth and
last, which is, to draw some uses from the
whole. And the
First shall be of exhortation, to exhort
and persuade all such as know how to value
the great things that concern their peace, to
beware of sinning under sin-aggravating cir
cumstances. What those are, you may know
by recollecting, in your meditations, what has
been delivered. It is wonderful to consider
what weight a bare circumstance gives to sin,
and what avast and wide disparity it raakes
between actions of the same nature. What
is the reason that the same sin does not actu
ally fetch down wrath upon one, when it
strikes another with an immediate vengeance,
but because in one it is empoisoned with
more killing circumstances than in the other ?
Now we are to know, that the things that
chiefly provoke God to swear against men, are
judgments, mercies, means of grace, warnings,
and convictions ; these are the things, that,
neglected, double and treble the guilt of sins,
and of damnable make thera actually con
demning. These are the fair days that
ripen us apace for the sickle of sin-revenging
justice. It is said of the times of heathenism,
(Acts, xvii. 30,) that "God winked at them:"
what was the reason ? Certainly their sins, as
to the nature and kind of them, were as black,
hideous, and provoking, and struck as high as
the highest improvement of natural corrup
tion could reach. Why then cannot God
wink also at the same sins now under the
gospel ? Why ! because, as the gospel offers
grace to sinners, so it adds guilt and greatness
to sin. A dunghill under the hot sunshine is
much more offensive than under the shade.
As men therefore fear falling under that
terrible sentence expressed in the words ; as
they dread a final, unappeasable anger ; let
thera shun these sin-heightening aggrava
tions, and beware of sinning against judg
ments and deliverances, gospel light, clear
warnings, and strong convictions. For can
we in reason imagine, that that great and
universal Providence, that takes cognizance of
every the least accident, and reckons " every
hair that falls from our head," should not
have some great and particular designs upon
the souls of raen in the several strange and
unusual passages of their lives? Neither
God's words nor his works can be frustrate.
He neither discourses nor fights with the
air. And therefore, in the strength and
evidence of what I have laid down, I must
affirm, that that person, whosoever he is,
whom the continual returns of the word
preached does not alter, but that his old sins
continue firm, entire, and unbattered ; the
baseness of his inclinations unchanged ; so
that after all his attendance upon the word.

280

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Serm. XXXII.

his tongue and thoughts are as loose to all
filthiness, to all levity of discourse and beha
viour, as before. He also whose former dis
tresses, hardships, and dis.asters have uot laid
him low in the valleys of humility, nor cir
cumscribed the lashings out of his luxury, but
that his past miseries and restraints give
ouly a relish instead of a check to his present
pride and intemperance. And, lastly, he
whom all the caresses and erabraces of Pro
vidence have not been able to win upon, so
as to endear hira to a virtuous strictness, or
to deter him from a vicious extravagance ; I
say, every such person, (unless the great God
be trivial and without concern in his grand
transactions with our immortal souls,) during
this conditiou, is (so far as we can judge) a
fashioning for wrath. He is a probationer
for hell, aud carries about him the desperate
symptoms and plague-tokens of a person
likely to be sworn against by God, and has
tening apace to a sad eternity.
The other use and improvement of the
foregoing particulars shall be, to convince us
of the great and fearful danger of a daring
continuance in a course of sin. The counsel of
Daniel to Nebuchadnezzar carries an equal as
pect upon us all, that " we break off our sins
by righteousness," and change our lives by an
inimediate repentance ; for who knows what
dreadful things raay be forraing in the mind of
God against us during our irapenitence ? Who
knows what a day may bring forth, and
wh.at may be the danger of oue hour's delay?
This is most sure, that every particular, re
peated act of sin sets us one advance nearer to
hell. And while we are sinning obstinately,
and going on .audaciouslyinarebellious course,
how can we tell but God may " swear in his
wrath .against us," and register our names in
the black rolls of damnation ? And then our
condition is sealed and determined for ever.
It is dangerous dallying with and ventur
ing upon the Alraighty. God is indeed raerci
ful ; but we know mercy itself may be angry,
and compassion provoked may swear our des
truction. Every sinner, upon his return to
God, should repent and believe with that
confidence, as if God were nothing but meray ;
but having once repented, it would be his wis
dom to live with that caution and exactness,
as if God were nothing but justice. For
none certainlj' cau be too exact in acquit
ting himself to God, or too cautious in the
business of etemity. And therefore, when the
terapter shall dress up any beloved minion sin,
and present it to our eager, inflamed appetites,
let us not look upon it as it paints and sparkles
in the temptation, but let us rather deraur a
while, and debate with ourselves, what may be
the issue of that sin, if coraraitted by us, in
the court of heaven ; whether it may not pro
voke God to protest that we shall never come
thither : and then, believe it, God will say.

as he does in Isaiah, xlv. 23, " 1 have sworn by
myself, the word is gone out of my moutii iu
righteousness, and it shall not return." What
God absolutely purposes and declares, God
himself cannot (because he will not) disannul.
Still, therefore, let us keep this consideration
alive upon our spirits, that, before the sen
tence of death pass upon us, it raay fairiy be
prevented ; but when it is once denounced, it
can never be recalled. God iu mercy give us
a right understanding of these things.
To whom be rendered and ascribed, as is
most due, all praise, might, majesty, and do
rainion, both now and for evermore. Amen.

SEKMON XXXII.
*' The fool hath said in his heart. There is no God."
Psalm xlv. 1.
That any one should degenerate to that
degree of unreasonable b.aseness, as to deny
that being and power by which he breathes,
is not easy to imagine, did not some force us
to believe so much of thera upou their own
word ; such, as history tells us, were Diagoras
Melius, Theodorus Cyrenseus, and the like ;
and we have no cause to have so much better
au opinion of the raodern age, as to doubt
that it has those who are ready enough to let
fly and vent the same irapiety. Though, let
them affirm it never so rauch in words, there
are not wanting arguments to persuade us,
that their raouth belies tiieir heart ; and that
they have an inward, invincible sense of
what they outwardly renounce, holding them
under the iron bands of a conviction not to be
stifled or outbraved, or hectored out of their
conscience ; as shall be discoursed of after
wards. In the words we have these two particulars :
I. An assertion raade, " There is no God."
II. The person by whom it is made, " the
fool." As for the assertion, we may consider in it
two things ; first, the thing asserted ; second,
the manner of its assertion.
As for the thing asserted, that " there is no
God," it m.ay be understood, —
1. Either, first, of an absolute reraoval of
the divine being and existence ; that there is
no such spiritual, infinite, oraniscient, omni
potent nature, as we call God : but that the
world is of itself ; and that there is nothing
else distinct from it. This is the highest
degree of asserting that " there is no God."
2. It may be understood of a removal of
God's providence, by which he governs and
takes account of all the particular affairs of
the world ; and more especially of the lives
and actions of men, so as to reward or punish

ON PSALJNI, 3.iv. 1.

281

them, according as they are good or evil.
This is a lower degree of atheism ; but has
altogether as masculine an influence upon the
manners and practices of men as the former ;
and perhaps, upon a due improvement of con
sequences, will be found to end in it. Epicu
rus was of this opinion. He confessed that
there was a God: but as for his interposing
or concerning himself in our affairs here
below, this he utterly denied ; and that for a
reason as absurd as his assertion was impious ;
namely, that it would disturb his ease, and
consequently interrupt his felicity, to superin
tend over our raany little and perplexed
businesses. Now, I suppose, the text may be under
stood equally of both these senses : and ac
cordingly I shall so take it in the ensuing
discourse. 2dly, The next thing is the manner of the
assertion, " The fool hath said in his heart."
It wears the badge of guilt, privacy, and
darkness ; and, as if it were sensible of the
treason it carries in its bowels, it hides its
head, and dares not own itself in the face of
the sun and of the world. Atheism is too
conscious to be venturous aud opeu : that is
the property of truth, the daughter of the
lig:ht and of the day. It is uot the nature of
this ill thing to display itself in words, and to
suraraon proselytes upon the market-place.
It will not hang up a flag of defiance against
God, and cry out, " Hear, 0 heaven, and
hearken, O earth ; there is no such thing as a
maker and governor of the universe ; it is all
but a crafty invention of statesmen, priests,
and politicians, to bring mankind to their
lure, and to bind the bonds of govemraent
faster upon societies."
No ; the atheist is too wise in his genera
tion, to make remonstrances and declarations
of what he thinks. His tongue shall keep the
track of the comraon and received way of
discoursing ; and perhaps his interest may
sometimes carry him so far, as to disguise his
behaviour with zeal for the assertion of those
things which his belief is a stranger to. It is
his heart, and the little council that is held
there, that is only privy to his monstrous
opinions. There it is that he dethrones his
Maker, aud deposes conscience frora its govern
ment and vicegerency. For here, he knows,
he may think, and think freely and uncon
trollably ; since there is no casement in his
bosom, no listening hole in his heart from
which the inforraer ipay catch aud carry
away a guilty thought.
He that would see the stage upon which
huraan liberty acts entirely aud to the utraost,
must retreat iuto his heart, and there he shall
see a principle absolute and unshackled, and
not fraraed into any demureness and assumed
postures of virtue and gravity, from the awe
of men's eye and observation, which instead

of the raan, exhibits only a dress to the
spectator. He shall find his heart bold enough
to question the laws he bows to ; to examine
the first principles, that in his profession lie
sacred and untouched ; to ransack and look
into foundations ; and, in a word, to think as
he pleases, while he speaks and does as he is
coraraanded. It will now concern us to inquire a little,
what is raeant and implied by the fool's say
ing in his heart that " there is no God."
I conceive it may iraply these following
things, —
1st, An inward wishing, that there was no
God. There is nothing raore properly the
language of the heart than a wish. It is the
thirst and egress of it, after some wanted, but
desired object. The atheist first pleases his
contemplation with the supposition of that
free range that he might take in all the gar
dens of pleasure, if there were uo superior eye
to supervise and judge hira. And how brave
a thing it were to have the entertainments of
a feast every day, and no reckoning brought
up iu the rear of thera ! To be voluptuous,
and yet unaccountable ! To be lord and
raaster, and suprerae in his choice, and to obey
nothing but his own appetites !
These reflections fill his fancy with glister
ing iraaginations : and the raan cannot hold,
but wish that troublesorae thing, the Deity,
that so sours and thwarts his contents, removed
and wholly took out of the way ; than which
there cannot be a thought of a higher malig
nity, and a more daring venora. For he that
wishes a thing, would certainly effect it, if it
were in his power. He that would have no
God, is full of indignation that there is one ;
and, according to the poet's fable of the giants
atterapting to scale heaven, and to fight with
the gods ; so would he ascend, and ravish the
sceptre frora the hands of Omnipotence, nestle
himself in the govemment of the world, and,
like Lucifer, place hiraself higher than the
Most High.
Now it is probable that God punishes the
wish as rauch as he does the actual perfor
mance : for what is perforraance, but a wish,
perfected with a power : and what is a vyish,
but a desire, wanting opportunity of action ;
a desire sticking in the birth, and miscarrying
for lack of strength and favourable circum
stances to bring it iuto the world. Certain
it is, that wishes discover the most genuine
and natural teraper of the soul ; for no raan is
raore heartily hiraself, than he is in these.
They are indeed the chief weapons with
which atheism can strike at the Deity : for
the wickedness and malice of man cannot
make any change in God. It cannot shake
any of these solid felicities that the diviue
nature is possessed of. The atheist can only
wish, and would, and desire ; that is, with the
snake he can hiss, and shew his poison ; but

282

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS. Serm. XXXII.

it is uot in his power to be mischievous any
farther. 2dly, The fool's saying in his heart that
" there is no God," implies his seeking out
arguments to persuade hiraself there is none.
Where the heart is concerned, it will quickly
eraploy the head ; and reason shall be put to
the dmdgery of huraouring a depraved mind,
by providing it with a suitable hypothesis.
The invention must be set awork to haramer
out soraething that raay sit easy upon an
atheistical disposition.
Hereupon the mind begins to boggle at
iraraaterial substances, as things paradoxical
and incomprehensible. It brings itself, by
degrees, to raeasure all by sense ; and to
admit of nothing, but as it is conveyed and
vouched by the judgment of the eye, the ear,
and the touch. A being purely spiritual shall
be flouted at, as a chiraera, and a subtle no
thing. Besides, men see all things still continue in
the same posture, and proceed in the sarae
course ; vvhich makes thera question, whether
there be any overruling, governing being,
distinct from that visible frame of things that
is alvvays in their view. As those scoffers in
Saint Peter questioned the future judgment,
npon the sight of tho constant unchanged
tenor of things, (2 Pet. iii. 4 ;) " Where is the
promise of his coming? for since the fathers
fell asleep, .all things continue as they were
from the beginning ofthe creation."
They will declaim against a Deity also
from this, that they think all huraan affairs
proceed by chance and accident, and great
disorder ; and consequently are not under the
disposal or management of any superior
understanding, that may be presumed to
regulate and take cognizance of thera. They
see pious men afflicted, and the wicked ex
alted ; the opjiressor triumphing and cloth
ing himself with the spoils of oppressed
innocence and humility. They observe, that
virtue is no step to wealth or honour ; and
that conscience is but a hinderance, and a
stop to greatness. And perhaps also they
find by experience in themselves, that they
never thrived so well, as when they acted
freely and boldly, and without the control of
rules ; when they unshackled themselves from
the niceties and ])unctilios of that fruitless,
unprofitable thing, called sincerity.
And these considerations raay well be
thought so rauch the raore prevalent working
in a corrupt breast, since we read, that they
have raade no small irapression, even upon
the raost excellent and sanctified persons :
they staggered such heroes in the faith as
David, Jereray, and the like : they engaged
them in a dispute with God himself about
the justice and equ.ality of his actings : they
changed them, from believers, into disputants ;
and made them undertake their Maker for

their opponent. Now, what the pious and
the faithful may doubt of, the atheist may
well be thought to deny. And no question
but he puts his wits upon the rack, and uses
all the art, learning, and industry he is raaster
of, to rid hiraself of the belief of a God ; a
God that governs, and will hereafter judge
the world. The thought of which cannot
but be a perpetual check and allay to the revels
of the epicure ; and consequently must needs
put hira to relieve hiraself by the best shifts
he can, to conjure down the terrors of his
mind, and to drown the clamours and threat
enings of his conscience ; which, as long as
he acknowledges a Deity, will be sure to tor
ment hira with a secret, unsupportable sting.
Sdly, For the fool to say in his heart,
" There is no God," iraplies not only a seek
ing for reasous and arguments, but also a
marvellous readiness to acquiesce in auy
seeming probability or appearance of reason
that may make for his opinion. Which is a
sure demonstration of a mind desperately in
love with a notion, aud yet suspicious and
indifferent of the truth of it. It is a sign that
a man is falling, when he catches at straws,
and every little nothing, to support him. The
atheist, who is so rigid an exactor of evidence
and demonstration for the proof of those
points that he rejects, yet with the most im
pudent and unreasonaljle partiality produces
no such thing, but only remote, pitiful, pre
carious conjectures, for the assertion and
defence of his own infidelity.
As for instance, how weak and slight were
all the foregoing exceptions alleged in his
behalf! His first cavil, produced against
immaterial substances ; concerning which,
can the atheist prove that it implies auy con
tradiction or absurdity, that there should be
such substances, such natures as fall not uuder
the cognizance of outward sense? Is there
any solid argument to overthrow this? If
there be, whence is it, that noue of the
philosophers have beeu hitherto able to assign
such an one ; and solidly to evince, as well
as magisterially to assert, that all substance
includes in it the dimensions of quantity ;
and consequently, that substance and body are
but terms eqnivaleut?
And then, for the other exception, drawn
from the prosperity of the wicked, aud the
present afflictions of the godly and virtuous :
is there any such disorder or injustice in this,
wheu the assertors of Providence assert also a
future estate of retribution iu another world ?
where the present sense of things shall be
vastly and universally changed ; and the
epicure shall pass from his baths, and his
beds of roses, into a bed of flames ; and the
poor, distressed saint be translated from his
prison and his oppressors, iuto joys, pleasures,
and glories that are unspeakable. It may be
replied, that the atheist believes no such

ON PSALM, xiv. 1.

283

thing : but, whether he does or no, it is not
material as to our present business, which is
only to prove the reasonableness of God's
dealing with the wicked and the just, in this
world, upon supposition of the truth of this
principle ; which it has uot been in the
power of any atheist yet to shake or to dis
prove ; and, for the present, falls not under
this discourse.
4thly and lastiy. To mention yet auother
way, different from all the forraer : for a mau
to place his sole dependence, as to his chief
good and happiness, on any thing besides
God, is (as we may so speak) virtually, and
by consequence, for him to say in his heart,
" There is no God." It is indeed the voice of
a raiin's actions, the direct affirmation of his
life : for while a man expects that from the
creature, which every created being can only
have, and consequeutly ought only to expect,
frora its creator, it is a practical, and (in its
kind) a loud denial of a God ; inasrauch as in
this case a man so behaves hiraself, as if really
there were none : and therefore in Scripture
is most eraphatically styled a " living without
God in the world."
'Which, though it does not .always include
a direct denial of the divine existence, yet, so
far as the acknowledgment of that ought to
influence the life, the impiety of it is the
very sarae, and the absurdity greater. For
grant but the speculative atheist his supposi
tion and principle, that there is no Deity or
Providence, and he cannot be charged with
any great unreasonableness of proceeding, for
his giving way to all his appetites and lusts
in the prosecution of their respective excesses
and irregular gratifications. But for a man,
vvho has not paved his way to such a licence
of acting, by a life of the sarae principle, but
who owns in his raind a clear aud a standing
persuasion of the being of a supreme maker,
judge, and governor of the world, yet to
trample upon all rules and laws prescribed for
the regulation of his behaviour towards this
his Maker, and to give himself wholly over to
the dictates of his unbridled passions and
affections ; this assuredly is the height of
folly : it is the granting ofthe antecedent in
the judgment, and the denial of the conse
quence in the practice.
That raan who places all his confidence,
hope, and corafort, in his estate, his friend, or
greatness, so that upon the failure of any of
these his heart sinks, and he utterljr desponds
as to all enjoyraent or apprehension of any
good or felicity to be enjoyed by man, does
as really deify his estate, his friend, and his
greatness, as if in direct terras he should say
to each of them, " Thou art my God ;" and
should rear an altar or a temple to thera, and
worship before them in the hurablest adora
tion : nay, it is rauch more ; since God looks
upon himself as treated more like a Deity, by

being loved, confided in, and depended upon,
than if a raan should throng his teraple with
a whole hecatomb, sacrifice thousands of
raras, and pour ten thousand rivers of oil upon
his altars.
Let every man, therefore, lay his hand upon
his heart, and consider with himself, what
tbat thing is that wholly takes it up and cora
raands it as to all its affections ; aud let hira
know, that that thing, whatsoever it be, is his
God ; and that God really so accounts of it ;
and consequently, that it is possible for a
raan to " say in his heart, that there is no
God," though he neither blaspheraes, or de
nies his being, nor divests him of his provi
dence, and government of the world.
And thus much for the first thing, the as
sertion " that there is no God." I corae now
to the second, naraely, the author of this
assertion, who, the text tells us, is " the fool ;"
and his folly will be raade to .appear from
these following reasons : —
1st, That such au one, in making and hold
ing this assertion, contradicts the general
judgment and notion of mankind. He op
poses his drop to the ocean, his little forced
opinion to the torrent of universal, natural
instinct, that infused this persuasion into
every one before his first milk. It is a notion,
that a raan is not catechized, but born into :
his mother's womb was the school he learned
it in. It sticks to hira like a piece of his
essence, and his very being is the argument
that enforces it.
Hereupon it has possessed and spread itself
iuto all nations, all languages, all societies and
corporations : nor was it ever known, that
any corapany of raen constantly owned the
denial of a Deity. Many nations have indeed
foully erred, and abused their reason in the
particular choice of a God, or rather of the
worship of God. For I verily believe, that
when the Egyptians, and others, worshipped
this thing or that, they designed to worship
the Suprerae Being, as manifesting some
effect of his power or goodness by that thing.
I say, though the nations perverted them
selves by idolatry, yet the general notion and
acknowledgraent of a Deity remained entire
amongst them. So that the contrary opinion
of the atheist is uot so much confuted as over
whelraed. And there is no man that can
rationally profess himself an atheist, but raust
also profess himself wiser than the whole
world, oppose his single ratiocination to the
ratiocination of all mankind : but surely, the
match will be found raarvellous unequal :
and the vast disparity of the very nuraber
will be an unanswerable presuraption against
hira. For what cau he be thought to find
out, or discern, more than so raany millions
of the subtlest and raost improved wits, every
one of which was perhaps of a quicker appre
hension aud a farther reach tlian himself?

284

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS

Skrm. XXXII.

It is morally impossible for any falsity to
be universally received and believed, both as
to all times and places ; and therefore an
atheist appears in the world as a strange, un
usual thing, as an irregularity, and exception
from the standing rules of nature ; like a man
born without legs or arms, or, indeed, rather
without a head or a heart.
2dly, The folly of such a person appears in
this, that he lays aside a principle e.asy and
suitable to reason, aud substitutes in the room
of it one strange and harsh, and, at the best,
highly improbable. For is it not most suit
able to reason, there beiug a necessity of a
first mover, a thiug granted by all, that an
intelligent nature of a substance above the
grossness of body, infinite in wisdom, power,
goodness, and all other perfections, should
first of all contrive and give being to this
fabric of tbe world, and afterwards preserve,
govern, and order every thing in it to his wise
and righteous purposes ? Is there any thing,
I say, in this, that an unprejudiced reason
does not imraediately close or fall in with, as
that that is fairly consistent with all its prin
ciples, aud grates upou none of them ?
But the atheist that puffs at this, and lays
it wholly aside, what does he resolvo tho
phenomena of nature into ? How como we
by this world, according to his philosophy ?
"Why, ho either tells us, that it was from
eternity ; a strange, though much the most
rational, hypothesis that ho can frarao. For
ifit has existed from all eternity, whence is
it that vve have no history or record of any
thing beyond a little abovo five thousand
years ? How come the transactions of so
many myriads of years to be sw.allowed up in
such deep silence and oblivion ? And as for
the story even of those five thousand years, wo
.are beholden to the Scriptures for it ; for all
profane histories set out from a much later
date ; so that this hypothesis is hugely ira
probable, and unfit for any rational man to
build his discoui-se, much less to venture his
salvation upon.
But if this will not do, wc are told, that
there was an infinite, innumerable corap.any
of little bodies, called atoras, from all eternity,
flying and roving about in a void space, which
at length hitched together and united ; by
which union and connection they grow .at
length into this beautiful, curious, and most
exact structure of the universe.
A conceit fitter for bedlara than a school or
an academy ; and took up, as it were, in
direct opposition to common souse and expe
rience. For, let any one take a vessel full of
sand or dust, .and shake it from one end of the
year to the other, and seo whether ever it will
fall into the figure of a horse, an eagle, or a
fish ; or let any one shake ten tliousand letters
together, till by some lucky shake they fall at
length into an elegant poera or oration.

That chance and blind accident, tiie usual
])arent of confusion and all deformity in men's
actions, should yet in this outdo the greatest
art and diligence in the production of such
admir.able, stupenilous effects, is contrary to
all the rules that human nature has been
hitherto accustomed to judge by ; .and fit for
nono to assert but for him who, with his God,
has also renounced his reason.
Sdly, Tho folly of such a person appears
from the causes a'nd motives inducing him to
take up this opinion ; which, amongst others,
are two :
1st, Gre.at iuipiety, and disquiet of con
science consequent thereupon. Some have
sinned their accounts so high, and dob.auchod
their consciences so far, that thoy dare not
look tho persuasion of a Deity in the face ;
and thorcfore they think to convey themselves
from God by hiding God from theraselves ;
by suppressing, and, as nmch as thoy can
possibly, extinguishing all belief .and thought
of him. Thoy are so hardened iu sin, and so
far gone in tho ways of sensuality, that to
think of retreating by repentance is loath
some, and worse than death to thom ; and
therefore they cut the work short, and lake
oft' all necessity of repontanco by denying
providence, aud a future judgraent of tho
lives and actions of men.
2dly, The second cause of this opinion is
great ignorance of nature and natural causes.
It is a saying of the Lord Bacon, that a tasto
and smattering of philosophy inclines men to
atheism, but a deep and a thorough knowledge
of it directly leads men to religion. And if
the assortor of tho world's eternity, or of its
emerging out of tho forementioned coalition
of atoms, vvould consider how impossible it is
for a body to put itself into motion without
the impulse of some superior iinmatorinl
agent ; and what au inactive, sluggish thine
th.at is that the philosophers call matter, and
how utterly unable to fashion itself into the
several forms it bears, he would quickly fly to
a spiritual, intelligent raover, such an one as
we affirra to be God.
4thly and lastly. The folly of such persons
as say in their heart, "There is no God,"
appears frora those cases in which such per
sons begin to doubt and waver, and fly off
from their opinion. 1 shall instance in two ;
1st, In the time of sorae great and immi
nent danger. As it is reported of the Per
sians in jEschylus, that were routed by tho
lako Stryraon ; .and thereupon, being either to
pass the ice then rcaily to thaw, or to be cut
in pieces by the enemy ; thougli before thoy
held, or at least pretended to hold, that " thoro
vvas no God ;" jet then they fell upon their
knees, and prayed to God that tho ice niight
bear them ; nor is this to be wondered at,
since all men by nature seem to havo a secret
acknowlodguient of a certain invisible power.

ON PSALM, xiv. 1.

285

that is able either to help or to hurt them,
which perhaps is the first rude draught and
original seed of the persuasion of a Deity.
And it is this secret acknowledgment that
naturally makes raen in a great strait and
extreraity, willing to rely upou raore assis
tances than they see, and to extend their hope
farther th.an their sense.
But now, is not every such person most
ridiculous, who shjill owe his religion to the
disturbances of his fear, which he cast off in
the settlement of his reason? Shall a little
danger and confusion make him quake out
his atheism, and be able to enthrone God in
his mind, who, by his being and constant
preservation, and the exact frame and order of
the universe, could never yet be convinced of
any such thing? But this is an evident sign,
that the judgment of such persons lies not in
their understanding, but in the lower region
of man's nature, their affections.
2dly, The other tirae in which the atheist
usually deserts his opinion, is the tirae of
approaching death. "What a different way of
reasoning and discoursing has the mind then,
and needs must it have so ! for atheism is not
any real persuasion, but a vain pretence and
affectation, by which sorae would seera to be
greater wits and higher speculators than other
men. But, alas ! affectation expires upon the
death-bed. No man theu has any designs to
deceive or irapose upon the reason of other
raen, much less upon his own. All his
thought and desire then is, to be as safe as he
can ; he knows that it has been the judgment
of all the wise men in the world, that there is
a supreme judge, and a future estate for raen's
souls ; and he perceives his reason too light
and too little to lay in the balance against
thera. But now it is a most righteous thing with
God, to let such as have striven to free them
selves from this belief, be able to overrule and
bind up their conscience so far as to keep it
down for a long tirae ; and theu, at length, to
let conscience loose upou them, with this
terrible persuasion quick and awakened upou
it ; for God has uot put it into any raan's
power to extinguish this witness that he has
left of hiraself in the minds of men ; he has
not left men so much at their own disposal as
to obliterate aud rase out what he has wrote
in their hearts, and to be atheists when they
please. Aud therefore, wheresoever I have
hitherto made mention of atheists, I under
stand not such as have absolutely shook off
the notion of a Deity, but such as have endea
voured and attempted so to do, by arming
theraselves with arguments and considerations
against it ; and accordingly have proceeded so
far as to weaken and eclipse the present
actings of this habitual persuasion ; otherwise,
I fully believe that there are sorae lucid inter

vals in which, maugre all the art and force
used to suppress it, it breaks forth, and shews
its terrifying, commanding majesty over the
guilty hearts of such wretches, but especially
when they are to bid adieu to those little
worldly supports, that for a while bore up
their spirits in their profaneness and contempt
of God.
I have now finished what I first proposed
frora the words ; naraely, the assertion that
" there is no God," aud the author of it, " the
fool." But here, after all, is it not a sad thing
that it should be pertinent for any preacher
to raake a sermon against atheism? a sin that
does not only unchristian, but unman the
person that is guilty of it ! But we have
great reason to judge that the corruption of
raen's raanners is grown to that enorraous
height, that men are not as they were hereto
fore. Those awes of religion and a Deity,
that a less improved debauchery left still un
touched upon the conscience, the modern and
more thoroughpaced sinner endeavours to efface
and throw off as pedantry and narrowness,
and the foolish prejudices and infusions of
education. What this will come to, .and whether God
and nature will suffer raen to be as bad as
they strive to be, I cannot deterraine ; but
surely they generally affect a superiority in
villainy above their ancestors ; and it is not
enough for a raan to approve himself a labo
rious drunkard, and a dexterous cheat, or a
sly adulterer, unless he can set off all with
the crowning perfection of passing for a com
plete atheist.
I suppose the foregoing discourse may be
of some use to us ; and if so, what can that
use be so properly as to give every one of us
a view and prospect into his own heart?
None knows how much villainy lodges iu
this littie retired roora. The prophet tells
us " that the heart is desperately wicked ;"
and we need uo other argument to pro-ve
his words, than that it is the soil where this
detestable weed grows. There are few who
believe that they can be atheists, (even in
the sense that I have declared,) but it is be
cause they have not studied the workings and
methods, the depths and hollownesses, of that
subtle principle within thera, their heart.
But as for such as will set themselves to watch
over and counterwork it, so as to prevent this
monstrous birth, let them be advised to be
ware of three things, as, I think, the most
ready leaders to atheisra :
1st, Great and crying sins, such as make
the conscience raw and sick, and so drive it
to this wretched course for its cure.
2dly, Let them beware of discontents about
the cross passages of God's providence towards
them. A melancholy, discontented mind, by
long brooding upou these things, has at length

286

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Serm. XXXIII.

hatched the cockatrice's egg, and brought forth
atheisra. Sdly and lastly. Let raen especi.ally beware
of devoting themselves to pleasure and sen
suality. 'There is no one thing in the world
that casts God out of the heart like it, and
makes the heart by degrees to hate and be
weary of all thoughts of him.
These things cannot here be insisted upon.
It remains, therefore, that we endeavour to
preserve a constant fear and love of the great
God upou our spirits ; that so we fall not into
the fatal devouring gulf of either of their
sins ; as, namely, "' to deny the Lord th.at
bought," or to renounce the God that made us.
To whom, therefore, be rendered and as
cribed, as is most due, all praise, might,
majesty, and dorainion, both now and for
everraore. Amen.

SERMON XXXIII.
" Our fathers understood not thy wonders in E^pt ; they re
membered not the multitude of tliy mercies : hut provoked
him at the sea, oven at tho Red sc-v." — Psalm cvi. 7.
Provide.vce, iu all its parts and methods of
acting, seems to carry on this great design,
uot to leave itself without witness hi the
world. And for this cause it gives greater or
less m.anifestations of its superintendency
over aflairs here below, those especially re-
l.ating to the church, according to the propor
tion of the church's exigencies and occasions.
Whieh when they are so great .'ind arduous,
thiit they seera even to call out for help frora
Heaven, and to exceed all possibility of redress
but by the interposal of a miracle^ why then
miracles corae iu season, and shall be shewn,
.as being tho rarities and reserves of Heaven,
designed to recover upon men's hearts a be
lief of that Providence that the constant, un
interrupted course of natural causes is apt to
obscure aud to render the less observable.
But iu no passage since the creation did
Omnipotence ever so eminently make bare
its arm and shew itself, as it did in those
stupendous proceedings in Egypt following
miracle with miracle, till at length, even iu
spite of power, aud malice, and obstinacy it
self, it brought out the armies of Israel free
and victorious from araidst the iron-grinding
jaws of a long, a cruel, and insupportable
bondage and subjection.
And that the world may see that the hand
of divine power is not yet shortened, nor the
bowels of divine goodness straitened, but that
God is as able und ready to save his church as
ever ; succeeding ages have not been wholly
without some declarations of it, in several

transcendent aud mir.aculous instances of help
aud deliverauce ; when ouce the straitness and
vast difficulty of affairs has baffled and laughed
at all assistances of created power, and so raade
the oranipoteut author of the deliverance
visible .and conspicuous.
And araongst these supernatural instances
of temporal mercy, vouchsafed to mankind iu
these latter ages of the world, there is none
certainly superior, if any parallel, to that
glorious masterpiece of Providence, to the
commemoration of which we are called by
this day's solemnity. For if ever the miracles
of Egypt were reacted, it has been upon tho
sceue of England ; which stands, as it were, a
copy and a lasting transcript both of the bon
dage and the deliverance. Both church and
state were under tho yoke :iud lash of remorse
less tyrants and taskmasters. Tyrants re
solved to havo bound tho bonds of their
captivity for ever, and never to h.ave let thcin
go : nor was there any hope or likelihood of
it, till God himself undertook the business,
and pl.agued the nation, by shaking tho
threatening sword of a civil war over it, that
had so lately turned all into blood ; by blast
ing it with the hail and stones of sever.al in
sulting governments, then as changeable as
the weather : also pestering the land with tho
frogs of this sect, and the lico of that, and the
locusts of another : likewise confounding our
English Egyptians vvith the thick darkness of
faction and ignorance ; and Lastly, snatching
away that firstborn of tyranny, perjury, and
rebellion, and blowing hira out of the world,
.as he did the locusts out of Egypt ; till at
length breaches and divisions amongst them
selves, like the dividing of tho Red sea, and
the parting of the uiiglity waters, both swal
lowed up thera, and became as a wall of brass
on both hands to our king and his loyal ex
iled subjects to convey them safo into a pos
session of those rights, which, both by the
gift of God and the laws of men, were so un
doubtedly their own.
Thus we have seen some resemblance be
tween the transactions of Providence with
Israel and with ourselves. We have seen how
like we are to them for their miraculous deli
verances ; and, which is the worst, though
perhaps the ne.arest part of the reserablance,
it will appear also presently, how like wo aro
to them for their miraculous ingratitude.
In the text we have these three thiugs ob
servable, —
I. The unworthy and ungrateful deport
ment of the Israelites towards God upon a
most signal mercy and deliverance : " they
provoked him."
II. The aggravation of this unworthy de
portment from the nature and circumstance
of the deliverance : " they provoked him at
the sea, even at the Red sea."
III. and Lastly, The cause of this niisbe-

ON PSALM, civ. 7.

287

ha-viour and unworthy deportment, which
was their not understanding the designs of
mercy in the several instances of it : " they
understood not thy wonders iu Egypt."
I. Aud first, for the first of these, the
Israelites' ungrateful and unworthy deport
ment towards God : " they provoked him."
To provoke, is an expression setting forth
a peculiar and raore than ordinary degree of
raisbehaviour ; and seems to iraport an inso
lent, daring resolution to offend. A resolu
tion not contented with one single stroke of
disobedience, but such a one as raiiltiplies and
repeats the action, till the offence greatens
and rises into an affront ; and as it relates to
God, so I conceive it strikes at him in a three
fold respect :
1st, Of his power. 2dly, Of his goodness.
Sdly, Of his patience.
1st, And first, it rises up against the power
and prerogative of God. It is, as it were, an
assault upou God sitting upon his throne, a
snatching at his sceptre, and a defiance of his
very royalty and supremacy. He that pro
vokes God, does in a manner dare hira to
strike, and to revenge the injury and invasion
upon his honour. He considers not the weight
of God's alraighty arm, and the edge of his
sword, the swiftness and poison of his arrows,
but puffs at all, and looks the terrors of sin-
revenging justice in the face. The Israelites
could not sin against God, after those mir.acles
in Egypt, without a signal provocation of
that power that they had so late and so con
vincing an experience of: a power, that could
have crushed an Israelite as easily as an
Egyptian ; and given as terrible an instance
of its consuming force upon false friends, as
upon professed eneraies ; in the sight of God
perhaps the less sort of offenders of the two.
And can the sins of any nation in the world
more affront God, in the grand attribute of
his power, than the sins of ours ; which has
given such flaraing, illustrious experiraents of
itself, as have dazzled our eyes and astonished
our hearts ! For have we not seen a flourish
ing state and a glorious church broke in pieces,
and as it were extinguished in a moment?
and a prince, as great as good, torn out of
his throne, stripped of his power, and at length
disastrously cut off by the hand of violence?
And dare we now siu against that power that
has thus shewn us how easily it can confound
and overturn all the glories of worldly gran
deur? and which, after all this, has, by a
rairaculous exertion ofitself, called up a buried
church and state from the grave, and given
them a stupendous resurrection from the con
fusion and rubbish of a long and woful desola
tion : and this by bringing back the banished
son of a murdered father, even over the heads
of his enemies arraed and potent, and rather
araazed than conquered into their former
allegiance. A work so big with miracle and

wonder, so apparently above, nay even against
the common raethods of huraan acting, that
were there no other argument to prove a Pro
vidence, this one passage alone were sufficient;
and that such an one as carries in it the force
and brightness of a deraonstration.
2dly, Provoking God iraports an abuse of
his goodness. God, as he is clothed with
power, is the proper object of our fear ; but as
he displays his goodness, of our love. By one
he would coraraand, by the other he would
win and (as it were) court our obedience.
And an affront to his goodness, his tender
ness, and his raercy, as much exceeds au
affront of his power, as a wound at the heart
transcends a blow on the hand. For when
God shall shew miracles of mercy, step out of
the coramon road of providence, commanding
the host of heaven, the globe of the earth,
and the whole systera of nature out of its
course, to serve a design of goodness upon a
people, as he did upon the Israelites ; was not
a provocation, after such obliging passages,
infinitely base and insufferable, and a degree
of ingratitude, higher than the heavens it
struck at, aud deeper than the sea that they
passed through ?
Sdly, Provoking God iraports an affront
upon his long-suffering and his patience. The
raovings of nature in the breasts of all raan
kind, tell us how keenly, how regretfully,
every man resents the abuse of his love ; how
hardly any prince, but one, cau put up an
offence against his acts of mercy ; and how
much raore affrontive it is to despise raercy
ruling by the golden sceptre of pardon, than
by the iron rod of a penal law. But now
patience is a farther and a higher advance of
raercy ; it is mercy drawn out at length ;
raercy wrestling with baseness, and striving,
if possible, even to weary and outdo ingrati
tude : and therefore a sin against this is the
highest pitch, the utraost iraprovement, and,
as 1 may so speak, the ne plus ultra of provo
cation. For when patience shall come to be
tired, and even out of breath with pardoning,
let all the invention of mankind find sorae
thing farther, either upon which an offender
raay cast his hope, or against which he can
coramit a sin. But it was God's patience
that the ungrateful Israelites sinned against ;
for they even plied and pursued hira with sin
upou sin, one offence following and thronging
upon the neck of another, the last account
still rising highest, and swelling bigger, till
the treasuries of grace and pardon were so far
drained and exhausted, that they provoked
God to swear, and, what is more, " to swear
in his wrath," and with a full purpose of
revenge, " that they should never enter into
his rest."
And thus I have given you the threefold
diraension of the provocation that the Israel
ites passed upon God ; and it is to be feared,

288

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS. Serm. XXXIII.

that our sins have been cast into the sarae
mould, they do so exactly resemble thera in
all their proportions ; for we are as deep
in arrears to Heaven, and have as large a sum
of abused goodness and patience to account
for, as ever they had ; and so much greater is
our account than theirs could be, that we had
the advantage of their exaraple to have fore
warned us.
II. I proceed now to the second thing
proposed from the text ; which is, the aggra
vation of the Israelites' unworthy deportment
towards their almighty deliverer, set forth iu
these words : " they provoked hira at the sea,
even at the Red sea."
The extraordinary eraphasis of which
expression, in the repeated use of the sarae
words, shews what a particular and severe
observation God passed upon their behaviour.
The baseness and ingratitude of which he
casts in their teeth, by confronting it with the
eminent obligation laid upon them, by the
glorious deliverance he vouchsafed them ; a
deliverance heightened and ennobled with
these four qualifications :
1st, Its greatness. 2dly, Its unexpected
ness. 3dly, Its seasonableness. 4thly, Its
undeservedness. Of each of which in their order.
1st, And first, for the greatness of the
deliverance. Very great surely it must needs
have been, comparing the contemptible weak
ness of the persons delivered, with the strength
and terror of the eneray from whom they
were delivered. What were a corapany of
poor oppressed bricklayers, inured to servitude
as to au inheritance, for four hundred years
successively, and consequently whose very
soul and spirit was even lost in clay and
rubbish, and made poor, and low, and grovel
ling by the disciplines of a long captivity.
How were these able to have looked Pharaoh
and his armies in the face, who had so long
trembled under the frown and lash of the
meanest of his taskraasters ! What could
their trowels have done against the Egyptian
swords ; their aprons against the others'
armour and artillery ! They could be confident
of nothing, but of sinking under the inequality
of the encounter.
And could there be a greater deliverance
than thus to fetch a lamb out of the jaws of
the lion, to wrest weakness out of the hands
of power, and the captive from the clutches
of the strong ! This was the case of the
Israelites. And surely we shall find that it was our
own too. For could there be a greater dis
proportion than there was between us aud
our oppressing eneraies ? Were they not, even
in the very day of our deliverauce, as strong,
as mighty, and well armed as ever? Were
their hands at all weakened, that they could
not strike, or their swords blunted, that they

could not wound ? Naturally speaking, I am
sure they were uot : but whether their hearts
were for the present changed by an immediate
irapression from heaven, or their hands over
ruled by the art and conduct of that great
restorer of his couutry ; certain it is, they
were like men in amaze, and not able to act
the habitual villainy of their principles .and
dispositions. So that we saw our king return
ing to his own triuraphantly, at the head of
that array by which he had been driven and
kept out ; au army with their swords in
their hands, and, for the raost part, with their
old principles iu their hearts. And had not
this deliverance all the marks of greatness and
prodigy, that (be it spoke with reverence)
almightiness itself could stamp upon it?
Search the annals of story, run over all the
records of antiquity, and give it a parallel, if
you can. It could be none "but the Al
mighty's doing," and therefore ought to be
" marvellous iu our eyes." It carried its
author in its front, and every circumstance of
the transaction was noted with the traces and
signatures of a divine power and contrivance.
It was too great for the measures of any finite,
created agents.
2dly, A secoud property of the deliverance
vouchsafed to the Israelites at the Red sea,
was its unexpectedness. Their wits failed
them to contrive an escape, as well as their
power to make good a resistance. The enemy
was behind, and the sea before them ; that is,
death both faced them and pursued them too :
aud could they expect, that either the hard
ened heart of a Pharaoh should relent, and
bid thera return, or the devouring element
forget its cruelty, and turn their sanctuary to
protect them ?
It is true, indeed, that if any people in the
world raight have expected such miraculous
countermands upon nature, they were the
Israelites, to whom custom and frequency had
raade miracles so familiar, as even to offer
them to their expectation. Yet we know
they were far frora inferring their future pre
servation frora their former deliverance, and
that the God of their fathers would act as
miraculously in one, as he had done in the
other ; and thereupon -we read these worthy
expostulations of their infidelity, striking
directly indeed at Moses, but tacitly reflecting
upon God hiraself: (Exod. xiv. 11,12,) "Be
cause there were no graves in Egypt, hast
thou taken us away to die in the wilderness ?
wherefore hast thou dealt thus with us, to
carry us out of Egypt ? Did we not say to
thee in Egypt, Let us alone, that we raay
serve the Egyptians ? for it had been better for
us to serve the Egyptians, than that we should
die in the wilderness." Death was their be
lief, death their fear, nothing but death their
expectation. But now how welcome, how
sweet, and even transporting must such a

ON PSALM cvi. 7.

299

deliverance needs be, as steps in between a
great mischief and a great fear ; as disapjjoints
and confutes the terror of a man's expecta
tions, and (as I may so say) baffles him ac
cording to his heart's desire ? For the expec
tation and hope of a good fulfilled, is not so
pleasing as the expectation and fear of a great
evil defeated. It does not affect "the mind
with so sensible, so quick, and so exalting a
delig;ht. The reason of -which is, because
enjoyment in this state of mortality does not
so rauch gratify, as raisery does afflict us ; and
consequently nature more desires to be de
livered frora one, thau to be possessed of the
other. If ever there is a " picture of silver,"
to set forth " au apple of gold," it is wheu the
mercy of the deliverauce is set fortli and
enhanced by the precedent fears and despairs
of hira that is delivered : for can any delight
be greater, than for a man to set his foot upou
the neck of that enemy, by whom but three
minutes before he expected certainly to die?
To behold that sea openiug itself as a bosom
i to embrace, which he could not expect to be
any other than a grave to swallow and con
sume ? With these circurastances of endear-
raent did God deliver the Israelites.
And with the very same did he advance
the mercy of our deliverance : for it was a
thing so much beyond raen's expectation,
before the doing of it, that they could scarce
believe it when it was done ; the astonishing
strangeness of the thiug made men alraost
question the reports of their own eyes and
ears, aud disbelieve the inforraation of their
very senses, so that we might in that day
have took up those eraphatical words of the
prophet David : " Lord, when thou didst
turn the captivity of thy people, then were
we like unto those that dreara." The raatter
and subject of our joy was so strange and
unlikely, that, like raen in a dream, we
seemed to enjoy it rather by the flattering
representations of fancy, than to possess it by
any reality of fruition.
For so iraprobable was it, a little before it
happened, that foreign princes and nations
began to lay aside all hope of the king's resto
ration ; and our next neighbours, together
with their hopes of that, began to give over
also their respects to his person, banishing hira
out of their territories, without any considera
tion of his near alliance of blood, and (which
ought to have beeu the warraest argument in
the breast of kings) the distress of majesty by
such an act of inhospitable barbarity, as before
was unheard of, and perhaps never practised
but by theraselves. And as for affairs here
at horae, factions and animosities grew higher
and higher, clashing indeed araongst thera
selves, but unanimously conspiring against
the royal interest. Nay, and did not the
wonted fidelity and courage of many begin to
warp and decline, while they were willing to
VOL. II.

buy a settlement uuder any usurped govern
ment, with the price of their allegiance to the
right and lawful : so that the title of the just
heir was looked upon as forlorn and desperate
and the restitution of it exploded as a thiug
impracticable ; and that by many virtuosos
who now enjoy so much under it, that they
forget what forraerly they deserved frora it.
And so far did things theu seera to settle upon
another bottora, that as the Israelites said,
" Let us alone, that we raay serve the Egyp
tians ;" so all parties, but the royal and epis
copal, were recognizing and courting the new
puny protector, and adoring that rising ignis
fatuus as the Persians do the sun, coraparing
him (forsooth) to a peaceable Solomou, suc
ceeding in the throne of his warlike father
David ; and there is no doubt, but the father
was just as like David for his piety, as the
son was like Solomon for his wisdom ; much
at one.
But so little did their covenant put thera
in mind of their king, that his highness's raost
loyal and obedient subjects, especially of the
schismatical preachingorder,desiredno change,
nor ever thought of any, till the ministerial
maintenance (so much as remained of it)
began to reel and totter, and be made a prey
to those whora they themselves had preached
into such principles, as would in the issue
have certainly devoured them.
And as these persons desired no change, so
the hearts even of the loyal and the faithful
began to fail, and scarce to expect any ; at
least in such a manner as it carae to pass.
For who could have believed, that so mauy
parties, whora both their guilt and interest
had raade so inveterate against their prince,
could ever have fallen down at the feet of
offended maj esty, but in the field ? That those
whose blood boiled so high against him, could
ever have been brought to receive him, keep
ing the same blood still in their veins ? None
could have expected any other restoration of
his majesty but by dint of sword, by "the
battle of the warrior, with confused noise, and
garments rolled in blood ;" or, in a word, that
he should return any other way, than by which
he was driven out. Let this, therefore, be
the second coraraending property of our deli
verance, that while it met with our desires, it
transcended our expectations.
Sdly, The third commending property of
the Israelites' deliverance was the eminent
seasonableness of it. God delivered thora at
that very nick of tirae, when they were but
one reraove, one hair's breadth from destruc
tion. One hour's delay might have made the
deliverance for ever irapossible. So that it was
a mercy in season, and therefore in its prirae.
The haud of the eneray was .already lift up,
and then it could not be long before the blow.
But God, that interposes between the purpose
and thb action, even then when it is ripest for
3-

390

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Skrm. XXXIII.

it, and iraraediately passing into it, diverted
the eneray's rage, and took from hira the power
of revenge almost in the very midst of the
opportunity. A rescue from death, though
but threatening at a distance, is a raercy ; but
to rescue from it when it hovers over a man,
and is even grasping him in his talons, is the
most endearing circumstance of mercy.
And now, if we pass from the Israelites to
ourselves, (as very easily aud naturally we
may,) we know how seasonably the day of
our temporal rederaption sprang in upon us.
Our long-dying liberty seeraed then taking
its last gasp, and God knows what mischiefs
were then hatching in the breasts of thoso
tyrants. For that the furnace was heating,
raight be known by the sparks that flew out.
A massacre was often spoke of and urged, and,
it is like, not far from being intended ; the
ministry and the law were then professedly
struck at ; new oaths of abjuration invented
and iraposed, to ensnare the nation ; and, if it
were possible, to plunge it deeper in perjury
than it was before. Religion was so unhinged,
both as to the discipline and doctrine of
Christianity, that there was nothing certain
but change, nothing constant but variety; till,
having run the round of all other alterations,
they were passing into direct atheism, and
casting oft' that Deity, whom, having so noto
riously disobeyed, it wjis their concemraent
also to deny. In a word, the nation was then
involved in a universal confusion ; its go
vernment, its laws, its religion, were then
following their prince into banishment, and
resolved not to return till he did.
And surely, now it grew high tirae for tho
English nation to think of recovering itself
from .some of that infamy and loud reproach,
that the spilling of innocent royal blood, and
the profane invasion of all that was sacred or
civil had brought upon it, in the opinion of
all the nations round about, that stood as
spectators and detesters of those religious bar
barities, those villainies cloaked and sanctified
with the name of reformation. Time it was
also for God to shew himself, upon the ac
count of our exiled, distressed sovereign, lest
the taunts and triumphs of a too long success
ful villainy raight have took away either the
hearts of his subjects, that they would not, or
their abilities, tbat they could not have raini-
stered to the necessities of his royal person.
For, for ought we know, had the rod of usur
pation lain any longer upon us, the fountains
of relief had been quite stopped both at home
and abroad, and the heir and lord of three
flourishing kingdoms h.ave wanted bread, and
the comraon supplies of human life : for to
hear, (as we may from some,) to how low an
ebb the barbarous tyranny ot his enemies had
soraetiraes brought him, might even raelt the
hardest of our hearts, till they ran out at our
eyes : but I shall forbear the rehearsal of such

stories so full of tragedy, that they must
needs spread a cloud upon the joys and festi
vities of this blessed day. And I would not
willingly contradict ray subject, and uiake an
unseason.ablo discourse upon so seasonable a
deliverance. 4thly, The fourth and last crowning pro
perty of the deliverance vouchsafed by God
to the Israelites, was its absolute undeserved
ness. The entire cause of it was the divine
goodness, but none of theirs. And therefore,
Moses knowing tho innate arrogance and
pride of that insolent, as well as undeserving
people, most particularly cautions them
against such flattering thoughts : " Think
not," says ho to them, " that God has done
these great things for thee, for any righteous
ness of thine ; for thou art a stitt'-necked
people," (Deut. ix. 6.) And again, (verse 24)
" You havo been rebellious against the Lord,
from the day that I knew you." So that, if
there was any merit in obstin.acy, any worth
iu ingratitude, theu indeed their claim stood
full and high, and of all other people upon
earth they were tho raost raeritorious.
And now, bating these good qualifications,
can we allege any thing raore for our deserv
ing tho deliverance here acknowledged by us,
than the ungrateful and rebellious Israelites
could plead for theirs ? Did we so well im
prove ourselves under God's judgments, as
to be fit for such a mercy ? We saw a civil
war reaping down thousands and ten thou
sands of our countrymen ; but has it cut off
so much as one of our public sins ? Have not
our vices grown under the sword, like trees
under the pruning-hook, gathering thence
only a greater luxuriance and fertility ? Have
we mourned and humbled ourselves, according
to the greatness of the occasion ? And if,
peradventure, any of us have mourned, has it
not been more for the eff'ects of the war, than
for the causes of it? for the ruin and the
waste that it has brought upou our families
and estates, ratlier than for the crying sins
that first blew the trurapet, and drew the
fatal sword to revenge God's quarrel upou us
iu the field ?
Even self-love might fill the eyes with tears,
and cover the back with sackcloth, for the
untimely loss of a father, a husband, or a
brother ; but how many of us wept or sighed
to see majesty trarapled upon, religion abused,
or the sacred houses of God profaned ? No ;
these things were but little settled in most
raen's thoughts ; they scarce sighed or groaned
for any thing but for taxes and irapositions.
All which considered, we were so far from
raeriting such an incoraparable deliverance,
that had God treated us according to our
merits, we had never been delivered.
We h.ave now seen tho four several pro
perties that coraraended and gave a value to
the deliverance of the Israelites ; every one of

1

ON PSALJt evi. 7.

•Ji'l

which contributed to inflame their account,
.uid to stjimp tiieir ungrateful, provoking be
haviour with a higher aggravation. And
we have stxm also the jiarallel between their
deliverance aud our own so exactly made out,
that thero is not oue of these properties fail
ing in it : for our deliverauce was altogether
as great, as unexpected, as soiisonable, and as
undeserved, as theirs could be : it might vie
with it iu every particular.
Aud if that charge can be now made good
agiiinst us, that the text draws up against
them, of provoking God ; surely our guilt
raust be as great as v.ur deliverance, aud every
way equ!il the vast measures of theirs. It
eannot be pletising to rip up old sores, even
to those who desire to cure them. But
whether the preacher does it, or no, our in
gratitude will lay open and proclaim itself.
Ingratitude. I s;iy, the crying, crimson siu of
this doliverovl nation : a sin of an universal !
comprehension, aud (^as I may so speak) the |
generalissimo of sins, having au iuflueneo i
upon all the particular sius and irregularities
of our practice. And if we ask, in wh.at the '
nation has been so ungrateful, it is a question j
best answered by auother : In what litis it ¦
not » ¦ I
Wo ha-vo been harassed by a long civil w^r ;
and by a peace, uuder several sorts of usur
pers, worse than a war. We have seen a
general confusion, of all ranks aud degrees :
!Uid as if the floodsr.ites of popular insolence
had been opened, vve have seen an inundation
oreakiiig in upon all, and subverting every
tliiiii: above it ; even frora the king to the
meanest genileman : fn.>ni hiin that com
manded three kinsidoms. to him that h.ad the
eoraraaud but of one sorv.uit : and with the
confusion of order and degree, we have seen
the sarae also in poiut of property ; uo mau
was able to call .any thing his owu, but
slavery. The honour went first, and the
estate staytxl not long behind. This is a
summary account of tne mischiefs we then
groaned under.
And s merciful Providence -was pleased to
deliver us from every oue of them. For wo
have had a peace at home, a peace, enabling
us to raake war .abroiid : aud this under a |
prince of an undoubted title, and an unparal- j
leled goodness ; a prince, representing God, 1
uot only in point of m.ajesty by vicegerency, 1
as all princes do. but eminently, and beyond |
example, in that his beloved attribute that '•
must s;ive the world, his pardoning mercy : '
which he has imitatixl so far, even towards
his bitterest enemies, that be has pardoned
more aud gre.ater offences, than they them
selves could, with any faoe or modesty, have
expectevl. But how has this goodness been answered -?
H.ave not parxious bet'u followed with plots?
the blessings of peace ivud settlement been

entertained with raurraurings, repinings, and
l-etleetions upon his government, not to say,
upon his person also, uuder whoso shadow
they enjoy all this? Have those who have
been restored to their privileges of thoir birth
right and nobility, behaved theinselves with
that gratitude to hira, that, under God, is the
fouutaiii of honour? And have they pursued
those courses th.at must give a lustre to titles,
and ennoble nobility itself? Have those tbat
have been restored to their estates, stretched
out their hands, and opened their bowels to
their indigent fellow-sutt'erei-s, who served the
same master, and whose fortunes foil sacrifices
to the s;iiue cause ; who fought with them, or
rather for them : but have not these been
rather neglected and scorned for their poverty,
tho eft'ect of their fidelity ; and, at length,
beeu eveu grouud to powder, by that which
was designed for their relief? I am afraid, if
we eome to be arraigned with these questions,
we must be forced to plead guilty to them all.
Having thus despatched the two first things
proposedfrora the text, to -wit, the Israelites'
unworthy and ungrateful behaviour towards
God, upon a great deliverance, together with
the aggravation of it ; as also shewn how
much their case bas been made ours, iu both
respects ; I proceed now to the third and last
thing proposed from the words, namely, the
cause of this unworthy behaviour, whieh was
their uot understanding the desij;iis of mercy
in the several instances of it : " they under
stood not thy wonders iu Egypt." Novv in
every wonderful passajro of Providence, two
thiugs are to be consi.ierod ; first, the author,
by whom ; second, the end for vvhich it is
done : neither of which were understood by
the Israelites, as they ought to have been.
1st, Aud first, for the author of it. It is
more thau probable, that many of the Israel
ites ascribed most of thoso wonders to the
skill of itoses transeeudiug that of the Egyp
tian magicians, or to his working by the as
sistance of a higher and more potent spirit
than that which assisted them. Or in case
they did believe thera to have been the effects
of a divine power, yet they did uot inure their
minds seriously to consider it, so as to h.ave a
standing awe of that power imprinted upon
their hearts by such a consideration ; and he
that considers gre.at and coueeming matters
superficially, in the language of the Scripture,
does uot understand thera.
Now I believe this will be found to have
been most particularly the sin of this nation :
for how many, who tliiuk atheisni a piece of
ingomiity, asL-ribe tlie wliole passnge of tlio
kind's restoraTioii to chance aud accident, or
to this man's prudence, or that man's miscar-
ria^io ; not oonsidoring ho-w impossible it w.as
for anv human contrivance to lay a train of
so manv causes, so uiany aceidents, so exactly.
aud to make so many opposite iuterests and

.392

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Serm. XXXIV.

cross circumstances fall into a direct and per
fect subserviency to the composing this oue
grand work : a work so incomparably great,
that to adjudge the entire accomplishment of
it to any creature under heaven, would be to
rob God of the honour of one of his greatest
actions, and to take the crown off frora Provi
dence, and to set it upon the head of human
counsels. And then, no -wonder if ingrati
tude for a blessing follows, where the author
of it is neither understood nor acknowledged.
2dly, The other, and the chief thing to be
considered in every wonderful deliverance, is
the intent and end of it. Which surely is
not, that men should forget it as soon as it is
done, or turn it into wantonness, and make it
minister to the excesses of pride, luxury, and
intemperance. God neither dried up the sea,
to bring the Israelites into "aland flowing
with milk and honey," th.at they might de
bauch, revel, and surfeit upon that mercy :
nor did he, by a miracle as great, reinstate a
company of poor, distressed exiles in the pos
session of their native couutry, that they
should live at that rate of vanity and super
fluity, that the -world now-a-days cries out
upon them for. God did not work wonders
to clothe and feed a few worthless parasites
with the riches of a kingdom, to fill their
cups with the blood of orphans and the tears
of the widows. God did not intend that so
universal a blessing, big enough for us all,
should be diverted under-ground, into the
obscure, narrow channel of a few private
purses ; leaving so many loyal, suffering, un
done persons, to sigh and mourn over their
destitute condition, in the day of a public
joy. God did not restore us to scoff at reli
gion, and to malign his church, as if the nation
and the government might stand well enough
withont a church, but not without plays.
No ; surely, this was not the intent of this
miraculous deliverance, whatsoever has been
made the event of it. The voice of God in it
calls us to humility, to industry, to tempe
rance, to public-mindedness, to great and
generous actions, for the good both of church
and state. And if, instead of these, we re
solve to spit in the face of raercy, by still
pursuing a vain, luxurious, profane course of
life, we shall find, that he who " rules in the
kingdoras of raen, and appoints over thera
whorasoever he will," can turn the stream of
our happiness, and destroy us after he has
done us so much good.
To whom be rendered and ascribed, as is
most due, all praise, might, majesty, aud
dominion, both now and for evermore. Amen.

SEKMON XXXIV-

' Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting."
Mat. xvii. 21.

It was a general received command, and an
acknowledged rule of practice in all ages and
places of the Christian world, that we are
" to hear the church ;" except only of late,
since we began to be wiser than the world,
and holy above the scripture ; from which
this text has been, as it were, discanonized,
and its authority struck out of date. But no
wonder if the church then had no jurisdiction,
wheu it had scarce so much as a being ; and
that men did not use to hear it, when it grew
almost impossible for them to see it ; and if
the disciples of those days regarded not much
the casting out of evil spirits, who were chiefly
busied about rejecting God's ministers.
But heretofore, when meu were led by the
written word, and not by the ignis fatuus of
a bold fancy, styling itself divine revelation,
the church was always recognized as Christ's
court here upon earth, fully empowered and
commissioned from him to decide all emer
gent controversies, to interpret doubtful com
mands, and to make wholesome sanctions and
institutions, as particular occasions aud the
circumstances of affairs should require ; that
so it might appear, that the assistance of the
Spirit promised to the church was not a vain
thing or a mere verb.
Now it seemed good to the primitive church,
acted by the immediate guidance of the Holy
Ghost, to set apart the tirae of our blessed
Saviour's fasting and teraptation iu the wilder
ness, to be solemnized with the anniversary
exercise of abstinence, and other holy asteri-
ties, for the subduing tbe flesh, quickening the
spirit ; that so we might conform to Christ,
and worship the author of our religion with
the devotions of iraitation.
Thanks be to God, our church is lately come
out of the wilderness ; yet let it not cease to
imitate what our Saviour did when he was
there. I confess the blessed Jesus is a pattern
above the imitation of mortality ; fitter to
terrify than to excite our endeavours ; a copy
to be admired, uot to be transcribed.
His whole life was a continued miracle ; in
everyinstanceof behaviour his divinity beamed
through his humanity, and every action was
a cast of his orauipotence ; and miracles, I
acknowledge, were never intended for pre
cepts ; nor is auy raan bound to be oranlpo
tent, divine, or an angel, nor to do such things
as are only the effects of such perfections.
Yet even this strange, high, iniraitable fast
ing of Christ may be stripped of the miracle,

ON MATTHEW, xvii. 21.

293

and, by due, qualified proportions, found a
moral duty ; for though to fast forty days
were rairaculous, and so not at all concerning
us, yet the ends of Christ's fasting, which
were to enjoy a raore iraraediate converse
with God, the better to fortify himself against
the temptation of the Devil, and to fit hiraself
for the execution of a great work laid upon
hira by the Father ; these are all coraraon to
us, according to the due abateraent of degrees ;
and therefore, where there is some proportion
in the duty, there ought to be the same in the
use of the raeans.
Nay, we raay advance the argument far
ther, and dispute thus : That if he who had
no corruption or disorder iu his nature, to
weaken or betray the motions of the spirit,
found it yet fit to undergo these austerities
aud violences to the flesh ; how much raore
ought we, who find a continual rebellion in
all our appetites agaiust the spiritual inclina
tions of the mind, to endeavour, by such re
ligious arts, to subdue those luxuriancies to
the obedience of reason and the dictates of
tho spirit ?
Let us therefore follow Christ, though at a
distance ; for if we may but touch the hem
of our great exemplar by the small beginnings
of a faithful imitation, we shall find a virtue
coming out from hira, to the curing of the
flux of sin, and the bloody issue of the most
deadly, threatening corruption.
We are comraanded to be like Christ ; but
iu every likeness philosophy teaches that
there are some degrees of dissimilitude, be
cause no likeness amounts to an identity :
and when he bids us " be perfect," he still in
tends it according to that econoray of perfec
tion that is incident to an iraperfect nature.
Wherefore let us uot distinguish ourselves
out of duty, uor make our ease our religion,
but suspect that those arguraents are very
likely to proceed from the flesh, that tend to
the flesh's gratification. Though we cannot
reach Christ in the rairacle of the perforra
ance, yet we may follow him in the sincerity
ofthe atterapt.
Certain it is, frora the united testiraony of
raany of the most experienced followers of
Christ, that these abstinences and sour rudi
raents of self-denial have a signal influence,
both to the procuring of mercies, and to the
reraoval of irapending judgraents.
He that thus hungers is sure to be filled.
Fasting raay prevent starving, and wearing
sackcloth for a while keep us frora wearing it
all our days. It is able to reverse a decree,
and to reraand the word out of God's mouth.
Ahab hiraself found it so ; and what rewards
may we hope for to a true, when so great did
attend even the forced abstinences of an un
sound repentance ?
As for the words : it is much doubted by
expositors, what kind of evil spirit is herein-

tended by our Saviour, which he affirras not
to be dispossessed but by " prayer and fast
ing." Sorae understand it generally of all evil
spirits, contrary to the express letter and sense
of the place. Others, of an evil spirit of a
peculiar and extraordinary fierceness. But
others, raore appositely and judiciously, in
terpret it of an evil spirit liaving had long and
inveterate possession of the party outof whora
it was cast ; which appears frora the ninth of
Mark, where the spirit is said to have pos
sessed him Tctihohv, "even from a child."
I shall now, by a parallel application, im
prove the words beyond this particular occa
sion, to their general reason, and extend what
was here spoke of, the casting out the Devil
as to his person, to an ejection of hira as to
his works. And whereas the duty of fasting
is extraordinary, and a proper instruraent to
advance the heights and fervours of prayer,
the sense of the words, as improvable into a
standing, perpetual precept, is this :
That there are some corruptions and vices,
which, partly by reason of a strong situation in
our temper and constitution, partly by habit,
custom, aud inveterate continuance, grow so
sturdy, and have so firra a hold of us, that
they cannot be subdued and conquered, and
thoroughly dispossessed, but withthe greatest
ardour and constancy of prayer, joined with
the harshest severities of raortification.
This, therefore, is the genuine sense of the
words ; in which there are these two parts :
First, An intiraation of a peculiar duty ;
prayer and fasting.
Secondly, The end and design ofit ; which
is, to eject and dispossess the unclean spirit.
These are the parts of the text, the entire
discussion of which I shall manage in these
three particulars :
I. To take a survey of the extent of this
text. II. To shew the due qualifications of it,
that render it both acceptable to God, and
efficacious to ourselves.
III. To shew how it comes to have .such an
influence in dispossessing the evil spirit, and
subduing our corruptions.
I. For the first of these : this duty of fast
ing adraits of several kinds and degrees ; for
in fasting as well as feasting wo raay find
variety. 1st, The first kind is of constant universal
exercise ; universal, both because it obliges at
all tiraes, and extends to all persons. And
this is nothing but a temperate, sober, and
restrained use of the creature ; in abridging
the appetites of nature for the designs of re
ligion ; in bringing liberty to the love of
reason, and contracting the latitude of things
lawful into the narrower compass of expi-
dients. He that ventures to the utraost verge of his

'294

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Serm. XXXIV.

Christian liberty stands upon a precipice ;
the utmost bonnd= of lawful are the borders
and immediate confines of unlawful. And
wheu the Devil thus sets a man upon the
pinnacle, he may be sure that he hath de
signed him for a temptation. To dwell near
the sin, without sometimes stepping into it, is
very hard. Neighbourhood is still the occa
sion of visits.
Upon this cause Christ has placed the spirit
and soul of his religion in self-denial and a
renouncing the pleasures, softnesses, and
caresses of worldly delights ; as knowing,
though pleasure and a full enjoyment is in
itself not evil, yet such is the weakness of our
nature, that it fails and melts under the
encounter, and by its very enjoyments is
betrayed into the suares of siu and the regions
of death.
It is lawful for us to feast with Job's sons,
yet feasting may sometimes pull the house
about our ears. When Amnon's heart is
merry with wine, then the ambush is ready
to rise and strike him. Fulness of bread -was
the occasion of Sodom's sin, and Sodom's sin
was the occasion of its destruction. Terape
rance, therefore, the only easy and constant
fast, is the great duty of a Christian life ; a
sure and sovereign instruraent of mortifica
tion. And whosoever struggles with any unruly
corruption will perhaps find, that theconstant
turn of a well-guided abstinence will, in the
issue, give a surer despatch to it than those
extraordinary instances of total abstinence
and higher severities, only undertook for a
time. As a landflood, it carries a bigger
stream, and comes with a mightier force and
noise, yet presently dries up aud disappears ;
but the emissions of a fountain, though gentle
and silent, yet are constant and perpetual ;
and whereas the other, being gone, leaves
nothing behind it but slime and mud, this,
wheresoever it flows, gently soaks into verdure
and fertility.
This constant temperance, therefore, is by
all means intended by the rules of Chris
tianity ; the constancy of which, mnning
through our whole live=, raakes abstinence
our diet, and fasting our meat and drink.
We used to say, A good conscience is a con
tinual feast ; but surely it is in a great
measure the effect and product of such a con
tinual fast. Wherefore let us still secure
ourselves by the guards of a temperate and
reserved sobriety ; remembering, that it was
the sop that slid the Devil into Judas, and the
glutton that ushered in the traitor ; and that,
in all spiritual surprises, it is the bait that is
most likely to betray us to the hook.
2dly, The second kind of fast is a fast of a
total abstinence, when for some tirae we
wholly abstain from all bodily repasts. This
is the highest kind, and therefore, in ordinary

speech, has engrossed the name of fast only to
itself, as the name of the whole kind is not
unusually confined to the principal meraber
of the division. .
We have instances of this frequently in
the Old Testaraent and in the New ; in the
disciples of Johu, in Cornelius, and others.
And it is not to be questioned, but that this
is the fast chiefly intended in the words of the
text; that great instmment to exercise and
drive out the evil spirit from a defiled and a
possessed heart.
Every remedy is successful according to the
proportion it bears to the distemper: and
certainly a cure is not likely to be wrought,
where an ordinary remedy encounters an
extraordinary disease ; where the plaster is
narrow, and the wound broad.
Temperance is good, but that is to be our
continual diet ; and surely that man is not
like to recover, who makes his food his physic.
Where the huraour is strong and predorainant,
there the prescription raust be rugged, and
the evacuation violent. We must leave the
road of nature, when nature itself is disor
dered, and the principles of life in danger.
Possibly a mau may have a transient disre
lish aud loathing of his sin ; but have these
loathings rested only iu thought, or have they
improved into contrary resolutions ? Suppose
they have, and a man has fully resolved
against his sin, yet has he watered those
resolutions with prayers and tears, the great
conveyance of that strength which alone can
actuate the resolutions ? Adrait also, that he
may have prayed and humbled himself before
God, yet still perhaps his corruption is vigor
ous, and snaps asunder all his resolutions,
tramples upon his prayers, and triumphs over
his tears and repentances, upon the periodical
returns of a temptation, or the critical work
ings of a bad temper. !
Why now the reason of this unconquered i
activity of his sin, after all these courses
taken against it, may be because the place of .
its strength is yet untouched. Its lock is only ]
hampered, and not cut off by a thorough |
removal of the fuel and materials of concupis- ;
cence in a , severe abstinence from things
sometimes necessary : for a distempered '
storaach will digest aliment into poison. i
To eat and to drink is necessary ; but even ¦
necessity raust give place to extreraity. And i
the physician is merciful, if he pines his
patient into a recovery. In this case we
encounter sin in the body, like a besieged
enemy ; and such an one, wheu he has once
engarrisoned himself in a strong hold, will
endure a storm, and repel assaults: you must
cut off his supplies of pro^sion, and never
think to win the fort, till hunger breaks
through the walls, and starves him into a
surrender. Sdly, The third kind of fast is an abstinence

ON MATTHEW, xvii. 21.

295

from bodily refreshments, in respect of a
certain sort or degree, and that undertook for
some space of tirae ; such as is this quadrage-
siraal solemnity ; in which, for the space of
some weeks, the church has, iu some select
days, enjoined a total abstinence from flesh,
aud a more restrained use of other refresh
ments. I ara not ignorant, that the same obligation
coraes also from the civil magistrate, and that
for secular ends ; yet I see not why there raay
not be a friendly correspondence between
both these ; or why one should be thought to
exclude the other, which it only confirms:
certainly a law ought not to be the weaker
for beiug enacted by a double authority.
I kuow also, that the celebration of this
soleranity is rauch controverted ; but then it
is by those who donbt as much whether they
ought to obey the raagistrate, and to renounce
the principles of religion. But just as in the
apostles' tiraes, so in ours also, the church has
been troubled with disputes concerning meats ;
and whether it be lawful to oblige men, under
the gospel, in the use of things iu their nature
indifferent. Some, who would be reforraing while they
should be obeying ; who are too holy to need
fasting ; have too much of the spirit to stand
in fear of the flesh ; and who still express
God's mercies by marrow and fatness, and
such other expressions as please their palate,
and leave a relish upon the tongue that speaks
them ; so that they cannot be so properly
said to preach sermons as dinners ; of which
they put their auditors in mind long before
they have done : — these, I say, will hear of
nothing but of liberty ; they must have elbow-
room at their meat : and as for Lent, they
defy it ; it is popish, antichristian, and idola
trous : and so, their conscience being fallen
into their stomach, what one finds trouble
some, the other easily concludes superstitious.
But who shall be judges and arbitrators in
this case? The scripture, which is to be the
rule, is the sarae, and open to the allegation
of both parties. But who shall interpret and
apply this rule? Now, in every science and
profession, the raost rational way to resolve
doubts arising in it has been, either to consult
with all or most of the professors of it, or with
sorae that are raost erainent for their skill
and knowledge in it.
Of the first sort, in matters of Christianity,
we have the church of God congregated in
councils : ofthe secoud, we have those ancient
writers, famous in their ages for their pro-
foundacquaintance with evangelical raysteries,
whom we eall fathers : let us therefore see the
judgraent of both these in this particular.
For councils, I shall raention one for all ;
the Council of Nice, iu which we find both
mention aud approbation of this quadrage
simal fast. Add to this the Canons of the

Apostles ; in the 68th of which we read tho
institution of the same : which canons, though
they were not writ by the apostles theraselves,
yet they are of great, undoubted antiquity,
and consequently of no less authority in the
several ages of the church.
As for the suffrage of the fathers ; I could
bring Saint Basil and Saint Chrysostora, of
the Greek church ; Saint Austin and Saint
Jerom, the two great luminaries of the Latin.
Of which. Saint Austin, in his 119th epistle
to Januarius, has these words ; " Quadragesi
ma sane jejuniorum habet authoritatem et in
veteribus libris et in evangelio." And Saint
Jerom, in his epistle to Marcella, delivers his
mind to the same purpose : " Nos unam
quadragesimam, secundum traditionem apos
tolorum, toto anno, terapore nobis congruo,
jejunaraus." Also in his comment upon the
68th of Isaiah, he speaks to the like intent :
" Dorainus diebus quadragiuta in solitudine
jejunavit, ut nobis solenues jejuuiorura dies
relinqueret." I do not desire to multiply quotations, but
had rather weigh thau number them ; and
therefore these shall be sufficient.
And now let any one judge whether it is
fitter for us to steer our practice according to
the ducture of the universal church, or the
broken voice of a particular faction, compared
to that, both small in number and inconsider
able in qualification ? Must the gray hairs of
antiquity bow down to the upstart appearance
of novelty? especially since the same faction
that decry fasting in Lent have publicly kept
a national fast upon the day of Christ's nati
vity, in the year 1646 ; the first fast that was
kept by Christians on that day since Chris
tianity saw the sun: but it seems, Christianity
and reforraation are two things.
They talk of reforming, and of coraing out
of Egypt, (as they call it,) but still, though
they leave Egypt, they will be sure to hold
fast to their flesh-pots. And the truth is,
their very fasts and hurailiations have been
observed to be nothing else but a religious
epicurisra, and a neat contrivance of luxury ;
while they forbear dinner, only that they
may treble their supper ; and fast in the day,
like the evening wolves, to whet their sto
machs against night.
But these principles and practices are too
rank for the strict, pure, and raortifying seve
rities of Christianity. Let us, therefore, poor
mortals, who dare not be perfect above our
example, content ourselves to follow our great
Master, and not be ash.amed to be deceived
with the universal church.
And truly, he that with spiritual design
aud prudent usage shall manage this religious
solemnity, as with Christ he may be said to
fast, so with Christ also he may conquer the
terapter. And let all schisms and factions,
and pretended reformers, ring about his ears

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peals of popery, will-worship, and supersti
tion ; yet still, like Christ in the wilderness,
he may converse with God, though his abode
be amongst such wild beasts.
And thus I have despatched the first general
head of this discourse ; which was to shew the
extent aud latitude of this duty of fasting, iu
the several sorts and kinds of it : I must now
close up what I have spoke upon this subject
with this cautional observation :
That iu the whole econoray of the gospel,
mercy is predorainant ; and therefore the
rigour of every precept is to be sweetened and
reduced to this standing rule, as the vital
reason running through every evangelical in
stitution. We cannot but allow the great
legislator of the new law to carry things with
so much equity and evenness, as to fix upou
the same law a different proportion of obliga
tion, according to different tempers and occa
sions. Now what Christ said upon another occa
sion may be said also of fasting ; " Every one
cannot receive this saying." There raay be a
poison in abstinence, as well as in raeats : and
wheu natural weakness and infirmity will not
reach the sweetness and perfection of the pre
cept, it is the genus of the gospel to relax, and
not to urge sacrifice, standing in competition
with mercy.
Certainly he, that would make the rigours
of the sabbath give way to the pulling of an
ox or a sheep out of the ditch, would not now
ruin a man, for whom even the sabbath was
made, only to spare one of those. Where the
performance depends upon a power rare and
singular, it is there hard to make the duty
universal. We know the body is subservient
to the uses of the soul : but Christ never
destroys one to save the other ; nor bids any
one put the knife to his throat so as to kill
himself. We must distinguish between mur
der and mortification.
Christ commands no man to bo a skeleton,
or a walking ghost, or to throw away his
health, in order to his salvation. A catarrh
or a consumption is uo man's duty: self-
denial may be a duty ; but I am sure self-
murder is a sin.
A potion may be sovereign and excellent,
but not therefore to be equally administered
to all. No application can be successful, but
what is managed with caution : and where
there is caution, there must be distinction.
Every vessel is not alike fit for new wine : an
old, crazy cask betrays its burden, and sinks
under the vigour .and spirituous emanations
of too generous a liquor.
There is no soul but may pray, and be
pious ; but there are many bodies that cannot
fast. It were a sad thing, if a man should be
forced to raake his table-cloth his winding-
sheet, and his poison his religion. No, un
doubtedly r all the injunctions of Christ carry

in thera nothing bnt sweetness, convenience,
and a teuder coraplianee with the necessities
and frailties of human nature.
The weakness of some tempers perform
upon them the very same effects that fasting
works upon others ; and therefore those seve
rities, which iu others would be only an
abridgment of their luxury, woultl in them
be an intrenchment upon their being; and
not only cut short their pleasure, but their
very existence.
As soon as Jesus Christ had raised one
from the dead, we read that " he commanded
something to be given her to eat," (Mark, v.
43 ;) and, I am confident, the severity of no
institution could have induced hira, at that
time, to have bid her fast ; unless he only
raised her from the state of death, that he
might send her to it again.
The height of prudence is, in all precepts,
laws, and institutions, to distinguish persons,
times, and occasions, and accordingly to dis
criminate the obligation ; and upon the sarae
exigence of justice to dispense with it in some,
upon which it confirms it in others. And
prudence is but one part of Christianity,
which takes in all moral virtues with advan
tage and addition ; and what is absurd in the
sanctions of right reason, will never be war
ranted by the rules of religion. Wherefore,
as to the matter in hand, I shall coraprise all
in this one word : let the observation of this
solemn time be so strict, as not to bend to any
man's luxury ; so dispensable, as not to grate
upon his infirmity.
II. I come now to the second general head
proposed for the discussion of this subject ;
which is to shew, what are the qualifications
that must render this duty of fasting both
acceptable to God, and efficacious to this great
purpose. To give raen a right information concerning
which, I think to be a matter of very great
moment ; as perceiving that meu egreglously
abuse theraselves in the practice of this duty,
spoiling it with strange apprehensions, and
loading it with many foreign and preterna
tural strictnesses, for which they will one day
receive but sraall thanks, either from God
or from themselves. The truth is, the sura
of all their miscarriages about it seems to
lie in this, that they depress it into a bodily
exercise; which the apostle affirms "to profit
little ;" while they acquiesce barely in this,
that they have fasted so long or so often ; not
at all considering in what manner or to what
end : where.as, indeed, the former is but the
mere bulk and rude draught of this duty ; and
these latter ouly stamp it divine, and make it
spiritual. Wherefore I shall lay down four conditions
or properties, without a joint concurrence of
all which, this duty of fasting can neither be
pleasing to God, nor effectual to di=possess the

ON MATTHEW, xvii. 21.

297

unclean spirit, in the mortification of any
strong corruption.
1st, The first is, that it is to be used, not as
a duty either necessary or valuable for itself,
but only as an instrument. There are some
duties that carry iu thera an absolute neces
sity ; as being founded upon the necessary
relation that the creature bears towards God,
in respect of its being created by him, and its
depending upon him ; as also upon the rela
tion that one creature bears towards another,
arising frora their natural equality and cogna
tion. Of the first sort are our loving God, adoring
hira, adhering to hira, with the utraost exer
tion of all the powers and faculties of the
soul ; deraeaning ourselves with that huraility
and prostration of spirit, that becomes poor
shadows before self-sufficiency, weakness be
fore oranipotence ; a creature of yesterday,
and but for a day, before hira who is " frora
everlasting to everlasting." In short, as it
becoraes a raan to behave himself towards
th.at divine power, from the arbitrary dispo
sals of whose pleasure he first received his
breath, and still holds his being.
Of the second sort are all the duties we owe
to our neighbour, in the rank and condition
our creation has placed us. As, that we bear
a benign affection towards him ; entertain a
concemraent for hira ; upon all occasions
advance his good and eraoluraent ; by no
mejins intrench upon his happiness, by de
frauding, slandering, defiling, or any ways
circumventing those, whom God has" joined
with us in the society and common ligaments
of nature and huraanity.
Now all these actions, with their respective
branches and farther iraproveraeuts, are in
dispensably requisite, as parts of God's iraage
in us ; and without which the decorum and
offices of that station which every man holds
both towards God and his fellow-creatures,
cannot be sustained.
These, therefore, are the principal duties,
and chief pillars of morality ; and whatever
becoraes necessary over and above these, it is
so only by way of supply and assistance, as
helps and arts to proraote tbe soul's progress
in these grand instances of duty.
For we raust observe, that there is not only
iu the mind of raan an ingenite sense of turpe
and honestum, that constantly inclines hira to
the practice of such virtuous actions, but also
a strong inclination of appetite, that, like a
constant rem,ora, stops and impedes the vir
tuous principle ; and withal, like a bias,
sways and carries him to what is vicious and
irregular. Upon this ground it is, that, to quicken the
soul in a course of virtue, we must removere
prohibens, and weaken the contrary principle
of the sensitive appetite, which clogs and op
presses the other in all its due operations.

Now, since the seat of this appetite is the
body, according to the various disposition of
which, that becomes either lively or faint in
its workings, it follows, that we must lay
siege to this, and begin the assault here, as
that great apostle and artist in the ways of
holiness did before us, (1 Cor. ix. 27,) " I keep
under ray body, lest, having preached to
others, I myself should becorae a cast-away."
How this can be effected surer and better
thau by fasting, uot only Christianity, but
reason itself is yet to seek. It is this that
curbs nature, circurascribes appetite, restrains
the gaiety and exorbitance of desire, stops the
career of luxury, by taking off its wheels.
He, whose nature is reduced and kept low
by the disciplines of religion, is neither a slave
to the suggestions of lust, pride, or idleness ;
their innate fuel is extinguished ; and so all
their proposals easily vanish, finding nothing
to fasten upou. They are so far from being
victorious, that to such au one they are scarce
troublesome. He is so far from being subject
to their tyranny, that he is not so much as
vexed with their iraportunity.
Now, by all that has been said it appears,
that fasting is required, not as a virtue, but
as a help to virtue ; and that, by controlling
its hinderance, removing its impediraents,
subduing the emulations of a contrary prin
ciple, and so enabling it to act with freedom.
Otherwise, were there ^no reluctancy from
the inferior appetites against a virtuous and a
pious course, these arts and stratageras against
the flesh "would be superfluous, and we should
have no more need of fastiug, thau the angels
or the blessed spirits have of eating. Could
the mariner sail with as much ease and safety
iu a storm, as he does in a calra, he would
never erapty or unlade his vessel.
Would a full, luxuriant body subserve the
ends and execute the comraauds of the spirit,
with as much readiness and agility as one
that is disciplined to such compliances with
hunger and hardship ; God, who takes no de
light to afflict the children of men, you may
be sure, would not comraand us to afflict our
selves ; certainly no abstinence would be theu
more our duty, thau to abstain from fasting.
For is there any excellency in the thing
itself to commend it to God ? Does fasting
perfume our sighs, or add a fragrancy to our
prayers ? Are the jejunia sabbatariorum sacri
fices of so sweet a savour to the Almighty,
that the offerings of justice, piety, and raercy,
would be nothing valued by hira, without the
mixture of such incense?
Nay, let me add this one consideration, that
fasting, as such, considered barely iu itself, is
so far frora being of any value in the sight of
God, that it is indeed an evil ; not morally, I
confess, but naturally ; for whatsoever grieves
or afflicts nature i^ an evil to it, and conse
queutly fasting, being such au one, would

298

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Serm. XXXIV.

never be allowed, rauch less comraanded by
God, if it were uot sanctified by its subser
viency to a moral good.
Let this therefore be fixed upon, that fast
ing is neither commanded, nor to be used, but
merely as a spiritual instrument. And since
it is the nature of all instruraents to receive
their value and worth frora their fitness to
produce those effects to which they are de
signed, I believe it would be no hard matter
to unravel and run through most of the pom
pous austerities and fastings of many religious
operators and splendid justiciaries.
Some of which neither know nor design
any other religion in this duty, but only that
at such and such a time they forbore flesh,
and made their meal of fish, which perhaps
also they loved better. This, they think, is
a notable piece of service to God ; and so
they rise from the table with their blind, be
sotted consciences as much applauding them,
as if they had rose from a well performed
prayer. But may I not say to such an one. Thou
hypocrite! does God receive any lionour at
all from this ? or does it at all discriminate
thee from the epicure in his account, or in the
final sentence that he shall pass upon both
hereafter? May not he that eats fish and he
that eats flesh go to the same place of damna
tion, as well as the fish and flesh that they eat
be served up to the same table?
Is there any spiritual design carried on in
this abstinence? Is the ruiu of 'any vice
drove at ; the working of any corruption
undermined and defeated by this means ?
These are the things that God looks at and
requires, and which the very nature of the
duty suggests ; and without which it is but
the carcass of a duty ; dead and noisome ;
detestable before God, and irrational in itself.
2dly, The secoud conditiou of a religious
fast is, that it be done with a hearty detesta
tion of the body of sin, for the weakening of
which it is designed. Whosoever duly under
takes a fast, by the very nature of the duty is
actually engaged in a war against his sin ;
and who ever fought valiantly against him
whom he did not first hate heartily ?
If -we have not first wrought our rainds to
a settled dislike and a bitter disgust of sin as
our mortal enemy, all our atterapts against it
will be faint and heartless, our mortifications
treacherous, and our fastings frustraneous ;
much like David's sending an army against
Absalora, with a de.-ign to save him, and to
deal with him gently.
It will be only an alarra to sin to put itself
into a posture of defence, to retreat farther
into the soul, and there to rally together its
strengths, and to secure itself by a firraer
possession. It is most certain, that i^ the same degree
that sin is amiable to us, our fast is odious to

God, and looked upon by him only as a more
solemn mockery and religious provocation.
It is uot a mournful expression, a solemn
dress, or a thin table, that God so much re
gards. It is the heart, and not the storaach,
that he would have erapty ; and therefore, if
a raan carries a luxurious soul in a pining
body, or the aspiring mind of a Lucifer in the
hanging head of a bulrush, he fasts only to
upbraid his Maker, aud to disgrace his reli
gion, and to heighten his final reckoning, till
he becomes ten times more the son of perdi
tion, than those who own their inward love
of sin, by the open, uudissembled enmities of
a suitable behaviour.
Let us not deceive ourselves, nor take an
estimate of our duty by false raeasures and
fallacious judgments. He that obeys the in
junctions of the church, that executes upon
hiraself the afflicting rigours of external absti
nences, he does well ; but he has not therefore
done all. Let hira not count hiraself to have
fasted to any purpose, if by it he has not got
ground of his corruption, iu sorae measure
supplanted his sin, and estranged his affec
tions from the beloved embraces of siuful
objects. But if, after all these spiritual arts and
severities, the love of sin continues yet active
aud entire, let him assure himself, that his
fasting will have no other effect upou him,
than to send him back to the repeated prac
tice of what he loves with a fiercer and a
keener appetite. The vicissitudes of restraint
will only endear the retums of the enjoyment,
and draw forth the desires with a quicker and
raore inflamed inclination.
He, therefore, that would manage this duty
to his great and spiritual advantage, let him
draw his eye frora his table, and turn it unto
his soul ; let him overlook the spare furniture
of one, and see whether there be not large
provision laid up for lust in the other. Does
he find any vile, unraortified desire in his
heart ? let hira extinguish it ; any siu in his
hands ? let him remove it ; any blot upon his
conscience ? let hira wash it out in the great
laver of souls, the blood of Christ, conveyed
to him by a true repentance.
But if these thiugs are uot the matter of his
care, if he only forbears his meat, and not his
sin, let such an one know, that the beasts of
Nineveh kept as good a fast as he.
Add to all this, that the love of sin cherished
in the heart makes fasting not only an ira
pious, but also an unseemly practice. A
man's behaviour contradicts his designs ; the
duty does not sit well upon him ; it neither
suits uor squares with his condition. In
short, it is as improper and absurd to come to
a fast with a foul heart, as to a feast with foul
hands. Sdly, The third conditiou of a duly qualified
fast is, that it be quickened aud enlivened

ON MATTHEW, xvii. 21.

299

with prsiyer. The truth is, one of the great
est designs of this duty is, to be au opportuuity
of prayer, which is never perforraed with
greater fervency, activity of spirit, and rest
lessness of iraportunity, than when uature is
abridged, the humours of the body low, aud
consequently the avocations that it suggests to
the raind sraall and conquerable.
Prayer is a duty running through all the
periods and offices of our lives, but the days of
fasting are properly the tirae of its solemnity.
They are (^ I may so say) the festivals of
devotion. Prayer, joined with fasting, is like
" an apple of gold set off with a picture of
silver." Now we have it at its best advan
tage ; it shines bright, aud it flames pure, like
fire without the encurabrances of sraoke, or
the allay of contrary blasts.
And in the manageraent of so great a duty,
to be silent aud obstinate, to have uo petition
to prefer, what is it but to transact the whole
religion of the fast with our teeth ? With a
teraper inferior to the ox and the brute ani
raals, who low in their hunger, and speak
aloud their wants to the haud that feeds them.
Nay, the very reason of a fast seems to re
quire the society of prayer, for it raust needs
be undertook either for the procuring of some
good, or the deprecation of sorae evil ; and is
there any way appointed either by God or
nature, to represent the wants and grievances
of our conditiou to heaven but by petition ?
by the solicitations of prayer, a duty whose
strange and never-failing successes in all its
holy contests with the Alraighty have ren
dered it not only acceptable, but also in
vincible? And, to add example to reason, what saint
almost do we find in scripture, whose prayers
did not attend their fasts ? Ezra aud Nehe-
j miah, David aud Daniel, took this course :
and, doubtless, while "David's knees were
weak through fasting," as he expresses it in
Psalm cix. 24, they were also employed in
kneeling. One would think, that in this performance
the actings of grace might imitate the work
ings of uature ; for is there any thing so
proper to hunger as craving, or to a fast as
supplication ?
But where I enforce the conjunction of
prayer with fasting, people must uot think,
that by prayer is meant a formal, customary
attendance upon the offices of the church,
undertook only out of a sordid fear of the eye
of man, and then performed with weariness
and irreverence, with seldora access, and more
seldom devotion ; of the duties of which per
sons I raay say this, that if filth could be
defiled, their prayers would deffle their fast
ings, and their fastings their prayers ; so that
the joining of one to the other would be no
thing else, than the offering up of carrion
with the fumes and incense of a dunghUI.

4thly, The fourth condition of a truly reli
gious fast is, that it be attended with alras
and works of charity. Amongst our other
emptinesses, the evacuation of the purse is
proper to this solemnity : tind he that inflicts
a thorough penance upon this, stops the foun
tain of luxury, and the opportunities of ex
travagance. Charity is the grand season.age of every
Christian duty : it gives it a gloss in tbe sight
of God, and a value in the sense of men ;
and he fasts properly, whose fast is the poor
man's feast ; whose abstinence is another's
abundance. In Isaiah, lviii. 4, 5, 6, God roundly tells
his people what was truly a fast, aud what
was uo fast in his esteera : not to abstain from
bread, " but to deal it to the hungry ;" this is
properly to fast : not to wrap ourselves in
sackcloth, but to " cover and clothe our naked
brother ;" this is to be hurabled.
To what purpose did the Pharisees fast twice
a-week, when they stayed their storaachs with
devouring widows' houses ? soleranizing all
tbeir hurailiations with the poor raan's groans
and the orphan's tears ? To what spiritual
intent did our zealots so much exercise them
selves in tbis duty, when, as the prophet's
expression is in the sarae 58th chapter of
Isaiah, " they fasted for violence, and to fight
with the fist of oppression," only that they
might plunder aud pillage with success ; that
they might make poor for others to relieve,
aud so provide objects for other men's charity,
instead of exercising their own ?
But if the constant practice of the church
may have any weight with us to determine
our practice, we shall fiud, that works of
charity were always looked upon as a proper
appendage, if not also an integral pai't of
this duty. In the same place that we read of
Cornelius's fastiug, we find it ushered in with
its two great supporters, prayers aud alms.
And the truth is, if we may compare these
two together, alms h.ave so much the pre
erainence above prayer, that one is a begging
of God, the other is a lending to hira.
I have now assigned those conditions that
I think are both necessary and sufficient to
render our fastings effectual to this great end
of dispossessing and throwing out the evil
spirit. I confess I have not raentioned the popish
austerities of whippings, pilgrimages, and
going barefoot, with twenty other such tricks
(for they are no better) which they prescribe
and use upou these soleranities.
For if they were indeed of such sovereign
force to help the soul in the practices of vir
tue, wh.at is the reason that the Scripture
affords us not one instance of any saint that
ever took this course ? The Pharisees indeed
disfigured and raangled theraselves, and treated
their bodies much after the same manner, till

300

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they made themselves more deformed iu the
eyes of God, thau in the eyes of men.
Other examples besides these I know none ;
neither will reason supply the defects of tradi
tion, or afford an/ solid argument to prove,
that the evil spirit may be drove ont of the
soul, as the money-changers were out of the
teraple with whips and scourges. The Devil
does not always go, when such weapons
drive. Those, indeed, whose religion lies no deeper
than their skin, may whip themselves holy,
and owe their progress in virtue to the slash
and the whip-cord : but surely there are none,
who have not enslaved their intellectuals by
an implicit faith, and tamely resigned them
selves first to be deceived, and then to be ruled
by impostors, who do not look upon all these
carnal assistances of the spirit, as no better
than the mortifications of the galleys, or the
devotions of the whipping-post.
III. I come now to the third and last gene
ral head, which is, to shew how this duty of
fasting coraes to have such a peculiar influence
in dispossessing the evil spirit, aud subduing
our corruptions.
And here, first, by way of denial, we must
observe, that it does not effect this work upon
the soul, —
1st, Either, first, by any causal force natu
rally inherent in itself ; for if it did, fasting
would certainly and constantly have this effect
upon every man that used it ; the contrary of
which is undeniably manifest from experience.
For how many thousands, after all these
abridgments, find their corruptions recoil upou
thera with as great a force and fury as ever,
their sinful appetites being not at all abated,
but rather exasperated and renewed ? Which
shews that the bare performance is in itself
but a weak, inactive thing, and effects nothing
but in the virtue of a superior power, which
sometimes cooperates with, sometiraes deserts
the exercise of this duty.
2dly, Neither, secondly, does fasting effect
this great change upon us byway of merit, as
procuring and engaging the help of that grace
that does effect it : for besides that, it is upon
irrefragable grounds of reason evident, that it
is irapossible for a created nature to merit
any thing from God by way of reward. So
there is over and above a peculiar poorness
and vileness in this action, that degrades it to
iufinite distances and disproportions from
being able to challenge, at the hands of God,
the dispensations of that grace upon which so
much depends the weight and moments of
eternal glory.
In the next place, therefore, to shew posi
tively from whence this duty derives this
great virtue :
1st, It receives it from divine institution.
Whatsoever God ordains by his word, he
usually owns by his assistance ; and therefore,

in every thing made a duty by his command,
if we bring but endeavour, he will undertake
for the success. It is the concernment of his
honour, to make his ordinances considerable ;
and this is done by making them conduits
and conveyances of such a power, as may ad
vance them above themselves to be instru
mental to great and spiritual purposes.
Thus, when Moses fetched water out of tlie
rock with a stroke of his rod, we are not to
imagine that the rod did it by any force
inherent in itself ; but God having appointed
it for such a work, was pleased to attend it
with a rairaculous effect, and so to credit his
institution with the exercise of his omnipo
tence. 2dly, Fasting comes to be effectual to dis
possess the evil spirit, by being a direct defi
ance to that disposition of body and mind
upon which especially he works.
1st, For the body. The Devil never finds
it so pliable to his motions, so instrumental to
his designs, as when it is parapered and
luxuriant. It is then like a strong liquor, it
receives the infusions of poison raore inti
raately aud deeply, and diffuses the sarae with
stronger and more insinuating coraraunica
tions. But a body subdued with abstinence, it is to
the evil spirit like an unfurnished house ; and
then we know, that though there is no vio- '¦
lence used to drive out an inhabitant, yet bad
accommodations will make him dislodge.
2dly, For the mind. This is a singular
corrective of that pride and garishness of
teraper, that renders it impatient of the
sobrieties of virtue; but opeu to all the wild
suggestions of fancy, and the impressions of
vice. I
Now, I say, fasting gives a wound to this
disposition in a double respect : j
1st, That it is a notable act of self-revenge ;
and self is the only lawful object of revenge.
Paul reckons this araongst the heroic perform- ,
ances of an extraordinary repentance : (2 Cor.
vii. 11,) "What care, what zeal has it wrought,
nay what revenge ?"
A man by this does as it were retaliate an
evil to the author, and by defrauding himself,
he does fallere fallentem, which certainly is a
pious fraud. It speaks a mau hugely in
earnest, and intent upon the work of morti
fication : for of all things iu the world, revenge
is never in jest ; but in returning an evil, it
always repays the principal with interest and
advantage. 2dly, Fasting corrects and brings down this
ill teraper of mind, by being an act of self-
abasement and prostration. A mau by this
iu a raanner awards upon himself the very
judgments which he deprecates. He acknow
ledges a forfeit of all God's creatures, and
therefore he neither touches nor tastes, lest in
every morsel he should thieve and usurp ;

ON MATTHEW, xvii. 21.

301

being by siu, as it were, an outlaw to the
common issues of Providence.
Now the end of God's judgraents is not so
much to revenge as to convince, and to lay a
man low in the apprehensions of his own
wretchedness. Wherefore, if a man thus
judges himself, and not only kisses the rod,
but also inflicts it with his own hand, he by
this takes the work out of God's, and makes
an afflictiou superfluous, by anticipating its
effect. Much more might be spoke of this subject ;
but when we have took all these courses to
eject the evil spirit, we must still reraeraber,
that it is to be the work of God hiraself,
whora the blessed spirits adore, and whom the
evil obey.
To whom, therefore, be rendered and
ascribed, as is most due, all praise, might,
majesty, and dominion, both now and for
evermore. Amen.

SERMON XXXV.
PART 1.
** Repent ; or I wiU come unto thee quickly, and fight against
them with the sword of my mouth." — Rfiv. 11. 16.
Reflecting upon those mauy and strange
methods by which sin prevails upon man's
will, collected from an ordinary experience
and survey ofthe practices ofthe world, com
pared with the infallible verdict of the
Scriptures ; and amongst the rest, of that
signal place iu Deut. xxix. 19, which presents
to us one blessing himself, and saying, " I shall
have peace, though I walk in the imaginations
of ray heart, to add drunkenness to thirst :"
I have, upon such reflections, not without
sorae araazeraent, considered what should be
the ground upon which rational, discerning
raen cau satisfy and speak peace to their
consciences in the very career of those sins,
the coramission of which, even by the confes
sion of those that commit them, leads to
assured perdition.
As for that peace that springs from a refined,
well-contrived hypocrisy, that is wholly of
another nature ; for where there is sorae
restraint of siu coloured over with sorae
superficial varnish of duty, considering the
weakness of man's understanding, and the
treachery of his will, it is no wonder that such
a peace is easily attainable ; nay, that it is
very hardly avoidable. But here, where sin
is let loose to its full, uncontrolled course, so
that men lie and wallow in a free aud palpable
perpetration of it, eveu arising to the height
of this expression, " to add drunkenness to

thirst ;" that is, as sorae expound it, the
outward coraraission of sin to the inward
desire ; or as others, a perpetual, continued
glut and surfeit iu siu. As the abused satis
faction of thirst causes drunkenness, and
drunkenness again provokes thirst, men never
more liberally call for their cups, than when
they have too liberally taken them already.
I say, that any one should find peace in
such a course, this seeras prodigious, and, did
not Scripture and experience overrule the
disputes of reason, alraost incredible. But
since there is no huraan action or course
without some cause, it will be expedient to
inquire what may be the cause of this. And
oue would think, that the cause that any
man can be jocund and fully satisfied in the
eager pursuit of known sins, must of necessity
be one of these three :
1st, That he is ignorant of the curse that
attends his sin ; and so no wonder, if blind
ness produces boldness: for he that is blind
may not only accidentally fall, but soberly go
into the ditch. But this cannot be here the
cause ; for he that thus blesses himself, is said
iu the former part of the verse to do so, after
he had heard the " words of this curse." A
curse plain enough and large enough filling
all the foregoing chapter, one of the longest
in the Bible. So that if terror set home with
evidence, or evidence edged with terror, could
convince, ignorance was here unpleadable.
The broad light of the word beat full in his
faoe, the discovery was clear, and the convic
tion unavoidable; and therefore ignorance
could not be the cause.
2dly, A second cause might be unbelief : he
raight know the curse, and yet not believe it ;
and so, not being believed, it could not con
trol his comforts. For though apprehension
brings the object to the raind, yet it is belief
only that lets it in. But neither can this be
always the cause : for certainly, no raan is so
iraproved iu sin, as to transcend the Devil,
who, as the schoolraen say, stands " confirma-
tus in suraraa malitia :" and yet he believes,
and that even to trerabling. He knows and
believes that he shall be torraented to the
utraost extent of the very least tittle and jot
of all God's threatenings, and yet he sins
with a raost resolved, iraplacable purpose ;
nay, he therefore sins, because he knows and
believes it. Wherefore audacious sinning is
not always founded upon infidelity.
Sdly, But thirdly, though he knows and
believes the curse, yet perhaps he relaxes
nothing of his sin, because he resolves to bear
it ; and has wrought hiniself into that hardi
ness and courage, as to think that he cau
weather out the storras of God's wrath, and
stand the shock of eternal vengeance ; and,
like Scsevola, with the sarae haud and sturdi
ness endure the flame with which he com
mitted the sin.

302

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Sbrm. XXXV.

But, alas ! where lives that man that can
thus reason, either sober or in his wits ? The
principles of our nature will uot bear it.
Belshazzar had as much of power, and of
drink withal, to raise him to bid defiance to
God, as any ruffian under heaven ; and yet
when God, as it were, lift but up his finger
agaiust him, how poorly did he crouch and
shiver ! how did his joints loose, and his
knees knock together ! So that if he felt
God's hand so intolerable when it did but
write, what would he find it wheu it should
inflict the sentence ! And therefore neither
cau this be the reason.
But now, if men both apprehend the curse,
and believe the truth of it, and withal confess
their utter inability to contest with it ; what
can be the reason that any man can, with a
contented mind and a daring hand, proceed
iu such a strain of rebellion ; believing, and
yet despising the curse, fearing its weight,
and yet defying the event ? Why, the reason,
I conceive, in short, is a presuming confidence
of a future repentance.
This is the great mysterious engine of sin,
that turns about the world, that reconciles all
the contradictions of interest and religion,
that solves all doubts, cuts off all demurs, that
can assure a Balaam he shall " die the death
of the righteous," though he lives upou " the
wages of iniquity." It is this only that pre
sents sin in some respect rational ; that can
raake even conscience itself sign and seal the
petitions of the basest appetite. In short, it
works wonders ; it unites the joys of heaven
and the pleasures of sin ; the proraises of God
aud the precepts of the Devil.
I shall not enforce this by any other pro
bation, but by appealing to every raan's own
conscience ; sending him to reflect upon him
self, and to consider the teraper of his spirit,
the inward reasonings and debates of his
mind, when he is allured to do any thing, of
the unlawfulness of which he stands clearly
convinced, whether he is not drawn forth to
the actual commission of it by presuming
npon impunity, through the interposals of an
after repentance.
For if conscience startles and flies back, and
dreads the apple of the teraptation, because
God's word is peremptory, " He that eats
shall die ;" future repentance stands forth and
supplies the room, and retorts the answer of
the Devil, " Thou shalt not surely die ;" nay,
thou raayest repent, aud surely live. So that
repentance being now staraped as current as
perfect obedience, this argument is heightened
much beyond what that of the Devil was
then capable of: because indefinitely, without
any restriction of tirae or person, God's pro-
raise of life to the penitent stands clear aud
irreversible. Now what can speak raore horae and full
to a man's desires, and, in a great measure, to

his reason, than that which encourages him
to crop the present sweets of sm, by giving
hira security against the future smart ? Let
the wine be never so poisonous, a raan may
safely drink it, when he has not only au
appetite for its sweetness, but also an anti
dote against its poison.
This, this therefore is the very hinge upon
which the whole persuasive force of siu turns
and depends ; the only temptation that seeras
unanswerable. Others indeed may allure;
this alone argues a man into siu. And I
desire to leave this with you, as au observa
tion infallibly true, that were it not for the
persuasions of a future repentance, a knowing
man could scarce ever be brought to sin against
his conscience.
But now if this be overthrown, and proved
to be both absurd and dangerous, as I hope
some part of the ensuing discourse shall do,
with clear, undeniable evidence, then all
other temptations, that are but the mere
appendices of this, will fall and vanish of
themselves : as by confuting the main hypo
thesis of an opinion, all other arguments by
consequence drawn from thence, are also by
consequence confuted.
Now the face of these words is directiy set
agaiust this soul-devouring iraposture of a de
ferred repentance. The words are short and
cutting, full of a sraart and reprehensive
veheraency ; the word aud the blow seems to
go together.
In the prosecution of them, for a more
methodical proceeding, it will be convenient
to inquire into their occasion. For since they
are a comraand, and every coramand respects
sorae person to whora it is directed ; and since
this command is of repentauce, which always,
relates to some sin to be repented of ; this
inquiry will give us a fair insight and intro
duction into both.
First of all then, for the occasion of these
words ; if we have recourse to the 12tli verse,
we shall find that they are part of a letter to
the church of Pergamos, indited by the Spirit
of God, and directed to the angel of that
church. And here it will not be amiss briefly to
consider what the angel of that church was.
It is evident that the church of Pergamos
must be taken collectively, for many parti
cular churches included in it ; for that it
should be but one particular church, con
sidering the number of the persons, and
the^. extent of the place, cannot with auy
colour of sense or reason be affirraed. By
"angel," therefore, raust be understood that
chief pastor who had the supervisal and
governraent of those particular churches, ancl
the pastors of them, contained within the
compass of Pergamos ; correspondent to a
bishop among us, ruliug over the particulaj
churches and ministers of his diocese.

ON REVELATION, ii. 16.

303

And the denomination of angel shews the
diviue justification of the office, it being in
Eccles. V. 6, given to the priest, the chief
ruler of the Jewish church. Neither can any
instance be give«i of the narae oiangel ascribed
to any person eraployed about the church ;
but it iraports a messenger from God. So
that, I say, it is probable, that the word
carries in it divine institution. But, however,
both the word and the usage of it here iraports
Christ's owning and approbation of the office :
aud confirraation is a kind of after-insinua
tion ; at least, it is no less authentic. But
sorae reply, that the word angel may be ap
plied here to some one pastor or presbyter,
equal to the rest. To which I answer, that
it is highly iraprobable that the Spirit should
address a raessage to one minister, who was
but equal to the rest, and no more concerned
iu it than the rest, and that about a matter
relating to all their churches.
But I add farther, that this could not be ;
for one pastor over a particular church has
nothing to do to interpose and correct the
abuses of other particular churches, which are
severally under their own pastors aud gover
nors. ¦
But now the minister here spoke of is
blaraed for the abuses of all the churches iu
Pergaraos, and charged to rectify thera ; which
clearly iraports, that he stood invested with
a more general and extended jurisdiction.
And this by the way, though yet it is no di
gression. Having thus shewn who the person was to
whom this letter was directed ; iu tho next
place, weare to consider the subject-raatter of
the letter itself ; which contains in it these
three things : 1st, Comraeraoration of the
virtues aud graces that were eminent and re
splendent in this church, in ver. 13. 2dly, A
charge for some sinful abuse that had crept
in, and was connived at, in ver. 14. Sdly, An
advice upon the whole matter, which was
speedy and iraraediate repentance.
In our present discourse we shall only be
concerned in the two latter of these : and
first, for the sinful abuse or scandal here
charged npon this church ; it was its tolera
tion of that vile and impure sect of the Nico
laitans. These Nicolaitans, as their name
imports, took their rise and denomination
from one Nicholas, one of those seven deacons
who were first ordained by the apostles, (Acts,
vi. 5.) Now their heresy consisted of these
two branches : 1st, That they did assert the
eating of sacrifices offered to idols, and that
even in honour to those idols, to be lawful :
2dly, That they held and abetted the lawful
ness of fornication. So that their heresy was
a coraplete system of all impiety : the first
part containing the greatest spiritual, the
latter the greatest carnal pollution.
In the 14th verse of this chapter, the Spirit

calls this heresy " the way of Balaara ;'' who,
when he could not curse, fell to counsel ; that
is, to do a greater mischief; and advised Ba
lak to cause the woraen of the Moabites to
entice the children of Israel to the feasts of
Prhapus ; " in which the people sat down to
eat and drink, and afterwards roseup to play ;"
that is, they first feasted upon the idol-sacri
fices, and then finished the soleranity with
the irapurities of lust. It seems something
of this nature was revived and practised by
these impure heretics ; a strange thing, one
would think, that so filthy a heresy should
get ground iu the very beginnings aud first
dawnings of the church, and in the purest
tiraes of Christianity !
Yet thus it was. The brightest day may
begin with a mist ; and the best of churches
is not privileged from corruptions : but it
was not so rauch the churches having, as not
animadverting upon these pests, that is here
reprehended. They had their meetings by
public toleration and connivance : and this is
that for which the Spirit rounds them up
with this short advice, armed and seconded
with a severe coraraination.
Corae we now to the next thing ; which is,
the counsel of speedy repentance, given upon
this scandal, and contained in the -svords of
the text ; in which are these two parts :
1st, The first stands directed to the church
itself : " Repent, or I will come unto thee
quickly." By God's " coraing," is raeant his
approach in the way of judgment ; for so the
word " coming" frequently signifies, both in
the Old and New 'Testament. Isaiah, xxx.
27, " The name of the Lord cometh from far,
burning with his anger." And in Psalm 1. 8,
" Our God shall come, and shall not keep
silence ;" that is, he shall come to judge and
punish ; or, as the usual phrase is, he shall
come with a vengeance : for so the following
words explain these ; " A fire shall devour
before hira."
In the same sense also is the word " com
ing" frequently used in the New Testaraent ;
which is well worth our observation, as being
of signal use to rescue sundry places of Scrip
ture, that have been hitherto held under false
aud perverse interpretations.
In this sense is it taken in Matth. xvi. 27,
where it is said, " that the Son of man shall
come ill the glory of his Father, with his holy
angels, to reward every raan according to his
works ;" which place, though many under
stand of Christ's coming in his own person to
judge all raen at the end of the world, yet
indeed it only signifies his coraing in the
rainisters of his wrath, to take vengeance ot
the Jews iu the destruction of Jerusalem.
That this is so, I evince by another parallel
place, in Matthew xxvi. 64, where Christ,
speaking of his coming, says, a,ic apri otpecrh
TOIt vioU TOV du^pUTirQU SpXOf^iVO!/ k'TTI TUV VS<pi7\,UI/

304

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Serm. XXXV.

rou ovpamtv, which word sIt' apTi, though we
translate hereafter, yet it properly signifies
from now ; that is, within a very short tirae.
But yet raore fully from that forementioned
place in Matth. xvi. whereas in verse 27, he
had said, " You shall see the Son of man
come iu the glory of his Father, with the
holy angels," he subjoins iu the very next
verse, " And verily there are sorae standing
here, that shall uot taste death till they see
the Son of man coraing in his kingdom."
What ! did he mean that they should not
die till the day of judgraent? No; this was
evidently false and impossible : but his raean
ing was, that some of the younger sort of his
auditors should live to see the execution of his
wrath upon the Jews, in the destruction of
Jerusalem. Aud this seems excellently to interpret a
place that will hardly be understood without
it, in Johu, xxi. 22, where Christ says to
Peter, concerning John, " If I will that he
tarry till I corae, what is that to thee ?" Here
now the apostles' minds, running upon the
last judgment, presently concluded that John
should not die. But now take the word
"coming" in this sense, and it gives a clear
and apposite interpretation to the place ; Johu
being the only disciple who both saw and sur
vived the destmction of Jerusalem.
But the only doubt that may occur here
is this : how Christ could be said " to come"
in the destruction of Jerusalera, which was
effected by the Roraan armies. But the solu
tion is easy. For when God, by his peculiar
providence, raises up any instruments to exe
cute his decrees or purposes upon auy people
or place, the actions of those persons are both
usually and properly applied to God, as if he
had done them imraediately hiraself.
And for his coming with his holy angels,
it is very probable, that wheu God brings a
public ruiu and destruction upon a nation, he
uses the ministry of angels, as well as the
weapons of men. This seems clear to me
from that place in Dan. x. 20, where the
angel says to him, " Now will I return to
fight with the prince of Persia : and when I
am gone forth, lo, the prince of Grecia shall
come." In like raanner Christ might send
his angels out to fight agaiust Judea, before
the coraing of Vespasian's array.
And lastly, for his coraing in the clouds ;
he that shall read Josephus aud others con
cerning the Jewish history, will find what
strange, prodigious appearances there were in
the sky, of armies fighting, and a flaming
sword hanging over Jerusalera, a little before
the Roraans sacked and ruined that city. So
that, all things being laid together, I cannot
but conclude it more than probable that this
is the sense of the place.
A learued author, considering this sense of
Christ's coming, judges that the whole book

of the Revelation, in which that is so often
spoke of, relates to thiugs iramediately to
happen after the delivery of that prophecy ;
and consequently, that it had its completion
within two hundred years. Aud certain it is,
the very beginning of the book says, that it
was to " deliver things shortly to corae to
pass ;" and the last concluding chapter em
phatically repeats this three times, "Behold,
I come quickly."
Now if the' judgment of this leamed man
stands, as it hath both the countenance of
reason and of the express words of the text,
then what must become of the bloody tenets
of those desperate wretches, who for these
mauy years have been hammering of blood,
confusion, and rebellion out of this book,
from a new fancy that they have of Christ's
coming. Thus ruling their lives, not by
precepts, but prophecies ; aud uot being able
to fiud any warrant for their actions iu the
clear aud express word of law or gospel, they
endeavour to shelter their villainies in the
obscurities and shades of the Revelation ; a
book intricate and involved, and for the most
part never to be understood ; and upon which
when wit and industry has done its utmost,
the best corament is but conjecture. And
thus much for the first part of the words that
stands directed by the church, " Repent, or I
will come unto thee quickly."
2dly, The other part of the words relates to
those heretics; "And I will fight against them
with the sword of my mouth;" that is, with
the reprehending, discovering force of the
word, aud the censures of the church ; where,
for the credit aud diviue authority of the
ministry, Christ owns that for the sword of
his own mouth, which was only delivered hy
theirs. Now we must observe, that as the Spirit
had called this heresy "the way of Balaam,"
so the judgment here pronounced is still with
allusion to that of Balaara ; whora as the angel
of God met with a drawu sword, to divert
him from his course, so God here threatens
to meet these heretics with the curse and ter
rors of the law, and the spiritual sword of his
word. And every obstinate siuner must know,
that it is God that meets hira face to face ;
that withstands and pleads with hira in the
word, as with a drawn sword ; and therefore,
if he is resolved to persist and hold on his
course, he must of necessity run upou the
sword's point, the very pike of divine ven
geance, and resolve to fight it out -with God
and all his judgments, or, by a penitential
prudence, fairly consult his safety in his duty,
and retreat.
Now, from this expression here used, " I
will fight against them with the sword of my
raouth," I collect these two occasional obser- !
vations.

ON REVELATIONS, ii. 16.

305

1st, That the word of God, powerfully dis
pensed, has the force and efficacy of a spiritual
sword. For as a sword has both a glittering
radiance and brightness to strike and terrify
the eye, and also an edge to pierce the flesh ;
so the word, being drawn forth and brandished
by a skilful hand, darts a convincing light into
the understanding, and with an irresistible
edge enters the heart and the affections.
. It is not like the song of one that has a
pleasant voice, that only strikes the ear,
gratifies the fancy, and courts those affections
which it should command. But when the
word coraes from God, it comes with such a
searching invincible quickness, such a spi
ritual keenness, that it shall cut and raake its
way through the hardest heart, and not find
admittance by mere petition or precarious
suasion ; for a sword never enters by entreaty.
And for men's encourageraent to attend
upon this ordinance, take the proudest and
the stoutest sinner upon earth, and God is
able, with his word alone, to fetch hira upon
his knees, and to lay hira in the dust. Take
the stubboruest and the knottiest corruption
of the most depraved heart, and God is able,
with " the sword of his mouth,'" to hew it
asunder. And wheu Providence shall place
a man under the dint of such a ministry, he
will find the work short and speedy ; it will
quickly send him away converted or inexcus
able. 2dly, From hence I observe, when God
undertakes the purging of a church, or the
reformation of religion, he does it with the
weapons of religion, with " the sword of his
mouth." Shew me any one text in the whole
book of God, especially since the spirit of
meekness took place in the introduction of
Christianity, where God commissions any
man, at least any subject, to correct the
abuses of religion with fire and sword, and to
dispute the articles of his faith in the high
places of the field. For in such cases, if his
conscience will not suffer hira to obey, the
sarae conscience will as strongly oblige hira
to suffer. And therefore, though the truths,
the worship, nay, the person itself of Christ
should be invaded, yet let Peter put up his
sword, and let Christ employ his own, even
this " sword of his raouth," which is sharper
and better, and able rauch more powerfully
to reach aud affect the ear, without cutting it
off. Aud I am persuaded that the great refor
mation that God intends to bring over the
Christian world in the last and best days of
the church, shall not be effected with " con
fused noise and garraents rolled in blood,"
with fire and fagot, but Christ shall do it
silently, yet powerfully, by the "brightness
of his coraing." As the rising sun chases away
the darkness, without noise indeed, but yet
without resistance.
VOL. II.

So that whatsoever trash or stubble shall be
built upon the foundation of the etemal word
of God, swords and spears, weapons hetero
geneous to these things, shall not be employed
for their reraoval, but they shall insensibly
vanish and raoulder away before the prevail
ing efficacy of the everlasting gospel. As a
skilful disputant does not cut off the fallacious
argument of his opponent by fretting and
fuming, and speaking loud, but by a calm,
sedate reducing it to the rules of arguraenta
tion, just so it is here, where Christ shall sub
due his eneraies, not by combat but discovery.
And then, the promises being fulfilled, iu the
universal propagation of the gospel, Jesus
Christ shall reign as " King of kings, and
Lord of lords," and that without deposing of
other princes. And if God be true, aud
Christianity no imposture, whensoever this is
brought about, it will be in this manner ; for
the whole dispensation of the gospel, whether
offensive or defensive, must needs be entirely
spiritual. And thus having finished the general ex
plication of the words, I shall now descend to
a more particular prosecution of the principal
design of them, which is, to enforce the duty
of iraraediate repentance ; and this I shall do
in these two things :
1st, I shall shew what that repentauce is
that is here enjoined.
2d!y, I shall produce arguraents to enforce
the necessity of its iraraediate exercise,
1st, For the first of these : since divinity
has been so much spun into disputation, re
pentance is a thing alraost as difficult in the
notion as it is in the practice. There are
three words in scripture to express it by,
fiiTXfiiTiiia,, fiiTxuoia., and lffwrjo(p^; though
this last rather signifies conversion. The first,
which is fiiTXft.i'htia., denotes an anxiety or
displeasure of mind upon something done
amiss, to which answers the liatin pf£nitentia;
the second, which is ftiTaaoia., signifies a total
change or transmutation of the raind, to which
answers resipiscentia.
Now between these two, some make this
difference ; that the former signifies either the
whole of an ineffectual repentance, or only the
beginning of such an one as, in the issue,
proves saving and effectual ; and that the
latter signifies the whole work of such an one
as is sound, and effectual to salvation.
It must be here confessed, that, according
to the strict and rigid acceptation of the word,
iK£r«|«£XE/« is only that trouble, regret, or
anxiety of mind for the evil of past actions,
which is rather a preparative to repentance
than the work itself, and consequently, being
rested in, cannot save ; and, on the other side,
fiiTamia. signifies strictly a change of mind,
which, in the matter of sin, proves to be
saving. This, I say, is the proper and strict signifi-
u

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Serm. XXXV.

cation of the words ; but since we can deter
raine nothing of them iu a scripture way from
their literal meaning, but only from their use
and acceptation there, which iu several in
stances may be easily shewn to be promis
cuous, we cannot make their native, literal
force any solid ground for such a distinction.
Wherefore, leaving all weak and unwarrant
able deductions from the first signification of
the Latin or Greek words, you may observe,
that repentance, in scripture, has a threefold
acceptation :
1st, It is taken for the first act by which the
soul turns frora sin to God ; the first dividing
stroke that separates between sin and the
heart ; the first step and advance that a sinner
makes to holiness ; the first endeavours and
throes of a new birth.
2dly, It is taken for the whole course of a
pious life, comprising the whole actions a
man performs frora first to last inclusively ;
frora his first turning from a wicked life to
the last period of a godly. This is the only
repentance that Socinus will adrait ; and some
others, who would pretend to bring something
new, but only transcribe from him in this
particular. Now such as own this assertion, find thera
selves under a necessity to assert also, that
faith and repentance are the same things, and
differ only in the manner of our conception.
So that the whole obedience of our lives, as
it is a turning frora sin to God, properly bears
the name of repentance ; but then, as this
obedience and turning to God proceeds frora a
belief of the promises and precepts of Christ,
so they say, it is properly styled faith. Whence
repentance and faith, according to thera, are
only two diff'erent denorainations fixed upon
the same thing, as it sustains different respects.
But that this is not the proper notion of
repentance is clear from these reasons :
1st, Because, if repentance be properly the
whole entire course of gospel-obedience, from
the first to the last of a man's life, then no
man could properly be said to have repented,
till such time as he had actually finished such
a course of obedience ; that is, not till his
death ; which to assert, is a strange paradox,
and contrary to the general apprehensions of
men upon this subject.
2dl)', The scripture, no less than the natural
reason of the thing itself, places repentance
before faith, (Matt. xxi. 32,) " And ye, when
ye had seen it, repented not, that ye might
afterwards believe in him."
Here we see repentance is m.ade the ante
cedent condition of faith ; but now, should
repentauce grasp in the whole series and course
of gospel obedience, to the last period of our
lives, how were it possible for faith to follow
repentance, unless we should begin to believe
in another world?
Sdly, The scripture makes all those subse

quent acts of new obedience after our first
turning to God, not to be the integral consti
tuent parts, but the effects, fruits, and conse
quents of repentance. (Matt. in. 8,) "Bring
forth fruits meet for repentance." But to
make tiie fruit part of the tree itself, is cer
tainly a thing very preposterous.
I conclude, therefore, that repentance is not
formally the whole course of new obedience,
but that first act by which a man turns from
siu to God. But then this I also add, that
though it is not formally, yet it is virtually
and consequentially so. That is, in plain
terras ; repentance is uot itself this course of
new obedience, but it does infer and produce
it, and that as its inseparable effect or conse
quent ; so that if this new obedience does not
follow in the course of a man's whole conver
sation, after his first turning to God, he must
conclude that that act was spurious and un
sound ; and that indeed it never truly and
thoroughly brought him off from sin, whatso
ever soleranity of sorrow, tears, and confession
it raight be attended with.
Let him fast, and whip himself, and run
barefoot, and mumble out a thousand miserere
mei's, like some ignorant formalists, who, the
truth is, know not what repentance means,
as being utterly strangers to the spirit of the
gospel ; or let hira pray, and weep, and hang
down his head like a bulrush, go softiy, and
look sourly ; yet if a change pass not upon
his life and actions, so that instead of his
accustomed wickedness, the whole tract of his
conversation is drawn fortli in a constant,
equable practice of the contrary virtues, that
man must know that he has not repented.
He has perhaps deluded himself, aud deceived
others, stopped the cries of conscience and
the clamours of men ; but repented he has
not ; and fearful were his case, should God
snatch him out of the world in that condi
tion. Sdly, Repentance is taken for a man's
turning to God after the guilt of some particu
lar sin. It differs from the former thtis ; that
the former is from a state of sin ; this latter
only frora a sinful act. No repentance pre
cedes the former, but this supposes a true
repentance to have gone before. Thus Peter
is said, after his denial of Christ, " to have
been converted," (Luke, xxii.) that is, to have
repented ; not but that Peter was a true peni-
tent and convert before : but upon so sad and '
notorious a fall, he was, by a renewed exercise
of repentance, to disentangle hiraself from
the guilt of that particular sin of denying his
master. This repentance therefore builds upou the t
former ; and it is that which is here intended
in the words. For the church of Pergamos
was in favour with God, and consequently
must needs have repented before, as is clearly
collected from that elogy the Spirit gives it in

ON REVELATIONS, ii. 16.

S07

Luke, xxii. 13, " Thou boldest fast my narae,
aud hast not denied ray faith." But by reason
of this scandal permitted and connived at, it
was to cleanse itself frora this stain by a re
newed fresh act of hurailiation.
The distinction, therefore, between these
two kinds of repentance is carefully to be
observed. The first passes but once upon the
soul, the latter is to be frequent, indeed con
tinual. Naaraan washed off the leprosy of
his body but once, but the soil of his hands
every day.
And thus rauch concerning the nature of
the repentance here spoke of; which being
enjoined under pain of a speedy judgment, in
case of oraission, it follows, that the coramand
was not indefinitely of any kind of repen
tance, but only of such an one as was present
and immediate.
Come we therefore to the second thing.pro-
posed, which is to produce arguments to engage
us in the speedy and iraraediate exercise of
this duty.
1st, The first argument against a deferred
repentance shall be taken from this considera
tion, that uo man can be. secure of tlie future.
Neither, indeed, will raen act as if they were,
in things that concern this life ; for no man
willingly defers his pleasures.
And did men here well compute the many
frailties of nature, and farther add the con
tingencies of chance, how quickly a disease
frora within, or a blow frora without, raay
tear down the strongest constitution, certainly
they would ensure eternity upon something
else than a life as uncertain as the air that
feeds it. Do you not think, that that young
man that brought David that feigned traito
rous raessage, did not set forth in good hearty
plight in the moming? and yet before sun.set
the vengeance of God overtook, and slew him
in his sin.
God tells the sinner, he must repent to
day ; he now thinks with himself, that he can
contrive the raatter more wisely, and defer
his repentance to some of those years into
which his present health seems to give him a
long prospect.
And now, is it not just with God to sraite
such an one in the infatuation of such coun-
"sels, and to convince him, that God spoke
good reason when he told him, that irarae
diate repentance was necessary.
And indeed the providence of God, for the
most part, orders the matter so, that such are
snatched and hurried away to judgment ou a
sudden, wheu they have power to repent of
nothing but this, that they had not repented
before. See how God deals with that servant,
that deferred his repentance upon a sup
posed delay of his master's coming, (Matt.
xxiv. 60, 51,) " The lord of that servant shall
come in an hour that he looked not for him,
and cut him asunder, and appoint him his

portion with hypocrites." God's grace will
not always dance attendance upon obstinate,
resolved hypocrites ; for this were, as if the
sun of mercy should stand still over their
heads, at their beck and command, while they
are fighting against heaven.
Should God open the book of his decrees,
and give a man a prospect into the secrets of
futurity, and shew him his death sealed and
appointed at suoh a day and such an hour, he
might then indeed, with some more reason,
enjoy the present, and set apart sorae few
days to make his peace with God, and set his
soul in order before he died. But this is a
privilege that God vouchsafes to none, and
that upon the highest reason ; for if he should,
it would destroy religion.
Wherefore, since this is a secret, like God's
dearest attributes, incommunicable, locked up
from the curious, prying inspection of all
created knowledge, with what reason can any
man build his life, his happiness, his eternity
upon such a repentance, as hovers upon the
uncertain, slippery conjectures of a supposed
f uturi ty ?
Ordinary experience observed would un-
bewitch raen as to these delusions. Did you
ever see any raan arrested, but it was before
he was aware ? A man would not willingly
have his friend take him in a surprise, much
less then his greatest enemy, death and judg
ment. Possibly God may strike him in the
very eagerness and perpetration of his sin.
Thus he sent Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, in
the heat of their schism and rebellion, quick
into hell. Ananias and Sapphira were struck
dead with a lie in their mouths. Zimri and
Cosbi, in the very act of uncleanness, were
despatched into another world.
And let that man, who promises to hiraself
a future repentance, and upon that confidence
proceeds to sin, shew me any solid satisfactory
reason, why God raay not, in the same man
ner, cashier hira in the very coramission of
that siu that he is designing. And then,
whether it would not be the grimmest dispen
sation that ever befell hini, to be thrust out
of the world with his sins about his ears ; and
so to be brought, as it were, in the very heat
and steara of his offence, to render up an ac
count for it at God's tribunal, before he had
scarce finished the commission.
The events of to-morrow are neither within
the compass of our understanding to know, or
of our power to dispose of; wherefore the
advice of the Spirit, concerning the time of our
repentance, is the sarae with that of Saint
Austin, who counselled his friend to repent a
day before he died ; which, proceeding upon
terras of rational certainty, is to repent to-day.
2dly, The second argument shall be taken
from this consideration, that supposing the
allowance of time, yet we cannot be sure of
power to repent. It is very possible, that, by

308

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Serm. XXXV.

the insensible encroaches of sin, a man's heart
may be so hardened, as to have neither power
nor will to repent, though he has time and
opportunity. He that is unwilling to-day,
will undoubtedly be more unwilling to-mor
row. And the reason is evident, because his
present unwillingness proceeds from that hold
that sin has got upon his will already : but
this every hour increases, and gets farther
ground upon it ; so that sin being increased,
unwillingness to repent, the proper effect and
consequent of sin, must needs be increased in
an equal proportion.
The longer the heart and sin converse toge
ther, the more familiar they will grow ; and
theu, the stronger the familiarity, the harder
the separation. Does auy one think he has
his heart so in his hand, as to say. Thus far
will 1 sin, and there will I leave off? Such au
oue shews indeed that he neither understands
the nature of sin nor of his heart.
How that that which now creeps and begs
for entrance, having once got admission, will
command and domineer ; and like that empe
ror, though it gets into power like a fox, yet
it will manage it, and reign like a lion. Nei
ther does he know those many windings and
turnings, the sly excuses and glossing apolo
gies, that the heart will suggest to rescue its
sin frora the summons of repentance, being
once endeared and bound fast to it by invete
rate continuance.
The commission of sin is like the effusion
of water, easily contained in its bounds, but
uncontrollable in its course. We indeed may
give it vent, but God alone knows where it
will stop. Is uot that man therefore stupidly
ignorant, who chooses to encounter his sin by
a future repentance ? Reason would argue and
discourse thus : If I find that I have scarce
power enough to resist my sin at present,
shall I not have much less when tirae shall
give it growth and strength, and as it were
knit its joints, and render it unconquerable ?
It is here as with a man in a combat ; every
blow his adversary gives him, disables him
for the very next resistance. A man at first
finds the beginnings and little inconveniences
of a disease, but physic is unpleasant ; and
withal he finds hiraself in a good competence
of strength at present, and therefore he re
solves to wear it out : but iu the meantime
his distemper eats on its way, and grows upon
him, till at length he has not so much as
strength to bear physic, but his disease quickly
runs hira down, and becomes incurable.
A man at first is strong, and his sin is weak,
and he may easily break the neck of it by a
mature repentance ; but his own deluding
heart tells him, that he had better repent
hereafter ; that is, when, on the contrary, he
himself is deplorably weak, and his siu invin
cibly strong.
Commission of sin may indeed wound, but

it is continuance of sin that kills. A man by
falling to the ground may perhaps get a bruise
or a knock ; but by lying upon the ground
after he is fallen, he may chance to catch his
death. And now, does not that raan's heart give
him wise and wholesome counsel, that bids
him balk the present, and fix upon the future?
But still, as the desires of sin are impious, so
its discourses are irration.al. And what a
dreadful thing is it for a raan, in the grand
cunoernraent of his repentance, in the great
deciding cast for eternity, to relinquish the
word, and to consult his heart? whereas tbe
word cannot, and his heart cannot but de
ceive him.
'The prophet Elisha, 2 Kings, viii. 12, told
Hazael, knowing his design to raurder his
prince, that his villainy would not stop there,
but^that he would proceed so far as to wreak
his fury upon sucking infants, and to rip up
women with child. But his heart in the
meanwhile, which possibly at that very time,
together with the sin, had designed its repen
tauce, that persuaded hira another thing, and
makes him reply with resent aud wonder,
" What ! am I a dog, that I should do these
things?" And questionless, at that time, lie
little believed that he could be so wicked;
but we know that the event shews whether
Elisha or his heart were the truer prophet.
For as soon as he had committed his first
great leading sin, and his hand was well in,
and hot in the vvork, his corruption rages and
swells higher and higher, aud his heart serves
him for the utniost execution of all those
villainies that at a distance he himself ab
horred, and judged incredible.
And how does tbat man know, that has
built all upon his resolves of repentance
hereafter, but that he, who now trerables at
the first approach of a teraptation, and can
discern the insensible progress of his corrup
tion, so that, upon the very first rising and
moving of the heart to sin, his conscience
smites him, remorse pursues, troubles, and
disquiets him ; the sarae, within a while
after his conscience has worn off those restric
tions, and becomes hardened and steeled with
custom in sinning, may lash on furiously and
audaciously, with a high hand and bare face,
against the grudges of conscience, the terrors
of God, and the shame of the world ; till at
length he ends a wretched course in irrecover
able perdition : unless God iu mercy steps in,
and by a potent overruling haud of conviction
rebukes the rage of his corruption, and says,
thus far it shall come, and no farther.
But now, as iu the very course of a natural
cause, continuance in sin hardens against re
pentance ; as a man that is out of his way, if
he be far gone, will be hardly brought to
return, but will venture over hedge and ditch,
aud wade through anv difficulty rather than

ON REVELATIONS, ii. 16.

309

endure the irksorae, ungrateful trouble of a
retreat ; so we must farther know, —
That repentance is entirely in God's dis
posal. This grace is in the soul from God, as
light is in the air from the sun, by continual
emanation ; so tbat God may shut or open
his hand, contract or diffuse, set forth or sus
pend the influence of it as he pleases. And
if God gives not repenting grace, there will
be a hard heart and a drj eye, maugre all
the poor frustraneous endeavours of nature.
A piece of brass may as easily melt, or a flint
bewater itself, as the heart of m.an, by any
innate power of its own, resolve itself into a
penitential hurailiation. If God does not, by
an iraraediate blow of his omnipotence, strike
the rock, these waters will never gush ouf.
The Spirit blows -where it listeth, aud if that
blows not, these showers can never fall.
And now, if the matter stands so, how does
the impenitent siuner know but that God,
beiug provoked by his present impenitence,
may irreversibly propose within hiraself to
seal up these fount.ains, and shut hira up
under hardness of heart and reprobation of
sense? And then farewell all thoughts of re
pentance for ever. See this sadly exemplified
in Pharaoh. He had time enough to repent,
day after day ; but yet he never did repent :
for it is expressly said, that " God hardened
his heart ;" that is, he withheld his grace.
See the children of Israel in the same case, in
Psalm Ixxxi. 11, "My people would not
hearken to my voice : and Israel would none
of me ;" that is, they peremptorily refused
God's present call to repentance. 'What fol
lows ? Why, in the next verse, " So I gave
them up to their own hearts' lusts ; and they
walked in their own hearts :" that is, they
would not repent, and therefore God in effect
tells thera, that they should not repent ; but
leaves them to the delusions of a besotted
mind, and the desperate, incorrigible estate of
a final irapenitence.
Sdly, In the third and last place, the duty
of iraraediate repentance may be enforced
upon this reason ; that, admitting a man has
both time and grace to repent, yet by such
delay the work will be incredibly raore diffi
cult. The longer a debt lies unpaid, the
greater it grows; and, not discharged, is
quickly multiplied. The sin to be repented
of will be the greater, and power and strength
to repent by, will be less. And though a man
escapes death, the utmost effect of his distera
per, yet certainly he will find it something to
be cut, and scarified, and lanced, and to eudure
all the tortures of a deferred cure.
And is it not better for a raan, in the busi
uess of repentance, to rise up early, and take
the raorning of his years before hira, while
these heavenly penitential dews fall kindlyand
naturally, than when his day is far spent, and
the heat of temptation has scorched thera off

from his heart, and they are gone ; and ho
must be forced to struggle for every tear, to
pump for every drop, to recover aud refresh
his languishing, and otherwise dying soul ? I
sa)% is it not rauch better, while his conscience
is tender, and apt to relent under every rao
tion and irapression of the word, while his
wound is green, and his heart bleeds yet
afresh, to stop the bloody issue of sin with
the healing balsam of a bleeding Saviour,
applied quick and warra, by a speedy humi
liation. By a single commission of sin, a blot falls
upon the soul ; but by continuance, it soaks
into it. And when ouce sin conies to have
that desperate symptom of being inveterate,
an ordinary repentance will uot serve turn.
The stain must lie and steep a great while
longer ; the brine must be sharper, and the
repentance severer, before the soul can be
recovered to its first whiteness and integrity.
God, who at first might have been won by
entreaties, raust now be wrestled with ; and
a man suffer many foils and repulses in his
spiritual conflict, endure many bitter agonies,
pass uuder much darkness and doubt, as to
the whole raatter of his eternal condition, be
fore he can recover upon his heart a sense of
God's lost favour. And perhaps when at
length it does return, it is but weak and ira
perfect, mingled with much fear and spiritual
dissatisfaction. As when the clouds have
spread themselves thick and dark over the
face of the whole heavens, the showers must
fall, and it may continue raining for raany
days .before you can so much as see the sun ;
and when at length he shines forth, yet it is
but waterishly, and through the cloud, with
a dira, uncomfortable brightness: just so is
it with a sinner in his deferred repentance.
Oh remember David, his roarings and cry
ings, his broken bones, his mournful days,
and his sleepless nights. Why, what was the
cause of all this ? In Psalm xxxviii. " My
wounds stink and are corrupt, because of my
foolishness." They festered and grew noi
some, only by his foolish deferring of the cure.
For all agree, that it was near a year, that
David lay in his two great sins before he
repented. But on thecontrary, in Peter, who followed
his sin close at the heels, who rose betimes to
his work ; as soon as ever the cock crew, aud
the alarm was given, we find that the matter
of controversy was quickly taken up between
Christ and him : and being thus converted,
he had the honour to strengthen his brethren,
and to be the great leading man aud captain
of the apostles.
Consider, therefore, that the speedy penitent
has a much fairer reception and easier dis
charge from God, than he that lingers ; whose
repentance, though it may prove sincere, yet
it still comes with this degrading circum-

310

SOUTH'S PoSTHUiMOlJS SERMONS.

Si-.RM. XXXVI.

stance, that a delayed courtesy does, diu

'We know, he that brings ready money has
a thing much cheaper than another, together
with an overplus of more credit and esteem
into the bargain. In like manner, the late
penitent, like the Late pay-master, though by
such a repentance he may secure himself from
the final arrests of damnation, yet still it is
something sordid aud degenerous.
Consider also, that God is so much pleased
with an early penitence, that he is ready to
accept that which is in itself a duty, as a gift;
at least, to reward it for such. Besides, he
that is slow to attempt this great work, though
his repentance may be real and sincere, yet
he will scarce be able to know that it is so ;
and then, though his condition may be sure,
yet his comfort cannot be entire ; but though
he is at peace with God, yet he will hardly
be at peace -Hith himself : in the meantime
the early penitent has repentance, with these
two inei-edible advantages, he repeuts with
facility and with certainty. I have now
done : you have heard the duty, and the argu
ments to enforce it; how that the neglect of
it is a bold venture upon God's justice : and
that no man can be sure of time and oppor
tunity to repent ; nor, admitting this, can he
promise himself grace and ability to execute
this work : aud lastly, supposing that he h,as
both, yet the work will be trebly more diffi
cult and Laborious, and at the best uncom
fortable and dubious. Add to this, that God
may thunder out his judgments ; whioh will
overtake and force us to mend our pace: and,
because we would not repent upou a fairer
invitation, force us to lie down and repent in
shame, poverty, and sickness; and to heighten
spiritual desertions with teraporal afllictions.
Since this is so, I shall wrap up all in that
advice of the prophet Amos to Israel, (Amos,
iv. 12,) " Thus will I do unto thee, O Israel :
and because I will do this unto thee, there
fore prepare to meet thy God, 0 Israel." As
for any other application, since deductions
from the words are natural and easy, I shall
leave it to your own thoughts ; .and indeed
these truths are of that nalure, that he that
really believes them cannot but apply them.

SERMON XXXVI.
PART li.
"Repent; or else I vvill eome unto thee quickly, and fipht
against them vvith the sword of my mouth." — Rkv. ii. 16.
As before I enforced the duty of iraraediate
repentance, and disputed against the deferring
of it, by arguments drawn from the unreason

ableness of such a course ; so now I shall
farther proceed against it, from a considera
tion of the strong, peculiarly provoking nature
of this siu .above all others ; though indeed,
in propriety of speech, impenitence caunot be
called a sin, but rather a collection and com
bination of sius, or a siuful state and condi
tion. But certain it is, that there isnothing that
kindles the divine wrath to such a flame, as
the delayed exercise of the great duty of re
pentance. We find not such fierce expressions
of vengeance against auy sinner, as the Spirit
of God, in Deut. xxix. 20, 21, discharges
against him th.at obstinately delayed his re
pentance. It is said, " that God will not
spare him : that the anger of the Lord, nay,
his jealousy, which is the very sting and poison
of his anger, shall smoke against that man ;
that all the curses of the law shall lie upon
hira ; that God shall blot ont his name from
under heaven ; and lastly, that he shall even
separate hira to evil, according to all the curses
of the covenant."
Now what could have beeu said so fully,
with such a copiousness of terror ? every word
almost carrying iu it fire and brimstone;
every period being as it were pregnant with
death, and breathing out destruction : and
yet we may be sure that every tittle shall be
verified. God rather overdoes his words, than
uiulerspeakshis actions : and his performances
are always comraeusurate to his expressions.
But both, we see, light heavy upon the
lingering penitent ; whose sin, I conceive, is
so erainently and signally provoking to God
upon these reasons :
1st, Because it is the abuse of a remedy,
Since siu entered into the world, there is
nothing but repentance can stand between
the sinner and certain destruction. It is the
only .asylum and place of refuge that God has
provided for malefactors. If mercy had not
found this expedient, every raan had been the
deplorable object of a remorseless, vindictive
justice. Now for a sinner to neglect this, to
slight and trample upon the conditions of
pardon, what is it else, but as if a raan, that
lay gasping under a mortal wound, should
both throw away the balsam, and defy the
physician ?
Certainly it cannot but be the highest
provocation, to see guilt kick at raercy ; and
presuraption take advantage merely from a
reilundancy of compassion. He that will
fight it out, and not surrender, only because
he has articles of peace offered to him, deserves
to feel the sword of an unmerciful enemy. A
delayed repentance is a downright defiance to
mercy. And every moment a man spends
under such a delay, he falls under that char
acter of Babylon, (Jerem. li. 9,) "that God
would have healed him ; but yet he was not
healed :" and that for no other cuuac, than

ON REVELATIONS, ii. 16.

311

that he pursues, chooses, and even wooes
death, and solicits his own destruction.
2dly, The reason why God is exasperated
by our delaying this duty is, because it clearly
shews, that a man does not love it as a duty,
but only intends to use it for an expedient of
escape. It is not because it is pleasing to
God, grateful to an offended majesty, or
because he apprehends a worth and excel
lency in the thing itself ; for theu he would
set about it immediately : for love is quick
and active ; and desire hates all delay.
But a raan is enamoured with his sin, and
resolves to take his full course in the satis
faction of his lusts, to consult his pleasure,
and to sacrifice the vigour of his years to the
gratification of his appetite, the lusts of the
flesh, and the pride of life, and all those other
sinful vanities that are apt to bewitch the heart
of man.
This, I say, he resolves ; but in regard the
rear of such a course is brought up with a sad
and fatal account at the last, all ending in
eterual wrath and damnation ; that he may
now escape this, and come off clear, he will
repent just at the last ; and so, by that means,
as this life has given him the pleasures of
sin, repentance shall interpose and rescue hira
from the fruits and effects bf sin.
And is not this a neat design, to live with
pleasure, and yet die with peace ? To provoke
God's justice all the time of one's life, and
then fairly to slip frora it, by repenting sorae
minutes before death !
But it is uot to be wondered .at, if God's
fury rises at such a course ; for it evidently
turns his grace into .wantonness, and makes
it drudge and subserve to the design of sin.
For he that resolves only to secure himself by
repenting at the last, at the same time also
resolves to continue sinning all the mean
while. Which is nothing else but an endea
vour to put a trick upon God ; to affront him
to his face ; and yet to despise him under
the protections of his own mercy.
Though the allowance of repentance be an
infinitely gracious concession, yet we are
mistaken, if we think that the entire design
of it is only the sinner's interest, and not
God's glory, as well as his salvation. God
intends repentance to be a means to purify
the heart from that corruption that renders it
utterly unserviceable. Hepentance, though it
cannot deserve, yet it must qualify the soul
for heaven. And this penitential cleansing,
though it merits nothing, yet it is a necessary
condition to fit a man to bea vessel of honour.
In short, repentance is chiefly valued by God,
because he loves the fruits of repentance.
But now, he that declines the present exer
cise of it, and throws it back to the future, he
evidently shews, that whensoever he takes it
up, he does it solely for the interest of his
own safety, and not to pay any retribution of

honour to God ; and that he repents, not to
cleanse, but to secure, not to sanctify, but to
defend hiraself.
Sdly, A third reason that God's displeasure
so implacably burns against this sin is, because
it is evidently a counterplotting of God, and
being wise above the prescribed metliods of
salvation, to which God makes the iraraediate
dereliction of sin necessary.
But he that defers his repentance makes
this his principle, to live a sinuer, aud to die
a penitent. But to what purpose does God command
repentance, if it must be in the power of man
to choose the time ofit, and so to eludethe duty
itself, by the circumstance of its performance ?
It is to no end for God to give a law, if aman
may interpret the sense, and so shuffle off the
obligation. He that is commanded to repent,
and defers it to the future, declares that he
will be obliged by that command only when
he thinks fit, and not before. He also looks
upon it as a refined, subtle piece of policy, to
choose such a repentance as has a longer con
sistency with sinful pleasure, and yet no less
efficacy as to the procurement of salvation,
than such au one as is present and immediate.
And now may we not imagine that such a
course is highly offensive? in which a poor
weak man shall endeavour to vie wisdom with
his Maker, to outwit and outreach an omni
science? Wheu he shall thus find a new and a shorter
way to heaven, cutting off those austerities of
life as superfluous, which God has vouched
necessary, and so derogating from God's
knowledge ; withal, raaking those allowances
and indulgencies lawful, which God has
denied as destructive, and so upbraiding his
goodness. Briefly, a deferred repentauce is a contradic
tion to God's word, and an impudent affront
to all his attributes. He that hears God's
counsel but follows his own, that repents at
his leisure, and so makes his practice overrule
his belief ; he has changed his deity, and
though he confesses a God, yet he adores
himself. And thus I have shewn the grounds upon
which the delay of this duty is so highly
provoking to God ; which ought to serve for
another invincible argument against it, to all
those that value his love, and trerable at his
wrath. But now to descend frora the general nature
of this subject to a consideration of it iu
particular. The grand instance of it is a
death-bed repentance ; concerning the efficacy
of which, since there are so raany disputes,
and since the right stating of it is a raatter of
so high consequence, we Will enter into a
more exact and particular discussion of it ;
which I shall endeavour to manage under
these two heads :

31S

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Sbrm. XXXVI.

I. I shall resolve this great case of con
science, whether a death-bed repentance ever
is or can be effectual to salvation.
II. I shall shew, that supposing it may
prove effectual, yet for any one to design it,
and to build upou it beforehand, is highly
dangerous, and therefore absolutely irra
tional. And when I shall have despatched these
two things, I suppose there can be nothing
considerable in this subject that will be left
unspoken to.
I. And first, for the first of these, whether
or no a death-bed repentance may be effec
tual. There are some who absolutely deny it, and
explode it as the very bane of piety, and
utterly destructive of a holy life ; and there
fore by no means cau be brought to open the
doors of heaven to such penitents. The
reasons why suoh a repentance cannot be
effectual are these :
1st, Because a good life is all along the
gospel required by Christ, as indispensably
necessary to salvation ; but a death-bed re
pentance cannot bo productive of this, and
therefore it cannot save. The first is evident
from sundry places of Scripture ; as in Matth.
vii. 21, " Not every one that says. Lord, Lord,
but he that does the will of ray Father, shall
be blessed ;" and John, xiv. 21, " If ye lovo
ine, keep my commandments;" and Phil. ii.
12, " Work out your salvation with fear and
trembling ;" with several other places ; which
proclaim aloud, that there can bo no admis
sion into glory, without the obedience of a
holy life.
And the assumption, that a death-bed re-
pent.ance can produce no such thing, seeras
no less evident. For is it possible for a man
to lead a new life when he is even ceasing to
live? Can he work out his salvation when
the fatal night of death is sei'/^ing upon him,
and he cannot work ?
Now since this is the condition upon which
salvation depends, and since this condition
cannot be perfornied upon a raan's death-bed,
it follows, that all repentance that is acted
there, raust be utterly ineffectual, as to all
purposes of salvation. And thus much for
tho fii'st argument.
2dly, The second is this, which, though
it may be brought under the former, yet,
for the more perspicuity, I shall propose it
distinctly and by itself. You may take it
thus : —
The only thing within tho power of a
dying penitent is a sincere purpose of a good
life, and a resolution to amend ; but this is
uot sufficient to save, and consequently, being
the utmost that he can do, it follows that he
can do nothing eff'ectual to salvation. For
the clearing of this we iimst observe, that
whatsoever is only purposed, is for that very

reason as yet not done, but to be done here
after, and then tbe argument proceeds in this
raanner : Either the leading of a now life,
here purposed by the death-bed penitent, is
necessary actually to be done, or it is not
necessary. If it be not necessary to bo done,
then neither is tiiere any reason why it should
be necessary to be purposed ; inasrauch as
actionis both the cause, the end, and also the
measure of purpose : but if it be necessary
to be done, then it follo-ws, that barely to
purpose it, cannot be sufficient.
And thus, from these arguments, they in
fer and conclude the absolute nullity of a
death-bed repentance.
But, for my part, I cannot he yet convinced
that there is an absolute necessity to repro
bate all death-bed penitents, and to exclude
them from all possibility of being saved. It is
an assertion harsh and inhuraan, and at the
very first sight seems to carry in it a contra
riety to the raerciful aud tender spirit of the
gospel ; and therefore ought not to be ad
mitted, but upon most clear and unavoidable
reasons, and such as yet I see none to en
force it.
For the first gener.al exception ; that it
naturally undermines the necessity of a good
life, and takes away all strictness and holiness
of conversation, and so turns the gospel into
a doctrine of licentiousness; making it to
warrant and patronize a continuance in sin,
frora the assurance it gives to men, that upon
such a repentance they shall be saved at the
very last.
To this I answer, first, by concession ; that
if we state all a man's "actions in things
sjiiritual, upon a perfect, entire freedom of
will, by which it is in his power to repent
when lie will, after he has persisted in his
sin as long as he pleased ; so that he is so
perfect a raaster of his choice, as to be able to
determine it to siu, or to the practice of holi
ness at any time whatsoever : I say, upon
this principle I confess, that it does in a great
measure untie and unravel all obligations to
a holy life. And supposing that a raan were
sure of the time of his life, and that it should
not, by any unexpected accident, be snapped
off' suddenly, the doctrine of the efficacy of
a de.ath-bed, or indeed of any future repentance,
would in its nature tend to encourage such a
man to a presumptuous perseverance in sin.
But then, considering that (as 1 have evinced
already) no raan has his life leased to hira tor
any set time, nor secured from casual, fatal
accidents, but that he may lose it unawares ;
even this principle itself, of a free, entire
power in mau to repent when he will, cau
not, upon a rational account, warrant any
raan either in the delay of a pious, or in the
pursuit of a virtuous life.
But then I add, that repentance is not to
be stated upon the power of man's will, but

ON REVELATIONS, ii. 16.

313

upon the special grace and power of God, by
which it is wrought upon the heart, whereby
the will is advanced to exert those acts of re
pentance which of itself it is utterly uuable
to do. Now upon this principle I affirra,
that to hold that a death-bed repentance raay
be effectual, neither cuts off the necessity of a
good life, nor indeed encourages any one to
defer his repentance till that tirae.
For, as I shall venture to tell any raan, that
if in the very last period, the last expiring
instant of his life, he shall sincerely repent
hira of all his past sins, he shall assuredly
find raercy ; so I shall tell him also, that it is
entirely iu the pleasure and hand of God,
whether he shall be able to repent or no ; and
that he has no certainty in the world that
God will vouchsafe him such a raeasure of
grace at that hour ; but much on the contrary,
to make hira suspect and doubt that he may
deny it hira, and revenge the provocations of
a wicked life with impenitence and obdura-
tion at the time of death.
And thus I think that the exception against
the efficacy of a death-bed repentance is clearly
reraoved, by stating the exercise of it upon
this principle. For though I say, that a man
shall be saved -whensoever he repents, yet I
deuy also, that a mau cau repent whensoever
he pleases.
Having thus made our way through this
general objection, we are now to look back
upon those two arguments that were brought
against this doctrine.
1st, The first was, That no repentfince can
be saving, but such an one as produces ai
holy life, and is attended with it ; but how
can a man upou his death-bed begin a holy
life, wheu he is even ceasing to live?
To this I answer, that the space between
the first act of repentance, by whioh the soul
is turned from sin to God, and betweeu a
man's death, be it never so short, even to but
one minute, it is reckoned in the accounts of
the gospel for a holy life ; that is, any time
that a sanctified person lives, is a holy life.
Now that this is so, I thus evince ; for
either this is sufficient, or there is required
some deterrainate space of time, under tho
compass of which no raan can be said to bave
lived holily : if this be asserted, let that fixed,
deterrainate corapass of tirae be assigned.
Either it raust be the ra.ajor part of a raan's
life, or a just half of it, or some set number of
years or days.
If the first ; theu he that repents and is
converted in the fifteenth year of his age, and
dies in the thirtieth, cannot be said tO have
lived a holy life, and therefore cannot bo
saved, inasmuch as the major part of his life
does not come under the accounts of repen
tance. Iu like manner, he that is converted
in the twentieth year of his age, and dies
before he reaches his fortieth, must come

under the sarae doora, as not being able to
bring the just half of his life under this
reckoning. But tbis is evidently false aud absurd ; we
must therefore seek for this stinted tirae in
some set nuraber of years or days ; and here
let any one shew rae, whether it be twelve,
ten, six, or four, or one year ; or, to descend
to days, whether it be au hundred, sixty,
thirty, ten, or seven days, that a man must
have corapletely spent in tho practice of holy
duties, before he can be said to have lived a
boly life ; but I believe it would puzzle any
one to make such an assignation, or to find
warrant for it, either in Scripture or reason.
Wherefore we raust reckon that tirae inde
terminately which a man spends in this
world after he has sincerely repented, be it
long or be it short, for a holy life ; and con
sequeutly I see not why, in those few days,
hours, nay minutes, that a sincere death-bed
penitent lives, he may not be as truly said to
live holily, as he that dates his holy living
frora twenty years' continuance ; and why
the widow's two mites were not as true,
though not as great an offering, as his that
consisted perhaps of an hundred or two
hundred shekels.
2dly, To the second arguraent ; That the
dcath-'bed penitent cau only resolve upon
leading a holy life ; and that if the actual
leading of such a life be necessary, theu
barely to resolve it cannot be sufficient ; as,
on the contrary, if to effect it be not neces
sary, then neither can it be necessary to
resolve it.
To this I answer, by an absolute denial of
that assertion, that the death-bed penitent
can only resolve upon living a holy life.
And to make out the reason of this denial, I
shall here first lay down what is properly a
holy life. In short, it is the doing of all
those actions that a man is obliged to do in
the conditiou in which he is ; to which I add,
that a raan is obliged to do no more thau he
is capable of doing in such a condition.
Now a person upon his death-bed is only
capable of doing such duties as are wholly
transacted in the mind and in the will ; as,
loving of God, hating of sin, sorrowing for it,
forgiving eneraies, and the like ; and these
he is not only able to resolve, but also to
perform. But to go to church, to fast and pray,
kneeling, with other such actions of duty,
these are naturally not within his power in
that state of weakness, and therefore he is not
obliged to them. Yet, however, though he
cannot perforra these, he must not therefore
be said not to live holily; forasmuch as he
does perform other holy duties, which his
condition is capable of doing, and in the
doing of which a holy life equally cousists.
I answer therefore to the second part of

314

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS. Sekm. XXXVI.

the argument, that a holy life is both neces
sary to be resolved on, and also to be per
forraed, but both still iu the sarae manner.
That is, a penitent, upon his repentauce, is
to resolve to live holily for that whole course
of time that he is to spend in the world, and
this resolution he is faithfully to perform.
But he is not to resolve upon living a holy
life for such or such a deterrainate nuraber of
years, inasrauch as it is uot in his power to
dispose of the tirae of his life so long.
But both resolution and performance as to
this particular, is to respect a man's whole
life forthe future, -whether that life fall out
to be long or short. And if it chance, by
God's providence, to last but oue hour, j'et still
it is his whole life from that tirae, as rauch as
if it vvere spun out to many years.
From which it follows, that a death-bed
penitent may both resolve and perform as
much as is required to complete the uature of
au eff'ectual repentance.
Having thus answered the arguments
brought to disprove the efficacy of a death-bed
repentance, it will not be araiss to consider
what kind of persons they are that are the
authors of such a grim assertion.
Are they of such an unstained, unblameable
life? such an angelical piety and perfection?
Certainly, it were but reason to expect that
those that throw such great stones, that give
such reraorseless stabs to poor dying sinners,
should be able to enter heaven themselves,
though it were " through the eye of a needle ;"
and should be of such a sublime sanctity as
to supererogate at the least, and not to need
mercy themselves, who so severely deuy it to
others. But I am afraid that, upon inquiry, it will
appear that they are nothing less. I should
uot willingly libel or defame any, especially
from the pulpit ; but from the best informa
tion 1 can give myself, either by reading,
observation, or report, those that make the
way to heaven so narrow, walk in the broad
themselves ; take a scope and liberty in their
lives, aud content themselves to be only strict
in their doctrine, denying to others a possi
bility to repent eft'ectually on their death
bed, while they live in that manner them
selves, that it seems to be for their interest
to hold eveUj a possibility of repenting after
death. In short, they are usually such as prescribe
rules and directions for other meu to follow ;
such as, after the practice of uncleanness, tell
others that they must become vestals ; such
as are famous for covetousness, aud for preach
ing against it.
These are those inexorable spiritual Catos,
those parsimonious dispensers of mercy ; per
haps out of a mistaken fear, upon the know
ledge of their own wickedness, lest there
should not be mercy enough for themselves.

Thus the late casuists of the church of
Rome, what great things do they speak of
man's power to merit, to fulfil, and overdo
the law, to a higher, uncommanded strain of
perfection ; and yet what puddles, what sinks
of irapurity are their books of casuistical
divinity ; what horrid, loose maxiras have
they, that not only underraine Christianity,
but'even extinguish and cut the bands of all
morality! Which licentious doctrines have
already kindled such a flarae in that church,
as, for aught I kuow, may burn to its con
fusion. But to return to our subject : We shall
still find, that such as are most merciless to
dying sinners in stopping up the passages of
repentance and salvation against them, do yet
relax this rigour, and walk by another rule
theraselves ; unless perhaps it may more
properly be said, that they walk by no rule
at all.
And experience has shewn, that those
spiritual guides, who are the raost austere in
their own lives, the greatest and most rigid
exactors of duty from themselves, and of the
most improved acquaintance and converse
with God ; yet when such come to deal with
dying sinners, they handle their wounds more
gently, treat them with more relentings and
compassion, open the treasures of pardoning
mercy to them more freely, and are glad to see
any glimmerings of sincerity and contrition,
that may warrant them to send the repenting
sinner out of the world with a full and a
free absolution.
And the reason of this is, because such, by
a continual strict living up to the precepts of
Christ, come at length to partake of the
spirit and temper of Christ ; who of all men
that ever lived, or shall live in the world, was
the freest even frora the least stain of sin, and
yet was the most boundless and enlarged iu
his corapassion to sinners.
Aud certainly, should he now live and con
verse with us, he that raised sinners from
their graves, would uot now conderan them
upon their death-beds.
And thus, I think that I have not only
answered, but also cleared off all objections
against this doctrine, so that it raay hencefor
ward pa.-3 for a gospel truth ; which, that I
may yet farther confirm, I shall produce
positive arguments to prove and assert it.
1st, The first shall be taken from this con
sideration ; that such a repentance coraraenced
at the last hour of a raan's life, has defacto
proved eft'ectual to salvation ; and therefore
there is no repugnancy in the nature of the
thing itself, but that it may do so again. The
consequence is clear ; for that which is impos
sible in itself, can never be verified so mnch
as in any one single instance ; and that if it
were impossible for any repentance beginning
at the latter end of a man's life, that is, just

ON REVELATIONS, ii. 16.

315

before his death, to prove saving, no one man
whatsoever so repenting could be saved.
But the falsity of this evidently appears
from that emiuent and known instance of the
thief upon the cross ; whose repentance began
no sooner than his crucifixion, and yet it
ended with the rewards of paradise. Aud
who knows, but that God intended thiS'signal
instance to remain as a perpetual reraedy
against despair, to sinners repenting in any
part of their lives ? And there are some
doctrines that God does not think fit to set
down and express in open terras, lest the cor
ruption of our uature might abuse thera to
presuraption ; but rather to hint thera to us
in an example, aud to represent them in the
person of another ; leaving us, by rational
discourse, to apply the same to ourselves wheu
we are in the like condition.
As for instance ; should God have said in
express terras, that though a man raurders his
neighbour, and coramits adultery with his
¦vvife, yet, if he repents, such sins should not
hinder his salvation : such a declariition as
this, given antecedently to these villainous
actions, would have been apt to have encou
raged the wicked hearts of raen rauch more
boldly to have ventured upon the commission
of them.
But now, should any one chance to be
plunged into such enormous sins as these,
that he might not here, subsequently to the
act, which cannot be recalled, utterly cast oft'
all thoughts of mercy, and consequently of
returning to God for the obtaining of raercy,
God has discovered so much compassion in
the pardon of David, guilty of the same sins,
upon his sincere repentance, as to keep such
au oue frora despair, and to warrant hira his
pardon, if, upon the sarae sins, he acts the
sarae repentance.
The same very possibly raight be the design
of the Spirit here, not to raake any sueh
declaration of pardon openly and expressly to
death-bed penitents, lest by accident it raight
open a door of licence to sin ; but rather to
preach it raore tacitly to our reasons, in the
example of the thief upon the cross ; that in
case a sinner be overtook, aud brought upon
his death-bed, he might not yet despair, see
ing one before hira obtaining pardon iu the
same condition.
2dly, The second arguraent is taken from the
tmth and certainty of that saying, owned and
attested by God himself, in 2 Cor. viii. 12,
" That if there be first a willing raind, it is
accepted, according to that a raan hath, and
not according to that a raan hath not." That
is, it is accepted instead of the deed, when the
deed, through sorae outward impediment, not
within the power of man to reraove or re
medy, becomes irapracticable.
Now, when a penitent upon his death-bed
has wrought his repentance to the highest

resolutions and raost sincere purposes of future
obedience, if God immediately put a period to
his life, is it any fault of his, if he is took
off from so full an execution of those pur
poses as he intended ?
Certainly God, who cau pierce into his
soul, and view the sincerity of those resolu
tions, seeing that, in case he should live many
years, they would be all performed, and
actually drawn forth into so many years'
obedience, he cannot but rate those intentions
according to the utraost effect and issue that
they would have had uuder such opportunities.
And as for the time, so also for the quality
of duty ; where God has visited a man with
suoh bodily weakness, that he cannot move
or stir from his bed, do we not think that
God accepts his desire to attend the churoh, to
kneel in prayer, with other acts of devotion
to whioh the body must concur, as truly and
really, as if he had strength of body actually
to perforra all these ?
Truly, if we deny that he does, we have
strange thoughts of the equity and goodness
of his nature ; and degrade his mercy to a
pitch below the mercies of au earthly father,
and the dispensations of a prudent governor.
Indeed, when God is said iu such a case to
accept of the will, and to dispense with the
deed, it is only a farther explication of that
known, unalterable rule of justice, that God
cannot command or require the performance
of a thing impossible.
But should he exact the deed, wheu the
weakness of a mau's condition utterly disables
him to perform it ; should he command a
bedrid person to stand or kneel, or require ten
years' practice of holiness from him that is to
live but an hour, what could this be but to
rank his commands araongst those unreason
able, tyrannical injunctions that will and re
quire impossibilities?
Sdly, 'The third arguraent why a death-bed
repentance may prove effectual is, because re
pentance saves not, as it is a work, or such a
number of works ; but as it is the effect of a
renewed nature and a sanctified heart, frora
which it flows. But now, the renovation of
our nature being the sole iraraediate work of
God's Spirit, it raay be wrought (if it so
please him) in the last moraent of our lives,
as well as in twenty years ; for, being a new
creation, and the production of a quality in
the soul that was not there before, there is
nothing hinders, but that by an infinite power
it may be transacted in an instant.
Upon which I argue thus : If God can
sanctify and renew a man's nature in the last
instant of his life, then a person thus sanctified
is either in a state of salvation, or he is not :
if not, then a man truly sanctified may be in
a damnable condition, which is false and ab
surd ; but if he is, then, inasmuch as a death
bed penitent may be thus sanctified and

316

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMON:

Ser3i. XXXVI.

^

I renewed, he may be also in a state of salva-
I tion, which is inseparably annexed to a true
' sanctification. But now, on the other hand, if we say that
a man cannot be a tme penitent, and iu a
state of salvation, unless he has spent snch a
considerable number of years or months in the
continual exercise of holy duties ; what is this,
but to ascribe his salvation to such a raeasure
of works ? This is evident ; for a death-bed
penitent may have all other qualifications, as
a sanctified heart, a sincere resolution, and a
direction of it to the glory of God ; so that
there is nothing wanting but such a number
of holy actions. Now if, notwithstanding the
forraer qualities, salvation raust be yet denied
to such a penitent, is it not most clear that
salvation is stated upon the opus operatum of
such a parcel of holy performances ? So that
it is not the sincerity, but the multitude ; uot
the kind, but the number of our actions that
must save us. Which assertion, if we adrait,
and iraprove into its due consequences, I can
not .see bnt that it must needs bring us back
to our beads.
4thly, A fourth argument is this : If to re
pent sincerely be a thing at the last moraent
of our lives impossible to be done, then, for
i that instant, impenitence is not a sin. For it
cannot be a siu not to do that which in its
nature cannot be done. The reason is, be
cause where there is no obligation, there can
be no sin, inasmuch as siu is either the trans-
' gression or oraission of something that we
j stand obliged to do ; but I have shewn before,
I that no man can be obliged to impo-sibilities.
j It follows therefore from hence, that not to
repent upon one's death-bed is no sin, because,
! according to the opinion hitherto raaintained,
I to repent there is impossitde. Which argu
ment is of so rauch quickness and force, that
I were there no other, this alone were enough
both to establish ours, and to overthrow the
coiitrarv' as.sertion.
i Sthly, The fifth arguraent that I shall pro
duce is this : That to deny that a death-bed
i repentance can be effectual to salvation, is a
I clear restraint and limitation of the compass
and prerogative of God's mercy.
For since it is a thing that neither involves
any contradiction in itself, nor yet to any one
of God's attributes, it is both an impudent
i and an insolent thing, for any raan to deny
the possibility of it. For shall we prescribe
to oranipotence, or set bounds to an infinite
, mercy, and say, that this and this it can do ;
I but this it cannot ? What if God, " willing
to shew the riches of his mercy," calls and
accepts of some at the very last hour of the
I day, aud rewards them equally with those
; that carae in at the first ; have we any thing
I to reply against such a proceeding, or to carp
at his justice, or to raurraur at our brother's
1 felicity? Godexpresslysays,thathis"thoughts

are not as our thoughts ; nor his mercies as
our mercies." And indeed, sad and lament
able were the condition of most sinners, if
they were. The nuraber of thoie that -liould
be saved would be much less, aud the volume
of the book of life contracted to a very ^mall
epitome. I should think it therefore much more
agreeable to a pious sobriety, to acquiesce iu
the method of God's dealing : and, according
to mle of the civil law, rather to amplify, jl
j than to limit acts of favour. '
! If God brings a sinner to himself at the last,
and so raakes his death-bed a portal aud en
trance to heaven ; if he accepts of the purposes,
and crowns the short endeavours of a late re
pentance with life and glory ; I, for my part,
have nothing to do here, but to congratulate
the person that obtains, aud to adore the
mercy that gives it.
etlily. The sixth aud last argument for the
confirmation of the same truth is this : That
if a death-bed repentance cannot possibly be
; effectual to s.alvation, then a sinner upon hi«
, death-bed, having not repented before, may
lawfully, and without sin, despair. The reason
is clear"; for where the proper object of hope
ceases, which is possibility of pardon, there
despair must lawfully succeed ; for despair is
then only a sin when there is ground of hope,
of whichhere there is none. In short, despair
cannot be sinful where it is rational ; but it
is most rational to despair of salvation, when
the only means of attaining it, which is re
pentance, becomes irapossible.
But now, I desire any one to shew rae any
thing in the gospel that adraits of despair in
the tirae of this life ; nay, that does not pre
scribe and condemn it as utterly sinful ; it is
proper only to the state of the daraned, whose
condition God has declared to be remediles*.
But God has not signified that a sinner, in any
part of his life whatsoever, is out of all pos
sibility of mercy and salvation. Indeed, as
a man dies, so he continues for ever ; but
while he lives his condition is alterable.
And therefore that assertion that must en
gage a raan both certainly and lawfully to
despair, while he is on this side death, is
surely a branch of a uew, unheard of gospel
aud divinity.
And thus I have endeavoured to demon
strate, that it is not irapossible for a raan
effectually to repent upon his death-bed.
Which doctrine, if it be true, truth, as sucb,
cannot be hurtful, however by accident and
abuse it may.
But I shall now proceed, frora these argu
raents, to such considerations as will be more
strong to keep off the encroaches of presurap
tion, than these can be to invite them. And
so I am corae to the second general head, pro
posed for the manageraent of this subjecrt,
naraely, that supposing that a death-bed re-

ON REVELATIONS, ii. 16.

317

pentance may, in the issue, prove effectual,
yet for any one to design and build upon it
beforehand, is highly dangerous, and therefore
absolutely irrational.
The truth of which will he made to appear
from these considerations :
1st, The first shall be taken frora the ex
ceeding unfitness of a raan at this tirae, above
all others, to exercise this duty. Repentance
is a work that will take up the whole soul ;
that will distend every faculty, and fill every
part and power of it, even when it is in its
most vigorous, fresh, and active condition.
It is transacted by the subliraest and raost
refined operation of the soul, which is reflec
tion. The soul raust retreat into itself, view
its accounts, and summon the records of mera
ory, to give m a faithful relation of all a man's
past sius, of all the passages and reraarks of
his former life. And having done this, the
mind must dwell upon a sad and severe con
sideration of the nature, degrees, and aggra
vating circumstances of each sin, till thought
improves into affection, and opens the peni
tential sluices, and fills the heart with sorrow,
mourning, and weeping for siu ; which sor
row for sin risiug higher and higher, till at
length it ends in detestation of it, and reso
lutions against it, it becomes the first degree
of a true repentauce.
But is a raan fit to encounter and run
through all these difficulties, araidst those
many irapediraents, both natural and civil,
tliat clog and bang about hira in his death-bed
condition ?
And first, for natural hinderances ; his
raeraory will be weak aud treacherous, his
judgment infirm, and his apprehension slow
and dark. And then, perhaps, all these dis
abilities may be increased by the accession of
bodily distempers : either lethargies may
dispirit and benumb hira, or some acute,
painful disease divert and enrage hira. So
that the whole mau is iu a tumult and dis
order ; within is weakness, without is pain ;
his intellectuals forsake hira, his fever scorches
hira ; life is troublesorae, and yet death
terrible. In short, the man is very unfit to
use his reason, to remember, or conteraplate ;
and being so, how can he be fit to repent?
which is a work that includes in it all these
operations. But we will suppose the death-bed penitent,
by the mercy of Providence, pretty well freed
frora these natural impediments, and that he
has a good proportion of raemory, a good
reserve of judgraent, with a readiness to
apprehend and discern, and to exercise the
several functions of a rational nature. Yet
theu there are civil obstructions, worldly en
curabrances, settling the estate, providing for
friends, satisfying the craving importunities
of relations. And what can a poor, dying
man do, when such a swarm of troublesorae

thoughts are buzzing about him ? How can
he recollect and compose himself to a medita
tion of his past actions, when he is busied in
settling things for the future ?
Repentance is too great a thing to be
wielded iu such a hurry. No sooner, per
haps, is a man setting himself to clear old
scores between God and bis soul, but his
worldly creditors corae bawling upon him for
another kind of satisfaction. No sooner does
he set himself to mourn and weep for his sins,
but he is interrupted with the tears of those
that stand weeping for hira.
This is his case ; and now, can any rational
person iu the world judge that a death-bed is
the proper scene of repentance ? that a dying
person, racked with pain, choked with
phlegm, immersed, and even buried in encum
brances before he is dead,,can be fit to raanage
the spiritual searching severities of this duty ?
The apostle observes well, (2 Tira. ii. 4,)
" That uo man that warreth, entangleth him
self with the affairs of this life." And indeed
repentance is a kind of spiritual warfare ; but
certainly none so unfit for a war as a dying
person. There are some duties, whose perforraance
so properly belongs to sorae certain time, that
they can neither with ease nor order be per
formed out of it. Repentance is the work of
life, and the business of health. And truly,
that man has mistiraed his work, and rais-
placed his occasions, who, when he coraes
upon his death-bed, has any thing else to do,
than the proper business of that place, which
is to die.
2dly, The other reason is taken from this
consideration, that there can be no arguraents '
frora which either the dying person himself, |
or others by hira, can certainly conclude that '
his repentance is sound aud eft'ectual. I speak
of ordinary means of knowledge ; for it is
confessed, that God, by an extraordinary
manner, may reveal it to a man ; and as he
gave him the grace of true repentance, so he
may give him an assurance and certain know
ledge of the truth of that repentance.
But by the ordinary, usual methods of dis
course, the dying penitent cannot infallibly
know it ; the reason is, because he has no in
fallible mediura to introduce him to such a
knowledge. The mediums by which he raust collect it
can be no other thau these three : — 1st, The
heartiness of his present resolutions, in rela
tion to a future araendraent : or, 2dly, The
great expressions of sorrow that he raakes for
his past sins : or, Sdly, His solicitous concem
raent for his estate in the next world.
But all these, according to the cognizance
that a death- bed penitent can take of them,
are very fallible.
For the first, his resolutions, though God,
who quenches not the smoking flax, will by no

318

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Skrm. XXXVI

means reject these, if sincere ; but will own
the work of his grace, though but kindled
in the first true intention, as rauch as if it
flaraed out in a constant aud glorious practice :
yet, in regard the opportunities of perforraing
those death-bed resolutions are in a great mea
sure cut off, the death-bed penitent cannot be
assured that his resolutions are true. For a
man may think that he heartily resolves
against a sin, wheu indeed he does not ; his
own heart deceiving him. As in a man's life
time, he often finds, by experience, that when
he has took up firra purposes and resolves
against a sinful course, so that, as he thinks,
he shall never relapse into it again ; yet, not
withstanding, upon the next temptation, all
such resolutions disband aud vanish, and the
proposal is complied with : which clearly
shews that these purposes and resolutions were
indeed false aud deceitful.
And now, how does the death-bed penitent
know, but the resolutions he makes there may
be as weak and insincere, as those that here
tofore he made, and broke in the time of his
health ? Possibly they may be sincere ; but he
cannot certainly know it, but God alone, who
only can foresee, whether, in case his life
should be prolonged, those resolves would be
made actuate in perforraance.
And then, for the other two things, his
vehement expressions of sorrow, and his con
cernment about his salvation, are of as uncer
tain inforraation as the other. For a raan
raay raourn and weep for those sins, which he
yet afterwards returns to, continues in, and
perhaps dies under ; which shews that tears,
and sighs, and complaints, and all other ex
pressions of sorrow whatsoever, are utterly
fallacious. But in the state a man now is, all
these may very well be presumed to issue
from the fear and terror of an approaching
daranation. And fear is a kind of constraint
aud violence upon the will ; so that all school
raen unaniraously hold, that actions proceed
ing from fear are of a mixed nature, and not
perfectly voluntary.
Now all fear is from a principle of self-love ;
and therefore all religious actions, commenced
upon this motive, are spurious, and rejected
by God.
This supposed, I affirm, that it is more than
ten to one but that all tbe pomp of a death
bed repentance, in its highest and most ange
lical resolutions, in its most sorrowful, mourn
ful, and affectionate discoveries, moves wholly
upon this false spring of fear, suggested upou
the dismal apparition of the nearness of death,
and the frightful thoughts of a miserable
eternity. It is highly probable that there is scarce
one of an hundred in this conditiou, but goes
off with the forced sorrows of fear instead of
repentance ; and so dies rather terrified than
sanctified.

And would not any rational man here
rather fear and suspect that his lot ra.ay fall
amongst the hundred, than promise himself
that he shall be that one exempted person ?
Certainly it is ill venturing the salvation of
an imm'ort.al soul upon such huge unlikeli
hoods, such vast disparities.
But to conclude, aud wrap up all that I
have said for and against a death-bed repen
tance : I aver, that it is not at all in a man's
power, but only in God's : and that God,
being offended with a wicked life, is more
likely to deuy than to give it at the hour of
death : that a man has all the indispositions
of body and mind imaginable to unfit and
disable him for it : that it is very seldora true,
always suspicious ; and that when true, yet
it is not discernible by any certain, infallible
sign to be so : in short, that it is raost difli
cult, doubtful, dangerous, and very improb
able. In fine, I have this alone to say for it, (aud
to a considering person I need say uo more
against it,) that it is only not impossible.
To Alraighty God be rendered and ascribed,
as is raost due, all praise, raight, majesty,
and dorainion, both now and for evermore.
Amen.

SERMON XXXVII.
IlEgi TOu u'lou Murou, TOU yivofiEvou 'ix ffT(^f/.XTOS Aa/3iS, XKTOt
ToU o^iirdivTOS viou ®tou Iv ^vvxf^tl, xxra, jTviufAX, etylafuvv!,
ej uvaiTTOitrtu; vexg&tv, *I}j(rfly X^iff-rou rev Kug/oy rii/,uy,
*' Conceming his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who was made of
the seed of David according to the flesh ;
And declared to be the Son of God vvith power, according to
the Spu-it of holiness, hy the resurrection from the dead."
KoivL&NS, i. 3, 4.
In these words we have an adequate and
entire description of the person of Christ. For
in the third verse his human nature, and in the
fourth his divine, is fully and exactly repre
sented to us.
I delight not, I must confess, to insist rauch
upou philological or philosophical discourses
in dispensing the word ; but -where the con
struction of the text lies so, that we cannot
otherwise reach the full sense of it, but by
making our way through doubts and arabigui-
ties, we must have recourse to sueh expedients.
The present exercise, therefore, shall con
sist of these two parts :
I. An explication ofthe words.
II. An accommodation of them to the pre
sent occasion.
I. For the first of these, we must know,
that the scheme of the Greek carries a very
different face from our translation, which dif-

.1.1

ON ROMANS, i. 3. 4.

319

ference renders the sense of the words very
disputable. 'The explication of which I shall comprise
in the resolution of these four inquiries :
1st, Whether the translation rightly renders
it, that Christ was " declared to be the Son
of God," since the original admits of a diffe
rent signification.
2dly, What is iraported by this term, " with
power." Sdly, What is intended by the following
words, " according to the Spirit of holiness."
4thly and lastly. How those words, " by
the resurrection from the dead," are to be
understood. In all which, as the resolution will raani
fest the reason of tbe doubt, I shall be as brief
as I can ; for if I should give rayself scope to
pursue each particular through all the diffi
culties that might attend it, it would fill a
much larger discourse than the measure of the
present exercise will allow. After which
explication I shall shew, that the resurrec
tion of Christ is the greatest and the prin
cipal argument to prove the divinity of his
person. 1st, Aud |first, for the first of these : that
which we render declared, is in the Greek
opiaHuTo;, which may &\gm{y decreed, or deter
mined; and accordingly the vulgar Latin reads
it prcedestinatus, and some other destinattis est.
But with what propriety, or indeed with what
tolerable sense, Christ could be said to be
decreed to be the Son of God, which he was
from eternity : and especially to be " decreed
to be so by the resurrection from the dead," a
thing that had happened very lately, is hard
to understand, and much harder to raake out.
That which is the proper object of decree or
destination is something future ; but that which
was etemal cannot be imagined iu any period
of tirae to be future.
Those indeed who deny the eternal god
head of Christj and date his deity entirely,
and his sonship principally, frora his resur
rection, are great friends to this exposition of
the word ; and well raay they be so, for it
serves their turn to very great purposes : for
if Christ was constituted erainently the Son
of God at and by his resurrection, it might
very properly be said of him, that he was
decreed so to be antecedently to his resurrec
tion ; but how this can consist with the sup
position of his eternal godhead, I must pro
fess, I cannot apprehend.
Aquinas indeed retains this interpretation
of the word hy prcedestinatus est; but it -was
the gross ignorance of the Greek tongue and
all critical learning in those days, that be
trayed so great a judgment to the inconve
nience of holding that, of which to give a
rational account he took so much pains, and
to so little purpose.
Erasmus therefore observes, (whose autho

rity in this sort of learning is inferior to
none,) that there is another proper significa
tion of the word ooi^a besides to decree, or
determine, and that is, to declare, shew forth, or
manifest; hence iu grararaar the indicative
raood is called opiaTixos ; and in logic the de
finition of a thing, which is the declaration of
its uature, is called opoj or opiafio; ; all which
confirm this interpretation.
And for the agreeableness of it to this place,
besides the utter disagreeableness of any other
signification ; that is proved from hence, as
that it carries a most fit and eraphatical oppo
sition to the words of the forraer verse, where
the apostle expresses Christ's human nature
by yivofiiuov, " he was made of the seed of
David," which word imports the constitution
of something that did not exist before : but
here, in this verse, expressing his divine
nature, since he had from eternity been the
Son of God, it is not said of hira that he was
made, but ouly declared or manifested to be
so. Besides, the apostle here speaks of things
past and already done : which being so, with
what propriety could he insist upon a thing
only as decreed and purposed, after it had ac
tually come to pass ? especially since it was
this only which here made for his purpose.
His design was to prove Christ the Son of
God by an arguraent taken from a thing
known and notable, which was his resurrec
tion ; and would any rational disputer omit
this that he was actually risen, and argue only
frora this, that it was decreed that he should
" rise from the dead ?" According to the
natural way of speaking, men never use to
say that such a thing is decreed or purposed,
after once that decree or purpose has passed
into execution. And so much for explication
of the first terra.
2d]y,The second inquiry is, what is iraported
by this term " with power :" the Greek is bv
lunxfiei, " in power," so that by sorae it is
rendered in virtute; but it being not unusual
for the particle h to be put for o-w, it is raost
properly rendered in our translation " with
power ;" which, though some understand of
the power of Christ, as it exerted itself in the
miracles which he did ; yet here it signifies
rather the glorious power of his divine nature,
by which he overcame death, and properly
opposed to the weakness of his humaii uature,
by which he suff'ered it. Correspondent to
which is that place, (2 Cor. xiii. 4,) " He was
crucified by weakness, but he liveth by the
power of God :" that is, the weakness of his
huraanity raade him capable of the death of
the cross ; but the power of his divinity
triumphed over that death, and raised him to
an eternal life.
Sdly, The third thing to be inquired into
is, what is the intent of the following words,
" according to the Spirit of holiuess." The

320

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS. Serm. XXXVII.

expression is an Hebraism, and signifies as
much as the Holy Spirit ; but what is the
meaning of that here, is the doubt to be re
solved. Some understand it only as a farther expli
cation of the precedent word iu lvuii.ft.ei, taking
both that and this for the miraculous works
done by the Spirit of God to confirm the
gospel : for still we shall find that the miracles
of Christ aud his apostles were ascribed to the
Spirit of God ; which exposition cannot stand,
for these reasons :
1st, Because it ought then to have been
joined with the precedent words by conjunc
tion, xxi su ^VUXflii, XXI XXTX T7USVf(,X.
2dlj', Because in right construction it should
have been truivi^xTi, or S;a truiiiiJ.xTOi, " hy the
Spirit," noting the efficient cause; not "ac
cording to the Spirit," as it is here ; for xxrx
¦jTui'vft.x can never be brought to have au equiva
lent signification to S/« Truev/iXToi.
In the next place, therefore, if we observe
the connection between this and the forraer
verse, we shall find that there is a certain
antithesis between them ; and that as xxrx
axpxx signifies the human nature of Christ, so
XXTX s-j/£S|Ka may most appositely signify the
divine ; for it is not unusual in Scripture for
the divine nature to be rendered by the word
spirit; John, iv. 24, " God is a spirit ;" and
1 Tim. iii. 16, it is said, in respect of Christ,
" that God was manifested in the flesh, but
justified in the spirit ;" that is, he was proved
to have a divine nature, .as vvell as a huraan.
And now here, because the apostie had ex
pressed the huraanity of Christ, not by xxt
xuSpuTriuniu (piaiu, or xxT xuSpt,}.7rou, but xxrx
axpxx, uamely, the better to set forth the
frailty aud gross substance of the huraan
nature ; by way of opposition, he renders his
divinity by xxtx -Trutifix, a word properly
corresponding to x.xtx axpxx, and withal im"-
porting the vigorous .and refined substance of
this nature. And whereas he annexes this
qualification of holiness, and calls it " the
spirit of holiness," it is because he considers
not the divine nature of Christ absolutely in
itself, but according to the relation it had to,
and the great effect that it exercised upon his
other nature. For it was his divinity which
sanctified, consecrated, and hypostatically
deified his humanity ; and in that respect it is
here treated of by the apostle.
4thly, I come now to the explication of
that fourth and last expression, " by the re
surrection from the dead," which is exceeding
different from the original, according to the
first and literal appearance of the sentence.
For the words " Jesus Christ our Lord," which
in the translation are placed in the beginning
of the third verse, in the Greek are the last
•words of the fourth ; which has occasioned
great diversity in the construction. The words
in the original are these, i| xpxaTxasus uexpuu

'luiroS XpioTov TOV Kvplov iif^au. So that what
¦we render "by the resurrection from the
dead," is word for word to be rendered " by
the resurrection of the dead of our Lord Jesus
Christ." _ .
Whereupon some interpret it not of Christ's
personal resurrection ; which, they say, ought
to have been 'ix uixpau, not siraply uexpZu; but
either of the resurrection of those, who in
Matthew are said to have rose from their
graves at the tirae of Christ's crucifixion, or
of the general resurrection of all the saints;
who are therefore called the dead of Jesus
Christ, to discriminate them frora tbe wicked
aud the reprobates, who, though they shall
rise again, yet bear not this relation to Christ.
Accordingly they take the word xuaarairis
actively for the action of Christ, by his power
raising them from the dead : forasmuch as
otherwise their being raised from the dead
would not have had so immediate a force to
prove Christ to be the Son of God.
But that the words are not so to be ren
dered, nor consequently to be understood of
the resurrection of any but of Christ himself,
is clear upon the strength of this reason : that
(as I have partly observed already) the
apostle's desigu here is to demonstrate to the
Romans the divinity of Christ, by some sig
nal passage already done, and so familiarly
known by them. But the general resurrec
tion was as 3'et future, and the resurrection
of those few, it is probable, was not so famed
a thing, as to have been coraraonly known
araongst thera : especially since there is men
tion of it only in Saint Matthew, but in none
else, either of the apostles or evangelists; who,
being so diligent in representing all those
arguraents that seemed to prove the divinity
of Christ, had they apprehended this to have
been so clear and immediate au argument for
the proof of it, certainly would uot have thus
passed it over iu silence.
I conclude, therefore, that it is to be under
stood of the personal resurrection of Christ
frora the dead. So that the only thing that
remains for us is, to solve and make out the
construction : for which, though several ways
maj' be assigned, yet the most rational is to
refer the words 'Inaov Xpiarov tov Kvpiov ifcuu,
by apposition to the precedent words in the
forraer verse, .jripi tov vlov xvtov; not making
it to be governed of vtxpau ; so that, in the
Latin translation, Jesus Christ is not to be
rendered by the genitive, but by the ablative
case; it being repeated after the intervening
words by an hyperbaton ; a figure usual iu
the writings of this apostle; whose expression
must be acknowledged to be none ofthe easiest
or the clearest.
Neither is it material that the particle « |
is not prefixed to uixfuu, to make it " from j
the dead :" since it is usual araongst the Greeks '
to orait prepositions, such as 'iu, 'ti, aud axe';

ON ROMANS, i. 3, 4.

as .also amongst the Latins, with whom sur-
rexit te)i-d is all one with sun-e.vit a terra. But
above all this, the preposition here may be so
much the better oraitted, since the very word
xuxaraais carries in it the force of this preposi
tion ; forasrauch as it denotes a motion or
recess from a certain place or state.
Aud thus I have given au explication of
the words, the first thing proposed for the
management of this subject ; which explica
tion has been, I confess, something large ; but
I hope, to those who understand these mat
ters, is not altogether unuseful.
II. I come now to the second general head,
which is, the accommodation of the words to
the present occasion ; and that shall be in
shewing, that Christ's resurrection is the
greatest and the principal argument to prove
him the Son of God. Now both the founda
tion and sum of the gospel lies within the
compass of this proposition, " that Jesus of
Nazareth is the Sou of God :" from which one
aphorism spring all the other branches of
Christianity. For that, which properly dis
criminates the Christian religion from the
natural, or Judaical, is the holding of Christ's
deity, and his satisfaction naturally conse
quent upon it : to both which together .are
reflucible all the parts of the gospel, as a]ipen-
dages to, or conclusions naturally flowing from
them. But it is not here to be denied, that Christ
is capable of being called " the Sou of God"
in several respects ; as that, according to his
human nature, he had no natural father, but
w.as produced in the worab of his mother by
the immediate power of God ; as also for his
resemblance to God, upon the accounts of his
transcendent holiness : it beiug proper to call
hira the Son of God who does the works of
God ; (as Christ called the Jews the sons of
the Devil, for doing the works of the Devil,
John, iii. 44, "Ye are ofyour father the Devil,
.and the lusts of your father ye will do :") all
great likeuess, in thescripture dialect,founding
the denomination of sonship. Christ niight
be also called the Son of God, from bis having
the government of all things put into his hands
upou his ascension. All this must be granted :
yet here we are to consider only the principal
and grand cause of his being ctilled so ; which
is from the eternal generation and emnnatiou
of his person from the person of the Father ;
that is, we are to consider hira to be the Son of
God upon such an account, as may also infer
and prove him to be God hiraself."
Now this supereminent way of sonship
being the foundation of his deity, as th.at is
the foundation of our religion, ought in reason
to be evinced by some great and evidently
conclusive argument ; and such an one we
affirm to have been his resurrection.
But you will here naturally reply, how can
this be a proper proof of that ? How can his
vol. u.

resurrection, -which supposes hira to have been
dead, prove hira to be such an one as existed
from all eternity, and so could not die ? Is
the grave a raedium to demonstrate a person
incorruptible ? or death, to enforce that he is
iraraortal ? I answer, that this argumentation
is so far very right ; aud that the resurrec
tion, considered only in a bare relation to the
person rising from the dead, proves hini only
to be a wonderful man ; but is so far from
proving bim the eternal Son of God, that it
lather proves the contrary. But then, if w-e
consider it with relation to the doctrine of
that person affirming himself to be thus the
Sou of God, and as the seal set to the truth of
that doctrine by au omnipotent baud and an
unfailing veracity ; why, thus it is an infal
lible argument to prove the real being of all
those things that were asserted by that per
son. Chi'ist's resurrection therefore proved
hiui tobe the eternal Sou of God consequen
tially; tbat is, as it was au irrefragable con
firmation of the truth of that doctrine which
hail declared him to be so.
It is rauch disputed, whether Christ's re
surrection is to be referred to his own power
raising himself from the dead, or only to the
power of the Father. Those who deny his
eternal divinity allow only this latter, stiffly
opposing the former. To give couuteuance
to this their opposition, they seem to make
challenge to any one to produce but one place
of Scripture where Christ is said to have raised
hiraself from the dead, and they will yield the
cause. To which I answer ; though this is
no where affirmed in these very terms, repre
senting it in prceterito, as done ; yet if Christ
spoke tbe same thing in words iraporting the
future, the result is undoubtedly the same.
And for this I desire to know what they will
answer to that place, John, ii. 19, where
Christ speaking of his body, says " Destroy
this temple, and in three days I will r.aise
it up?" Does not Christ personally appro
priate the action to himself and to his own
power? AVherefore that exception is a
vapour and a cavil, unbecoming a rational
opponent. But I add, that as to the proof of tiie di
vinity of Christ's person, it is not material
¦whether his resurrection be stated upon his
own power, or the power of his Father ; for
both equally prove the same thiug, though in
a different manner.
If Christ r.aised hiraself, it directiy proves
that he was God, and so h.ad a divine nature,
besides his human ; for if he raised that, be
ing dead, it raust needs follow, th<at he did it
by virtue of a power inherent in another
nature, which was some divine spirit.
But, on the other band, if the Father raised
him, yet still it proves him to have been God ;
foi'Msniuch as he always avouched himself to
le so : and the Father would not have exerted

32-2

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS. Serm. XXXVU.

au infinite power to have confirmed a lie, or
verified the words of an impostor.
Having thus shewn how Christ's resurrec
tion could be a proper argument to prove his
divinity and eternal sonship, I corae now in
the next place to shew, that it is the greatest
aud the principal of all others.
And for this we may observe, that the ar
guments for the proof of the truth of Christ's
doctrine, of which the sum is, " that he him
self is the Son of God," are generally reduc
ible to these three :
1st, The nature of the things taught by
him. 2dly, The fulfilling of prophecies in his
person .
Sdly, The miracles and wonderful works
which he did in the time of his life.
Now to prove that his resurrection was an
argument surpassing all these, I shall pre
mise this one consideration ; that whatsoever
is brought as an argument to prove a thing
demonstratively, ought to be in itself not
only true, but evident and clear. Forasmuch
as to prove a thing is properly to make it
evident ; but nothing can make another thing
evident which is not so itself ; nay, more evi
dent th.an the thing to be proved by it. This
being premised, let us take a brief ex.amination
of each.
1st, And first, for the nature of the things
which he taught. If you take a view of those
which relate to practice ; as, that we are to
take no thought for the morrow, to take up
our cross daily, and to renounce all the enjoy
ments of those things which were made ouly
to be enjoyed ; not to reshst evil, nor to defend
ourselves, but being smote upon one cheek to
turn the other ; and when the oppressor has
robbed rae of my coat, to gratify him with
my cloke also ; which is in effect to relinquish
the grand rights of nature, and the eternal
principle of self-preservation, writ in the
liearts of all men with tbe pen of an adaraant :
furtherraore, that for every petty anger we
are responsible to the degree of murder : and
that for every idle word we are liable to eter
nal d.amnation ; that is, to a perpetuity of
torments, not only insupportable, but incon
ceivable ; with several other such articles of
the same nature.
Now I say, what strange, unusual, aud
grating documents are these to the nature
and universal apprehensions of raan's reason ?
How does this, as it were, start and fly back
at the direful appearance of these severities,
as much fitter to terrify thau to persuade, to
confound than to conquer the affections ; and
therefore, if these have any influence upon
' man's belief, (as undoubtedly they have avcry
great one,) we may be sure that such aphor
isms shall never fiud any credit for their own
sake, nor can it be expected that they should.
But then again ; if we cast our eye upon
I

what things Christ taught relating to belief;
as, that the divine nature being most simply
and iudivisibly oue, there are yet three per
sons in it, every one of which is truly and
properly God. Also, that the same person
should be God and man ; and that person, in
his human nature, should be born of a virgin ;
that he should die, and make satisfaction for
the sins of the world ; and that there shonld
be a resurrection of all mankind with the
same bodies, though consumed many thou
sand years since, and by infinite changes trans
formed into other things ; and all this to a
state of happiness or misery, of which there
shall be no end.
Now how much stranger are these than the
former? How do they look raore like riddles
thau instructions ? designed rather to astonish
than to inforra the man's underst<anding.
A great part of the world reject them all,
as absolute paradoxes, and contrary to reason;
and we ourselves confess them to be above
reason ; so that from our confession it will
follow, that they are not to be believed for
themselves. I conclude, therefore, tbat though these
things are in themselves most true, ye.a, as
true as the most evident proposition in the
mathematics ; yet because they are not at all
evident, they are utterly unable to give evi
dence to the truth of that doctrine which does
assert them.
2dly, The second argument of the truth of
Christ's doctrine, and consequeutly of his
divinity, is from the fulfilling of prophecies
in his person. An argument no question very
solid, and really conclusive ; but perhaps not
so clear and demonstrative as to silence very
great exceptions.
For the ways of interpreting prophecies are
so various, as to be here attended with such
allowances, and there again bound up with
such limitations, such distinctions between
the literal and mystical intention of theni,
and such great difficulty to prove when one is
to be pitched upon, and wheu the other, that
he who shall look iuto this matter will find,
that this argument is not so absolutely full,
nor so totally commands down the difficulty,
as to render all additional arguments super
fluous. The raodern Jews are so expert and versed
in this particular, that there is not a text or
prophecy throughout all the Old Testaraent,
but they will readily give )fou such an inter
pretation of it as shall not at all relate to
Jesus Christ. N.ay, and there have not been
wanting some such amongst the Christians ;
one I am sure there has been, who has endea
voured to shew, that all or most of tho^e
places in the Old Testaraent, -which the
Christian church generally applies to Christ,
have had an actual and literal completion in
some other before him, aud so belong to him

ON ROMANS,

:l-2:i

only by accommodation ; which to a Jew
(should you dispute with him, -would upon
another beg tbe question) would signify as
much as nothing.
Though wheu such persons have shewn all
the tricks they can upon the Scripture, for
I must needs call it shewing tricks upon it
rather than expounding it; I say, still there
remain sorae portions of it which point to
Christ with such a pregnant and invincible
clearness, such as the 22d Psalra andthe 53d of
Isaiah, that they cannot, without an apparent
force, and a visible wresting thera from their
genuine sense, be applied to anj' else. And
what good design to Christian religion any
one could have in giving thera such an inter
pretation, as raakes thera, in the first and
literal purport of them, not at all to relate to
Christ, surpasses ray understanding to give
any tolerable account of.
3dly, The third argument is taken from the
wonderful works that Christ did during his
lifetime ; all which were undoubtedly high
proofs of the truth of the doctrine which they
were brought to prove, and consequeutly of
the divinity of Christ's person and of his rais
sion. Tliey were the syllogisms of heaven,
and the argumentations of omnipotence.
Yet over these also Christ's resurrection had
a vast preerainence, and that I prove upou
the strength of these two considerations :
] 1st, That all the rair.acles Christ did, sup
posing th.at his resurrection had uot followed,
would not have had sufficient efficacy to have
! proved hira to be the Messias. But his
resurrection alone, taking it single and by
itself, and without any relation to his prece
dent rairacles, had been a full aud undeniable
I proof of the truth of his doctrine and the
, divinity of his person. The forraer part of
i the assertion is clear frora that of Saint Paul,
(1 Cor. XV. 14.) " If Christ be not risen, theu
is our preaching vain, and your faith is also
vain ;" and in the 17tli verse, "Ye are yet in
your sins." Now before Christ's death all his
miracles were actually done, and yet, notwith
standing all these, the apostle lays this sup
position, that in case then he had not rose
from the dead, the whole proof of the gospel
had fallen to the ground, and beeu buried
; with him in the sarae grave.
! And for the other part of the assertion, that
Christ's resurrection alone, without respect to
his miracles, had been a sufficient demonstra
tion of the truth of his doctrine, that appears
upon these two accounts :
1st, That the thing considered absolutely in
itself, according to the greatness and wonder
of it, did transcend and outweigh all the rest
of his works put together.
2dly, That it had a more intimate and near
connection with his doctrine than anj' of the
rest ; and that not only by way of inference,
as a sign proving it, but by way of real effect.

as it enabled hira to give being and subsis
tence to the things vvhich he had said and
promised. He had promised to send the gifts
of the Holy Ghost upon his disciples, to fit
thera to promulge the gospel ; he had promised
also to raise up those that believed in him to
life eternal at the last day : which are two of
the principal parts and pillars of the doctrine
delivered by hiin. But for him to h.ave done
this, not rising from the dead, but continuing
under a state of death, had beeu utterly
irapossible. 2dly, The secoud consideration upon which
I ground the preeminence of Christ's resurrec
tion above all the rest of his miracles, is the
general opinion and judgment that the world
had of both. For besides, that upon Christ's
doing the most strange and signal of his
rairacles, you will find that they did not con
vince raen so potently, but that while some
believed, as mauy or more went away vvith
the same unbelief of him that they brought ;
so we shall find, raoreover, that they ¦were
still resolving thera into some other cause,
short of a divine power; as, "tiiat he cast
out devils by the prince of the devils," M.att.
xii. 24. And they generally looked upon
hira .as a conjurer, and as one who had com
merce with a more potent spirit or demon, by
whose assistance he was too hard for the rest.
But now observe, when they carae to that
great and difficult problera of his resurrection,
they never attempted to assign any causes of
that besides the power of God, so as by that
means to depress the miraculousness of it;
but they absolutely deny the niattei' of fact,
aud set theraselves to prove that there was no
such thing.
And to this day the modern Jews, who
hold Christ to have been an impostor, do yet
for all that grant the history of his niinacles ;
that he did most of those strange, stupendous
works reported of hira ; but still thoy persist
in a denial of his resurrection.
All which shews, that they tacitiy confess,
that should they graut this one thing, " that
Christ was risen from the dead," they could
have no reason to except against his person
or doctrine ; but must needs acknowledge,
that being owned in such an inimediate, un
deniable way by the power of God himself,
and that in the grand and crowning passjige
of his doctrine, all that he said was true, .and
consequently that he himself was the Messias,
and Son of God.
But they thought bis other miracles carried
no such cogent evidence in them, but that
they had so rauch to except against their j
being convinced by them, as to warrant their
unbelief. Which exceptions, I conceive, raay be re
duced to these two heads :
1st, The great difficulty of discerning when
an action is really a miracle ; which difficulty

3-24

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS. Serm. XXXVII.

I lies in this : that since a miracle is properly
such an action as exceeds the force and power
! of natural or secoud causes ; to the discerning
of it so to be, it is required, that a man knows
the utmost extent aud just measure of the
power of those causes, how far it extends, and
where it ends, before he can certainly pro
nounce that such an action or effect does ex
ceed it ; and consequently that it is a miracle.
But now, I defy the greatest and the most
indefatig.able searchers of nature to give me
in such an account of the activity and force of
all natural causes, as to state the just boun
daries and portions of their power. I caunot
easily believe that any one would be so im
pudent, as to pretend to such an achievement.
But admit that some men, by the singular
dexterity of their wit, and their profound ex
perience, w«re able to do this ; yet how will
vulgar minds, which have neither ability nor
opportuuity to make these inquiries, be able
to assure themselves, that such an action is
above the force of nature, and therefore to be
ascribed to a supernatural power?
These men, not being able to look beyond
the outward bulk and first appearance of an
action, deterraine miracles, not frora the
principle th.at causes them, but from the
wonder that they find caused by them in them
selves: which wonder arises from the unusual-
ness ofthe thing, and their utter ignoranceof
the reason of it. As for instance, suppose a
mau sliould corae amongst a rude, barbarous
sort of people, and affirm to theni strange
thiugs, as a uiess.age from God ; and to verify
his words, should assure them, that he would
make such a piece of iron come to him of its
own accord, and cure anj- wound immediately,
without any application raade to it ; and
accordingly should do so ; that those people,
who know nothing of the force of the load
stone, or the sympathetic cure of wounds,
would from hence conclude, that this man
did those things by a divine power, and con
sequeutly that his raessage was of divine
authority, I do uo more doubt, than that I
am now jpeaking.
2dly, But then, iu the next place, suppos
ing that an action is fully known to be a
rairacle, it is altogether as difficult, if uot
more, to know whether it proves the truth
of the doctrine of that person that does it, or
not. The reason is, because it is uot certain
but that God may suffer miracles to be done
by an impostor, for the trial of men, to see
whether or no they vvill be drawn off frora a
received, established truth. That the Jews
thought so, is certain ; and they took up
their persuasion frora these first five verses of
Deuteronomy, xiii : " If there arise amongst
you a prophet, or a dreamer of ilreams, and
giveth thee a sign or a wonder, and the sigu
or wonder come to pass, whereof he spake
unto thee, saying. Let us go after other gods.

which thou hast not known, and let us serve
them ; thou shalt not hearken unto the words
of that prophet, or dreamer of drearas ; for
the Lord your God proveth you, to know
vvhether you love the Lord your God with all
your heart and with all your soul." And it
is added, in the fifth verse, that "that prophet,
or that dreamer of dreams, shall be pnt to
death." Now though I uo ways question but that
the main principle that acted the Jewish
council in the putting of Christ to death was
carnal policy, and resolution to raaintain their
own grandeur ; yet I verily believe, that the
more zealous aud conscientious of them (of
which sort there were, doubtless, some) com
menced their proceedings against him upon
the force of this law : for we raust know that
it was the judgment of the Jews, that to
"worship other gods" was all one with
" worshipping the true God," in any other
way, besides, or opposite to, the Mosaic insti
tution. But this was their 'T^purou vj/sSSof, the
first and chief error that betrayed them to all
the rest.
Now supposing this to have been the sense
of this law ; forasmuch as they saw that
Christ visibly designed au abolition of the
Mosaic rites and economy hereupon, uotvvitli- I
standing all the signs and wonders shewn by ;
him, they thought they had sufficient warrant j
to look upon him as au impostor, and to deal i
with him accordingly. , :
But moreover, as the foreraentioned scrip- i
ture seeras to prove that God may suffer true
miracles to be done by hira who does not
always avouch a true doctrine ; so the s.anie
seems yet more clear from those miracles done j
by several : as Vespasian is said to havo cured
a blind man, by spitting on him, and striking
him with his foot ; and Pyrrhus, king of
Epirus, was wont to cure persons distempered |
with the spleen, with a touch of his foot.
And at this day the kings of Englaud .and uf
France cure a certain disease with a touch of
their hand and a piece of raoney : all which
cures can no more .be resolved into the mere
power of those agents, visibly employed in
that action, than the curing of the lame or
the deaf can be naturally effected with a vvord.
And yet surely we neither believe the kings ,
of England or France, upon this account, to '
be persons assisted by God, in all that they
do or say, by an infallible spirit. I conclude,
therefore, that it is uot so easy to be assured
of the truth of auy doctrine upou the credit
of a miracle done by the person who does
proraulge it.
For, to represent you the sura of both ex
ceptions in short ; he who will assure himself
of the truth of any doctrine, upon the acconut
of any miracle done by the author of it, must
first assure hiraself that it is a miracle : to be
sure of which, he must understand the utmost jl

ON ROMANS, i. 3, 4.

325

power of all natural causes : which I have
shewn is very hard, if not impossible to be
compassed. And then, after tbat he knows it
to be a miracle, before he can conclude that it
proves any doctrine to be true, he must kuow
that it was done by God, with an intent to
confirm that doctrine ; and not for some other
end, as to try whether raen will suffer thera
selves, by such raeans, to be drawn from the
truth : which since it is not to be distinguished
by any mark of difference inherent iu the
actions theraselves, but by a knowledge of the
mind of God in thera, which knowledge also
we caunot have, without an immediate in
spection into his counsels ; it follows, that a
certainty in these matters is highly difficult,
and uot without a very strong faith attainable.
Hence it is, that the most learned writers of
the Romish church, when they corae to speak
of the proof of the truth of auy doctrine by
miracles, speak exceedingly contemptibly of
thera : but this perhaps is no wonder, if they
thought all other rairacles of the same nature
with those that they do themselves.
But now neither of those two forementioned
e.xceptions take place against the resurrec
tion. 1st, For first, though we cannot assign the
determinate point where the power of nature
ends, and so cannot possibly know every
miracle ; yet there are some actions that at
first appearance so vastly transcend it, that
there cau be no suspicion that they proceed
from any power but a divine. As for instance,
I cannot exactly tell how far a man may walk
in a day, but yet I can tell that it is impos
sible for him to walk a thousand miles, by
reason of the apparent disproportion between
the natural strength of man and such a per
forraance. Now such a thing does reason
judge the raising of a dead raan to life again,
in reference to the force of natural causes ;
which in their utraost actings were never ob
served to do any thing like it : and certainly
that is not in their power to do, which from
the beginning of the world was never exem
plified, or actually done by them, so much as
in one particular instance.
2dly, And for the second : Should God
suffer a rairacle to be done by au impostor,
(which I, for my part, think he never does ;
but have hitherto disputed only upon a sup
position of the Jews ;) yet, I say, there was
no necessity hence to gather, that God did it
to confirra the words of that irapostor : for
God may do a rairacle when and where he
pleases. So that it follows uot that it raust
needs relate to the vouching of what the ira-
fiostor says. But now Christ had so often
aid the stress of the whole truth of his gospel
upon this, that he would rise frora the dead ;
and declared to those who sought for a sign,
that it was the only sign that should be given
to that generation : that God could uot have

raised Christ from the dead, but that this
action raust needs have related to his words,
and to have confirraed what Christ had said
and promised, aud consequently have joined
with hira in the imposture.
In a word ; if this does not satisfy, I affirm,
that it is not iu the power of man to invent,
or of God to do, any greater thing to persuade
the worldof the truth of a doctrine. It would
eveu puzzle omniscience, and nonplus omni
potence itself, to find out a brighter argument
to confound infidelity. And I dare avouch,
th.at he who believes not upon Clirist's resur
rection from the dead, would scarce believe,
though he rose frora the 'dead hiraself. So
that if after this he continues an infidel, he
does in effect give Heaven the lie, and bids
the Alraighty convince hira, if he can. He is
rairacle-proof, and beyond the reach of per
suasion ; and not like to be convinced, till it
is too late for him to be converted.
But to sum up all : he who builds the
grand concem of his eternal happiness upon
his obedience to the gospel, as the sure way to
it ; and his obedience to the gospel upon a
firm belief of the same ; and lastly, grounds
the said belief upon a belief of Christ's resur
rection, has hereby raade his " calling and
election as sure," as things knit together by
an absolute decree and an unchangeable law
are incapable of being ever disjoined, or forced
asunder. And therefore, instead of those
uncouth, ill-sounding words, used by Luther
upon another occasion, "Si decipior, Deus me
decepit," such an one may with equal reve
rence and assurance conclude, that while he
believes the Christian religion true, because
the great author and promulger of it "died,
and rose again from the dead, according to
the scriptures," it will be as impossible for
him, so doing, to be deceived, as it is for the
God of infinite truth and goodness to deceive
hira. To which God, who brought again from the
dead our Lord Jesus Christ, that great shep
herd of the sheep, through the blood of the
everlasting covenant, be rendered and as
cribed, as is most due, all praise, raight,
raajesty, and dorainion, both now and for
evermore. Amen.

SEEMON XXXVIII.
" In much wisdom there is much grief; and he that increaseth
knowledge increaseth sorrow." — Eccles. i. 18.
It is a saying usual, and of great reason,
that we are to believe the skilful in their own
art and profession. And therefore, if we
would understand the nature, properties, and

:V2(i

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS. Srrm. XXXVIII.

effects of knowledge, nono can bo so fit to
inform us, as he who, by the very verdict of
omniscience itself, was of all men iu the world
the most knowing.
Nothing indeed is more common than for
every man almost to pass an univei'.sal censure
upon all persons and things ; but none can
despise a thing rationally, but he who knows
it thoroughly. Otherwise, though a man
should puss a right judgment upon a thing,
yet he does it only by accident ; and not by
re.'ison, but luck : and thei-efore, though tho
thing spoke be truth and wisdoin, yet the
i-|)eaker of it utters it like a fool. None but a
scholar can be a competent judge of know
ledge : and therefore all the encomiums and
endless praises of it that now fly about the
world, must come, and be tried, and stand or
fall, according to the verdict of this rule.
First, therefore, we shall find those that are
loudest in their commendations, and highest
in their .admirations of learning, are forthe
most part such as were never bred to it them
selves : hence it is, that such, of all others,
are the most desirous to breed their sons scho
lars : so that if we take a list of tho most
renowned philosophers in former ages, and
the most eiiiiiieiit divines in the latter, wo
shall find that they were, for the most part,
of mechanic, mean, and phbeiun parentage.
Upon this scoria al.so there came to be so
many free-schools and endowed places for
learning ; because those aro most apt to send
their children to .'¦tudy, who, being poor .and
low, are not able to maintain thein in it ; and
therefore need the expense and benevolence
of others, to bring their imprudent designs
to maturity. Let this therefore be fixed
upon, as one great rea-on that the praiso of
knowledge is so great in the world, namely,
that much the major part of the world is
ignorant. And ignorant men are indeed very
fit to prai.se and admire, but very unfit to
judge. I ara not insensible that many will here
presently be apt to stop ine with those elogies
that the most learned bestow upon knowledge,
stil! adorning it with such panegyrics, such
lii;,'h words and cxpie.-..-ioiis, as if rhetoric was
invented for nothing else but to describe and
setoff her prai.se. — But in answer to thi.s,
though I might note, that to be learned and
tobe wi:-e are things very diff'erent; yet I
shall produce another rea.-on of the.-e coin-
mendatioiis, which in all probability is this ;
tbat learned men would not seem aud be
judged fool.-, for speridiiig their time upon
so empty a thing ; and therefore, as those that
have bl en deceived into a ridiculous sight, do
yet commend it, that tbey may not be thought
to have been ih ceived, but may bring otiii r.i
into the sarae cheat with themselves :
So here, should philo.sophur.s confess, that
' all the time they spent about materia prima,

ahont e.ise per se, and esse pe^r accidens, they
wore laboriously doing nothing ; the worid
would be apt to hiss and to explode tiiem;
and others would hv. so wise as, seeing the ex-
amidc, to forbear the imitation. But now,
when a man finds himself to be really de
ceived, tiio only relief that remains to him, is
to cover the report of it, and to get companions
in the deception.
If what has been hitiiorto said does not
satisfy, I can only take sanctuary iu tiiis;
that the same was Solomon's judgraent : and
I desire to know, whether thoso philosophers,
who so profusely coniinend learning, knew
more than he, and saw that worth in know
ledge ¦which he did? As for Aristotle, who
for thoso many ages has carried the repute of
philosophy from all tho rest, he certainly was
not wiser than Solomon ; for ho is reported
to have stolon most of his philosophy out of
Solomon's writings, and to have suppressed
them from the viow of posterity.
I proceed, therefore, and take up my asser
tion upon the warrant of his judgraent, whom
God has hitherto vouched the wisest of men;
and therefore see no reason to alter it, till 1
.am convinced by a wiser.
But before I make any farther progress, I
must promise this; that both in what has,
and what shall be said by mo, I design not
thopatronagoof ignonance, especially in things
sjiiritual : for, in tiiis respect, we know, and
are assured by tho Spirit of God, that this is
the condemnation of the worid, that " men
love darkness rather than light ;" and that
" tho blind must needs fall into the ditch;"
and for any iiiiin to expect to be saved, or to
be happy, without the knowledge of the re
vealed will of God, in things necessary to sal
vation, is as groat an absurdity, as to expect
to see without eyes : and therefore, iu these
matters, he that increases ignorance increases
the means of his damnation ; he increases the
shadow of death, adds darkness to darkness,
and j)asses by the darkness of ignorance, to
the llarkness of hell and damnation.
But if any thing is indeed said against
knowledge, it is against that only that is so
niucli adored by the world, and falsely called ,
philosophy ; and yet more significantly fiur-
naraod by tho apostie " vain philosophy ;"
and that too with no other intent, than to
da.sh the overweening pride of those that have
it, and to divert tho adiuiration of those that ;
have it not, to some better and more deserv- |
ing object.
But as for those parts of knowledge that
are litliir instriiiiK ntal to our knowledge of
the will of God, or conduce to the good and
suiifiort of society, in the stati- that mankind jl
no-A- i-, 1 nms.t not bo thought tht refore to |!
speak ag!iiii-,t theiii, if from the ti-.\t I ira- j
partially shew those infelicities, tlio-e niiM'-
rie.-. and toirows, that, through our sin and

ON ECCLESIASTES, i. IS.

weakness, they are attended with. It is the
effect of sin that duty is accompanied with
sorrow^ ; and that, hy such an unfortunate
necessity of grief, wo canuot attain the joy
and happiness we desigu to ourselves in the
end, unless for a time vve quit it iu the use of
the means.
Novv the design of this portion of Scripture
is to rectify the absurd opinions of the world
concerning the great idol of mankind, know
ledge ; and to take down their excessive esti
mation ofit, by shewing that it is the cause.
or at least the inseparable eom panion of
sorrow. Aud, iu proseetition of the words, I
shall demonstrate it to be so in these three
respects :
I. In respect of the uature and properties
of the thiug itself.
II. In respect of the laborious aud trouble
some acquisition of it.
III. lu respect of its effects and conse
quent*. I. First of all, then, knowledge is the
parent of sorrow from its very nature, as being
the instjument and meaus by which the
afflicting quality of the object is couveyed to
the mind ; for as nothing delights, so nothing
troubles till it is known. The merchant is
uot troubled as soon as his ship is cast away,
but as soon as he hears it is.
The a&irs and objects that we converse
with have most of them a fitness to afflict .and
disturb the mind. And as the colours lie
dormant, aud strike not the eye, till the light
actuates them iuto a visibility, so those atflic-
tive qualities never exert their sting, nor
afftvt the mind, till knowledge displays them,
aud slides them into the apprehension.
" Nihil scire vita jocuudissima est." It is
the empty vessel that makes the merry sound.
Which is evident from those -whose intellec
tuals are ruineil with frenzy or madness ;
who so merry, so free from the lash of care I
Their understanding is gone, aud so is their
trouble. It is the philosopher that is pensive, that
looks downw.ords in the posture of the
mourner. It is the ojieu eye tiiat weeps.
Aristotle affirms, that there was never a
great scholar in the world, but had in his tem
per a dash and mixture of melancholy ; and
if melancholy be the temper of knowledge, we
know that it is .also the comploxion of sorrow,
the scene of mourning and affliction.
Solomon eould uot sopar.uo his wisdom from
^•exatiou of spirit, '\^'e are tirst taught our
knowledge with the rod, and with the seve
rities of discipline. We get it with sorae
smart, but iraprove it with more.
The world is full of objects of sorrow, and
knowletige enlarges our capacities to take
them in. None but the wise mau can know
himself to be miserable.
I might now, from the nature of know

ledge, pass to the properties of it, and shew
its uncertainty, its poorness, and utter ina
bility to contribute any thing to the solid
enjoyments oflife. But before I enter upon
this, there may be a question started, whether
or uo there be indeed any such thiug as true
knowledge in the world ? For there want
not reasons that seem to insinuate that there
is none. 1st, As, first, because knowledge, if true, is
upon that score certain and infallible ; but tho
certainty of the kuowledge cannot be greater
than the certainty of the faculty, or medium,
by which it is acquired : now all knowledge
is conveyed through sense, and sense is sub
ject to fallacy, to err, and to be imposed upon.
For how ofteu does our eye tell us that the
trees and the banks run, and that the ship or
the coach stimds still ? How does it abridge
tbe sun to the compass of a few spans, to a
small, ignoble circumference ? It follows,
therefore, that we cannot be assured of the
truth of that knowledge that commences upon
the fallible report of sense, indeed no more
than we can be certain that a thing is true,
because a kuowu liar has affirraed it.
2illy, Knowledge is properly the apprehen
sion of a thing by its canse ; but the causes of
things are uot certainly known : this by raost
is confessed, but may be proved without con
fession ; for sinee none ever assigned a certain
cause of any effect, but that others, with the
same probability, have assigned a clear diffe
rent cause, it is most evident, that we do uot
certainly know the oiuses of things, and con
sequentiy neither the things themselves.
Sdly, To kuow a thing is to apprehend it
as really it is ; but vve apprehend things only
as they appear ; so that all our knowledge
may properly be defined the apprehension of
appearances. But now it is undeniable, tbat
things ofieutiiues appear otherwise than they
are ; and wheu they do appear as indeed they
are, yet there is uo certain rule to discern that
they do so.
Other arguments might be brought to shew,
that it is not without cause that there is such
a sect of meu as sceptics in the world. -A.nd
though I will uot s;iy tbat these arguments
prove that there is uo such thiug as kuowleilge,
yet thus much, at least, they seem to prove,
that -we cauuot be assured that there is auy
such thing.
But you will i^ply, that this overthrows
the hypothesis of the test, which supposes
aud t.a'kes it for graute»^l that there is such a
thing .as knowhdgo. I answer, it does not :
for the arguments proceed against knowledge,
strictly aud aocurately so t.aken ; but the text
' speaks of it in a popular way. of that which
the world commonly calls and esteems kuow
ledge. And that this is but a poor, worthless thing,
aud of no efficacy to advance the real concerns

:v2S

^OUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS. Serm. XXXVI

n

of huraan happiness, might be made most
evident. For, first, it is certain that knowledge does
not either constitute or alter the condition of
things, but only transcribe aud represent the
face of nature as it finds it ; and therefore is
but a low, ignoble thiug, and differs as rauch
from nature itself, as he that only reports
great things from him that does them. If I
should run through the whole series and scale
of sciences from top to bottom, I am sure I
could verify this assertion.
For what am I, or any one else, the better,
whether God foresees future contingents from
the determination and decree of his will, or
from the iufinite actuality of his uature, by
which his existence is beforehand with all
future duration ?
What am I concerned, whether he punishes
sin by the necessary egress of his vindictive
justice, or by a freedom of choice?
Of what such great necessity is it to know,
whether Christ intended his death for all
mankind, or only for a select company? when
it is certain on both sides, th.at the benefit of
his death is offered conditionally to all those,
and only to those, who shall believe : and
that upon either supposition, this proposition
shall surely be verified, that whosoever believes
shall be saved.
And to descend to things of an inferior
nature. What is it to me, whether the will
has a power to determine itself, or is deter
mined by objects from without? when it is
certain that those here, that hold a different
opinion, yet continue in the same course aud
way of action.
Is any use of huraan life served by the
knowledge of this, whether the vegetative,
sensitive, and rational soul in man be three
distinct souls, or ouly three denominations,
from three distinct operations and offices issu
ing frora the sarae soul ?
Or am I any ways advantaged, whether the
soul wills, understands, and performs the rest
of its actions by faculties distinct from itself,
or immediately by its own substance?
Is it of auy moraent, whether the soul of
raan coines into the world with carnal notions,
or whether it coraes bare, and receives all
from the after-reports of sense?
What ara I benefited, whether the sun
moves about the earth, or whether the sun is
the centre of the world, and the earth is
indeed a planet, and wheels about that ?
Whether it be oue or the other, I see no
change in the course of nature. Day and
night keep the same order ; winter and sum
mer observe the same returns ; our fruit
ripens as soon under one hypothesis as under
the other ; aud the day begins no sooner nor
stays any longer with Ptoleray thau with
Copernicus. Or what am I bettered, whether all motion

is performed by faculties, powers, or inherent
qualities ; or in a mechanical way, by the
impulse of oue body upou auother, the greater
overcoming and moving the less ?
Who in the world finds anv change in bis
aflSairs, whether there be little vacuities and
empty spaces iu the air ; or whether there is
no ^space, but what is filled and took up with
body? What am I altered, whether colour be a
quality emergent from the difPerent contem-
perature of the elements, or whether it b«
only the reflection of the light upou the diflie-
reut situation of the parts of the body ?
I could reckon up ii hundred more such
problems as these, about an inquiry into
which men are so laborious, and in a supposed
resolution of which thoy so much boast ;
which shews, that that which passes with the
world for knowledge is but a slight, trivial
thing ; aud that men's being so eager and
industrious in the quest of it, is like sweeping
the house, raising the dust, and keeping a
great do only to find pins.
II. Pass we now to the secoud thing;
which is to shew, how that knowledge is the
cause of sorrow, iu respect of the laborious
aud troublesome acquisition of it. For is there
any labour comparable to that of the brain?
any toil like a continual digging in the uiines
of knowledge? any pursuit so dubious and
difficult as that of truth? any attempt so
sublirae as to give a reason of things?
When a man must be led a long trace from
the effect up to a hidden, remote cause, and
then back again, take a survey of tho several
virtues and active qualities of that cause, in
its raany and numerous effects ;
Will au ordinary industry bo able to.hreak
open those rarities that God and nature has
locked up, and set out of the reach of a vulgar
endeavour ? How hard is it to draw a prin
ciple into all its consequences, aud to unravel
the mysterious fertility but of oue proposition I
A raan raust be always engaged in difficult
speculation, and endure all the inconveniences
that attend it ; which indeeil are more and
greater than attend any other sort of life
whatsoever. ,
The soldier, it is confessed, converses with
danger, and looks death in the face ; but theu
he bleeds with honour, he grows pale glo
riously, and dies with the same heat and fer
vour that gives life to others.
But he does not, like the scholar, kill himself
in cold blood ; sit up and watch wheu tiiere
is uo enemy ; aud, like a silly fly, buzz about
his owu candle till he has consumed himself.
Then again ; the husbandniaii, who has the
toil of sowing and reaping, he has his reward
iu his very labour ; and the same com that
eraploy.s, .also fills his haud. He who labours
iu the field indeed wearies, but then he also
helps and preserves his body.

ON ECCLESIASTES, i. 18.

329

But study, it is a weariness without exer
cise, a laborious sitting still, that racks the
inward and destroys the outward mau ; that
sacrifices health to conceit, and clothes the
soul with the spoils of the body ; and, like a
stronger blast of lightning, not only melts the
sword, but also consumes the scabbard.
Nature allows men a great freedom, and
never gave an appetite but to be au instru
ment of enjoyment ; nor made a desire, but
in order to the pleasure of its satisfaction.
But he that will increase knowledge must be
content not to enjoy ; and not only to cut off
the extravagancies of luxury, but also to deny
the lawful deraands of convenience, to forswear
delight, and look upon pleasure as his raortal
eneray. He must call that study that is indeed con
finement ; he must converse with solitude,
walk, eat, aud sleep thinking, read voluraes,
devour the choicest authors, and, (like Pha
raoh's kine,) after he has devoured all, look
lean and meagre. He must be willing to be
weak, sickly, and consumptive ; even to forget
when he is an hungry, and to digest nothing
but what he reads.
He must read much, aud perhaps meet with
little ; tum over much trash for one grain of
truth ; study antiquity till he feels the effects
of it ; and, like the cock in the fable, seek
pearls in a dunghill, and perhaps rise to it as
early. This is
Esse quod Arce^laa serumnosique Solones :
to be always wearing a meditating counte
nance, tp ruminate, mutter, and talk to a
mau's self, for want of better company ; in
short, to do all those things which in other
men are counted madness, but in a scholar
pass for his profession.
We may take a view of all those callings to
which learning is necessary, and we shall find
that labour and misery attends thera all. And
first, for the study of physic : do not raany
lose their owu health, while they are learning
to restore it to others ? Do not mauy shorten
their days and contract incurable diseases, in
the midst of Galen and Hippocrates ? get con
sumptions amongst receipts and medicines,
and die while they are conversing with
remedies ?
Then for the law : are not many called to
the grave, while they are preparing for a call
to the bar ? Do they not grapple with knots
aud intricacies, perhaps not so soon dissolved
as theraselves ? Do not their bodies wither
and decay, aud, after a long study of the law,
look like an estate that has passed through a
long suit iu law ?
But, above all, let the divine here challenge
the greatest share ; who, if he takes one in
ten in the profit, I ara sure, may claim nine
in ten in the labour. It is one part of his
business indeed to prepare others for tleath ;

but the toil of his function is like to make the
first experiraent upon hiraself.
People are apt to think this an easy work,
and that to be a divine is nothing else but to
wear black, to look severely, aud to speak
confidently for an hour ; but confidence aud
propriety is not all oue ; aud if we fix but upon
this one part of his eraployraent, as easy as it
seems to be,
Expertus multum sudes, multumque labores.
But the divine's office spreads itself into infi
nite other occasions of labour ; and, in those
that reach the utraost of so great a profession,
it requires depth of knowledge, as well as
heights of eloquence.
To sit and hear is easy, and to censure what
we have heard much easier. But whatsoever
his perforraance is, it inevitably puts us upon
au act of religion ; if good, it invites us to a
profitable hearing ; if otherwise, it inflicts a
short penance, and gives an opportunity to
the virtue of patience.
But, iu sum, to demonstrate and set forth
the divine's labour, I shall but add this, that
he is the only person to whom the whole
econoray of Christianity gives no cessation,
nor allows hira so much as the sabbath for a
day of rest.
III. and lastiy, Kuowledge increases sor
row, in respect of its effects and consequents ;
in three of which I shall give instance :
1st, The first effect of the'increase of know
ledge is an increase of the desire of knowledge.
It is the covetousness of the understandiug,
the dropsy ofthe soul, that drinks itself athirst,
and grows hungry with surfeit and satisfac
tion ; it is the ouly thing iu which reason
itself is irrational.
Now an endless desire does of necessity vex
and torment the person that has it. For
misery and vexation is properly nothing else
but an eager appetite not satisfied.
He that is always a getting, is always look
ing upon himself as in want. And he that is
perpetually desiring to know, is perpetually
thinking of himself ignorant ; namely, in
respect of those things that he desires to
know. In fine, happiness is fruition ; but there is
no fruition where there is a constant desire.
For enjoyraent swallows up desire, and that
which fulfils the expectation also ends it.
But while desire is active and vigorous, and
the raind still a craving and reaching at some
what, it supposes our happiness to be at a
distance ; for no man reaches after what he
has already. '*
The bottomless appetite of knowledge will
not be satisfied, and then we know that sor
row is the certain result and inseparable com
panion of dissatisfaction.
2dly, The second unhappy effect of know.
edge is, that it rewards its followers with the

3.30

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS. Serm. XXXVIII.

miseries of poverty, and clothes thera with
rags. Reading of books consumes the body,
and buying of them the estate.
The raind of mau is a narrow thing, aud
cannot master several employments ; it is
-vvholly employed, whether in the pursuit of
riches, or in the quest of learning, and no
man grew either rich or learned merely by
the diversion of his spare hours.
He therefore that buries his strength, his
thoughts, his opportunities, in a book, can
he possibly be rich, unless Providence itself
should trade for him, the exchange follow
him, and the Indies travel to him ? But
certainly these would be vain expectations.
The east now-a-days affords no such wise men,
that will take a long journey only to make
presents, and to give of their gold and their
treasures. Hence it is that the learned raan and the
philosopher omnia sua secum portat ; he nura
bers no flocks, tells no acres of ground, has no
variety or change of raiment, and is not soli
citous which, but what he shall put on : he
never aspires to any purchase, unless perhaps
of some dead raan's study ; at the same time
buying the relics of another's death and the
instruments of his own.
Hereupon he is put to the worst aud the
most discouraging of .all miseries, which is, to
be beholden and obliged. For what was Aris
totle without his Alexander ? Virgil without
Augustus ? Horace without Mecaenas ? Aud
other poets, like their own wreaths of ivy,
they were always creeping about something
for a support. A scholar without a patron is
insignificant ; he must have something to lean
upon : he is like an unhappy cause, always
depending. We read of the prophet's accommodation
and furniture in the house of the Shunamite,
(2 Kings, iv. 10,) " a little chamber, a table,
a stool, .and a candlestick ;" and perhaps, if
he had lived there for any considerable time,
he would have been reckoned, not so much
one of the inhabitants, as part of the furniture
of the house.
These are the happy effects of study and
knowledge ; aud as most kinds of study hinder
men from getting estates, so there are some
that cannot be undertook without an estate,
nor long pursued without the loss of it. As
for instance ; he that follows chemistry
must have riches to throw away upon the
study of it ; whatever he gets by it, those
furnaces raust be fed with gold. In short, I
will not say, that the study of knowledge
always finds men poor, but sure it is, that it
is seldom or never but it leaves them so.
Sdly, The third fatal effect of knowledge is,
that it makes the person who has it the butt
of envy, the mark of obloquy and contention.
\\ hoever sees another more knowing than
himself, he presently thinks hira areproach to

his understanding ; and although he himself
will not undergo the labour of knowledge, yet
he will not allow another the fame.
Hence come all the jars between learned
men, the invectives and bitter books, the ware
of critics, and the controversies ofthe schools,
all managed with such keenness and virulence,
throwing dirt, and disgorging daggers at one
another's reputation ; for no other injury in
the world, but because the adverse party is
thought to kuow more.
As Grotius, in oue of his poems, speaking of
knowledge, aud the invidiousness of it, not
inelegantly expresses it,
(iuam nil sit illud quod vocamus his scire,
Quo nos superbi toUimus caput cselo.
Calcamus alios, invicemque calcamur.
To trample, and to be trarapled upon, to
write and to be writ against, is the lot of the
learned, the effect of learning, as it lies under
the raalign aspect of a constant eraulatlon.
Now one would think that envy, which
like fire aspires as well as consuraes, and
always soars and strikes high, should not prey
upou a poor, threadbare philosopher.
Yet, if a man ventures but out of the old
road, and atterapts to enlarge the borders of
philosophy by the introduction of some new
method, or the discovery of some unheard ot
invention, some new phenonemena in nature,
what a tragical outcry is presently raised
against hira, all the world pecking at him,
and about his ears I
How are Galileo and Copernicus persecuted,
and Descartes worried by almost every pen!
Dreadful are the censures thundered out
against them, both from the press and the
pulpit, especially by those puny, systematical
theologues, whose philosophy never went
beyond Keckerman, nor their divinity beyond
Wollebius, and who would have all things
new in the church, but nothing in the schools.
Thus must a raan spend his fortune, con
sume his time, and rack his brain, and all to
produce some birth that is like to be devoured
as soon as born ; to have his labours stifled or
trod upon, his knowledge railed down, and
his person exposed to the violence of those
who are never witty but in their malice, nor
extraordinary in any thing but ill behaviour.
And now, if this be our lot, what reraains
for us to determine upon ? Is there no way
to get out of this unhappy dilemraa, but that
we raust needs either dash upon the sorrows
of kuowledge, or the baseness of ignorance ?
Why, yes, there is a fair escape left us ; for
God has not placed mankind uuder a neces
sity either of sin or misery. And therefore,
as to the raatter in hand, it is only to continue
our labour, but to alter the scene of it ; and
to raake hira, that is the great author, also
the subject of our knowledge. For though
there is a vanity, a sorrow, and dissatisfaction
in the knowledge of created, inferior objects,

I --

ON ECCLESIASTES, i. 18.

331

yet we are assured " that it is life etemal to
know God, and whom he has sent, his Son
Christ Jesus."
To which God, the fountain of all true
wisdom and understanding, giving freely to
those that ask, and upbraiding none, be
rendered and ascribed, as is raost due, all praise,
might, majesty, and dominion, both now and
for evermore. Amen.

SERMON XXXIX.

' If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord win not hear me."
Psalm Ixvi. 18.

This Psalm is David's grateful commemo
ration of all God's mercies, together with a
retribution of praise, the only recompense and
return that the poor sons of men are able to
make for divine favours. And David, as
standing in a double relation, first of a king
and public parent, under which he did not
onlj' govern, but represent his people ; and,
secondly, of a saint of God, under which
notion it was his business to regard the pecu
liar interest of his own soul ; so accordingly
he does proportion bis praises to these two
several conditions : first, as he was a public
person and a king, he gives thanks to God for
public mercies ; for he whose duty it was to
love his people as hiraself, it was also his duty
to esteem all mercies shewn to his people, at
a second hand, shewn to himself. And this
he does from the first to the thirteenth verse ;
where he praises God in respect of the glory
of his majesty and the greatness of his power,
which he had often employed iu the miracu
lous deliverance of his people, frora the first
verse to the eighth. Aud then for his raercy
and faithfulness, not only in ridding them out
of adversity, but, by seasonable afflictions,
securing thera from the greater danger of
prosperity : and this he does from the eighth
verse to the thirteenth. And, secondly, as one
of God's saints, so he takes a raore especial
thankful notice of the personal favours that
God had conferred upou hira : and this he
does from the thirteenth verse to the end of
the Psalm. Wherein, for the manner of the
duty, we may observe, that it is praise. As
prayer is an asking or craving, so praise is a
giving and returning ; therefore not only a
spiritual, but a kingly work; and consequently
raost beseeming David, who was in his days
not only the most religious of men, but the
best of kings. And it was that which gave
him no less a preeminence above other saints,
than his crown gave him prerogative over bis
people, that he was a man of praises, of all

others the raost frequent and eamest in this
duty : which, in this sense, excels prayer ;
inasmuch as gratitude is more laudable than
a craving desire. It -was David's best, his
greatest and raost lasting praise, that he
made it his busiuess to praise God. Secondly,
for the raatter of this praise ; it was not things
carnal, as the establishing his crown, and the
enlarging his dorainions, butit was spiritual ;
as in the sixteenth verse, " I will declare what
he has done for my soul."
Now in this acknowledgment of his we
may observe, that the greatest argument of
his praise was the sense of God's gracious
hearing his prayer, as appears from the two
last verses, where in the verse immediately
foregoing, containing the words of ray text,
he insinuates the reason of the success of his
prayers, by shewing what ¦would have
hindered that success. He says, " If he had
regarded iniquity in his heart, God would not
have heard hira ;" therefore he iraplies, that
his integrity, in not regarding it, was the
reason that God did hear him. And thus I
have given you the resolution and model of
the whole Psalm, and therein the occasion of
these words that I have read unto you,
together with the connection they have with
the foregoing and following verses.
The words may be considered two ways :
1st, As they have a peculiar reference to
David and his particular condition ; and so
they are a vehement asseveration of his integ
rity. We read the words thus ; " If I regard
iniquity in ray heart, God will not hear me."
But the Septuagint has it, ^^ iiaxxovaxra fiov
©£o'f ; that is, " let not God hear rae." And
so they are David's avouchment of his upright
ness, by an iraprecation, or calling for a curse
upon hiraself, naraely, God's not hearing his
prayers, in case he was not really so upright,
as in words he did protest hiraself to be.
Thus Job also testifies his integrity in Job
xxxi. 7, 8, " If ray steps have tumed out of
the way, and mine heart walked after mine
eyes, and any blot have cleaved to ray hands ;
then let rae sow, and let another eat." All
this is an earnest protestation of Job's stead
fast walking before God. And thus the words
hold forth a testiraony of David's uprightness ;
and, compared with the following verses, are
not only a testiraony, but a clear proof of it ;
and that in a perfect hypothetical syllogisra.
" If I regard iniquity in ray heart, God will
not hear me :" then it follows in the next
verse, " But verily, God hath heard me :" and
adding the conclusion, "therefore I do uot
regard iniquity in my heart." It araounts to
a full argumentation, proving the sincerity of
David's heart. Here we may note, as David
does evince his integrity from the success of
his prayers, as a sign and consequent of that
integrity ; so the hypocrite, or sinuer, raay
invert the argument, aud collect the future

332

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS. Serm. XXXIX.

unsuccessfulness of all his prayers from his
want of integrity ; and that not only as a
sign, but as the proper cause of that unsuccess
fulness ; in this manner, " If I regard iniquity
in my heart, God will not hear me ;" now
the hypocrite must assurae, "But I regard
iniquity in my heart :" therefore he must also
conclude, " God will not hear me ;" he will
have no respect uuto my prayers. And thus
much concerning the first consideration of
the words.
2dly, The words may be considered abso
lutely in theraselves, and so applicable to all
men. In this sense they are a positive direc
tion laid down iu negative terms, aud pre
scribing the way ofour sincere worship of God.
For interpreters do generally agree, that al
though David in these words intends to attest
his own integrity, yet he does also no less
intend to give meu a rule for the regulation
of their holy worship. For, by telling us
that God does not respect the prayers of those
that regard iniquity in their hearts, he does
intimate, that the acceptation of all our holy
services before God is grounded upon the in
ward, hearty sincerity of our souls ; and
therefore it ought to be our duty, both in
point of reverence to God, aud wisdom for
our own interest, never to engage in any holy
perforraance, without this sincerity, but espe
cially ill prayer, wherein raen have the nearest
address to God ; and consequently, upon their
sincerity, may here chiefly expect a blessing ;
and, upon the want of it, fear a judginent. I
shall consider the words in this latter general
sense ; and so deduce from thera au observa
tion, not much distinct frora the words them
selves : for only by resolving them, as they
lie in supposition, into a positive assertion,
they afford us this doctrine :
" Whosoever regards iniquity in his heart,
the Lord will not hear him."
Or yet raore plainly ;
A raan's regarding or loving any sin in his
heart, will certainly hinder his prayers from
having auy acceptance with God.
In the prosecution of this doctrine, I shall
shew, I. What it is for a man to regard or love siu
in bis heart.
II. What it is to have our prayers accepted
with God.
III. How regarding or loving sin in the
heart, hinders a mau's prayers frora being thus
accepted. I'V. Application.
I. Concerning the first : a man may be
said several ways to love or regard sin in his
heart :
1st, There is a constant and habitual love
of sin in the unregeneracy and corrupt estate
of the soul. For a man, as considered in his
pure, or rather his irapure naturals, has uot
only a strong, but a universal love to sin.

Sin was bom, and lay in the same womb
with every man ; therefore he raust needs
love it as his brother. Now, as union is gene
rally stated the effect of love, therefore, since
the union between sin and our nature is so
close, we may thence also collect, that the
love is very great. Iu this sense sin and the
corruption thereof is styled the flesh, not only
by a metonyray of the subject for the adjunct,
because sin has its place and residence in the
flesh ; but also for the tender love and affec
tion that we bear to it : for .as the apostle
says, (Ephes. v. 29,) " No raan hateth his own
flesh, but nourisheth and cherisheth it ;" and
withal, because we continually carry it about
us. A raan may as well go abroad, and leave
his body and his flesh behind hira, as an un
regenerate mau go any whither not attended
by his sin. It is called sometimes the " body
of sin," and that deservedly, because it is so
nearly united to the soul. The Scripture bas
several expressions, shewing the cursed habi
tual love thiit a natural raan bears to his sin.
Soraetiraes it is called his " right eye," (Matth.
xviii. 9,) than which nothing is raore dear.
God hiraself soraetiraes expresses the great
ness of his love to his children in the s.ame
terras : he regards them as the " apple of his
eye." To have one's eye continually upou
any thing, argues a great love of it ; but to
account it as the eye itself, shews a love more
than ordinary. Elsewhere, sin is called our
"right hand," (Mark, ix. 43,) the meraber of
use and execution ; and therefore most care
fully tendered by man, whose nature it is to
be in continual action. How dear it is, the
comraon expression demonstrates ; we say of
an extraordinary and beloved friend, he is
our right hand. It is also placed and lodged
in the heart, (Jerem. xvii. 9,) wbich in every
siuner, as it is the original of natural life, so
it is the principal and fountain of spiritual
death. Siu, it is the primum vivens, and the
ultimum moriens ; life the heart itself, which
harbours it in every finally irapenitent sinner :
so exceedingly beloved, that raany unregene
rate raen vouchsafe even to live and die with
their sins ; which is the highest pitch of love
iraaginable. Again, (Job, xv. 16,) the wicked
is said " to drink iniquity like water." No
appetite so strong as that of thirst. Hence,
as it is the peculiar distinguishing property of
the godly to " thirst after righteousness,"
(Matt. V. 6,) so it is of the wicked to thirst
after iniquity ; who quenches his present de
sire of sin with the actual coraraission of it ;
as a raan does his thirst, that is, both with
veheraence and delight. It is proper only to
the drunkard to make his drink his sin ; but
it is the nature of every carnal mau (if you
¦will adrait of the expression) to account his
sin as desirable as his drink. But that we
raay yet farther see how a natural raan loves,
tenders, and regards his sin ; there is nothing

ON PSALM Ixvi. 18.

333

dear and lovely to us, but the Spirit of God
expresses sin by that. What more to be
prized than our eyes or hands? What can or
ought to be more dear to us than our heart ?
more desired than our food, or more amiable
thau life? Yet sin, we see, engrosses all the
affections that ought to be distributed amongst
all these. This love is yet raore evident frora
the service a camal raan does for his sin, who
bears rule over hira, frora his own voluntary
subjection. It is the nature of love, where it
is excessive, to enslave a man to the coraraands
of the party whom he loves : as Jacob did for
Rachel, so a wicked raan for his sin ; he will
serve many years for it, aud they shall seem
but a few days, because of the love he bears
to it. What God and nature has bestowed
on man, that, man has raade a full and total
resignation of to sin, to be comraanded, used,
and eraployed by it : the understanding is
busied to contrive iniquity ; the senses to pur
vey and bring iu provender for it, in the re
presentation of sinful objects ; the will to
comraand and govern in the name of sin ; the
outward powers and members to execute those
commands : so that the whole frame and struc
ture of man is principled, and, as it were,
even animated by siu : for first, it has gene
ral rule and possession of all the faculties ;
and, secondly, of all the actions that flow from
those faculties. And theu, for the perpe
tuity and constant course of those actions.
Gen. vi. 5, " they are sinful continually," and
without any intermission. In short, he that
regards iniquity in his heart, in this habitual
way, he so regards it as he neither does or cau
regard any thiug else. For the force and ac
tivity of raan's raind is a liraited force ; and
as it is with our attention, so it is also with
our love, it cannot be veheraent and intense
at the same time upon two different objects.
Now, from what has been said, it follows, that
iu this raanner a regenerate person cannot
love or regard sin ; and all unregenerate do.
2dly, There is a regarding of siu in the
heart, that cousists in an unraortified habit or
course of sin : this is much different from the
former, because even a child of God may thus
regard sin, from the relics of corrupt nature,
fired aud stirred up by Satan's temptations ;
for the model of a regenerate state is, like that
of the body, raixed and corapounded of con
trary principles, grace aud corruption, as that
is of contrary elements. And as the elements,
in the composure of the body, have their
qualities allayed and refracted ; so these habits
of grace and corruption, as they are in a re
generate soul, are not in their utraost degree
aud extreraity. For if grace were in its full
height and latitude, there could be no corrup
tion ; wbich is a bliss rather to be wished for,
than ever enjoyed in this life. And, on the
other hand, if corruption were in its full ex
tent or degree, there could he no grace, aud

so no regeneration. For it is the nature of
contraries, that one arising to its highest pitch,
does, by consequence, expel aud devour the
other. Wherefore grace and corruption are
joined and conterapered in a believing soul,
frora wbich conjunction arises a possibility of
the entertainment of sinful habits and disposi
tions, even in the regenerate, though not such
as are found iu the unregenerate : in the one,
they defile indeed and pollute ; in the other,
they prevail and doraiueer : in the one, they
separate from the sense of God's love ; iu the
other, they take away all interest in it. Now,
that there may be such sinful dispositions or
habits in believers may be evinced.
1st, From exaraple. When David had com
mitted that gross sin of raurder aud adultery,
if we corapute the tirae frora his sin to his
repentance, which was dated from Nathan's
coming to him, we shall find that he con
tinued in it for the space of a year. Now we
must know, every intense and vehement
action leaves a suitable disposition behind it
upou the faculty, whicb, if seconded by actions
of the same kind, or uot weakened and de
stroyed by actions of a contrary nature, it
daily gathers strength, aud gets root and fixa
tion in the mind, till it at length becomes a
sinful habit, very difficultly to be reraoved.
So that David, after the commission of so
great a sin, must needs have had a farther |
inclination to it left upon his spirit, which,
by reason also of the compliance it found with
his natural corruption, daily grew raore and
more fixed ; for, although he did not reiterate
it by other external actions, yet by his in
ternal desires and approbations he did increase
and confirm it ; for it canuot be iraagined but
.that he entertained those approbations of it
as long as he deferred his repentance. Here
upon he found the work of repentance so
hard, and his sin so hardly moveable, wheu
he set about the penitent removal of it ; so
that he cries, (Psalm xxxviii. 6,) " My wounds
stiuk and are corrupt by reason of my foolish
ness." A wound imraediately cured, soon
after it was given, cannot stink or grow noi
some. It is clear, theu, that David was not
ouly guilty of sin, but also of continuance
in siu ; who, notwithstanding he was a son
of God, and truly regenerate, yet had his
heart overrun with a siuful habit and disposi
tion. 2dly, It may be proved frora Scripture-
reason, which is grounded upon those exhor
tations that are there made even to believers
for the mortification of sin ; as peculiarly, that,
(Rom. viii. 13,) the apostle exhorts even those
to mortify the deeds of the flesh, who were
tmly ingrafted into Christ ; for they were
such as, he said, in the first verse, " were
justified ;" such, to " whora there was no con
demnation :" also he bids theni raortify sin
" by the Spirit ;" but the Spirit is to be fouud

334

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Skum. XXXIX.

in none but the regenerate. Now to mortify
sin, is uot properly to forbear one or many
sinful actions, but it is the weakening or de
stroying a course or habit of sin. Comparing
therefore the n.ature of the duty with the
qualification of the persons to whora it was
enjoined, the apostle must seem to insinuate
a possibility that even believers may be en
tangled and overtook in a sinful course.
This therefore is the second kind of regard
ing sin in the heart ; and the soul may thus
love or regard sin two ways :
1st, Directiy, and by a positive pursuance
of it ; as the following of one action by an
other ; the backing of one sinful deed by a
greater ; when sin reigns by a cursed kind of
succession ; when one wicked action expires,
another presently succeeds.
2dly, Indirectiy, and by not attempting a
vigorous mortification of it. In the forraer
sense, we cherish sin by giving it food ; in this
second, by not taking that which it has away.
Not to resist sin, and that by an indefatigable
watching, striving, and praying against it, is
to love it. He that does not attempt the
utter ruin and death of it, does not hate it :
for hatred, no less than love, is an active
restless quality, and cannot quiet itself, but in
the destruction of the thing it hates. Can
there be hatred, where there is agreement ?
Can we banish sin from our hearts, and yet
hold it in our bosoras ? He that is not against
his sin, in a lively resistance, is for it in his
affections. He that does not oppose the
terapter, invites hira. He that hinders not
the occasion of his sin, tacitly wishes the event.
" Q,ui non prohibet cuin debet, iniperat."
What raortification of sin is, in the nature,
causes, and means of it, is uot my present
business to discourse ; but let it suffice to note
thus much, that it is a steady, thorough course
of repentance and severe humiliation : and he
that does not, by a continual rigid exercise of
these duties, by hacking at the root of siu,
bears a secret longing to the fruit.
And thus much of this second kind of love
to sin ; which consists in the cherishing au
unmortified lust.
Sdly, There is yet another kind of regarding
sin in the heart, and that is, by an actual in
tention of the mind upou sin ; " If I regard
iniquity :" the Latin renders it, " Si aspexis-
sem iniquitatem," If I did behold, if I cast a
gracious aspect upon sin. True it is, that the
most sincere, if th^ look upon their heart,
must also look upon sin ; but then they view
it .another way: the wicked look upon it with
an eye of complacencyand delight ; the sincere,
with an eye of hatred and detestation. The
same sin, in a wicked aud a godly eye, has
a contrary hue ; as the same colour, through
different glasses, is conveyed under a different
represeiit.ation. Novv, to look upon, signifies
to be intent upon ; the actions of the eye, by

an easy metaphor, signifying the intention of
the mind. Interpreters, in their expositions
upon this place, unanimously run this way ;
"Si aspexissem iniquit.atem ;" that is, "si
prava intentione illam depreoatus fuissem,"
says one ; " Aspicere iniquitatem est peccato
intentum esse et addictum," says .another; or,
as Mollerus has it, " Cura proposito perseve-
randi iu delicto contra conscieutiara ;" to
regard iniquity in our heart, is to address
ourselves to God in prayer, with a purpose
or intention of persevering in some sin, con
demned and disallowed by our own con
science. And it is added, " iu the heart," to
shew how littie the outward duty avails,
without inward uprightness. We may have
clean hands, and yet a foul heart ; that is, be
free from the external commission of sin, yet
defiled with the desires of it. We may regard
it in our minds and intentions, while we
declare against it in our professions ; where
fore these ought chiefly to be rectified. Hav
ing thus shewn that there are three several
w.ays of loving or regarding sin, 1 conceive
the words are to be understood principally in
this last sense, though not exclusively to the
former ; for it implies and takes them in, a
fortiore. For if the actual intention of siu
will hinder our prayers from being accepted,
then much more a siuful disposition, or
wicked course, as long as cherished and cou-
tinued in : and if a siuful disposition disannnl
our prayers, then much more a state of unre
generacy. We may look upon these three
under this diff'erence : The purpose or inten
tion of sin differs frora a sinful disposition in
respect of the duration and continuance of it.
It is confessed, a sinful intention may be im
proved into a sinful course; but, considered
as such, it iraplies no more than a bare inten
tion ; and, if cast off by an immediate repen
tance, it will be no more. Next, a siuful dis
position differs frora a state of unregeneracy,
inasmuch .as the precise nature of it neither
implies prevalence, nor a graceless condition
of the party in whom it is, both of which are
absolutely iraplied in the other.
I have now done with the first general
head, namely, to shew what it is to regard
iniquity in the heart. I proceed to the
Second, which is to shew, what it is to have
our prayers accepted with God : and this is to
prevail with God for the obtaining the good
thing we desire, by virtue of an interest in
Jesus Christ, and in the covenant of grace :
this is clear, from that general received truth,
that the acceptance of our praj'ers is founded
upon the acceptation of our persons: and this,
we know, is from .an interest in Christ: here
upon Christ teaches his disciples the way of
making their prayers successful, (John, xvi.
24,) " Whatsoever ye ask the Father in ray
name, he will give it you ;" that is, what you
ask, upou the score of that title and interest

ON PSALM Ixvi. 18.

335

that you have in my merits. If it here be
excepted, that although he indeed prescribes
asking in his narae, as a me.aus of having our
prayers granted, yet he does not exclude other
means. I answer ; that by coraraanding us so
frequently to ask in his narae, he does iraply,
that there is no other way of asking aright,
so as to speed in the things we request ; for if
there was sorae other way, this exhortation
were of little or uo force. Hence, in Rev.
viii. 3, we read of incense that was raingled
and offered with the prayers of the saints; by
which incense is meant the sweet savour of
the meritorious sufferings of Christ, which
alone was able to give virtue and value to
those prayers vvhich of theraselves had none.
And thus, b}' shewing what it is to have our
prayers accepted, by the same is also manifest,
who they are who have their prayers thus
accepted ; namely, those alone who have a
portion in him ; who cau uot only ask of his
Father, but also demand an answer for them ;
who cau take -what comes from our polluted
lips, and perfume it with the incense of his
own merits. I shall farther assert and prove
this truth, by reraoving some objections,
which will naturally arise from what has
been already said.
Objection. If the acceptance of our prayers
bears upon the foundation of our interest in
Christ, whence then is it that God hears the
prayers of the wicked, who are void of all
such interest ? as particularly appears iu Ahab,
a sinner of the first magnitude, no where
mentioned in Scripture but with sorae distin
guishing mark of impiety ; yet, upon the
intervention of his prayer and humiliation,
God repeals a judgraent denounced against
hira, and, from his owu days, translates it to
his son. I answer ; that God, indeed, often
seconds the prayers ofthe wicked witha bless
ing ; but he does not give the blessing with
any respect to their prayers, as the procuring
cause of that blessing. But it raay be replied ;
that neither are the prayers of the righteous
any way a raeritorious and procuring cause of
any good thing from God ; since the raost
exact of our endeavours are tainted with ira
perfection ; so that, after all, we have cause to
sit down as unprofitable servants. I answer ;
that the prayers of the righteous are not the
procuring cause of any blessing, by virtue of
any inherent merit in thera ; but by virtue
of the free covenant aud proniise of God, who
has engagerl, upon the fervent and unfeigned
prayers of the faithful, to grant their requests.
But if it be farther urged, that God says,
" Because Ahab hurabled hiraself, I will not
bring the evil threatened in his days," ( 1
Kings, xxi. 29,) therefore it seems that Ahab's
prayer had a causal influence as to the pro
curement of that merciful reprieve ; to this I
answer, that such expressions as signify cau
sality are often applied to those things that

are only occasions of suoh events. And so it
is here : Ahab's humiliation was no ways a
procuring cause of that mercy ; neither by
auy meritorious virtue residing in it, for the
prayers of the wicked merit nothing but a
deni.al ; nor yet by any virtue that it has
from auy covenant made by God, who is so
far from making any proraise of hearing the
prayers of the wicked, that he has expressly
promised that he will not hear them. It was
therefore only an occasion of this mercy ; that
is, the mercy so depended upon it, as, if that
humiliation had not been, he had never en
joyed the mercy ; however, it was no cause of
the raercy, neither deserving uor procuring.
As for instance : if a rich man engage to re
lieve sorae beggars, upon their coraing to his
door and asking : although this their beggarly
address has uo value in it to merit a reward,
yet, by virtue of the rich man's promise and
engagement, they may challenge it : now, if
he give the like alms to other beggars, to
' whom he had made no such promises, only
upon their importunity ; this their importu
nity does here, neither deserve, nor can chal
lenge an alms ; yet it may be said properly to
occasion it, inasmuch as, if it had not been
for this, they had gone without it. And thus,
I think it is clear, that God raay bestow upon
the wicked the matter they pray for, and yet
not hear their prayers ; that he may grant
thera, and yet never accept them. And let
me add another thing, that discriminates the
prayers of the wicked from those of the faith
ful ; that although God often gives them the
thing they desired, yet he never gives it with
an intent of mercy. Thus he gave the Israel
ites quails, but withal sent leanness into their
bones. He so gives the thing, as he still
withholds the blessing. When we are irapor
tuned by any one for something against our
will, we at length cast it to hira with anger :
so I raay say, God, being wearied with the
restless, importunate cravings of a sinner, does
not so rauch give, as rather angrily throw an
outward blessing at him, whose very prayer is
a sin ; for what is it but a kind of extortion
towards God himself! What we usually say
amongst ourselves in ceremony, that is here
verified in respect of God ; that in all his
bounty, not so much the substance of the gift,
as the raind of the giver, is to be valued and
regarded: yea, as God may, and often does
deny sorae of the prayers of the righteous,
out of love and raercy ; so, out of anger and
judgment, he giants the prayers of the wicked;
whose very petitions are oftentiraes their seve
rest indictment ; and their most devout re
quests may be interpreted into au impreca
tion. It may be objected, if those that are in a
state of sin regard iniquity in their heart, how
then is it possible to get out of that estate ?
for how can they do it but by addressing

336

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS. Serm. XXXIX.

theraselves to God ? and how can they address
theraselves unto God but by prayer? and we
have already shewn, that the condition they
are in renders their prayers ineffectual.
To this I answer ; that iu their first serious
resolution and purpose to turn to God, they
pass from the state of sinners into the state of
the penitent, aud are such in God's account ;
aud so, consequently, there isa change of their
condition. For although it cannot be said,
that they have repented, yet they are then
repenting ; though, like the prodigal, they
are not corae horae to their heavenly Father,
yet they are upon their journey. We must
know repentauce has several acceptions : it
may be either taken for the change and altera
tion of the corrupt qualities of our nature,
and so it is the same with sanctification, and
follows faith, as the effect does its cause ; aud
in this sense a wicked man, in his present
estate, is not iinraediately capable of repen
tance. Secondly, repentance may be taken
for a sincere alteration of a man's sinful
purposes and intentions ; and so it precedes
faitii ; and a wicked man ought and raay
repent ; it is a duty immediately incumbent
upon him in order to his salvation. Although,
when I say a wicked man may repent, and
thereupon his prayers be acceptable to God ;
we must distinguish between the instant
immediately going before his repentance, in
respect of which only he is to be terraed
wicked ; and the instant of his repentance, in
respect of which he is becorae another raan.
In the sarae sense, therefore, that the wicked
may be said to repent, they may be said to
have their prayers and services accepted ; that
is, the wicked antecedently so taken, (and,
as they speak, in sensu diviso,) to wit, before
the instant of their repentance, not concomi
tantly, and in sensu composito; the wicked as
such, and while he is such, can neither repent
nor pray, nor have any audience or acceptance
at the throne of grace.
Aud thus much concerning the second
general head, naraely, to shew what it is to
have our prayers accepted with God. I proceed
now to the
Third thing, to shew whence it is that a
man's regarding or loving sin in his heart
hinders his prayers from acceptance with God.
1st, The first reason is, because in this case
he cannot pray by the Spirit. All prayers
that are acceptable with God are the breath
ings of his own Spirit within us. Rom. viii.
26, " We know not what we should pray for
as we ought ; but the Spirit itself maketh
intercession for us with sighs and groans th.at
cannot be uttered." As without the interces
sion of Christ we cannot have our pr.ayers
accepted, so without the intercession of the
Spirit we cannot pray. No prayers can find
the way to heaven, but such as first come
from thenco. Every sincere prayer, it is a

beam of the sun of righteousness darted into
our hearts, and from thence reflecting back
again. But now, as long as sin and the love
of it has dominion in the soul, the Spirit of
God is silent ; for as prevailing corruption
and the Spirit cannot cohabit together, so
neither can thev work together. The motions
of sin and of the Spirit ofteu struggle in the
same heart, as Pharez and Zarah did in the
sarae worab, (Gen. xxxviii. 29) ; the motions
of the Spirit put forth their hand, but those
of sin prevailing, they drew it back again, and
sin comes out first. Wherefore, if any one
bears a love and liking to sin, let him never
expect to have his prayer accepted, till sin
and the Spirit concur in the sarae petition.
2dly, The second reason is, because as long
as a man regards iniquity in bis heart, he
cannot pray in faith ; that is, he cannot build
a rational confidence upon any proraise that
God will accept hira. Now faith always
respects the promise, and promise of accept
ance is made only to the upright : so long,
therefore, as men cherish a love of sin in their
heart, they either understand uot the promises,
and so they pray without understanding ; or
they understand them, and yet misapply them
to themselves, and so they pray in presump
tion : in either case they have little cause to
hope for acceptance. This reason naturally
issues from the forraer ; for whosoever prays
not in the Spirit prays uot in faith ; and every
prayer raade in faith is also indited by the
Spirit ; only with this distinction, that in
every such prayer the Spirit is the principal
agent, and faith the instrumental. Here we
may observe, that faith may be either taken
for 'the habit and seed of faith, or for the act
and exercise of that h.abit. Now the unre
generate man has not so much as the habit
or principle of faith, and so upon no ha,nd can
have his prayers accepted ; and he that is truly
regenerate, and endued with this principle,
yet while he is entangled with the love of
sin, cannot act nor exercise that principle,
and so neither can his prayers be acceptable.
Faith causes the soul fiducially aud strongly
to rely and cast itself upon God in prayer :
love to sin causes the soul to depart and fly
offfrora God. Faith clears up the evidence
of our title to the proraises ; love to sin
(although we have a title to the proraises by
conversion) yet it slurs and takes away the
evidence ; and wheu this is gone, we cannot
pray with any life and vigour. But to mani
fest farther the nature of a wicked raan's
prayer not acted by faith, see Bora. xiv. 23,
"Whatsoever is not of faith is sin." No
wonder, therefore, if that which is a sin, and
so consequently deserves a curse, canuot
prevail for the obtaining a blessing.
Objection. But it may be objected, if during
the tirae of our regard aud love to integrity,
our prayers (as not proceeding frora faith) .

-A

ON PSALM, Ixvi. 18.

337

are sins, then it is our duty not to pray, since
it is the duty of all meu to forbear sin.
I answer ; that this consequence is very
unreasonable, inasmuch as omission of prayer-
is of its own nature a sin, and that a greater.
And for that maxim, that it is the duty of
all to forbear sin, it is to be understood of
those actions, that in their own kind and
nature are sins, not of those that are such by
accident, and the defect of some circumstance ;
in which case the defect is to be amended,
aud not the action to be omitted. Now prayer
of itself and in its nature is good, aud becomes
sinful only from some adherent corruption
which derives a tincture and defileraent upon
it ; wherefore it ought to be our business to
endeavour the removal of this corruption,
which weakens, pollutes, aud defiles our
prayers, and not to cease from prayer itself.
And thus much for the second reason.
Sdly, The third reason is, because while we
T^^ard iniquity in our hearts we cauuot pray
with fervency ; which, next to sincerity, is
the great qualification of prayer, to which
God has annexed a promise of acceptance,
(Matth. xi. 12,) " The kingdom of heaven suf
fers violence, and the violent alone take it by
force." (Matth. vii. 7,) " Those only that seek
are like to find, and those that knock, to have
admittance ;" all which expressions denote
vehemence and importunity. Now the cause
of vehemence in our prosecution of any good,
is our love of it ; for proportionable to the
afiection we bear to any thing is the earnest
ness of our desires, and the diligence of our
pursuit after it. So long therefore as the love
of sin possesses our hearte, our love to spiritual
things is dull, heavy, inactive, and our prayers
for them mnst neei be answerable. O the
wretched fallacy that the soul will here put
upon itself ! At the same time, it will love
its sin, and pray against it ; at the sarae time,
it will entreat for grace, with a desire uot to
prevail : as a father confesses of himself, that
before his conversion he wonld pray for
chastity, with a secret reserve in his wishes,
that God would not grant his prayer. Snch
are the mysterious, intricate treacheries, by
which the love of sin will make a soul deceive
and circumvent itself. How languidly and
fiiintly will it pray for spiritual merely, con
science in the meanwhile giving the lie to
every such petition ! The soul, iu this cise,
canuot pray against siu in eamest ; it fights
i against it, but neither with hope nor intent
I to conquer ; as lovers, usually, in a game one
'. agaiust another, -with a desire to lose. So
then, while we r^;ard iniquity, how is it
i possible for us to regard spiritual things, the
! ouly lawful object of our prayers? and if we
' regard them not, how can we be urgent with
God for the giving of them? and where there
I is uo fervency ou our part, no wonder if thero
• is uo answer on God's.
VOL. II.

And thus much concerning the reasons,
why love to sin hinders the acceptance of our
prayers : they would both admit and deserve
a larger handling ; but I pass to the applica
tion : which shall be only a use of exhorta
tion to all, that in their prayers they would
endeavour to come with hearts free from
hypocrisy and the love of sin ; and, from
what has been said, raake that couclusiou
that Paul did, (2 Tira. ii. 19.) " Let every
one that nameth the name of Christ" (espe
cially in prayer) " depart from iniquity."
The prayer will still savour of that which lies
in the heart ; as the putrefaction of the inward
parts gives a noisoraeness to the breath. God,
that would not let David, because he had
made great wars, and shed much blood, build
him a temple, if thou carriest blood and
revenge iu thy lieart, will uot let thee worship
in his teraple. It was an excellent speech
that Horaer puts into the mouth of Hector,
in the sixth Iliad ; aud, spokeu by a Christian
to the true God, from a principle of faith,
might savour of good diviuity. When he
comes from the fight, aud being entreated by
his mother to sacrifice to the gods ; " No,"
says he ;
XE^Ci S' etrifTTUFi A*i Xii|3E/F etiflsfl-a •.»«»
" I dread to sacrifice to the gods with un
washed hands ;" how much more should the
Christian, to the true God, with an unwashed
heart; "for," says he," it is not decent orfitting
for a warrior, besmeared with blood and dirt,
to present his supplication to God." God has
declared himself a jealous God, and will be
worshipped iu truth : but, as long as we have
holiness in our tongue, and sin iu our heart,
we worship him with a lie ; and let none
think, (as Jacob did from his father) so from
God also, to extort a blessing with a lie. He
that nnder the law, for the most part, was
worshipped with the offering of lambs, will,
in the gospel-worship, dispense with our
bringing them, so we bring their innocence.
To press this duty of sincerity iu our wor
ship, we may take these two motives :
1st Motive. By praying to God with
insincere, sin-regarding hearts, we incur the
certain frustration of all our prayers. And
sure, to rational men, that propose to them
selves an eud in all their actions, it should be
sorae trouble to raake long prayers, and to
be answered with nothing but disappoint
ment : to offer a sacrifice, like Cain, and for
God to have no respect to their sacrifice :
" Maguo eonatu nihil agere ;" in much labour
andpains to traffick with heaven for a nothing.
This is the end of all hypocritical prayers ;
they are ouly empty -words, and accordingly
they vanish into wind.
2d Motive. In such prayers we are not ouly
certain not to gain a blessing, but also we
y

338

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Skrm. XL.

incur the danger of a heavy curse. He that
coraes to the wedding without a wedding
garraent, is not only like to miss of the feast,
but also to be cast into a prison. If the
leprosy of sin cleaves to thy head, God has
forbid thee to enter the congregation. If lust
lies burning in thy heart, if pride lies swelling
in thy bosom, beware and stand off : God has
commanded, if auy such beast dare approach
his holy mountain', that he should be struck
through. And he will certainly do it ; for he
has made ready the sword and arrows of his
vengeance for the sarae purpose. Jacob's
arguraent to his mother was good, that if his
father should discern his fraud, he should not
only not gain a blessing, but also bring a curse
upon himself, (Gen. xxvii. 12.) So when a
hypocrite makes his false, yet specious ad
dresses to his heavenly Father for a blessing,
God raay say to him. Thy voice indeed is the
voice of a holy Jacob, but thy heart is the
heart of a profane Esau ; and accordingly he
will curse him, and he sliall be cursed. And
no wonder ; for to engage in prayer, while
the heart goes a-whoring after sin, what is it
else, but to delude and mock the great God !
And God has said, that he will uot be raocked :
he will not endure to have a hypocrite come
and affront him to his face ; if we pray only
in a raockery, God will curse and punish iu
earnest. If the heart be torn from the body,
it becomes a dead body ; and the heart, sepa
rated frora the prayer, makes a dead prayer :
and we know, as our Saviour says, " God is
not a God of the dead, but of the living."
Better one sigh and broken expression, with
sincerity, than the most long, accurate, and
elaborate prayer, with hypocrisy. " Gratior
est qui deorum delubris, purani castamque
raentem, quara qui meditatum carmen intule-
rit." A man that is iu conspiracy against his
king, and knows that his king understands
his conspiracy, would he dare come and pre
sent with a petition ? He that is in love and
league with sin is a traitor and conspirator
agaiust God ; aud, had he the same dread of
hira that he has of an earthly prince, he
would know, that lu such a case it is death
to corae into his presence. When sorae formal
hypocrites set upou this duty, with their eyes
turned up, and some forced tears, not having
their hearts at all affected with the sense of
that which they pretend to ; if we consider
the vileness of the affrout, aud the infinite
majesty of God that is so affronted, it is an
arguraent of his inconceivable raercy and for
bearance, that such are not struck dead iu the
place. But, to direct us how to pray -with since
rity, I shall only give this rule : before you
enter upon prayer, endeavour to prepare your
hearts by a thorough aud a strict exaraina
tion. This, if any thing, will clear the coast.
Sift yourselves by exaraining, as Satan does

by tempting. Search and shake every corner
of your heart. Ransack every passage of your
life. Believe it, if auy oue unraortified lust,
one cursed action lies undiscerned, he will
trouble the peace of the whole soul. Whoso
ever therefore is conscious to hiraself of any
regard or love that he bears to his iniquity,
aud shall yet venture to make an offering of
prayer to God ; let such a one " leave his gift
upou the altar, and go and reconcile himself
to God," in the blood of Jesus Christ ; and
first sacrifice his siu, and then corae and offer,
and the sacrifice of his prayer shall be ac
cepted. To whora, therefore, be rendered and as
cribed, as is most due, all praise, might,
majesty, and dominion, both now and for
evermore. Amen.

SERMON XL.

' God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things."
I John, iii. i

God, the creator of all things, an object
fitter for our adoration, than our curious, but
yet weak inquiries, is infinite in his being,
and so consequently not to be comprehended
by our finite understandings ; yet, since he is
pleased to comraand us to worship him, which
we cannot rationally do, unless in some mea
sure we kuow him ; he is therefore also
pleased to aid our weak conceptions, by seve
ral expressions of himself, which we call
attributes ; as, that he is just, wise, merciful,
aud the like : all which, according to tho
comraon notions that raen have of justice,
wisdora, and mercy, are uot strictiy and pro
perly to be found in God ; so that, indeed,
these words, as by us applied to him, rather
testify our reverential desires of honouring
hira, than at all express his nature. For our
words expressing only those ideas and images
of things in the mind, all which were con
veyed thither through the senses, it is impos
sible they should properly express the nature
of God, which was never comprehended by
the short reach of our senses ; and therefore
they could not report auy representation of
him to the mind, which might afterwards be
expressed in words. And thus, by natural
ratiocination, I gather, that these words, just,
righteous, and merciful, do not indeed exactly
signify the nature and being of God. It is
the prerogative of his essence not only to sur
pass the ken of sense, but also to nonplus the
most accurate and sagacious discourses of
reason. He laughs at the bold aud laborious
atterapts of our understandings, in compre
hending hira : and, by his excessive bright-

ON 1 JOHN, iii. 20.

339

ness, wards off the eyes of the beholder, and
(as we raay say, by a seeming contradiction,
but a real truth) is like the sun, too visible to
be seen. And shall we, then, poor mortals,
think ourselves able to express what we are
not so much as able to conceive? And, if
our thoughts take in a larger compass and
latitude than our expressions, (for who is it
that canuot think more than he speaks ?)
then, certainly, if we cauuot reach his essence
by onr most elevated thoughts, rauch less can
we do it by our words. But the same is
farther deraonstrable frora the difference of
righteousness, raercy, and power, properly so
called, from any thing that is in God. For
these are all qualities inherent in the soul of
man, by virtue whereof he is enabled to act.
For the soul being unable of itself, and by its
bare substance, to advance into action, there
are requisite therefore these certain qualities,
by the instruraental mediation of which, it
raay exert its several operations. So that the
soul, without its respective faculties and quali
ties to act by, is like an artificer without his
tools : but now it is far otherwise with Al
mighty God in his workings, whose actions
iramediately stream frora his essence, without
the auxiliary intervention of any being dis
tinct frora himself. Whereupon it raust be
granted, that these things, justice, mercy, &c.
exist not of themselves, but as they are
shouldered and propped up by the subject in
which they are ; and therefore are iraperfect
beings, and so not properly to be found in God,
whoso very nature it is to be perfect. And
furtherraore, as they are always distinct from
the essence in which they are, we thence also
collect that they are not in God, who is an
indivisible, absolute, and uncompounded be
ing, in whom there is nothing to be found but
what is really himself. But it may be said,
if these things are so, that righteousness, jus
tice, aud mercy are uot really and properly
iu God ; whence is it that the Scripture so
often attributes these things to hira ? I answer,
in this, as in many other things, it speaks
according to the raanner of raen. In the
sarae sense it attributes hands, eyes, aud ears
to God, uot really, but raetaphorically ; that
by the things we see, we may, in some mea
sure, apprehend him that is invisible. In
short, therefore, righteousness, justice, and
mercy, are attributed, not according to the
reality of the things theraselves, but by the
analogy of their effects. The raeaning is this :
God is called merciful, because some of his
actions bear a proportion to those that men
exercise from a principle of mercy ; and
powerful, because sorae of his actions have a
sirailitude to those that meu exercise from a
principle of power : and so of the rest. Sorae
say the like of his decrees ; who affirm, that
God can no more properly be said to decree a
thing, than to foreknow it, to whom all things

are present. Now, according to the sense of
these men, God is said to decree, because sorae
of his actions have a likeness to such actions,
as men produce under a decree or resolution.
But I forbear, since I ara afraid that I have
gone too far in these notions already. But
being, in ray subsequent discourse, to insist
upon one of the attributes of God, I thought
it convenient to premise something of them
in general.
"We find mention of them all in Scripture,
and peculiarly the words which I have at pre
sent read to you, clearly hold forth his orani
science, or infinite knowledge. The words
are plain, and need uo explication ; therefore
I shall forthwith draw this doctrine from
them, not much different from the words
themselves, namely.
That God is an all-knowing God.
This may seem a principle, and therefore
not to be doubted, and consequently needless
to be proved. But he that has looked into
controversy, and especially those two which
are now the most considerable, the Arrainian
and Socinian, will fiud that their grand fal
lacy, their ¦x-p^Tou i^iuios, is founded upon
their erroneous stinting of God's knowledge :
but the first of these especially, who affirra,
that God's knowledge, in respect of contin
gent futures, is only conditional, that is, God
does not absolutely foreknow that such things
will corae to pass ; but upou supposal that
such and such causes meet with such and such
circurastances, then he knows such things will
follow. But now, if God does not absolutely
and certainly kuow every contingent future,
it follows, that he does not absolutely will and
decree it ; for whatsoever he wills, he also
knows ; and if God does not will the future
existence of it, whence comes it to exist?
Certainly uot from God, but from itself ; for
if God hereafter vouchsafes a productive influ
ence to the actual producing of a thing con
tingent, which we now suppose future, (which
God must do, or cease to be the first cause of
all thiugs ;) I say, if God vouchsafes his power
to give it existence, it follows, that he wills
the production and existence of it at that
tirae ; for God wills a thing before- he does
it : and it also follows, that if he wills it at
that time, he always willed and decreed it
before : for to affirm that God wills the exist
ence of a thing contingent, then in the pro
ducing of it, which before, while it was yet
future, he did not will or decree ; this is to
make a new act of willing, which is an im
manent act, aud therefore not distinct from
God, to begin in time ; that is, to raake some
thing that is the sarae with God, to be in God
now, which was not iu him before : which is
hugely absurd, if not blasphemous. Thus we
see the denial of God's absolute, certain fore
knowledge of all things, raakes the existence
of many of them entirely independent upon

340

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Sbhm. XL.

God, and totally from themselves ; which is
indeed to make him an idle epicurean God,
and to deify them. And herein lies the ab
omination of asserting God's knowledge in
respect of any thing conditional. As for the
next opinion, Socinus endeavouring to assert
the freedom of man's will in the highest, aud
observing that God's absolute, certain fore
knowledge did lay an antecedent necessity
upou all men's actions as to their event, he
makes short and thorough work, and utterly
denies his prescience. " Animadvertendum
est infallibilem istara Dei prsenotionem, quara
pro re concessa adversarii sumunt, a nobis non
admitti," Socin. Prcelect. cap. viii. And that
he might not seem to blaspheme without some
reason, he says, as God, though he is orani
poteut, cannot yet do those things that iraply
a contradiction ; so, though he is omniscient,
he cannot know things, the knowledge of
which iraplies the sarae absurdity ; which, he
says, will follow in asserting that God has a
certain infallible knowledge of those thiugs,
which iu theraselves are uncertain and con
tingent. And thus we see, that although
God's omniscience be indeed a principle, and
therefore ought to be granted : yet since it is
thus controverted and denied, it is no less
needful to be proved.
In the prosecution of this, I shall
I. Prove the proposition, and th.at both by
Scripture and reason.
II. I shall shew the excellency of this
kuowledge of God, beyond the knowledge of
men or angels.
III. From the consideration of that excel
lency, I shall deduce something by way of
inference aud application.
I. And first, for the proof of it, and that
from Scripture. In John, xxi. 17, Peter says
to Chrst, " Lord, thou knowest all things ;
thou knowest that I love thee." Divines do
here generally acknowledge, that in these
words Peter makes a confession of the deity
of Christ, which could not be inferred, unless
there was a necessary connection between the
divine nature and the power of knowing all
things ; for in this consists the strength of
Peter's argument, proving Christ to be God ;
in this he ascribes a property to him that
agrees only to God : as Christ elsewhere
proves hiraself to be really a man, by assum
ing those properties to himself which are
inseparably inherent in man's uature. Au
other Scripture proving the same truth is that
of Heb. iv. IS, " All things are naked and
open unto the eyes of him with whom we
have to do ;" that is, (by a metaphor,) to his
understanding, which, by reason of the quick
ness and spirituality of this sense, is often
expressed by " an eye," and knowing by
" seeing :" so that the words import thus
much, that God most clearly discerns and
knows all things and actions, as the eye

manifestly beholds those objects tliat are
fully presented to its view. There are many
other places in Scripture that richly hold forth
God's omniscience, but in a point so evident,
these two may suffice.
Our secondproof is from reason ; and here
our first argument shall be drawn from his
works of creation and providence. It is
impossible that he that made all things should
not also know all things. Who is it that
cauuot readily acknowledge and read his own
hand ? What artificer is there that does not
presently • know aud distinguish his own
work? In all rational agents, before every
action there is presupposed a knowledge of
the thing that is to be produced by that
action. So that if we grant (as I suppose none
denies) that God is the •maker of all things,
that every creature dropped into the world
through his hands, we cannot be so absurd ss
to deny him a distinct knowledge of those
things, which with his own finger he made
aud fashioned. Next, his providence suf
ficiently declares his omniscience : if he
manages, rules, and governs .all things, yea
sin itself, sometiraes by permitting, sometimes
by limiting or preventing, other times by
punishing it, it clearly follows, that he has
full cognizance of those thiugs, since all these
acts presuppose knowledge.
Now, from the consideration of this attri
bute, since it is our duty to be like our
heavenly Father, let us endeavour also to
resemble liiin in knowledge. As it is the
perfection of God to know all things, so it is
the excellency of man to know any thing
aright. Ignorance, it is the dishonour ofour
nature ; and he that continues in it, what
does he but erect a certain kingdom of dark
ness in his soul ? But of all knowledge, that
is the raost excellent, upon which depends our
eternal interest ; I mean, our knowledge of
God in Christ : in comparison of which, God
gives a very slight character of all things
besides. What raore desirable in the eyes of
the world than riches ? What more excellent
than strength, more to be admired than
wisdora ? 'Yet what says God of all these,
Jer. ix. 23, 24, " Thus saith the Lord, Let
not the wise mau glory iu his wisdom, neither
let the mighty raan glory in his might, let
not the rich man glory in his riches : but let
him that glorieth glory in this, that he
understandeth and knoweth me, that I am
the Lord, that exercise loving-kindness, judg
ment, and righteousness, in the earth." So
that this is a kuowledge that does not only
surpass strength aud riches, before which the
very heathens could prefer their poor know
ledge of nature ; but it is such a knowledge,
in comparison of which the very wisdom of
men is folly. Consider also, that this is the
sure way to everlasting life ; so sure, that in
Scripture it is called everlasting life itself, in

ON 1 JOHN, iii. 20.

341

John, xvii. 8, " And this is life eternal, that
they might know thee the only true God, and
Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent." Observe
likewise, as this knowledge is called eternal
life, so, on the contrary, the Spirit of God calls
ignorance etemal death ; John, iii. 19, " And
this is the condemnation, that light is come
into the world, and men love darkness rather
thau light." Now if there cau be any greater
arguraent to a rational soul, to pursue after
this knowledge, than the obtaining eternal
life, let that soul neglect it ; and, ou the other
hand, if there can he auy stronger motive to
woo a raan out of his ignorance, than avoiding
damnation, let him hug his ignorance as a
desirable thing : let him embrace a cloud, and
refresh himself under the shadow of death.
But consider this, you that are ignorant of
God, ignorant in the midst of teaching ordi
nances. 0 how dreadful is it, to enjoy pre
cious meaus of knowledge, aud only to be
proficient in ignorance 1 As long as thou art
destitute of this spiritual light aud kuowledge,
thou art to the Devil as Samson to the Philis
tines without his eyes, thou raust go whither
he will lead thee, grind in his mill, and under
go all the slavish dmdgery of sin, that a
malicious Devil, that hates thy soul, can put
thee to. But, on the other side, knowledge,
as it makes thee in a true sense a man, so this
saving knowledge of God makes thee more
than a man, that is, a Christian. And reraera
ber, as the preposterous desire of knowledge
was the first cause of raan's unhappy fall, so
the pursuit of this spiritual knowiedge must
be the first occasion of his recovery.
Thus far the arguments by which we prove
God's oraniscience: pass we now to the second
thiug, which is to shew the excellency of God's
knowledge, above the knowledge either of
raen or angels.
And this appears, 1st, From the properties
of this knowledge. 2dly, From the object.
1st, Concerning its propertie*. The first
property holding forth the excellency of this
knowledge, is the exceediug evidence, and
consequently the certainty of it ; for though
a thing raay be certain, and yet not evident,
yet whatsoever is evident, that also is certain.
Evidence brings a property emanent from the
essence aud being of kuowledge ; it follows,
that that which includes the nature of know
ledge in an infinite manner, must be also
attended by a most infinitely clear evidence.
He that causes that innate evidence in every
object, by which it moves and strikes the
faculty, shall not he see ? He that gives light
to theeye, by which that evidence is discerned,
shall not he discern? The great intellectus
cgens, that by shining upon our understand
ings causes us to understand, shall uot he him
self understand much more clearly ? John,
i. 9, it is said of Christ, in respect of his
deity, " that he is the trae Light, that lighteth

every man that conieth into the world." It
is elsewhere said of God, that he is " the
Father of lights." Indeed, the knowledge of
mau upon the greatest improvemeuts, retains
a great mixture of ignorance ; aud all his
labour, all the travail of his soul in the pur
suit of science, is not able thoroughly to work
out that darkness of raind which he brought
with him into the world : but now God is not
only light, but such a light as " with hira
there is no darkness at all." And thus it is
clear, that the best of huraan kuowledge is
uot able to contest with the divine. But yet
raay not the angels, those sons of light and
knowledge, those near reserablances of their
Creator, may not they at least vie with the
divine knowledge ? 'Why, no. For eveu the
an gels stoop down andpry iuto the mysteries of
God, and particularly that of the incarnation,
as it is iu 1 Pet. i. 12. Therefore they do
not fully and evidentially know them, for
these are the postures, uot of those that know
already, but of those that endeavour to know.
But now God must needs know this great
mystery, for he contrived it. In Job, iv. 18,
he is said to " charge his angels with folly."
Certainly theu he must have a transcen
dently perfect wisdom, far excelling theirs.
From hence, therefore, we see, that the know
iedge of God, even as to its clearness and
pregnant evidence, is inconceivably beyond
the knowledge of men or angels.
2dly, Another property of this knowledge,
shewing the excellence of it, is this, that it is
a kuowledge independent upon the existence
of the object or thing known. Man indeed
receives nothing into his understanding but
through his senses ; and sense has nothing
but what it fetches from the object. Take
away sounds, and there will be no hearing;
deprive us of light, and there will be no see
ing. But now God beholds all things in hira
self ; and that both eminently, as he sees his
own perfection, which eminently includes all
the perfection that is scattered araong the
creatures, as the light of all the stars is con
tained eminently iu the sun ; and he beholds
them also formally, distinctly, and according
to the model of their own proper beings, with
out looking upon the existence of the things
theraselves, and that two ways :
1st, By reflecting upon his power, and what
he can do ; he has a perfect kuowledge of all
possibilities, and of things that may be pro
duced. 2dly, By reflecting upon his power aud his
will ; he knows whatsoever shall be aotually
produced. For upon the concurrence of
God's will with his power there is nothing
else requisite, but the thiug does immediately
result. This is the constitutive knowledge
which gives being to the thing known ; in
which sense it may be truly said, that God
does not therefore know things because they

342

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Sf.iim. XL.

are or may be, but they therefore are or may
be because he knows thera. So that this
onr maxim, " Non entis nulla est scientia," is
true only of finite kuowledge. For God's
kuowledge is antecedent to the object, quite
different from ours, which is borrowed from
it, and so subsequent to it. As the know
ledge that a builder has of a house depends
not upon the actual being of it ; but he knows
it, partly by reflecting ou his skill, iu which
he sees a perfect idea of it before ever it is
made ; and partly on his power, by whioh he
is able to make it : but now others' knowledge
depends upon the actual being of the house,
as flowing from those representations they
have of it after it is built. And such is our
knowledge in respect of God's.
2dly, The excellency of God's knowledge
appears in respect of his objects ; which are
all things knowable.
But they may be reduced to three thiugs
especially, which God alone perfectly knows,
and are not to be known by men or angels.
1st, The nature of God himself. Nothing
but an infinite knowledge can comprehend an
infinite being. We may as well endeavour
to take up the ocean in the hollow of our
hands, or to clasp the heavens in our arms, as
to understand or fathom the immense perfec
tions of the divine nature.
2dly, The second sort of things only kuowu
to God are things future, and these are only
within his reach. As for us, setting aside
what we know by history, which is not so
properly knowledge as belief, we know only
what is present : for although we know some
things that are past also, yet we first know
them as they were present ; and the reason is,
because we know things by our co-existence
with them. Now God, by reason of the infi
nite corapass of his being, running through
all the distinctions of time, by an intimate
co-existence with them, and consequeutly
with all things that do exist in those several
and successive parcels of time, he takes a full
survey of things, both past, present, aud to
corae ; which, though it be an undenied prin
ciple both iu Christian and natural theology,
and consequently to be rather granted as a
self-evident truth, than disputed as a problera,
yet he, who shall look into the writings of
the Pelagians, Jesuits, or their Dutch brood,
the remonstrants, will find that their grand
fallacy, their ¦a-pZroii iptHos, is founded upon
their erroneous stating of the diviue know
ledge ; by which they affirra, that God's
knowledge, iu respect of future contingents,
is wholly conditional. For as by one simple
act of his being he does co-exist with all suc
cessive durations, so by one act of his under
standing he does also know them. To help
our apprehensions iu this thing, we may take
this similitude : a man walking in a path sees
not that part of the way that is behind him.

neither thatwhich is any great distance before
him, but successively comes to see it, as by de
grees he arrives to and co-exists with it : but
now he, that is upon a high mountain or tower,
by one single cast of his eye takes a view of
the whole path, and at once sees the man, and
what is behind him, and what so reraote be
fore him. Just so man, who exists in some
part of time, neither properly knows those
things that were before he was, nor those
things that are future, but as he gains a suc
cessive co-existence with them. But God,
beiug (as I may say) exalted upon his own
essence, does from thence, as from a high and
lofty place, by one single, act of his under
standing, take a survey of us that are in the
world, and those things that are past and be
hind us, together with those that are before
us, and yet to corae.
Now, things future are of two sorts : —
1st, Such as depend upon necessary causes,
that is, those that constantly, and in the same
manner, produce their effects : such are the
sun and moon, in respect of the eclipses ;
aud the heavens, in respect of many things
here below. So that their effects, though
future, may be yet known in the causes. For
we cau foretell au eclipse many years before :
and while it is yet wiuter, we know that
within such a period of days it will be sum
mer. Now, in respect eveu of these future
things, the knowledge of God, and of the
creature, is very different : God, indeed, cer
tainly knows when they will come to pass.
Men and angels indeed have also a certain
knowlege of them : but it is not absolute, but
only suppositional ; that is, upon supposal
that such and such things continue in their
beiug, and that God withal affords them his
ordinary concurrence, such and such effects
will certainly follow. But the causes them
selves may perish ; and God that created
nature, may, by the sarae power and sove
reignty, interrupt it in its course ; as he did
the sun in the tirae of Joshua, (Josh. x. 13,)
and the operation of that fire upon the three
children. Now, in this case, neither men nor
angels can certainly know or determine of
such futures.
2dly, The second sort of things future are
thingsintheir nature occasional andcoiitingent;
such as come by chance, aud such as depend
upon the free will of man, which is various in
its working, and consequently, that which is
produced by it, must needs be uncertain in
the event. Now it is the prerogative of God
alone to have a steady foreknowledge of sueh
things ; no created being cau dive into them ;
that man cannot, as reason would sufficiently
prove, so Scripture also does no less clearly
demonstrate. (Isaiah, xlvii. 11,) God speaks
to Babylon; "Evil shall come upon thee,
and thou shalt uot kuow from whence it
ariseth : and desolation shall come upon thee

ON 1 JOHN, iii. 20.

343

suddenly,- which thou shalt not kuow :" here
upon, iu the two next verses, he defies thera
to find them out with all their sorceries and
enchantments ; in the twelfth verse, " Let
now the astrologers and prognosticators stand
up, and save thee from these things that shall
corae upon thee." If auy mau could foresee
future events, then certainly it would be those
who raade it their business and their profes
sion ; those who had not only their own
understanding, but all the light of heaven to
direct them. A man may as easily draw the
perfect picture of a mau yet unborn, as have
iu his mind the idea of a contingent future.
Who knows what a day may bring forth ?
God has put obscurity between us and the
nearest futures : there is night between us aud
the very next day. To the proofs drawn from
Scripture, we may add the overplus of our
own experience. And that angels are also to
seek in the certain knowledge of these things,
is no less true. Had those fallen angels, be
fore their sin, foreseen what would have
followed it, we eannot but iu reason imagine,
that the foresight of their fall would have
kept them from their siu. Hereupon the
Devil, in the heathen oracles, when he was
consulted about future events, gave always
doubtful, ambiguous answers ; so that, how
soever the thing fell out, he had still a salvo,
or evasion, in the ambiguity of the expres
sion. It is confessed, that sometiraes his pre
dictions have been answered by the event of
the thing ; but theu this was rather from the
happiness of his conjecture, than the certainty
of his knowledge. Aud, as one says, " Angels
have the advantage of us in respect of their
experience, which is far greater in them than
in us, both because they have been of longer
duration and continuance in the world, and
also because of the piercing quickness of their
understandings, in comparing one thing with
another ; and from thence making conjectures
at other things." Now experience is a reite
rated or repeated knowledge of thiugs past :
from whence arises an ability of judging or
guessing at things future. And thus far
angels can go, and no farther. As for that
argument, by which some would prove that
angels know things future, because distance
of time and distance of place are equally acci
dental differences ; and we know distance of
place does not impede the knowledge of
angels; therefore they may know things,
notwithstanding the difference of time, that
they are future : I say, this argument proves
nothing, because the case is not the same, in
respect of difference of place aud of tirae.
Distance of place always supposes the exist
ence of the things that so differ : futurity,
which is a difference of time, puts a nonex
istence of the things ; for that which is future,
is not yet in being. And since all created
knowledge follows the existence of the thing

known, there can be no knowledge of th.at
which does not exist, but of that which either
exists, or is supposed and looked upon as ex
isting. But now, God knows contingent
futures, yea, and that certainly and infallibly ;
and the reason is, because the most contin
gent being, when and while it actually exists,
is, in its being, necessary : " Omne quod est,
quaudo est, necessario est." But all things
are present to God ; they are looked upon by
him as under an actual existence; from
whence we may collect, that he has a certain
and necessary knowledge of them.
Sdly, The third sort of things, known only
to God, are the thoughts of meu : it belongs
to the sovereignty of God's omniscience alone
to judge and know these : (Psalm cxxxix. 2,)
" 'Thou understandest my thoughts afar off."
This is attributed to God by way of eminence ;
and every such thiug is not only proper, but
also peculiar to hira : so as to be communi
cated to nothing else : for that canuot be as
cribed to God by way of distinction, which is
also coraraon to the creature. Angels indeed
do exactly know our constitutions, aud so cau
read the general inclination of our thoughts
in thera, but not the particular deterraination
of thera, quoad hic et nunc, in respect of parti
cular objects and circumstances ; and also,
when the thoughts move and stir the passions,
and the passions work sorae change on tho
body : for, as natural philosophy teaches,
every passion (which is a motion of the sensi
tive appetite) fit cum aliqua mutatione corporis
non naturali. I say, in this respect, the angels
may know the thoughts, as they betray them
selves in some outward, corporeal sign ; but
by any iraraediate inspection of the thoughts
theraselves, so they are not able to discern
thera. It is a privilege that God has given
to our uature, to be able to conceal our
thoughts ; next to that by which we are able
to coraraunicate thera : (Jerem. xvii. 9,) "The
heart is deceitful above all things ; who cau
know it V Noue cau read the thoughts, none
can behold the intentions aud desires, but
that God, who vouchsafes au influence to the
production of every thought, and every desire :
(1 Cor. ii. 11,) " 'Who knoweth the things of a
man, save the spirit of a man that is within
him ?" It is well known, that these interro
gations imply strong denials. Who can know
the things of man ? that is, none can know
them : they are not subject to the inspection
of any being but God. For notwithstanding
this universal negation, we must of necessity
except hira, because the Scripture elsewhere
makes a peculiar exception of God, even there,
where it affirms that the heart cannot be
known, (Jer. xvii. 10,) " I, the Lord, search
the heart, I try the reins." From hence there
fore appears the transcendent excellency of
God's kuowledge beyond all created, that it
is able to pierce into men's thoughts.

344

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Sbrm. XL.

I proceed to make sorae application ; aud
to see what uses may be deduced from the
consideration of God's omniscience ; it raay
serve as an argument to press several duties
upon us.
1st, It must be a strong motive to bring us
to a free confession of all our sins to God.
God's omniscience, or infinite knowledge,
should indeed make us ashamed to commit
siu : but it should imbolden us to coufess it.
We can corarait and tell our secrets to a friend
that does not know thera ; how rauch raore
should we do it to hira that knows them al
ready ! God's knowledge outruns our confes
sions, aud anticipates what we have to say.
As our Saviour speaks concerning prayer,
" Your heavenly Father knows what you
have need of, before you ask," (Matt. vi. 8,)
so I may say of confession, your heavenly
Father knows what secret sins you have cora
raitted before you confess. But still he cora
raands this duty of us ; and that not to know
our sins, but to see our ingenuity. Adara,
when he hid hiraself, to the irapiety of his siu
added the absurdity of a concealraent. Our
declaring of our sius to God, who knows them
without being beholden to our relation ; it
is like opening a window to receive the light,
which would shine in through it howsoever.
Every man has fenestratum pectus, a casement
in his bosora, through which God looks in
upon him every day. When a master sees
his servant commit a fault in secret, and there
upon urges him to a confession, he does it not
so much to know the fault, as to try the man.
Novv there is no duty by which we give God
the glory of his omniscience so much as by
a free confession of our secret iniquities.
(Joshua, vii. 19,) Joshua says to Achan,
" My son, give, I pray thee, glory to the Lord
God of Israel, and raake confession unto
him." Here we see, had he not confessed his
theft, he had been guilty of a greater, to wit,
the robbing God of his glory. Thus the
widow of Tekoah, by confessing her design
and project to David, gave hira the glory of
his wisdora and knowledge. Hereupon having
confessed it, she says, in 2 Sam. xiv. 20, " My
lord the king is wise, according to the wisdom
of an angel of God, to know all things that
are done iu the earth." God seeras to com
pound with us, and, in lieu of satisfaction, only
to require our confession ; (Jerem. iii. 12, 13,)
" I ara merciful, saith the Lord, and will not
keep auger for ever : only acknowledge thy
iniquity, that thou hast transgressed against
the Lord thy God." Nay, God coraraands us to
confess our sins, uot so rauch that he raay know
them, as that we raay know them ourselves.
For while sin sits close in the heart, we can
not see it till we cast it forth by confession ;
as a mau caunot see the corruption that is iu
his storaach, till he spits it out. But howso
ever, the irapossibility of concealing our sins

from God's omniscience, is the great reason
why we should confess them ; for as we can
not rescue them from his justice, so neither
can we hide them frora his knowledge. God's
oraniscience, together with his justice, repre
sents him to a secret sinuer like a flaming
fire ; which by its heat consumes, and by its
light discovers. Wherefore, to confess our
sins, since we are uot able to conceal them,
what is it, but in a spiritual sense to make a
virtue of necessity ?
2dly, The consideration of God's oraniscience
raay enforce us to a humble submission to
all God's commands and directions, and that
both in respect of belief and of practice.
1st, And first, concerning things to he be
lieved. There is such a depth iu these, and
such a seeraing contradiction to reason, that
our natural understandings are apt to quarrel,
and find absurdities iu them, and to dispute
against that which we cannot comprehend.
Hence, in Eph. iii. 19, the apostle prays,
that we raay " kuow the love of Christ, that
passeth knowledge." Here we should capti
vate the vain reasonings of our blind under
standings, and answer the defect of our know
ledge, by the infiniteness of God's ; who
knows a reason of whatsoever he commands,
aud of whatsoever we ought to believe. When
we hear the raystery of the Trinity, that three
subsistencies are contracted into one essence,
and one essence enlarged iuto three subsisten
cies ; when we hear of two natures conjoiued
iu the sarae person, the creator and the crea
ture, united in Jesus Christ ; our reason is
nonplused and araazed, and cannot satisfy
itself frora any of its own principles. When
we hear of the resurrection, that, after our
bodies are destroyed, and by continual trans-
rautation brought to be clean another thing,
then for the sarae nuraerical bodies to be
restored, and all the scattered parts to be
renewed, and return to their proper places ;
so that with Job we should be enabled to see
our Redeeraer " with these very eyes, aud no
other," (Job, xix. 26, 27) — when we hear of
the mysterious, hidden works of the Spirit in
our regeneration, and the begetting of new
principles within us, so as to change and alter
our nature ; that he, which by his constitu
tion is intemperate and furious, shoulil be
made temperate and meek ; that he, which
by his education is profane and worldly,
should, by the secret, forcible operation ofthe
Spirit, become holy and spiritually-minded :
I say, this startles aud confounds us : and we
are apt to say with Nicodemus, " How cau
these things be ?" We cannot, from any topic
of reason or philosophy, give a rational ac
count of them. But here we should know,
that although these things are not intelli
gible by men, yet they are to the all-knowing
God. And although our reason cannot
discern or comprehend these things, yet " God

ON 1 JOHN, iii. 20.

345

is greater than our reason, and knoweth all
things." 2dly, The consideration of God's infinite
kuowledge ought to make us comply with
God's coraraands iu things concerning our
practice, and that eveu iu those duties, that
to our natural judgments may seera unreason
able. He that renounces the dictates of his
own carnal wisdora, and prosecutes the ways
prescribed to hira by God, has set to his seal,
that God is wise, and infinitely raore knowing
thau hiraself. For all our disobedience, our
relinquishing the ways of God, and adhering
to our own, may be resolved into this ; that
raen think they know a nearer way to hap
piness than God has prescribed thera ; which,
how derogatory it is to the all-knowing wis
dom of God, let our own reason be judge.
Why do we follow the advice of our physi
cians and lawyers, but frora the opinion we
have of their knowledge aud experience ?
Absalom, by not doing according to Ahitlio-
phel's counsel, did in that clearly undervalue
his wisdom ; and the discredit of that raade
Ahithopel hang himself. Now the raost wise
and omniscient God, that knows the utmost
of sin, that knows what it is for a sinner to
be saved, and to escape the stroke of his
justice, does, in order thereto, comraand us to
deny ourselves, to take up our cross, to re
nounce our dearest pleasures, our nearest rela
tions, as they stand in corapetition with
Christ ; yea, to prefer the most unpleasant
duty before the most pleasiug siu. Here flesh
and blood is at a stand ; and as it cannot en-
<lure the strictness and rigour, so neither can
it see the reason of these commands. But
what Elijah said to Israel in the case of Baal,
that I may hear apply, " Why halt we be
tween two opinions ?" If God, who has com
manded and enjoined these duties, be the
all-knowing God, why do we not then, with
out any farther delay, perforra them ? If he
be not, why do we then give him divine
worship ? 'Wherefore I shall conclude with
this raost certain truth : there is no such way
of giving God the glory of his infinite know
ledge, as by au obediential practice of those
duties and coraraands which seem most to
thwart and contradict our own.
Sdly and lastly. Since it is an express com
mand of our Saviour himself, that " we should
be perfect, as our heavenly Father is perfect ;"
why should we not, according to our weak
model, endeavour to copy out this divine per
fection upon our soul, as well as any of the
rest ? And why, as well as weare coraraanded
to be like him in his goodness, bounty, aud
mercy, we should not endeavour to resemble
hira in knowledge, wisdora, and uuderstand-
ing, according to our weak capacity? For
this is not to say, as Lucifer, " I will ascend,
and be like the Most High ;" nor fo follow
what he suggested to our first parents, " Ye

shall be like gods :'' for had they affected to
be like God iu knowledge, as they ought to
have done, they would have certainly dis
cerned the cheat of the serpent, and the trials
which the Devil was theu putting upon thera.
No, it is no arrogance for us to endeavour to
be like God, in passing a right aud true judg
ment upou all things that concern us ; in
judging of holiuess, as God judges ; in judg
ing of sin, as God judges of every thing re
lating to our teraporal or eternal happiness or
raisery. " God," says the apostle, " is light,
and in him there is no darkness at all." We
do uot disparage nor rival the great fountain
of light, the sun, by endeavouring to have as
much of his light in our houses as we can.
We have our rule and raeasure to proceed by,
in our iraitation of our heavenly Father, in
this respect, as well as iu any other : for as
it is the perfection of God to know all thiugs,
so it is the excellency of man to know any
thing aright.
To God, therefore, be rendered and ascribed,
as is most due, all praise, raight, majesty, aud
dominion, both now and for evermore.
Amen.

SERMON XLI.
*' But let man and heast he covered with sackcloth, and cry
mightily unto God : yea, let them tum every one from his
evU way, and from the violence that is in their hands.
* * Who can tell if God will turn^and repent, and turn away from
his fierce anger, that we perish not ?" — Jonah, iii. 8, 9.
The business of the day is not unknown to
you ; we are called by public authority to the
work of humiliation ; and the cause and occa
sion of this work yon are acquainted with, to
wit, the deplorable eruption of a sad distemper
in sundry parts of the nation ; and the cause
of this -we are to know is sin. There is uo
calaraity, but, if we track it to its original, we
shall find it issue from sin. They are the dis
tempers of the soul that cause the distempers
of the body ; therefore, if we would recover
our bodily health, we must begin the cure
at the soul. Fasting and humiliation is a
sovereign reraedy to evacuate all spiritual
disterapers ; and what is true iu physic of
the body, "tertia pars morborum sanatur
jejunio," that the third part of diseases is
cured by fastiug, is rauch more true in divi
nity in respect of the soul ; that not only
sorae, but all its diseases are removed, or at
least weakened and diminished, by a spiritual
fasting. In this chapter we have the example of a
fast celebrated by heathens, but worthy of the
imitation of the best Christians : and if we

346

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Sebm. XII.

do not fast and humble ourselves, now a
judgraent is actually lying upon us from God,
certainly the raen of Nineveh " will rise up
in judgraent against this generation, aud con
demn it ;" for they fasted aud humbled them
selves upon the very approach of a judgment.
Here are several things considerable :
1st, Jonah's denunciation of a judgment of
God irapendent upou thera.
2dly, Their humiliation upon the hearing
of this judgment ; in which fast or humilia
tion there is considerable,
I. The manner of it ; which consists iu two
things :
1st, The external humiliation of the body.
2dly, An internal, spiritual separation from
sin. II. The universal extent of it, " Let man
and beast," &c. and withal the particular ap
plication of it, ver. 8, " let them turn every
one from," &c.
III. The ground or motive of this humilia
tion ; which was hope of mercy, and a par
don upon the exercise of this duty.
The words will afford several observations :
1st, The consideration of a judgment ap
proaching unto, or actually lying upon a
people, is a sufficient argument for fasting and
humiliation, ver. 4, 5.
2dly, That an afflicting of the body is a
good preparative to the humiliation of the
soul, ver. 6, 7.
sdly. That the nature of a fast more espe
cially consists in a real, sincere separation
from sin, ver. 8.
4thly, That national sins do deserve na
tional humiliation, ver. 5.
5tlily, The best aud most effectual way to
remove a national judgment, is for every
particular raan to inquire into and to araend
his own persoual, particular sius, ver. 8.
6thly, Upou a serious humiliation for, and
forsaking of our sins, there is sufficient argu
ment in God's raercy to hope fora removal of
the severest judgment, ver. 9.
I chiefly intend the discussing the five
observations ; but I shall speak someting to
them all.
1st Obs. Conceming the first : That the
considerationof a judgraent, &c. Extraordi
nary cases call for extraordinary services.
Every judgment overspreading a nation is an
extraordinary judgment ; and fasting bears
some proportion to it, as being au extraordi
nary duty. When God shall shake his sword
over a nation, aud the inhabitants take uo
notice ofit ; wheu he shall begin to take hold
of judgment, and the people uot take hold of
his mercy iu prayer and repentance ; these
are sad symptoms of a decaying, if not perish
ing state. When the son sees his father about
to whip him, and has already laid hold ofthe
rod, will he not fall down upon his knees, and
ask him pardou ? Now we ought to humble

ourselves uuder a judgment upon several
accounts :
1st, Because in every judgment God calls
for humiliation ; they are the alamras of the
Almighty, by which he terrifies and awakens
sleepy souls. We read of the " voice of God's
rod," Micah, vi. 9, and the rod of God in every
judgraent speaks this, either that we shonld
begin or renew our repentance. For a people
to hear the dreadful voice of a displeased God
iu a judgment, and yet not to be wrought
upon to proceed to a speedy humiliation ; it is
like Samuel's hearing the Lord speaking to
him when he was a child, in the midst of his
sleep ; the voice comes, aud awakes him, he
hears it, yet takes little notice of it, but
presently returns to sleep again. If we can
so pass over the voice of God in a judgment,
as presently to return to our former sleep and
security, it is an act of high contempt and
disobedience. The proudest of the heathens, and the
greatest contemners of a Deity, yet would bo
araazed, aud endeavour to hide themselves
wheu they heard it thuuder. Could the voice
of the cloud make them shrink and tremble,
and shall not the voice of a national judgment
make us mourn and repent? God calls fur
mourning and lamentation, his voice is plain
and loud, and woe be to us if we do not
hear it.
2dly, We ought to humble ourselves under
every judgment, because it deserves our
humiliation : though this be an un pleating
duty to the flesh, yet it is abundantly counter
vailed by the greatness of the trouble it does
remove. Not only Christianity, but nature
bids us raourn uiid'er an affliction. To what
do we reserve our sorrows, if we do not spend
them upou this occasion ? Laraent. iii. 48,
" Mine eye runneth down with rivers of
water, for the destruction of the daughter of
my people." The prophet found no such
tirae for weeping as the time of public cala
mity. Theu did Hezekiah mourn and humble
himself, when there was a devouring army of
the Assyrians approaching. If the securing
of your health, your lives, your temporal, your
spiritual estates, does not merit the deepest
of our humiliations, our strongest wrestlings
with Go.d in fasting and prayer, then keep
these duties for something that may better
deserve them.
2d Obs. That the affliction of the body is a
good preparative to the hurailiation of the
soul : thus we see in the secoud of Joel, where
there was a solemn fast proclaimed, and
directions given for the keeping ofit, it is said,
in the sixteenth verse, " Let the bridegroom
go out of his chamber, and the bride out of
her closet." Bodily and sensual enjoyments
must be laid aside ; and that which is pre
scribed to us for the right celebration of the
sabbath, " that a man should not find his own

ON JONAH, iii, 8, 9.

3-^7

pleasure," in Isaiah, Iviii. 3, is upou the sarae
account requisite to a due performance of this
duty. Sensual delights are not consistent
with spiritual services.
Now the reasons that the afflictiou of the
body is so good a preparative to the humilia
tion of the soul, are,
1st, Because the operations of the soul do
much follow the disposition and temper of
the body. There is a near connection and a
sympathy between these two. There cau
scarce be grief and pleasure in one, but the
other partakes. Pleasure I it melts the soul
through the body, as lightning does the sword
through the scabbard. Can the body be
pampered, and the soul not grow wanton ?
Can the camal objects of sense be received,
without leaving a tincture upon the raind?
When the body is filled and feasted, the soul
is uot in so fit a posture to hunger and thirst
after righteousness. Herod, after his feast, is
fit to behead, but not to hear John Baptist.
2dly, The afflicting of the body, it curbs the
flesh, and makes it serviceable to the spirit.
The flesh is unruly, aud repugnant to the yoke
of a spiritual service ; it has a natural averse
ness to them, and as long as it is indulged, the
opposition is so much the stronger : wherefore,
if we would keep our hearts close to so
heavenly a duty, we raust sequester thera
from the incentives of camal objects. " I
keep under ray body," says Saint Paul. In
all these engageraents the spirit must keep
under the body, or the body will be above the
spirit. The body is and ought to be the soul's
instrument iu the execution of all duties ;
but if it be not rightly fixed and disposed, it
may recoil upon the soul, and hurt it : as a
hatchet, if not rightly ordered, may fly off,
and raischief him that uses it. O let us
therefore lay aside all flesh-pleasing vanities ;
let us abandon those delights that encumber
the soul, that clip its wings, and hinder its
aspiring to heaven. It will be part of our
happiness and perfection hereafter to have
spiritual bodies ; let us endeavour to make
them so now : " Canst thou not watch with
me an hour ?" says Christ : canst not thou
fast with me a day ? It is our duty to deny
ourselves in these outward refreshments, so
far as it may quicken and enable us to a more
nimble performance of so severe a duty. Let
us follov^ the exaraple of the Ninevites iu
the text ; " Let man and beast be covered
with sackcloth." Let our brutish part, our
body, as well as our raanly part, our soul, be
brought under the spiritual yoke of humilia
tion. But it may be here said,
(^Objection.) Is not this contrary to what
our Saviour prescribes in the gospel, who in
express terras forbids us this afflicting of the
body, in our fastings ; Matt. vi. 16, 17, IB,
" When ye fast, be not as hypocrites, of asad
countenance," &c. Now, how can this scrip

ture consist with the truth of this doctrine,
that the affliction of the body tends to advance
the devotion and humiliation ofthe soul?
In answer to this, we may observe ;
1st, That Christ does not absolutely forbid
them to be of a sad countenance, but with
this qualification ; " But uot as the hypocrites,
of a sad countenance." There is a difference
between a religious and an affected sadness ;
between a due coraposure, and a dissembling of
the countenance : one is spiritual duty, the
other is spiritual pride ; one adorns, the other
destroys humiliation. And those that do in
this manner, and for this end, disfigure their
faces, that they may appear to fast, they make
themselves more deforraed iu the eyes of God
than in the eyes of meu.
2dly, Christ' does not forbid such a sadness
of countenance as was the natural effect of an
inward sorrow. For as it is said, " Mine eye
affecteth mine heart," (Lament, iii. 51,) so the
heart will affect the eye ; spiritual sorrow
will break out iuto the countenance. But
the Pharisees had a peculiar way araong
theraselves, of making and deforming their
faces, iu their da3's of fasting; iu which they
placed the chief part of the duty, (as the
papists do iu whipping theraselves :) and 't
was against this abuse tbat Christ cautioned
his disciples. For when he bids them, on the
contrary, anoint their head, and wash their
feet, it was not meant of omament, but of a
decent dressing of themselves, according to the
custom of those places. So that he does not
here oppose jollity and looseness to a due and
serious sadness, so as to command that in the
room of this ; but he does oppose a prudent
decency to an absurd superstition. And thus
much in answer to this objection, and con
cerning the second observation.
Sd Obs. I proceed now to the third ; namely.
That the nature of a fast especially consists
in a real, sincere separation from sin. The
truth of this will appear from these considera
tions :
1st, That fasting, it is a spiritual duty : the
humbling of the body indeed is required, not
so much as a part, as au instrument of this
duty : it is separation from sin that God
requires, and the soul must intend ; it is thy
heart, and not thy stomach, that God would
have erapty. It is not thy outward raourning
or coraplaining, uot the presence of thy
body in the church, not thy abstaining from
bodily food, that raakes a fast ; for what does
it avail thee to forbear thy meat, if thou dost
feed upon thy sin ? What does the sackcloth
and the ashes, if thou art not clothed with
righteousness? God overlooks aud rejects all
these services, as a piece of a provoking
mockery, if they are not attended with a
sincere renouncing of thy sin. Thou mayest
have a thin, pining body, and yet a luxurious
soul : thou mayest hang the head, like a bul-

348

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Sehm. XLI,

rush, and yet aspire in thy mind, like a
Lucifer. Let us not deceive -ourselves, for
God is not deceived. If our sin abides, after
all our fasting, we shall return to it with a
greater appetite. To leave our sin, and
exercise the opposite duties of holiness, this
is that which gives a relish and a savour to all
our humiliations before God. In Isaiah, lviii.
4, 6, 6, God roundly tells his people what was
truly a fast, and what was uo fast, in his
esteem. — Not to abstain from bread, but to
deal it to the hungry ; this is properly to fast :
not to wrap thyself iu sackcloth, but to cover
and clothe thy naked brother ; this is to be
humbled. Hence, in Jerera. xxxvi. 6, 7,
we have the prophet presenting the children
of Israel, upon their fasting days, with a
catalogue of God's coraraands :' thi's was their
bill of fare upon such days. — Take therefore
a survey of the state of thy soul. Is there
such a corruption iu thy heart ? remove it ;
Buch a sin in thy hands, such a blot upon thy
conscience ? wash it out with the tears of a
true repentance. He that only forbears his
raeat, and uot his sin, the beasts of Nineveh
kept as good a fast as he. It is as unseemly
to come to a fast with a foul heart, as to dinner
with foul hands.
2dly, The nature of a fast chiefly cousists in
our separation from sin, because this is the
proper eud of it. As the end of eating is to
strengthen the body, so the eud of fasting is
to strengthen the soul. For as our Saviour
speaks of some unclean spirits, Matt. xvii. 21,
so it is true of some kind of sins, that they
are not to be cast out but by fasting and
prayer. This is the greatest means of mortifica
tion of sin, and that which of all other carries
it on most effectually ; it is that which lays
the axe to the very root of our corruption.
It is a duty that is marked out by God's
institution, for this very purpose. David,
that was raost in this work of raortifying his
sin, that omitted the use of no means that
might weaken his corruption, he gives us an
account of what course he took ; Psalra cii. 4,
he tells us, " that he forgot to eat his bread ;"
and Psalra cix. 24, " that his kuees were weak
through fasting." Now all that he airaed at
in this, was the getting the upper hand of his
corruption, tbat he raight starve his sin. So
that it follows, that if our fasting attain uot
the proper end for which God designed it, it
falls short of its nature, and cannot properly
be called a duty. True it is, that one eud of
a religious fast is to prevent or reraove God's
judgraents ; but how does it effect this ? Is
it not by removing sin, that is the cause of
those judgments? No humiliation overtook
off au affliction, before it first took off the sin.
Misery is the natural consequent of iniquity ;
and he that endeavours to rid himself of one,
before he has freed himself of the other, would
hinder the streams before he bas stopped the

fountain. Humiliation ! it quenches the
wrath of God, by removing the combustible
matter of siu, upou which it preys. When
this affords no fuel, God's anger ceases to burn,
A plague, or a disease, sent from God, will
scarce be able to hurt or infect that soul, which
has cleansed and purged off all its ill humours
by a thorough humiliation. It is clear,
tiierefore, that the removal of sin is the very
essence of this duty, without which all other
humbling ourselves is so far from being pro
fitable, that it is aborainable ; Joel, ii. 13,
" Rend your hearts, aud not your garments."
If the heart be not torn off from sin, to rend
ouly the garment, it farther provokes God,
and (as I may so speak) makes the breach
wider. To what purpose does the riotous
drunkard strain himself to a fast, if he does
not from this gain strength against his intem
perance ? To what end does the profane, the
covetous, the neglecter of sabbaths, engage in
this duty, unless he gathers spiritual strength,
to walk more closely with God for the future?
This we must know, that there is no religious
duty that attains its end, but wheu it weakens
our sin.
And thus much of the third observation,
4th Obs. National sins deserve national
humiliation : there must be some proportiou
between sin and sorrow. Humble repentance
is to cure us of our sins aud miseries ; and
there can be no cure wrought, unless the
plaster be as broad as the sore. If a whole
nation sins, a whole nation must also repent,
or perish. If a whole world corrupts itself
before God, it must either be humbled or be
drowned. The highest to the lowest have
provoked God ; there has been a joint concur
rence in sin, therefore all must jointly concur
in humiliation. When a distemper has seized
the whole body, there must be a general
change of the whole habit and frame of it,
otherwise no sound recovery can be expected.
The body of a nation should speak to God, as
Peter did to Christ, when he washed his feet ;
" Lord, wash not my feet only, but also my
head aud ray hands." Let thy Spirit enable,
not only the vulgar sort, but the great ones,
to abase theraselves in tears and repentance.
The spirit of humiliation should be hke
Aaron's precious ointment, running down
from the head to the skirts and hem of his
garraent. This was the custora of the religious
princes of Judah, when they were to deal
with God about public mercies ; they knew
their sins were general, and therefore that
their humiliation was to beof the same extent;
2 Chron. xx. 3, 4, " And Jehoshaphat feared,
and set himself to seek theLord.andproclaimed
a fast throughout all Judah :" aud Jerem.
xxxvi. 9, it is said of the princes of the people,
" that they proclairaed a fast before the Lord
to all the people in Jerusalera, and to all the
people that came from the cities of Judah

ON JONAH, iii. 8, 9.

349

unto Jerusalera." Now the reasons that there
is such an universality required in our
humiliations, may be,
1st, Because a general humiliation tends
most to solve the breach of God's honour. A
prince that has been offended by a general
rebellion, cannot be appeased but by a general
subraission. This is a lively acknowledgraent
of God's majesty ; wheu a nation shall lie iu
the dust before him ; when he shall be praised
and adored iu the great congregation : by this
we confess him the Lord of nations ; and that
he is able to destroy us, though we unite our
selves into multitudes ; and that we need be
humbled, and trerable at his power, as much
as if we were but one single person.
2dly, Generality gives force and strength to
humihation. When an array of hurable
penitents besieges heaven, it is hard, if their
prayers do not force their way through :
"Credidimus junctas fortius ire preces ;" many
hands give despatch to a difficult business.
And hurailiation is a very hard task, and
justly requires raany helping hands to be lift
up together in prayer. General sins are
strongest to bring down a judgraent; there
fore, general hurailiation raust needs be
strongest to prevent it. I proceed to the
Sth Obs. namely. That the best and most
effectual way to avert a national judgraent, is
for every particular raan to inquire into, and
to araend his own personal, particular sins.
I shall prove the truth of this assertion by
several reasons.
1st, Because particular sius oftentiraes fetch
down general, universal judgments. Siu, like
a leprosy, though it begin in a small corapass,
yet it quickly, iu the effects of it, overspreads
the whole. It may first appear like that cloud,
no bigger than a man's haud, (1 Kings, xviii.
44,) but it presently overclouds and darkens
the heavens over us, and showers down the
heaviest of God's judgments. Adam's sin
was but the sin of one raan, aud yet how
large and extensive were the diraeusions of
the curse ! it diffused itself to all his posterity,
aud that in all places, in all ages. When
David numbered the people, noue but David
sinned ; yet all Israel felt the sraart of the
punishment, thousands fell under the pesti
lence : the penalty of this sin was as large as
his dominions ; the curse, it reached from Dan
to Beersheba. But here it may be replied,
these indeed were public persons, and their
offences public, aud therefore the punishment
might be so too. But then what shall we
think of Achan ? He was no public person,
no governor, uo representative of a people ;
yet we see his one particular trespass, in
meddling with the cursed thing, caused the
whole armies of Israel to fly before their
enemies : that one siu chased a thousand, and
put ten thousand to flight, (Joshua, vii.) And
again, did not the sin of a few profane Ben-

jaiuites scatter and alraost devour a whole
tribe? (Judges, xx.) Frora these exaraples
we raay raake this natural conclusion to
ourselves, that what God did then, if he please,
he may do the same now.
The reasons that God sometimes, for parti
cular sins, inflicts general judgments, may be
these : —
1st, To shew us the provoking nature of
sin ; and that we live upou the score of mercy,
and not by auy title that we claim to life
from our own righteousness ; it is a mercy
that God does not destroy for the sius of other
raen. Was it uot a singular raercy to Lot,
that he was delivered from the coraraon
destruction, though he never shared in the
coraraon sin ? The righteousness ofthe whole
world, since the fall, is not able to save one
raan ; but the sin of one mau, if God should
deal according to the rigour of his justice, was
enough to destroy a whole world.
2dly, God deservedly sometimes sends a
general judgment for a particular siu ; because,
though the sin is particular, in respect of the
subject and cause of it, yet it may be general,
in respect of its contagion. The plague,
though but in one mau, yet it is able to derive
a general infection over a whole city. Thy
sin, though the coraraission of it abides upon
thy particular person, yet thou dost not know
how far the exaraple of it may spread. David's
raurder aud adultery, as to the personal guilt
of it, went no farther than himself; but we
kuow the scandal of it was very infectious ; it
caused the enemies of God to blaspherae :
God therefore raay deservedly avenge parti
cular sins with general judgments.
2dly, As sorae particular sins are the total
cause of a general judgment, so all and every
particular sin shares and contributes its part
in the bringing down of a judginent upon a
nation, though it be not always the only cause
of that judgment : a universal sin is made
up of many particulars : if there were no per
sonal, there could be no national sin. We may
look upon our own particular miscarriages as
small things, aud not discernible in so great a
crowd ; we raay think, that the sins of one
raan are no more considerable, in respect of
the sins of a nation, than one raan is in com
parison of all the inhabitants of the nation :
yet one man's sin, though in itself it should
be weaker, yet, as it is joined with the sins of
a multitude, it will do execution. One sol
dier, taken by himself, is of no considerable
force ; but as joined to the body of an army,
he will conquer and trample down towns and
cities. One single drop of water, how con
temptible is it ! but as it is joined to the
ocean, so it is terrible ; it drowns, it destroys.
Wherefore let none flatter himself, and think
that his sin has no share in the misery of the
nation ; for every particular man may think
so, as well as one : and if it should be true of
 I

3.50

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Skrm. XLI.

every oue, to whose sin should we ascribe the
calamities we endure ? " For the sin of the
inhabitants a land is said to mourn ; a fruit
ful land to be made barren, for the wickedness
of those that dwell therein." And who knows
but raine and thy sins raay have provoked
God to visit the nation with this distemper?
How dost thou know, but thy profaneness,
thy drunkenness, may cause the laud to
raourn ? thy slighting God's ordinances, and
thy causeless absenting thyself frora his wor
ship, raay cause God to appear against the
nation in anger? When a barrel of gun
powder is fired, does not oue corn; as much as
another, contribute to the blowing up of the
house ? Certainly, if the natiou should receive
some great blessing from God, upou the score
of desert, would not ever^' particular man be
apt to thrust in, and ascribe sorae part of it to
the raerit of his own particular righteousness?
How much more should we take sharae and
confusion to ourselves, and raark out our own
personal sins, as those that have stuck deep in
the nation's raisery ! As it is the duty of
every particular soldier in the array to fight
in the day of battle, so it is equally the duty
of every particular Christian to mourn in a
day of humiliation.
3d Reason. Because God takes special notice
of particular sins : punishing of a multitude
does not make God overlook particulars ; but
he takes a distinct view of each several man's
transgression ; as iu our reading over a volume,
the eye takes a distinct view of every letter. It
is our prudence to take notice of those sins that
God takes notice of ; aud as it is our prudence
to take notice of them, so it is our greater
prudence to lament them. Hence -no have
God in Scripture so often singling out some
sinners ; in particular, Deut. xxix. 18, God,
speaking to the whole body of the Israelites,
says, " Take heed, lest there be amongst you
a root that beareth gall and bitterness." One
would think that iu so large a garden one
weed might escape his eye : but the eye of
God, like the sun, as it enlightens the whole
world, so it discovers every little atom. It is
said, that God would " search Jerusalem with
candles ;" so exact is he in his survey of each
several man's condition. In Psalm xiv. 2,
" God looketh down from heaven, to see if
there were any one -whose heart sought the
Lord :" and iu the third verse he brings a
particular report of their wickedness ; " There
is none that doeth good, no, not one." He
speaks as if he had searched and considered
thera one by one. Now the consideration of
this, that God takes a particular notice of our
personal misdemeanours, should engage us to
set about a particular araendraent. When
workmen know their master will come, aud
take a particular account of each man's several
task, this is a sufficient argument to make
thero fearful to be negligent, and incite them

to be accurate in their performance of it.
God oftentimes, in a general judgment, has a
more especial design upon some few particular
sinners ; as wheu Joab drew up a party of
men to be slain by the Ammonites, his design
was only directed to the death of Uriah.
God, when he commissions his plagues to go
over a nation, he gives them more especial
charge to visit such and such a sinner. God
sends a war and the sword abroad to such
nation ; but be sure, says he, take such a secure
sinner, such a covetous person in your way ;
let his goods and his substance be rifled and
made a spoil : I have observed, that his heart
has been estranged from me, aud wholly set
upou the world. He bids a sickness go to
such a people ; but be sure, says he, forget
not to take off such a backsliding, incorrigible
sinner : he cumbers tho grouud, and I can
bear with him no longer. To speak according
to the manner of men, God does as really
mark out aud separate some sinners, more
especially, to a general destruction, as David
gave his captain a more especial command to
preserve Absalora. This is a third reason,
why men should in their humiliations descend
to a particular reraoval of their persoual sius,
because God accurately considers thera.
4th Reason. No hurailiation can be well
and sincere, unless it be personal and parti
cular. It is a saying, that there is " dolus in
universalibus," deceit and cozenage in uni-
versals. In general acknowledgraents, aman
is apt to put a fallacy upon his soul, and to
take that for repentance which is no repent
ance. He that is truly hurabled and repents,
his voice raust be, not, " We have sinned,"
but, " I have sinned against the Lord."
Nathan, when he would force horae a sound,
real hurailiation upon David, he makes his
case particular, " Thou art the man," (2 Sam.
xii. 7.) The only word that dropped from
Pharaoh, that seemed to have something in it
of true hurailiation, was that in Exod. ix. 27,
" In this I have sinned : the Lord is righteous,
but I and my people are wicked." Now it is
clear, that this is the only true way of humilia
tion ; for this is the way and the method that
the Spirit of God takes in humbling the soul ;
it raakes a personal, particular application of
all God's curses against sinners to the soul.
The word in general says, " Cursed be he that
continues not in all these things that are
written in the law, to observe and do them."
Here the Spirit coraes in, and with rauch
power tells a soul, " Thou art the man ;" thou
art he that has broke God's coraraands, violated
his laws, trampled upon all his precepts, and
therefore thou art he that liest under the dint
of this heavy curse : God means thee ; God
speaks to thee in particular ; therefore take it
to thyself, and be humbled. Now the reason
that a man's consideration of his particular sins
is the means to produce a true and thorough

ON JOiSAH, iii. 8, 9.

351

humiliation is, because man is ouly hurabled
for those things iu which he is concerned ; and
no mau looks upon hiraself as concemed iu a
general evil, till he makes it particular by a
personal application. Wheu we hear of sickness
abroad, we are not rauch raoved ; but when we
find the symptoras of it upon our own bodies,
theu we speak more feelingly of it, and use the
utmost care to remove it. The notions we
have of siu, aud misery that follows sin, are
but common and superficial, till we raake
them particular by our owu experience. If
we would kill our sins, we must not shoot our
sorrows at random, at sin in general, bnt
single thera out, and take a distinct aira at
every sin in particular. Although, to raake
the work of humiliation raore easy, I should
advise the soul to this way, because we may
master and conquer these sins by our sorrows,
that we take severally and apart, which we
could uot so well deal with in the heap.
Those evils raost affect our sorrows that raost
affect our apprehensions ; but sins, as they are
represented to us in particular, chiefly affect
our apprehensions : generals and univcrsals
leave a confused, iraperfect notion in the
mind ; but particulars leave a more clear and
evident impression. Thus much of the fourth
reason to prove this doctrine, that it is the best
and raost effectual way to avert a general
judgment, for every particular man seriously
to inquire iuto aud amend his personal parti
cular sius,
6th Observation is. That upon our serious
hurailiation for, and forsaking of our sins,
there is sufficient argument in God's raercy to
hope for a reraoval of the severest judgraent.
Now the truth of this will appear frora these
three things :
1st, Because God has proraised, upon true
humiliation, to remove his judgments.
2dly, Because he has often actually removed
them upon such humiliation.
Sdly, Because, when we are brought to be
thus humbled, God has attained the eud of
his judgments.
1st, "There is arguraent for this hope, because
God has promised it. Mercy, it is the only
refuge of a lost creature, the only prop of a
decaying' confidence, it is God's endearing
attribute. But since we have sinned, God's
justice keeps us from relying upon his mercy,
till his promise gives us leave ; this is that
alone that opens a door of raercy to a forlorn
soul, and makes that confidence become duty
which would otherwise be presumption. In
the 26th of Leviticus, the Spirit of God reckons
up many sad and dismal curses which should
befall the children of Israel, if they did apos
tatize from God, and break his commands.
Yet in the 41st and 42d verses, he promises
them an after-return of mercy upon their
humiliation. So merciful is God, that he
closeth his threatenings with prescriptions

how to avoid them ; and in the midst of
judgment shews the way how to regain mercy.
What God proraised to Israel he does as truly
proraise to us ; for his raercy, that caused
him to make this proraise, is the same yester
day and to-day. And as the apostle observes,
uo proniise is of private interpretation. In
the foreraentioned Jer. xxxvi. S, " It raay
be," says God, " that the house of Judah will
hear all the evil that I purpose to do unto
thera ; that they may return every raan frora
his evil way ; that I may forgive their iniquity
and their sin." Where God forgives the sin,
he always reraoves the judgraent. Why do
we not theu engage our utmost iu these duties ?
Is not God's proraise true, thatwe should not
believe it? Aud if it be true, aud we do
believe it, is it not worthy our closing with it,
by fulfilling its conditions? We have cause
enough to believe, that God is rauch more
willing to reraove than to bring judgments
upon men. It is reason enough that we should
humble ourselves under God's judgment,
though he had raade no such proraise of
mercy ; eveu for this cause, that by our
humiliations we might prevail with him to
make us such a proraise. But how rauch
readier should we be iu this duty, now the
proraise is prepared and presented to our
hands I Surely if our miseries abide upon us,
it is not because God is wanting to us, but we
are wanting to ourselves.
2dly, There is arguraent for hope, because
God has ofteu removed judgments upon a
sincere humiliation. And if we caunot com
mand our faith to believe what God has
promised to do, yet let us believe what God
has done already. Every instance in this
nature, it is an overplus of evidence to over
rule us into this persuasion. A promise with
an instance, it is like an excellent medicine
with a probatum est, ratified by experience.
The first instance of those that have tasted
mercy after humiliation is that in the text,
the 10th verse, " And God saw their works,
that they turned from their evil way ; and
God repented of the evil that he had said that
he would do unto them, aud he did it uot."
God will let men see that he can more easily
repent of his auger than they of their sins.
The second instance is that of Manasses ; a
prodigy of sin, oue as it were raised up on
purpose, in whom it might appear how far
wickedness might proceed ; yet we know
upon his hurailiation, God turned his capti
vity, and set him loose frora his chains, and
frora a prison, (a thing seldora known iu any
age ;) he returned him to a kingdom, 2 Chron.
xxxiii. 12, 13. Now is there any man that
can rationally doubtof the strength of hurailia
tion, after it has restored a Manasses ?
Sdly, The third instance is that of Ahab,
oue almost as deep in sin as Manasses ; one
that sold himself to do wickedly ; a king of

352

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Srrm. XLII.

Israel, yet a slave to sin ; polluted with the
blood of his innocent neighbour ; yet when
the curse of God met him, aud shook him iuto
a humiliation, (1 Kings xxL 29,) God's auger
thereupon leaves hira for a while, and though
his justice could not let him take away the
punishraent, yet his raercy caused him to defer
it. God's fury iu this case (if I raay so express
it)somethingreserabliug an ague; it shookhira
for a while, and then it left hira. All divines
do agree, that Ahab's hurailiation was uot
sincere, but only hypocritical. Now if God
were so merciful as to reward the bare outside
of a humble repentance with such an abate
ment of a judgment, will he not answer and
reward thy hearty, sincere humiliation with
an entire reraoval of it? In Psalm cvii. 17,
18, 19, " Fools because of their transgression,
aud because of their iniquities, are afflicted ;
their soul abhorreth all manner of meat, and
they draw near uuto the gates of death.
Then they cry uuto the Lord in their troubles,
he saveth them out of their distresses." Here
we have another kind of insincere repentance,
seconded with au undeserved reward. And
cau God so love the very picture of hurailia
tion, and not love and embrace that rauch
raore? Can the bare shew of repentance
delay God's stroke, and shall uot the reality
and truth of it avert it ? Certainly this is the
only reason that God shews hiraself so favour
able to hypocrites' bare pretences, that he raay
encourage our real endeavours.
Sdly, There is arguraent to hope for the
removal of a judgraent upou true hurailiation,
because' in this God attains the end of his
judgments. No need of farther purging when
the huraour is carried off. God's actions
extend no farther thau his designs. God does
uot punish that he may punish, but that he
may hurable ; wherefore, when humility is
produced, his punishraents proceed no farther.
God is of too great raercy to triuraph over a
prostrate soul. There is a resurrection frora
raisery as well as from the grave. It is true,
God is said " to kill," (1 Sam. ii. 6,) but in the
next words it is added, that " he makes alive."
God does uot punish as that he may thence
receive satisfaction for our sins ; for then, as
our sin is infinite, so our punishments would
be endless. All satisfaction is laid up in
Christ, aud when we are thoroughly humble
for sin, that satisfaction is then actually made
ours. No wonder, tberefore, if God's judg
ments vanish before that satisfaction ; if it
reraoves a teraporal judgment, that rescues
from an etemal. This is certain, and worth
our observation, that God never sends a judg
ment upon any of his children, but it is for
one of these two ends, either to prevent or
remove sin. O, says God, here is a poor soul
that is hugging and embracing its sin, pleasing
itself ill its own ruin ; unless sin be irabittered
to it by some severe affliction, it will never

leave it, but perish iu it. Here is another
ready to sin, iu a posture to close with any
temptation, going on in the ready road to
death. 0, says God, here is another poor
creature, that if sorae sharp judgraent does
not raeet and stop it, it is posting on with a
full career to its owu perdition. Now God
does effect both these works, to wit, the re
moval aud the prevention of sin, by the
instrumental help of a thorough humiliation.
Consider therefore with thyself, thou that
hast lain a long time under any cross or afflic
tion from God, has thy affliction humbled
thee ? has it weakened thy sin, strengthened
thy hands to duty ? If it has not, thou hast
cause to fear that God will either continue
that judgment that now presses thee, or bring
a greater and a sorer evil upon thee. But, on
the other hand, if thy affliction has wrought
kindly, if it had cleansed off the filth and
corruption of thy heart, if it had brought thee
to disesteem the world, and v.alue Christ, to
look upon sin as a greater evil than death,
believe it, God has done his work upon thee,
and he will quickly reraove either the judg
ment itself, or the venom and sting of it.
Now the showers of repentance are fallen, the
clouds of God's wrath are vanishing : and lie
is coming fortli to meet thee as a poor return
ing prodigal. He looks upon thee as he did
once upon Ephraim, (Jer. xxxi. 18, 19, 20,)
"I have surely heard Ejihraim beiuoauing
hiraself, &c. therefore niy bowels are troubled
for hira : I will surely have niercy upon hira,
saith the Lord." If thou hast au heart to
mourn over thy sin, God has bowels of com
passion to yearn and relent over thee. If thou
canst in sincerity say, I will sin no raore, God
is as ready to s.ay, that he will afflict uo more.
Believe it, if thou hast a purpose to return to
God, God has mercy to retum to thee.
To which God, therefore, be rendered and
ascribed, as is most due, all praise, raight,
majesty, and dominion, both now aud for
evermore. Amen.

SERMON XLII.
" Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of
heaven." — Matt. y. 3.
It is doubtless a great paradox in the general
judgment and opinion of the world, that any
poverty, of what sort soever, should be desir
able : forasrauch as every one desires to enjoy
the good things of the world, and thereby to
enjoy himself; to the attainment of whicb,
riches are the most acknowledged means.
And if these are the prirae instruraent of
enjoyraent, poverty surely raust be the main
opposite to it. But the gospel, we coufess, is

ON MATTHEW, v. 3.

353

5 system of paradoxes and absurdities to the
maxims of the world ; the grand rule which
the generality of mankind both live and judge
by, beiug to follow the full bent of their
sensuality. And therefore our Saviour begins
this his notable and great sermon iu the
mount, with seven or eight such propositions,
as directly oppose aud bid defiance to the
opinions and practices of the carnal world :
and these he ushers in with the comraeuda-
! tion of that so rauch abhorred thing called
\ " poverty." And that also such a poverty, as
rests not only in the surface of the body,
i clothing that with rags, or (which is worse)
' with nothing ; but such au one as enters into
the very soul, aud strips the spirit, leaving
that naked, destitute, aud forlorn.
j In the words we have these two things con
siderable :
1st, A quality or disposition recomraended
by our Saviour, which is " poverty of spirit."
2dly, The ground and arguraent upon
I which it is recoraraended, namely, that it
entitles him who has it to " the kingdom of
heaven." And first, for the first of these, the thing re
coraraended by our Saviour, namely, " poverty
in spirit." In the treating of which, I shall,
I. Declare the nature of this " poverty of
spirit ;" and,
II. Shew the means by which it is to be
obtained. As for the nature of it, I shall give an account
of this,
(1.) Negatively, by shewing what it is not.
(2.) Positively, by shewing what it is, aud
wherein it does consist.
First of all then, that excellent thing here
[ recoraraended by onr Saviour, is not,
j 1. A mere outward indigence, and want of
all the accoraraodations of common life. For
certain it is, all want, considered merely in
itself, and not as sanctified by the Spirit of
I God to some farther use, is a curse, and con
sequently can of itself make uo man blessed ;
as the poor, here spokeu of, are pronounced
to be. It is possible that a man may be poor,
iu poiut of wealth, but yet abound in sin and
vice ; and experience shews, that there is uot
a more unsanctified, wretched, and profane
sort of raen under heaven, than beggars com-
! monly are ; whose manners entitle them to a
t less portion of happiness in the other world,
j than they can have in this. Many beg of us
for Christ's sake, whom Christ will never own ;
i as being the very sharae aud spots of Chris
tianity ; persons void of all sense of virtue,
: all conscience of duty, either to God or man ;
' swearers, railers, idle, useless drones, and in-
: tolerable burdens to society. Nay, and we shall
sometiraes find poverty iu conjunction with
such vices as seem to be directly crossed and
took away by poverty. For how poor are
sorae, and yet how insolent ! what pride lurks
VOL. II.

under their rags, like a snake under the leaves !
Yea, and how luxurious are raany! for there
is scarce any raan in the world, be he never
so poor, but some time or other chances upon
opportunities of luxury : so that those cora
raon expressions, "as proud as a beggar," and
" as drunk as a beggar," are so far frora being
either false or iraproper, that they are the
raost full and significant descriptions of a
person possessed with these vices, to the
utmost height of them, that can be found out.
Many there are who embrace dunghills, the
filth aud offeusiveness of whose lives does
exceed thera ; and who are sordidly and
nastily habited, whose clothes are but an
erablem of their hearts, and a lively picture of
their manners.
Poverty is not always the lot of the right
eous, aud the true servants of God, who raake
a conscience of their ways ; but sometiraes,
by the just disposal of Providence, conies to be
the inheritance also of the wicked, the uncon
scionable, and such as would be rich, if they
could, upon any terms whatsoever : but the
curse of God has been too hard for them, and
put them behindhand iu spite of all their
gains ; so that whatsoever they have got, has
insensibly raelted, and mouldered to nothing.
Their riches have never stayed with them, but
"made themselves wings, and flown away;"
aud thereby taught the world, that to get and
to thrive are not always the sarae thing.
Besides, that poverty very frequently is the
direct effect and consequent of siu and vice.
The drunkard drinks off his estate, like his
cups, to the very bottom, aud leaves nothing
behind. The vain-glorious raan wears his
fortunes upon his back, till at length he has
worn them out. The contentious raan fol
lows the law against his neighbour, for the
gratification of his revengeful humour, so
long, that in the end the very obtaining of
the cause does not defray the charges, or re
move the poverty contracted by its prosecu
tion. But now, certainly, such a poverty can be
no more recoraraended by our Saviour than
the sinful causes of it. For Christ coraraands
no raan to be luxurious, ambitious, or re
vengeful, iu order to his raaking of himself
poor. He who is the one will undoubtedly
be the other. But the interest of religion and
virtue is not concerned, that a man should be
either. In a word, poverty is usually the effect of
sin, but always a temptatiou to it. For it
provokes the corrupt heart of man to discon
tents, raurraurings, and repinings, to sinister
and base courses for his relief, unless there
be a predominant principle of grace, to com
pose aud quiet the dissatisfactions of nature.
This therefore cannot be the thing to which
Christ pronounces a blessing. For whatsoever
renders a man blest, raay be the proper object
2

354

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Serm. XLII,

of his prayers : but none surely ought to pray
for a temptation, or to petition Heaven for a
great calamity. But,
2. The " poverty of spirit" here spoken of
is not a sneaking fearfulness and want of
courage : for there is nothing base in nature
that can be noble in religion. Cowardice is
neither acceptable to God nor man ; it neither
promotes the honour of one, nor the good
of the other ; it being indeed the portal and
broad gate through which most of the un
worthy and vile practices that are seen in the
world enter upon, and rifle the consciences of
meu. So that in the Revelation, ch. xxi. 8,
Saint John, reckoning what kind of per
sons shall be cast into the " lake that burns
with fire and brimstone, amongst murderers,
whoreraongers, sorcerers, aud idolaters," ranks
" the fearful." And why ? Because fearful
ness betrays a man almost to all other sins.
So that the fearful person is incapable of
making good any relation of common life,
whether in the capacity of a subject, a friend,
or a serv.ant ; for a man's fear will make him
speak, swear, or do any thiug, to rescue him
self from an impendent danger.
And if this had been the proper virtue and
qualification of a Christian, there would never
have beeu auy such thing in the world as
martyrdom ; as owning of Christ in the face
of tyranny and torment, and holding fast the
Christian faith upon the rack and in the
flames. And therefore it is the "righteous
man only," who, Solomon tells us, " is as bold
as a lion ;" and who carries in his breast a
heart too big " to fear those who can only kill
the body." In many passages and circum
stances of life, it requires no ordinary pitch of
courage for a man to dare to be good : and he
must be a valiant as well as a conscientious
man, who cau aud will choose duty, when it
is beset with the greatest danger, and can defy
" the powers of darkness," as well as abhor
" the works of it."
Wherefore, since the " poorness in spirit"
here spoken of by our Saviour is neither to be
understood of meanness or timorousness of
spirit ; it is much that some should make the
badges and characters of such a pitiful temper
the proper indications of piety, and the marks
of a more improved Christianity. For do not
many, by a sneaking look aud a whining
voice, affect the reputation of pious and de
vout persons ? Do not mauy behave them
selves so, as if there were uo going to heaven
but by creeping, no passing through the
"strait gate" but upon all four? But such
persons understand not the nature of the
Christian religion, if they thiuk that such
ignoble qualities cau be any parts of it.
Christianity is a superstructure upon, and an
addition to the excellencies of nature : and
therefore, if a pusillanimous spirit debases
and degrades a man, considered but as a raan.

it can neither adorn or improve him in the
capacity of a Christian.
Having thus, by a negative consideration,
shewn what this " poverty of spirit" is not, I
corae now, in the next place, to shew posi
tively what it is, and wherein it does consist.
In order to which, we are to observe, that
poverty or want, is properly a privation of
fulness, or abundance, and consequently op
posed to it. Now a man may be said to be
spiritually full, when he abounds in a confi
dent opinion, both of his own righteousness,
and his happiness thereupon : and therefore
" poverty of spirit," which is its direct oppo
site, may be said properly to consist in these
two thiugs :
1. An inward sense and feeling of our spiri
tual wants and defects ; and,
2. A sense of our wretched and forlorn con
dition by reason of those wants.
1. And first, it consists in an inward sense
of that deplorable want of holiness, which we
are in by nature. We are born into the world
destitute, and surrounded with innumerable
infirraities ; aud, in the phrase of the apostle,
in the Revelation, chap. iii. 17, " poor, mis
erable, blind, and naked." All the powers
of our souls are crippled and disordered,
aud rendered strangely impotent to the
prosecution of good. Our judgments are
perverted, our wills depraved, aud our affec
tions misinclined, and set upou vile and un
worthy objects. This is the portion and
inheritance which we derive from our first
parents : these are the weaknesses and evils
we labour under : and the first step to a de
liverance from them, is to be sensible ofthem ;
for we shall never attempt to be what we are
not, till we come to dislike what we are.
Self-opinion and self-love are the gteat
strong holds which the gospel sets itself to
beat down ; for by nature we are as prone to
overvalue as to over-love ourselves ; but in
both of them there is a kind of spiritual ful
ness and repletion, which must be removed
and carried off, before the gospel can have its
effect upon us. For Christ comes with a de
sign to infuse his gifts and graces into the
soul ; but there is no pouring of any thing
into a vessel which is full already. And there
fore a man must be emptied of all his vain
and fond conceptions and principles, and, in
a word, of himself too, before he cau be pre
pared and qualified for the infusions of the
Spirit. He who thinks himself holy and righteous
enough, is a most unfit subject for the gospel
to work upon : indeed he is scarce fit for re
pentance ; for Christ " came uot to call the
righteous," that is, those who thought them
selves so, "but sinners to repentance;" sinners,
who in their consciences stood convict of their
sinful estate, who beheld the " plague of their
own hearts," the sores and leprosy of their

ON MATTHEW, v.

H55

souls ; these were the meu who stood in the
next disposition for the reception of mercy,
for the alms of heaven, and the corapassions
of a Saviour : for these are such as Christ pro
perly calls the " heavy laden," and upon that
account invites to hiraself. As for the Phari
sees, and the opinionators of their owu holi
ness, the spiritually proud, confident, and
disdainful, they were meu of another dis
pensation ; the gospel knows them uot, uor
justifies any such ; it finds them standing
upon their own bottom, and so also leaves
thera to fall.
The soul, upon which the spirit of regene
ration has truly passed, is utterly of another
teraper ; it is still apt to bemoan, and to con
demn itself; it sees its own scars and defor
mities, and upon the sight of them falls down,
and wallows iu the dust before the pure eyes
of God. The true Christiau teraper shews
uot itself upou the mountains of pride and
self-opinion, but dwells low in the valletys of
humility, self-denial, and spiritual dejection.
Aud as it behaves itself thus towards God,
so it demeans itself with a proportionable con
descension to men too. He who has this
evangelical poorness of spirit, is still apt to
think others better and holier than himself ;
for his conscience teaches hira to thiuk the
worst of his own heart, and his charity
prompts him tojudgo the best of his neigh
bours. Upon a due consideration of which, I have
often wondered, and indeed think it a just
matter of wonder, how sorae persons are able
to reconcile their high and loud pretences of
piety, and a more than ordinary purity, with
that insolence and spiritual pride, which
breaks forth in every part of their conversa
tion. For how do some, as it were, monopo
lize the covenant of grace wholly to them
selves, calling themselves the only people of
God, the saints, the godly ; looking upon all
round about them as heathens aud reprobates ;
and upon that account separating themselves
into little companies and congregations, as
not being willing to join (forsooth) in a less
refined way of God's worship. Which per
sons, though they have the good fortune to
find friends to countenance them upon a sup
posed political account, such as call compliauce
prudence, and cowardice moderation ; yet
upon what grounds of true piety and religion
can these pharisaical separatists acquit thera
selves? lam sure not upon this, which re
comraends poorness in spirit ; for did ever any
one yet, endued with this excellent grace, say
to his brother, " Stand off, for I am holier
than thou ?" or bid defiance to a whole church,
and spit in the face of all church-governors,
as every conventicler certainly does, upon a
supposal of his owu transcendent purity and
perfection ; which neither upon clear evi
dence of Scripture, the practice of former

nor the judgment of raany thousands
raore knowing than himself, (as they raay
very easily be,) he is at all able to make out
or demonstrate? Such persons raay flatter
themselves as they please ; but the gospel
must alter its voice, and say. Blessed are the
proud in spirit, the censorious, the insolent,
and self-opinioued, before they can either
have any solid grouud of comfort, or real title
to a blessing.
Where true poverty of spirit dwells, a raan
thinks of nothing less thau his own perfection,
which he utterly disowns. There is no beggar,
aud forlorn distressed person, that more
keenly feels the afflicting hardships of hunger,
cold, and nakedness, than such an one feels aud
groans under his spiritual wants : he laments
the hardness of his heart, his want of life and
activity in the performance of duty ; he com
plains of the weakness of his faith, the insta
bility of his hope, the dispersion aud wander
ings of his affections ; he cannot pray with
that fervour, hear with that attention, and
practise with that steadiness and perseverance,
which, he is sensible, becomes the excellent
and exact measures of Christianity.
These blots and flaws in his Christian course
his eye is constantly upon : and as they are the
objects of his thoughts, so they are the conti
nual matter of his sorrow. Let this therefore
be the first thing, in which cousists this poor
ness in spirit here recoraraended by our
Saviour iu the text ; naraely, a sense of that
deplorable want of holiness, which we are in
by nature.
2. The second thing in which it consists, is
a sense of our wretched and raiserable condi
tion by reason of such want ; the wretched
ness of which appears from these two conside
rations : —
(1.) That we are utterly unable, by any
natural strength of our own, to recover and
bring ourselves out of this condition.
(2.) That during our continuance under it,
we are exposed and stand obnoxious to all the
curses of the law.
1. And first of all, this evangelical poverty
of spirit raakes a man sensible in how wretched
a condition he is, by reason of his own utter
inability to redeem hiraself frora it. He finds
his understanding rauch darkened, so that he
caunot perceive and judge of the things of
God ; and his will full of weakness and ira
potence, as to its choosing of them : it sees
" no beauty" in holiness, " why it should
desire it ;" but the streara of all its appetites
and inclinations wholly runs out after other
things, things evil and pernicious, and tend
ing to the direct ruiu of him that does erabrace
them. All this does a person so qualified find
and feel in himself; but, for all this, is still
unable to enlighten his own understanding,
to sanctify his will, or correct his inclinations :
but, like a man bound hand and foot, and

356

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Sbrm. XLII,

thrown into a qu<agmire, there is he like to
lie and sink, for any succour that he can give
himself, unless such as pass by have compas
sion on him, and relieve him.
And therefore, as the assertion of Pelagius,
of the freedom of the will, and its full power
to choose things spiritually good, even sinee
the fall, is indeed a great piece of nonsense iu
itself : so those that raaintain aud insist upon
it, sufficiently declare theraselves to have little
or uo experience of their owu hearts : uor can
all the rhetoric of men aud angels persuade a
person truly poor iu spirit, and fully studied
iu his owu spiritual wants and defects, that
he is able to repent vvhen he pleases, to be
lieve when he pleases, and to perform all the
divine coraraands. For he looks upon it
as a contradiction, and a defiance to his expe
rience, which he will believe aud subscribe
to, in spite of all the world, as he has good
re.ason. And therefore, in his use of .all the outward
means of grace, he depends upon them no
more than if he used them not ; but upon the
Spirit of God only working in thera : for he
knows it is he alone that can change his heart ;
and that raust be changed, or a man cannot
be saved. It is in his power indeed to hear
and read the word, and to say his prayers,
but this will not do his work ; and for this
cause it is, that God often suffers a mau to
wait upon him for many years in the use of
these duties, and yet gives him not his desired
success, in the change of his heart, and the
conquest of his corruptions, merely to con
vince him of the eraptiness and inefficacy of
all means considered in themselves ; and to
shew him, that when these great things come
to be wrought for hira, it is the sole grace of
God to which he is a debtor for all.
It would be long enough before we should
hear a person, endued with this evangelical
quality, to talk of his merits and his superero
gations, of his fulfilling and eveu outdoing
the law ; for thesc are whimsies, fraraed and
minuted in the heads of those, whose hearts
never served them to be experiraentally pious.
That poverty of spirit that has a claira to the
kingdora of heaven, neither discourses nor
thinks after this manner ; but vents itself in
that doleful, passionate exclamation of Saint
Paul, " Who shall deliver me from this body
of death?" It convinces a raan that he "is
carnal and sold under sin," and sold to a raore
thau Egyptian bondage, to the yoke of Satan,
and the tyranny of his own base, tloraineering
affections. But surely none is ever heard to cry out
with so much veheraence, " Who shall deliver
me ?" who thinks that he is able to deliver
hiraself. Noue calls iu for auxiliaries from
abroad, who finds a sufficiency of strength to
secure him at home. Lcit this therefore bo
one part of the misery of that wretched con

ditiou that this poorness in spirit raakes a man
sensible of, namely, that he is utterly unable
by any strength of his own to get out of this
condition. 2. The other part of its miserj', which this
evangelical poorness makes a raan also sen
sible of, is, that during his continuance under
this woful condition, he stands liable and ob
noxious to all the curses of the law. A sad
consideration certainly, that a raan should be
in a coudition, from which he is not able to
rid himself, and in which, if he remains, he
is infalli'oly ruined. Yet this is the state of
every m,an'by nature. He is born in sin, and
" the w.ages of siu is death ;" death in its
utraost compass and latitude, considered with
all its retinue of miseries and cahamities,
which, as its hiarbingers, m.ake way for it, and
by degrees usher on the last and fatal blow,
which frora teraporal sufferings translates a
man to eternal.
Whosoever has a right spiritual sense of
sin, knows the terror of the law, and the
dreadfulness of the curse ; what it is to live
under the sentence of damnation ; every day,
every hour, every minute expecting its fearful
execution. And he knows also, that till the
Spirit of regeneration puts him within the
verge of the second covenant, he is respon
sible for the breach of the first, which makes
all that his portion, that the law awards, and
the wrath ofGod inflicts upon transgressors.
Now surely he that lives with these appre
hensions quick upou his mind, with the ter
rors ofthe Almighty fresh upon his conscience,
must needs carry about him all the dejection,
poorness, and lowness of spirit before God,
that we can imagine in a malefactor convict,
and ready to suffer before men. His heart
fails and sinks, and is utterly at a loss where
and upon what bottora to fix. Only he
knows that the hands of mercy are not tied,
nor the bowels of divine gooduess wholly shut
up against sinners ; aud that, as it is enough
to rescue him from despair, so on the other
side it is far from ministering to confidence
and ostentation.
This is properly the person who works out
his salvation with trembling aud continual
fears ; as knowing that corrupt nature has
treasured up fuel enough in his breast for the
wrath of God to feed upon for ever ; between
which and himself nothing can interpose, but
the free, unraerited relentings of the divine
compassion ; which, like the wind, blovvs
where it lists, andlays itself out upon whom it
will, tis being abovo the claim and challenge
of any sinner under heaven, whose title hei
clear and questionless to nothing but the
curse. Now the sense of a great misery im
pendent upon a man, naturally casts his mind
into a depressed and an abject posture. For
what person living cau be bold, free, ami
cheerful, who knows th<at he lives every

_1

ON MATTHEW, v. 3.

357

minute upou courtesy, that he breathes by
the connivance of his great Judge, and a sus
pension of that sentence that the law has
already pronounced, and justice may execute
when it pleases. Such raust needs look upon
theraselves as lost and undone by nature : and
those, whose eyes God has never yet opened
to see theraselves in such a woful, forlorn
estate, but have passed their days with a blind
assurance, void of the least grudging, doubt
ful, or suspicious thought about the safety of
their spiritual condition, are not yet arrived
to that poorness in spirit that all raust come
to, before they arrive to heaven.
For indeed it would be but salvation and
redemption thrown away, for Christ to save
any, who are not convinced that they are
ruined without Christ. None shall enter the
gates of heaven, whose fears and apprehen
sions have not sometimes placed thera upou
the brink of hell. For the vastness of such
a change is that which sets a price and a
crown upou mercy ; and the apprehended
nearness of utter perdition, that which en
hances and endears salvation.
Having thus shewn the nature of this
poverty of spirit, aud that both negatively, by
distinguishing it from what it is not, as also
positively, by declaring wherein it does con
sist ; I proceed now to the next thing, which
is to shew, by what raeans this frarae of
spirit is to be obtained.
As for the cause from whence it raust flow,
that is evident without inquiry. For being
a supernatural grace, it springs not frora the
stock of nature, but descends from above,
from that eternal Spirit, that is the " author
and giver of every good and perfect gift."
Reason is too weak a principle to discourse a
man into so excellent a disposition. A dispo
sition that holds no intercourse with the flesh
and the world, but raises the mind to such
desires, such ways and courses of acting, as
not only transcend, but als9 thwart and
oppose all his earthly affections. But still,
though the Spirit be the only productive cause
of this evangelical virtue, yet there are cer
tain raeans to be used by us, with the use of
which he concurs in the production of it ; for
God will treat us like rational agents, and not
like senseless logs, requiring us to bear an
active share in the proraoting and carrying
on of that great affair of our eternal happi
ness. Now there are three ways, by which,
through the concurrence of the Holy Ghost
with our endeavours, we raay at length bring
ourselves to this blessed poorness of spirit, a
quality of so much value in the eyes of our
Saviour, of so rauch worth and weight in the
balance of the sanctuary.
1., The first is a frequent, deep, and serious
considering of the relation we stand iu towards
God. The conteraplation of which will shew
ns that irameasurable distance that is between

hira and us. It will convince us what nothings
we are in comparison of him, that first raised
us out of nothing. When we consider the
unliraited perfections of his nature, we shall
find our thoughts even swallowed up, and our
understandings dazzled, as not being able to
fathora so great an abyss, or to behold so
radiant a brightness. And this must needs
dash all esteem of ourselves, and bring us out
of love with our own little supposed excel
lencies. He that accustoms himself to meditate
upon the greatness of God, finds those ques
tions continually rising and stirring iu his
heart. How shall dust and ashes ever be able
to stand before hira? how shall weakness and
iraperfection enjoy that nature that it is at a
loss even to think of, aud never conteraplates
upon, without amazement? The creature
never appe.ars so pitiful and inconsiderable,
as when it views itself with one eye, and its
Creator with the other.
Every thing is more apparent as it st.ands
compared with its opposite. Man is but a
weak and a contemptible thing at the best ;
but rauch more conteraptible, if compared to
an angel, and yet infinitely and inconceivably
more despicable must he be, if compared to
God. A glowworm siguifies little if compared
but to a candle ; but set it before the stars,
consider it in emulation with the sun, and the
ruling lights of heaven, and vi-hat a silly,
ridiculous thing must it appear !
While men consider nothing but themselves,
they may grow proud and conceited : for
little things may be valued by those who
never saw greater. He that never saw the
day, may adraire aud dote upou his larap.
But consideration and experience of great
things reduces and degrades little petit raatters
to their own proper diraeusions. " Those that
raeasure themselves by themselves" (says the
apostie) " are not wise." For when we
make a thing its own measure, it is impossible
to discover any defect in it. But bring it to
another thing that excels aud outshines it, and
then we shall quickly see how much a tree is
taller than a shrub, and a royal palace greater
and nobler than a country cottage.
Men are enamoured with their own reason ;
but let them corapare it with omniscience,
and it is nothing. They perhaps value them
selves upon their dominion over these inferior
things ; but what is all their grandeur to the
royalty and universal empire of Providence ?
what is their policy to the wisdom of him that
governs the world, and " charges the very
angels with folly?" It is irapossible for a
raan that frequently and seriously thinks of
God, to value hiraself.
Now to these considerations we raay add
that also of our unprofitableness to God. For
by all that we either are or do, we can con
tribute nothing to that iraraense fulness that
is iu hira. And if it were possible that some

358

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Serm. XLII.

emolument might rise to him from our
services, yet it were infinitely needless ; for
what want could there be iu all-sufficiency?
what need could his ocean have of the drops
of oiir bucket ? " Thou desirest not sacrifice,"
says David. Aud Godhimself gives the reason
why he does not, iu Psalra 1. 9, 10, 12, "I
will take uo bullock out of thy house, nor he-
goats out of thy folds. For every beast of the
forest is raine, and the cattle upou a thousand
hills. If I were hungry, I would not tell thee :
for the world is mine, and the fulness thereof."
We need not ply his altar with sacrifices, or
spread a table before the Almighty, as if he
ate the flesh of bulls, or drank the blood of
goats. It is like that, in the Jewish economy,
many were so stupid and gross in their
opinions of God, as to think that they gave
him a repast, and a large meal in all their
burnt-offerings : for certain it is that many
of the heathens thought so. And therefore
God upbraids thera with those absurd dis
courses, by vouching his dorainion over all
the stores of nature, by which, if he had
thought fit, he could easily have supplied
himself, without the ministry of any of the
sons of men. Now what those absurd persons
thought of their sacrifices in relation to God,
the same now-a-days think raany of the
Christians of their prayers, their services and
religious works, that from these is imported
so large a revenue to the divine honour, that
God is much the better and the richer for
thera, and could not maintain his glory to the
sarae height in the want of thera. 'This is
the philosophy of the popish operators in all
their religious perforraances. But raay not
God answer these men, about their so much
valued services, as he did the Jews about their
sacrifices ? I need none of your prayers, none
of your hurailiations ; my glory is above
thera, and entire without thera. But if the
service of any of ray creatures raight be of
advantage to me, is not the whole host of
heaven mine ? Have I not thousands aud
ten thousands of angels, ready at a word to
fulfil my will, to execute my commands, and
to speak my praises ?
Surely if these raen dwelt rauch upon the
conteraplation of God's glorious nature, they
could never esteem theraselves for paying God
those services, of which he stands iu no need,
and by which the substantial greatness of his
honour is not at all increased. For raost true
it is, that there is no accession to the divine
perfections, by the very best and utraost that
the holiest person in the world cau do. And
if there was no other rational end and use of
our obedience th.an this, God would never
exact it. For the ends why he exacts and
requires it of us are, that it may be both a
testification of our homage to hira, and au
instrument of good to ourselves. That is all,
for there is no end of profit or advantage on

our Creator's part serveil by it, wiio is neither
a greater God or a mightier Lord, because we
serve him, or pray un to h i m . Si n ce, if we did
not, he could equally make good his honour
upon us, aud fetch his penny vyorths ont of us
by damning us for our disobedience.
Let a man thiuk much of this, and make
God the measure of his perfections and his
services ; and he caunot but see cause to bring
down his spirit, and to make it poor, and
humble, aud base, iu all his reflections upon
hiraself: it will shew him how raean and
useless a thing he is, as to the corapassing of
the great ends and designs of Heaven ; how
easily Providence cau be without him, without
any straitening of itself; aud how far he is
from being necessary to the setting forth of
the glory of his Maker. We know how high
Job bore himself, iu the apprehension of his
own integrity, which he thought gave him
the vantage-ground so far, as to be able to
expostulate and to reason it out with the
Almighty ; nor could .all the discourses of his
friends reduce him to a right understanding of
hiraself, so as to bring him upou his knees in
a submissive acknowledgment of the righteons
proceedings of his great Judge. Nothing could
control either the risings of his spirit, or the
insolence of his speech, till God himself under
took, and. encountered him out of the cloud,
displaying his greatness, his power, _ his
wisdom, aud his other surpassing perfections,
laying all these before his astonished eyes, as
we have them fully described in those four
excellent chapters, the 38th, S9th, 40th, and
41st of Job: and then the man's stubborn
heart began to bend, and to come down from
its heights ; then he presently knows himself,
and his distance from God ; his deplorable
weakness and his vileness, and so breaks forth
in tiiose expressions. Job, xlii. 6, 6, " Behold,"
says he, " I have heard of thee by the hearing
of the ear, but now mine eye seeth thee."
What follows-? " Wherefore," says he, " I
abhor myself." It was the clear sight of the
glory and greatness of the divine nature that
hurabled him to this self-abhorrence, and
altered the tune of his former self-justification.
Now let every confident, self-valuing person,
compare hiraself with those descriptions of
God in the forementioned chapters ; and if he
has but his understanding and his judging
faculties about him, I doubt uot but they
will have the sarae effect and irapression upon
hira, that they had upon Job, and raake him
descend some steps lower, till they haye
brought him to the level of "the poor m
spirit." Let this therefore be one way for the
obtaining of this evangelical virtue, for a man
to think much of the transcendent greatness
and majesty of God, aud his own unspeakable
distance from him.
2. The second course that he is to take foi
the same purpose, is for him to be much

ON MATTHEW, v. 3.

869

ia comparing himself with the exceeding
exactness, perfection, and spirituality of the
divine law. Self-esteem, which is the thing
properly and directly opposite to this poor
ness of spirit here spoke of by our Saviour, is
the effect of men's rating themselves by false
measures ; and, as I shew, that men's not
measuring themselves by the infinite perfec
tion of God's nature brought them to over
value their persons, so now their not measur
ing themselves by the sublimity and exact
ness of God's law will bring them to the sarae
first valuation of their actions aud services.
" The law of the Lord is perfect," says the
Psalraist, (Psalm xix. 7.) But certain it is
that no mortal man is so ; and yet it is as
certain, that thousands think that they are,
and accordingly entertain thoughts of pride,
naturally consequent upon thoughts of perfec
tion. But now, what is the cause of this error,
and where aud how do men gather up these
unreasonable thoughts ? Why it is from
their ignorance of, or non-attendance to the
law, which requires a perfect original up
rightness and rectitude in the whole man, and
throughout all his natural faculties ; it requires
also a constant holiness and purity in his very
thoughts and first inclinations ; it requires an
universal, uninterrupted practice of the same
in all his actions, and through the tenor of
his whole life : and this it does with that un
relenting strictness and rigour, as not to allow
of the least deviation or turning from the
rule : but inexorably curses every the least
and most minute transgression of it in thought,
word, or deed. This is the economy aud con
stitution of the law : "but who is sufficient
for these things?" What raan cau answer
all these deraands, or live up to these heights ;
What merit-monger araong all the sons of
supererogation will proraise and engage, upon
the utraost peril of his soul, that from the
first to the last minute of his breathing in the
world he will never do nor desire, nor so much
as think any thing amiss ? But if this be an
undertaking too vast for weak flesh aud blood,
that will have its failings, and lives merely
upou the stock of grace and pardon ; then let
every man let fall his crest, forget his pride,
aud learn to be poor in spirit, till he is richer
in good works.
Let him corae off from those false weights
and wrong measures, that pervert him in his
judgment about all his actions. Sorae have
coutrived the body of practical divinity into
easy and flesh-pleasing propositions ; such as
make salvation attainable by something less
than a good life. Now, so long as men trust
to and steer by such directions, they may
quickly and easily grow into a very good
opinion of their own piety and perfection,
when to be pious, and to be perfect, is only to
live up to an imperfect and a faulty rule : but

it is a ready aud easy way of proficiency, for
a man to learn as much as he is taught, when
he is taught but very little.
Others again there are, who measure the
piety of their own lives by the scandalous and
enormous impiety of other men's ; and will
therefore conclude theraselves holy, because
they neither revel it with the drunkard or the
epicure, swear with the profane, or "grind
the face of the poor" with the tyrant or ex
tortioner : all which are heights and great
iraproveraeuts of villainy, and such as have
many degrees under thera, many impieties of
a lesser guilt and malignity, yet enough, un
repented of, to damn and destroy the person
iu whom they are found. No wonder there
fore if men take up a fair opinion of them
selves and their own righteousness upon these
grounds : and if they count themselves very
good indeed, so long as the being good is only
not to be as bad as the worst.
But now what course is to be taken to
dispossess men of this false and flattering
opinion ? Why, surely, that course prescribed
by the prophet Isaiah, (viii. 20,) " to the law
and to the testiraony." The doctrines of raen
may deceive us, and examples may blind us ;
but there is no trick, or fallacy, or imperfec
tion in the law, which issues from the foun
tain of iufinite truth and goodness, and so is
reached forth to the world as that absolute,
indefective copy of divine holiness, that all
mankind is to write after. This is a glass in
which the fairest soul may see its spots and
deforraitles ; a glass that will uot, that can
not flatter ; and therefore he that shall view
himself in it frequently and attentively, shall
see enough to shame aud humble hira iuto
poorness of spirit : he shall see how raany
flaws and defects there are in his choicest and
most accurately performed duties ; how many
infirraities cleave to his warmest devotions,
that the letter of the law would curse and
condemn. And surely, upon a due survey of
this, if he has but a spiritual sense of spiritual
things,he canuot but loathe and despise his owu
righteousness, as a torn and ragged garraent,
utterly unable to cover the nakedness of his
soul ; and consequently think himself the
raost miserable person in the world, if there
were no other righteousness for hira to trust
to. This therefore is a second way of obtain
ing this evangelical poorness of spirit ; naraely,
for a raan to corapare hiihself and his actions
with the high and absolute perfection of the
divine law.
3. The third aud last that I shall mention
is, for a raan to make a due and a spiritual
use of all those afflictions and cross events,
that the providence of God is pleased to bring
hira under ; for every man shall assuredly
have his share of these sooner or later, before
he quits the world. And as the Scripture
says, " affliction springs not out of the dust :"

360

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Serm. XLII.

though it raay seem to us au accident, yet
God does it by design : aud what should he
design by it, but to discipline and cure the
soul by the adversity of the body ? Though
the subject-matter of most calamities is some
thing teraporal and external, yet the end of
thera is certainly spiritual ; and this end can
be no other, than by this raeans to bring us
to a sight of our own wretchedness and great
obnoxiousness to the anger of God, whenso
ever he shall be pleased to let it loose upou
us. For such is the blindness aud stupidity of
man's heart, that while these outward enjoy
ments flow in fast upon him, he never thinks-
of those things : spiritual pride and security
drive all these thoughts out of his mind ;
and he cannot frame himself to a thorough
practical and severe consideration of that
woful aud forlorn estate tbat he was born in,
aud that he lives and continues in, so long
as ease and prosperity keeps him from feeling
any of the penal effects of it : but he is cheer
ful, frolic, and gay, aud, while he thrives in
this world, questions uot his happiness in the
other. But when a mighty blow from heaven
strikes away all his comforts, and leaves him
stript and naked, despised and trarapled upon ;
then other thoughts naturally begin to take
place : then the ministers of his outward man
minister to hini sad and raisgiving reflections
upon the condition of his inward, and make
him doubt where the great calaraity raay end.
For his heart must needs tell him, that afflic
tion is but the consequent of sin, and that also
such a one, as will determine where the worse
and greater consequents of siu shall but be
gin : and then how unspeakably raiserable
would his lot be, should all these temporal
hardships be but preludiums and beginnings
of an intolerable weight of wrath reserved and
treasured uji for him hereafter. Every afflic
tion carries in it many excellent instructions
to a considering mind, when it humbles hira
under the feet of the insulting world, and
covers hira with contempt and scorn. It can
tell him also, that sin makes him infinitely
more contemptible and vile in the sightof God,
who despises a wicked person raore than the
world can undervalue a man for his poverty,
while it scoffs at his threadbare clothes and
his empty purse. For God knows that the
penury and bareness of a soul unjustified, aud
uncovered with the robe of Christ's righteous
ness, represents it more shameful than Job in
his utmost misery appeared to be, when he
sat naked and afflicted, full of noisorae sores
and ulcers, upon the dunghill, a mock to
others, and a burden to himself.
When men feel the afflicting hand of God
pressing them, there is also a voice frora the
same God, calling upon them to search for the
cause of that grievance in their own sinful
breasts : aud, since they so much abhor the

bitterness ofthe stream, to bethink themselves
of the overflowing malignity of the fountain,
and to hate aud abhor that much raore. For
this is the only thing that God drives at: it
is not so much the poverty of our purses, as
of our spirits, that he regards ; and if the
former does not produce and occasion the
latter, there is an affliction, that is, an op
portuuity of grace, lost aud misspent upon us.
But he that will husband every temporal cala
mity to a spiritual advantage, will strike in
with the divine methods, and being humbled
by God, will humble himself yet farther.
Every judgment shall read him a lesson of
himself, discover to him the vanity of his con
fidence, make him low and destitute in his
owu eyes, and so impoverish him into the
best, the fullest, and the most abiding riches.
And thus I have finished the first general
head proposed frora the words ; namely, the
quality or disposition here recoraraended by
our Saviour, which was poorness in spirit.
I shall now speak soraething briefly of the
second ; to wit, the grouud or arguraent upon
which this poorness of spirit is recoramended ;
which is, that it entitles hira that has it to the
kingdora of heaven.
Christ never enjoins us any duty, though
ever so irksorae, so harsh, and so displeasing
to flesh and blood, but still he makes it worth
our pains to comply with him, even in those
his severest and most unpleasant commands.
For a man to loathe aud despise himself, to
whora nature has raade self-love so delightful,
and almost inseparable, must certainly be a
hard lecture, and not easily learned, because so
little liked ; yet Christ invites us to it with no
less a recompense than the gaining of a king
dora; he calls upon us to exchange an airy
conceit for a substantial enjoyment, pride for
glory, and opinion for possession. If to be
poor is a frightful word, and such as carries but
little allurement in it to persuade, yet surely
a kingdom sounds big aud high, aud the king
dom of heaven yet higher ; and this is that
which is held out and offered to us, to recon
cile us to the forraer. To be poor for a time
is but an easy task, when the reward tbat
follows it is to be rich for ever : it is a duty
that carries a blessing in its front, and is con
trived into such words, that it exhibits the
reward before it enjoins the work. Heaven
is the first thing that it sets before us, and
thereby seeras not so rauch to exact, as to
purchase our obedience. Upon which ac
count, though there is required poorness of
spirit in point of duty, I ara sure there is re
quisite largeness of spirit to raake us capable
of the reward. Now in these words, " theirs
is the kingdom of heaven," two thiugs are
worthy of our remark :
1. The thing promised, " the kingdom of
heaven," which I conceive does not here pre
cisely signify the future state of glory .allotted

ON JOB, viii. 13.

361

for the saints in the other world ; but that
whole complex of blessings that is exhibited
to mankind in the gospel, the economy of
which is frequentiy styled by the evangelists,
"the kingdom of heaven." So that the
meaning of the words is, that those great and
glorious things that the gospel is big with,
belong only to the hurable, lowly, and full of
the sense of their own unworthiness, as being
the only proper and capable subjects of them.
But now the gospel offers grace as well as
glory ; it gives the Spirit, with all its helps
and assistances, to recover the soul of man to
sorae raeasures of the divine iraage, worn out
and defaced by original sin. There is a great
deal of heaven that the gospel imparts to be
lievers in this world, giving them the first-
fruits of glory in the sanctification and
justification of their persons, and those high
privileges of sonship and adoption, hy which
they are repossessed of and reinstated in all
those rights that have been forfeited by sin,
and so come to have a uew claira to what
they enjoy here upou earth, as well as what
they hope for in heaven ; for they are the
saints only to whora even these temporal
blessings descend by covenant aud filial rela
tion to God ; which the rest of raankind
receive only as his vassals, by the liberality
of a general and proraiscuous providence.
2. The secoud thiug to be reraarked is, the
raanner in which heaven is here promised ;
which is in words importing the present. I
shew, indeed, that the future state of blessed
ness was not the only thing here intended,
yet it is undoubtedly the principal ; and
Christ here conveys it to the saints in terras
not expressing future, but actual possession :
not " theirs shall be," but " theirs is the king
dora of heaven." They do not so rauch ex
pect, as grasp it : it is not so much set before
their hopes, as put iuto their hands, and frora
expectation passes into fruition. By this way
of speaking, Christ designs to seal to us the
certainty of the promise, and to assure us that
we have firra hold of heaven, before we find
an entrance into it.
The world surely would think that the
poor raan is of all persons living the most
unfit to make a purchase, especially to buy
kingdoras, and to bid a price for a crown and
a sceptre. But it seems that the evangelically
poor raan can do all this, and yet not exhaust
hiraself; which shews that the spiritual per
son is never so indigent, but that he can still
outbid the world, and possess hiraself of that
which all the riches upon the earth cauuot
compass ; for immortality aud heaven, and
not only heaven, but also the God of heaven
hiraself, is his possession.
To whora be rendered and ascribed, as is
most due, all praise, might, majesty, and
dominion, both now and for evermore.
Araen.

SERMON XLIII.
PART 1.
** The hypocrite's hope sliall perish." — Job, viii. 13,
There is nothing iu the world, though
never so excellent, but it has its counterfeit ;
religion and grace itself are not exempted : so
that in these matters, as well as in others, we
often suffer a fallacy in our choice, by embrac
ing resemblances instead of thiugs. Sincerity
and hypocrisy are the two great thiugs about
which the whole stress and business of the
gospel is laid out ; uamely, to persuade aud
enforce the one, and to discover and detect
the other. And here we have hypocrisy pre
sented in its greatest aud most flourishing
enjoyment, which is hope ; and inits greatest
misery, which is utter frustration.
There are only two things that can require
any explication, and the words will be very
clear : first, what is raeant by " the hypo
crite ;" and secondly, what by " the hypocrite's
hope." As for the first, all hypocrites in the world
raay be comprehended under these two
sorts, —
(1.) The first is the gross dissembler, who
knowingly, and against his conscience, pursues
some sinful course, endeavouring only to con
ceal it frora the eyes of raen ; such an one was
Gehazi, who concealed his sharking, covetous
acts from his master Elisha, (2 Kings, v. 26.)
Such an one also was Judas, while he plotted
the betraying of his Lord ; he could eat and
con verse with him, and yet carry on a design
against hira at the same tirae ; he could bring
the guest and the traitor to the same table.
Such an one was the lewd woraan, (Prov.
xxx. 20,) who took secresy for innocence ;
and, putting a fair face upon a foul fact,
" wiped her mouth, and said, she had done no
wickedness." Such were also the scribes and
pharisees, whom our Saviour upbraids so
severely, (Matth. xxiii. 27 ;) for as they had
the outward varnish, so they had also the
inward rottenness of a noisorae sepulchre. In
short, this sort of hypocrites, the utraost of
whose religion is to conceal, not to renounce
their sins, comes within the number of those
that are eveu stigmatized by the heathen,
" qui famam, non conscieutiara verentur ;"
such as prefer credit before conscience, an
outward, lying, pompous appearance, before
an inward, sincere realitj'.
(2.) The other sort is the formal, refined
hypocrite, who deceives his own heart. He is
mauy degrees above the other ; for his con
science and his convictions will not let him

362

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS. Serm. XLIII.

take up in a course of professed dissimulation.
And therefore he makes some advances into
the practice of holiness ; but not being sound
at the heart, not being thoroughly divided
from his sin, he takes that for grace which is
uot sincerity, and therefore much less grace ;
aud being thus deceived, he misses of "the
power of godliness," and embraces only " the
form." Such an hypocrite we have described in
Matth. vii. 26, 27 ; he raised a very fair build
ing, but " he laid the foundation of it in the
sand." Now both these hypocrites agree in
this, that they are deceivers ; for deceit is the
formal, constituent reason of hypocrisy : only
the difference lies here, that one deceives the
world, the other deceives himself ; one re
solvedly goes towards hell, the other sets
forth for heaven, but misses of his way ; one
is a mere shadow, the other is a rotten sub
stance. I conceive the hypocrite here spoken of in
the text is to be taken in the latter sense ; for
the gross palpable dissembler neither does nor
can rise so high, as to entertain any seeming,
rational hope of a future felicity. For he
who knows his present estate to be totally
bad, and knowingly persists in it, cannot
with auy colour of reason hope that his
future condition should be good. And thus
much for the first thiug to be explained. As
for the
Second, By " the hypocrite's hope" is here
raeant those persuasions that a raan has of the
goodness aud safety of his spiritual condition,
whereby he strongly persuades hiraself that
he is now in a state of grace, and consequently
shall hereafter attain to a state of glory.
Yet, since it is not to be imagined that this
hope is in the sarae proportion in all hypo
crites, we may justiy distinguish in it these
two degrees :
1. A probable opinion. Now opinion, we
know, is but the lowest degree of assent ; nay.
It is rather thought, thau assent ; it is the
understanding, as it were, halting between
doubt and belief; rather catching at, than
embracing its object. So that if opinion at
best be so weak, what is that that is com
menced upon a false ground ? that hangs upon
the thin, rotten thread of a hare peradventure :
for the voice of the hypocrite is generally
but the same with that of the king of Nine
veh, " peradventure the Lord will be gra
cious." 2. The second degree is a peremptory per
suasion. This is its highest pitch aud perfec
tion ; and it seeras seldom to be entertained,
but where hypocrisy is in conjunction with
gross ignorance or judicial searedness. It is
hope raised into confidence, and confidence, as
it were, screwed up to a kind of plerophory ;
when a man is so confident of his future hap
piness, that nothing seems wanting but an
actual possession. I

These things premised briefly by way of
explication, the words naturally cast them
selves into these two propositions :
First, that a hypocrite raay proceed so far,
as to obtain a hope and expectation of a future
blessedness. Secondly, that all the hypocrite's fairest
expectations and hopes of such a happiness,
will iu the end vanish into miserable disap
pointraent. For the prosecution of the first of these, I
shall do these three things, —
I. I shall prove that the hypocrites have
such hopes.
II. I shall shew how and by what ways
these hopes are first produced in the hypo
crite's mind. Aud,
III. I shall shew how they are cherished
and preserved there.
I. And first, for the first of these ; to wit,
that the hypocrites have and do obtain such
hopes, may be evinced by these two argu
ments :
(1.) The first of which shall be taken from
the" uature and constitution of raan's mind,
which is vehement and restless in its pursuit
after some suitable good. Now the happiness
of mau is uot from within, frora himself, but
frora without. And all the good he takes in
frora thence is conveyed, and, as it were,
drained through the apprehensions of his
mind : and the miud, or reason, not only ap
prehending its present state, but also caring
for the future, it is accordingly put to seek
out for a good that may bear proportion to
both these conditions, that is, both a present
and a future ; aud a present good it takes in
and enjoys by actual possession, and a future
ouly by its hope. Now it is natural for every
man, both in his desires and designs, to build
chiefly upon the future ; and that, I suppose,
for this reason, because he looks upon the
future only as his life. For so much of our
life as is past is gone, and to be reckoned with
that which is not ; and the present we know
is a narrow, indivisible poiut, enjoyed and
spent in an instant ; so that all our treasure
aud reserve is wrapt up in the future.
And that men's desires chiefly run out after
things future is clear, because the most ardent
and natural of all desires, which is that of
knowledge, chiefly catches at and pries into
futurities. Man naturally looks forward : the
eye of the soul is like that ofthe body, though
it passes through things immediately before it,
yet it always terminates in something distant.
When a man is dejected upon the sight and
consideration of what he is at present, he is
naturally apt to relieve himself with the hope
and expectation of what he shall or may be
hereafter ; and it is not to be questioned, bnt
that all the world live more by hope than by
fruition. Whence it is, that a person con
demned, or mortally wounded, will say that

ON JOB, viii. 13.

363

he is a dead man ; because he dates his death,
not from the expiration of his life, but of his
hopes. Aud this is so evident, that though in
things of a most different nature, yet the truth
is still the sarae. For as in teraporals no raan
looks upon hiraself as rich or happy in the
present possession of lands, unless they are
secured, and raade over to him for ever ; so in
spirituals, a man that is acted but by his bare
reason, finds no relish or satisfaction in any
thiug at present, but as it is seasoned and set
off with an expectation of a future blessedness.
Every man naturally carries on some par
ticular design, upon the event of which he
builds his satisfaction ; and the spring that
moves these designs is hope. Hopes of the
future are the causes of present action : for
that the hypocrite perforras some duties,
wades through sorae afflictions, and that he
makes some imperfect essays of obedience, it
is all from the strength and activity of his
hope : this first excites aud quickens hira to
the work, and then aniraates and upholds
him in it. Otherwise, the natural weakness
of his mind would quickly cause hira to quit
the field, aud put an end to such uncorafort
able labours ; for when the sight and expec
tation of good fails, it is natural for endeavour
to cease. Hope is that which antedates and
prepossesses a future good ; that sets it in the
view of the will, which alone puts all the
faculties in motion. From hence, therefore,
it follows, that the hypocrite has his hope, for
he has his course, and his way, according to
which he acts ; and without hope there can
be no action.
(2.) The other arguraent, proving that
hypocrites have their hopes, shall be taken
from that peace and comfort that even hypo
crites enjoy; which are the certain effects,
and therefore the infallible signs of some hope
abiding in the miud. We may take a view
of the profound peace and security enjoyed
by hypocrites in several instances : and first,
we have the old world, though polluted with
a general corruption, yet enjoying a general
peace before the flood, so that, (Matt.
xxiv. 38, 39,) " they were eating and drink
ing, marrying aud giving in raarriage, and
knew not till the flood carae, and took them
all away." Strange was the security of con
science that had seized upou these sinners ; it
was so great, that though death and destruc
tion were eveu at the door, yet they ruffled it
in the highest actions of jollity that human
life was capable of. And in the 26th of Mat
thew we have the foolish virgins at so firra a
peace with their owu conscience, that they
could even sleep securely ; shutting both
heart and eyes against .all thought of danger.
And in Araos, vi. 3, 4, we have some "putting
far away from them the evil day, lying upon
beds of ivory, and stretching themselves upon
their couches :" free frora all thought or care ;

unless possibly how to make their visits, or
to contrive some revel, or to prepare and
dress themselves for some ball or lewd meet
ing. Also in Zech. i. 11, we have the angel
of God giving an account of the state and
posture of an unsanctified world. " Behold,"
says he, "the whole earth sitteth still, and at
rest." To all which scriptures we may add,
by way of overplus, the verdict of our daily
experience and observation. For who so
much at ease and quiet, who so jocund and
free from anxious distracting cares, as those
that are visibly strangers to the sincerity of
religion, apparently unacquainted with the
ways of God ? Frora which teraper and state
of raind, we may undeniably collect and
argue, that they have their hopes. For where
there is comfort, there must be hope : since it
is built upon this foundation, it grows out of
this stock, as it is iu Job, viii. 11, " Can the
rush grow up without raire? or can the flag
grow without water ?" The hypocrite's hope
is indeed both a water that will fail, and a
raire that will defile hira ; yet it is this alone,
that for a while gives growth and greennes.~
to his comforts. If the heart of raan were
not pitched upon some bottom, it would of
necessity be continually sinking. Now hope
is the great and only bottom of a hypocrite's
tranquillity. It is this alone that feeds all his
contents, that gives continual supplies to all
his satisfactions. And if hope did not (as it
were by main force) stand and guard the
heart, a deluge of despairing thoughts would
immediately and irresistibly break in upou it.
For if sinners were assured of wrath, and had
certain presumptions of future vengeance,
despair and rage would waste the world, and
men would siu with a high hand, that they
might not only raerit, but, as it were, even
revenge their future sufferings.
Whence it is, that though God's decree
concerning the final estate of every irapenitent
sinner becertain, yet it is also secret, to prevent
despair. And because God raay intend even
those that stand sentenced by it the transitory
reprieve of a little worldly comfort, he keeps
them in ignorance of it ; and so long, they
keep themselves in hope. However, every
reprobate is in this respect before God, like a
conderaned person with a veil drawn before
his eyes. For if a raan did really apprehend
his case utterly hopeless, he could not master
the apprehensions of comraon humanity so
far, as to admit of the least corafort. For did
we ever see a conderaned person (if iu his
wits) dancing and ranting the day before his
execution ? Certainly that raan must needs be
far overgrown with stupid ignorance or epi
curism Avho could eat and drink heartily
to-day, when he knew that to-morrow he
should die. Assuredly ifit were uot for hope,
the heart of the merriest and most secure
hypocrite in the world would break.

364

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Serm. XLIII. j

Other reasous of the point raight be as
signed ; but I think these two sufficiently
prove, that hypocrisy and hope may dwell
together, that danger and confidence of safety
are consistent, and that a nian's persuasions
both may be and ofteu are much better than
his condition. I come now to the
Second general thing proposed, which is to
shew by what ways and means the hypocrite
comes first to attain this hope.
I shall instance in four :
(1.) The first is by raisapprehending God.
The first foundation of this hope is laid in
ignorance : for as hereafter it must end, so
here it begins, in darkness. Caution, expe
rience, and accurate raeditation are apt to
check hope ; because they lay opeu the diffi
culties of the thing we hope for. But the
persons here spoken of fetch their hope not
frora their judgraent, but tiieir fancy. The
sum of the hypocrite's creed and hope may be
delivered iu that of Tacitus, fingunt eredunt-
que ; they first feign things, then believe
thera. And their grand, leading mistake,
which draws after it all the rest, is about God.
It is indeed our unhappiness iu this state of
weakness and mortality, that the raost ad
vanced iu knowledge and iraproved iu piety
have yet but very lame and imperfect concep
tions of the great God. And the reason of it
is manifest ; because we are forced to under
stand that which is infinite, after a finite
manner. For philosophy teaches, that "iu-
telligere est pati, et pati est recipere." And
one thing receives another, not according to
the full latitude of the object, but according
to the scanty model of its own capacity.
If we let down a vessel into the sea, we shall
bring up, not what the sea cau afford, but
what the vessel can hold : and just so it is iu
our understanding of God. Besides, it is the
proper quality of the intellect in apprehend
ing, naturally to assimilate the thing appre
hended to itself. And these are the true
grounds of the natural, unavoidable imperfec
tion of our apprehensions of God.
However, God is pleased to bear with our
apprehensions of him, though imperfect, so
long as they are not impious aud absurd ; and
to accept of them, though below hira, so long
as they are not contrary to him. But the
hypocrite frames to hiraself such notions of a
God, as have uo foundation either iu his
nature or his word. He does (as it were)
create to hiraself a deity, and sets up a god
according to the model of his own senseless
imaginations. I know nothing that does so
lively characterize and express those gross,
carnal, grovelling conceptions that hypocrites
entertain of God, as that signal place in Psalra
1. 21, " Thou thoughtest," says God, " that I
was altogether such an one as thyself." That
is, he took the measure of God's thoughts of
sin by his own ; he rated God's esteem of

duty by his own indifference. Every man,
through the native pride of his heart aud the
deceitfulness of sin, is naturally very prone
rather to bring down God to his thoughts,
than to raise up his thoughts to God.
Now the soul in its course and practice of
religion, having iraraediate intercourse with
God, according to those thoughts it takes in
concerning him, it is suitably affected either
with fear or hope, comfort or distraction : and
wheu it has ouce got this cursed, fallacious
way of misrepresenting God to the conscience,
there is nothing in him from whence it will
not draw an arguraent of hope. It will suck
poison 'out of every attribute, strain every
perfection to make it subservient to the in
terest of its hypocrisy.
And first, for that sin-devouring attribute
of God's justice, which one would think
should rout the hypocrite out of all his satis
factions ; yet even this attribute, (which
carries in it nothing but fire aud brimstone,
speaks nothing but lightning and claps of
thunder to the secure sinners,) as it is quali
fied, and allayed by the shifts and evasions of
a treacherous heart, shall not at all disturb
his quiet, or intrench upon his hope. The
hypocrite indeed does and must acknowledge
that God hates sin, and that his jealousy
burns against the sinner ; that his law is
violated, and his justice provoked : but then
he has this evasion, that "justice is God's
strange work, that he does uot afflict will
ingly," nor take auy delight in the exercise
of that severe attribute ; and that if at any
tirae he does think fit to exercise it, it is only
upon gross, scandalous sinners, such as wal
low in the enormities and pollutions of tbe
world ; such whose damnation is visibly writ
upon their present lives, as swearers, atheists,
whoremongers, and such like modish fashion
able sinners. But as for those who are civil
ized in their manners, and stand guilty of no
such clamorous sins, who carry a fair profes
sion, and keep the church constantly, though
perhaps it is chiefly to see and to be seen ;
to such the hypocrite concludes that there is
no condemnation.
But now, if after all these debates and
reasonings conscience is still unsatisfied, and
God's justice appears terrible, aud his power
grim and dreadful, yet then the thoughts of
mercy shall come in, aud clear off all. So that
if conscience and sins unrepented of begin to
cry out, mercy shall cry louder : if vengeance
seeras ready to strike, raercy shall divert the
stroke. Whatsoever objections the hypocrite
can make against himself from God's justice,
he w ill answer from the topic of his mercy.
But then here the fallacy lies : the hypocrite
considers God's justice appeased and his raercy
enlarged ; but he does not consider the quali
fications of those persons to whom these
attributes bear such a gracious aspect. It is

ON JOB, viii. 13.

365

confessed, God's justice is satisfied and his
anger is disarraed ; but it is so, to those only
whose sins are reraitted, and whose persons
are justified ; and whose burden is entirely
transferred, and cast upon the person of Christ
their great surety, whose satisfaction wards
off the sin-revenging justice ofGod, only from
the penitent aud truly pious. But what is
this to the hypocrite, who was never translated
and implanted into Christ by a true aud lively
faith ?
And then for that other attribute of mercy:
it is indeed infinite and boundless in its out
goings ; it covers all sins, keeps off the law,
and evacuates the curse. But it does these
great thiugs only for such as are true believers
and regenerate ; and to be so is a harder
matter than the world generally takes it for.
But this the hypocrite does not consider, and
therefore he retains his confidence ; he catches
at the mercy, but overlooks the condition ; and
so uo wonder, if he has hope, where he has
no interest. And thus much for the first way,
by which the hypocrite raises his false hope,
naraely, byhis misapprehensions of God, and
particularly in respect of those two great
attributes, his justice and his mercy.
(2.) The second way by which he raises the
same false hope is by his misunderstanding of
sin. Sin, one way or other, is the true cause
of all the trouble, anguish, aud despair, that is
incident to the raind of raan. Every tear
springs from this fountain. Every thought
of terror and distrust issues frora sin, as frora
its first occasion and original. But now these
troubles and despairs about the main issues of
a raan's future happiness being very irksorae,
aud contrary to the heart's content, a raan is
willing to gratify his heart so far, as to endea
vour their removal, by winking at sin that is
their cause. Hence it is, that men hold fast
their confidence of life, though they walk in
the ways of death : for they studiously cast a
mist before their own eyes, that they may go
on securely, and not be forced to see that,
whicb, being seen, would certainly constrain
thera to lay down their hopes. Sin rightly
apprehended would quickly confound all their
coraforts, dash tbeir peace and security, and
lay their fairest confidence iu the dust.
Wherefore the hypocrite, to establish his
heart iu hope, labours with all his raight, and
casts about, to relieve his conscience with such
easy conceptions of sin, as may not at all grate
or fall foul upon his comforts. He caunot
persuade hiraself, that that can be so heinous
and dreadful, that is coraraitted with so ranch
facility. Many are apt to look upon actual,
as sorae do upon original sin, not as the error,
but as the coudition of tbeir nature. Love to
siu naturally covers all its deformities.
And first, for the nature of sin in general, as
stript of all its circumstances and particula
rities. The hypocrite does not look upon it

in its native filth, as contrary to tbe iufinite
purity of God's nature and his law, as leaving
an everlasting, indelible stain upon the con
science ; no, nor yet iu its dangerous effects,
as dooming the siuner to all the curses
that an infinite wrath can inflict : but because
punishment is ouly threatened, while pleasure
is presented, the colour of the serpent covers
his poison, the danger is overlooked, and the
proffer accepted, and so the pardon of sin is
counted as easy as the commission.
And from this undervaluing of the nature
of sin in general, he quickly passes into a
cursed extenuation of particulars. Some
indeed hold aud maintain a distinction of sins
into mortal and venial ; calling those mortal,
that for their greatness and enormity deserve
death ; and those venial, thatfortbeir smallness
naturally deserve pardou : which distinction
as some assert in doctrine, so all hypocrites
own in practice, and it isthe inward language
of all their hearts. For though perhaps they
may " strain at caraels," yet tbey can easily
" swallow gnats ;" though blaspheraies, thefts,
and murders may be shunned, yet sinful, im
pure thoughts, words, and desires are passed
over by tbe hypocrite, not only without re
morse, but without notice, as things below
his sorrow, and not deserving repentance,
much less conderanation. Gross external acts
of sin, he knows, are visible, and therefore no
ways for his advantage ; so that no wonder if
the hypocrite avoids these : but this is not his
penitence, but his prudence ; uot because he
hates the nature of sin, but because be fears
the circurastance.
And thus I have shewn the two first ways
by which the hypocrite gains his hope, namely,
by misapprehending God, and misunderstand
ing sin. And when he has wrong apprehen
sions of that wbich deserves punishment, aud
of him who is alone able to inflict it, I suppose
it will be uo hard matter to conclude, that he
may easily shuffle hiraself into hopes of an
escape. (3.) The third way by which the hypocrite
first attains this false and spurious hope, is by
raistakes about the spiritual rigour and strict
ness of the gospel. God at first gave man a
righteous law, aud entered with him into a
covenant of works. According to the tenor
of which covenant, the law required exact
obedience, universal holiness, aud perfection ;
and this in the greatest rigour, not adraitting
any grains of allowance for the least defect or
deviation. But raan having sinned, and
thereby broke this covenant, " the law became
weak through sin ;" that is, weak and unable
to justify, and powerful only to condemn : so
that now all legal dispensations are dispensa
tions of terror ; and to tell sinners of the law,
is only in another word to tell thera of the
curse. Hereupon God was pleased to introduce
a new covenant, and instead of works to estab-

366

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Serm. XLIR.

lish our salvation npon a law of faith, as it is
iu Rora. iii. 27. So that uo breach of the
law whatsoever should be able to condemn
him that believes.
Now the hypocrite seeing this, and reflect
ing upon the former insupportable severity
of the law, he naturally dashes upou the other
extreme, and thinks that if the law were all
'ustice, then certainly tbe gospel must be all
mercy, without justice. Thus making it so
the law of liberty, as not of duty ; and getting
a full liberty, or rather licentiousness of con
science, together with a plentiful stock of
faith, without good works, he looks upon
himself as perfect and evangelical : and hence
forward iu the business of justification, but to
think any more of a holy life, he calls it (as
the phrase of some is) a returning to Egypt.
And therefore as for duty, obedience, and such
other legal things, they mnst belong only to
moral men, who aro uot acquainted with this
sublirae mystery of the gospel.
Hereupon, having made so fair a progress,
he proceeds farther, and proposes to himself
the gospel, as it is held forth in the most lax
aud favourable expressions, iu some scriptures
which he first misunderstands, and theu draws
to his owu purpose.
As for instance, that in 2 Corinth, viii. 12,
where God is said to accept the will for the
deed. From whence, though he lives in a
continual oraission of known duties, and a
frequent coramission of known sins ; yet he
will corafort hiraself in this, that his heart is
good, that he raeans well, that his will is up
right ; and God accepts of this as well as the
strictest obedience. But to rectify so perverse
a mistake, such a one raust kuow, that God
never accepts tho will for the deed, where he
puts it into a raan's power to do as well as to
will : but this holds only where a raan is dis
abled from the performance of his duty, in
which case the inward sincerity of tbe will
supplies the want of the outward action.
As for instance, it is a man's duty both to
frequeut the public worship of God, and to
worship hira in private with the hurablest
postures of body, as kneeling and the like ;
but if God casts hira upou his bed of sick
ness, and the raan is not able to stir a hand
or a foot, there is no doubt but God accepts
of his desire to do these outward acts of reve
rence as much as if he actually did tbera.
And if a raan would receive the blessed sacra
raent, but is in a place where he cannot have
it administered to him, it is as little to be
questioned but that God accepts the devout
pantings and breathings of his soul after th.at
heavenly ordinance, as much as if he -were
really a partaker of it in the outward ele
ments. But what is this to the hypocrite's
case, who pretends will in contradiction to
practice, when both are in his power? thus
deluding hiraself and abusing the grace of

God, and withal not considering, that such
kind of expressions as this, that God accepts
the will for the deed, and the like, are not
proposed to us as the standing rules of our
obedience in our ordinary Christian course,
but as special arguraents of corafort in cases
of extraordin.ary distress ; not as our spiritual
diet to feed and to sustain, but as cordials to
recover us.
Again, when the hypocrite reads in Rom.
X. 9, that " whosoever shall confess with his
raouth, and believe with his heart, that God
hath raised Christ from the dead, shall be
saved ;" he finds that it is no hard niatter to
own such a belief and profession, to carry the
narae and wear the colours of Christ, and so
long he concludes that this scripture warrants
his salv.ation. And again, (1 John, ii. 1,) " If
auy one sin, we have an advocate with the
Father." Hence with much confidence he can
cast all his sins upon Christ's intercessiou ;
and though he continues to sin, yet as long
as Christ continues to intercede, be doubts
not but the interest of his soul stands sure.
Now tiiese scriptures, with many others,
being improved by a subtle, crafty, self-de
ceiving head, and a wicked, unsanctified
heart, lay the foundation of all the hypo
crite's hope. But if he would undeeeiyo
hiraself, and consider that obedience is still
necessary, and that " Christ carae not to des
troy, but to establish the law," as the rule of
that obedience ; that he carae not to give any
new law, (as Socinus and his school vvould
have it,) but to vindicate and clear tho old in
its just purity and extent ; I say, the thought
of this would make him begin to question the
soundness of his hope, and try thefouudation
before he finished the superstructure.
Chi'ist's " yoke is indeed easy," .but it is
still a yoke ; and his " burden is light," but
it is still a burden, and will be so as long as
we carry flesh and blood, and a body of sin
about us. That one gospel precept of self-
denial seriously considered, how difficult it is
to our corrupt uature, how contrary to our
most native inclinations, would make the
hypocrite confess, th.at notwithstanding all
tiiese gracious concessions aud abatements of
legal rigour, that shine forth upon mankind
in the gospel, he must yet be forced to pur
chase heaven and happiness at a far higher
rate thau he did iraagine.
(4.) The fourth and last way tiiat I shall
mention, by which the hypocrite .attains his
false hope, is by his mistakes about repen
tance, faith, and conversion. And it is not to !
be questioned, but that mistakes about these
have been the deplorable cause of the ruin of
many thousands : for, as Quintilhan says of
eloquence, " Multi ad eloquentiam pervenire
potuissent, nisi se jam pervcnisse putasseiit ;"
so raany, in all probability, raight have at
tained to repentance, but that they thought

ON J,OB, viii. 13.

367

they had repented already : raany might have
believed and beeu converted, had they not
preferred speed before certainty, and too er
roneously and hastily presuraed upon these
works, before they were ever thoroughly
wrought upon them.
The carnal hypocrite is apt to think every
fit of sorrow for sin, every grumbling of
natural conscience, to be repentance ; and
therefore here he rests, thinking his sorrow
to have atoned his sin, and his tears to have
washed away his irapurities ; not considering
the great and vast difference that is between
fiiTxfiihiaSxi and fuTxmuii ; between a bare
regret and anguish for sin, causing the soul
to wish only that it had uot been coramitted,
and between such a sorrow as is attended
with a total change and renovation of the
heart. The first raay proceed from the prin
ciples of uature awakened, aud so is comraon
to those that finally perish, aud prove cast
aways ; the latter is a product of the special
workiug of God's Spirit infusing grace into
the soul, and therefore peculiar only to be
lievers. Now, if the hypocrite would warily
observe, whether the sorrow he so much
tmsts in did ever yet cleanse his heart, so as
to turn the full bent and propensity of it to
the coraraands of God, he would find little
cause for hope, and see that his very repen
tauce was to be repented of ; aud that all his
penitential showers were like the rain upou
the streets, that does not cleanse, but foul the
ways. Also for conversion : if the hypocrite can
strain his heart so high as to relinquish sorae
sins, to raake sorae confession, and to engage
in some brittle, uncertain promises of future
araendraent, he iraagines now that the great
work has passed upon hira, aud that he is
taken from the portion of sinners to the pri
vilege of saints. But if he would impartially
read his owu case in the exaraples of others,
aud see Judas confessing his siu, and that
with much bitterness, and yet for all that
" a son of perdition ;" if he would view Herod
doing many things upon John's preaching,
and yet continuing an unconverted, bloody
Herod still ; if he would consider Agrippa iu
the very borders of conversion, aud almost
become a Christian ; and yet for all that
never converted, nor made a Christian ; he
would find just cause to change his hopes
into fears ; and instead of being confident of
this work, with much humility and trembling
to seek after it.
Aud then, lastly, for that grand, deciding
work of faith : because the hypocrite, by a
blind", irrational boldness, is confident that
Christ will save him, and redeem him from
God's wrath ; therefore he thinks that he be
lieves, and that he relies and depends upon
Christ. But if he would examine his faith by
these interrogatories ; as, 1st, Whether or no

he has overcorae the world? for every be
liever does so, (1 John, v. 4.) He triumphs
over Satan, he conquers his corruptions, and
repels temptations. And 2dly, "Whether he
can say, uot only that " he does not siu," but
that " he canuot siu ?" Not that he caunot
commit, but that he cannot approve or delight
in siu ; and that he never sins with such a
full consent of will, but that it is still with
some secret reluctancy and remorse of the re
newed principle ; every true believer is able
to say so, as is evident from 1 John, iii. 9,
" Whosoever is born of God doth uot corarait
sin ; for his seed reraaineth in hira : aud he
caunot sin, because he is born of God." It is
as irapossible for the spiritual man to relish
sin, as it is for the natural man to feed upon
stones or dirt. Now, I say, if the hypocrite
would bring his faith to the test of these
questions, and let his conscience truly and
fairly return an answer, he would find that
there is as great a difference between a well-
grounded gospel hope and his hope, as there is
between believing aud presuming.
This therefore is tbe fourth way, by which
the hypocrite procures his hope. He reads,
that those who repent, believe, aud are con
verted, shall be saved ; and hereupon he re
raerabers, that he has been soraetiraes troubled
about sin, and this he calls repentance. Also
he finds hiraself full of confidence, that Christ
will undertake for his salvation, and this he
persuades himself is faith. And lastiy, he finds
that there is some outward change made in
his life ; sorae duties perforraed that were
before neglected, and some sins avoided that
were before committed ; and this he styles
conversion. And herein is the whole stock
upon which the hypocrite trades, to secure
himself sorae hope of eternal happiness.
And now, to raake sorae use and iraprove
raent of what has hitherto been delivered : if
in this grand busiuess of salvation the hypo
crite- raay and does entertain a hope, then
let none, from the confidence of their hopes,
conclude that they are not hypocrites ; but
consider at least, if not suspect the safety of
their condition. It is indeed the custom of
some to put the superstructure iu the room of
the foundation, and first of all to urge assur
ance : but such persons raeasure their safety
by their confidence, and so raay very fitly
have that speech of Soloraon applied to them
iu a spiritual sense, (Prov. xiv. 16,) "The
fool rageth, and is confident :" for certainly
where the venture is of eternity, the greatest
caution is the best security. The apostle in
deed says, in Bom. xiv. 23, that " he that
doubteth is damned :" but this is quite upon
another occasion : and I am afraid that it will
one day be found, that many have been and
shall be damned, because they never doubted.
For since there are so raany ways for a man
to delude hiraself about his spiritual estate.

368

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Serm. XLIV

since hypocrisy is so conn.atural to us, and
the heart uot only easv, but willing, and not
only willing, but also industrious to cheat
Itself into such a vain hope ; can there be any
thing more seasonable and rational, than to
caution such as " think they stand, to beware
lest they fall," and still to fear that that hope
is scarce sure enough, that cau never be too
sure ?
And thus to persuade doubting is uot to
persuade scepticism in religious matters ; for
scepticism is properly a doubting of the truth
of universals, and of the articles of religion ;
but the doubting here spoken of is conceruing
the safety of a man's own particular condition :
nay, this doubting presupposes a certain assent
to the forraer; for if a man were uot persuaded
of the general truth of religion, he would
never doubt, or be solicitous about his own
personal concern in it. This doubting there
fore is so far from weakening, that it does
indeed establish our hope : for as it is said
of knowledge, " Firmissiniam esse scisntiain
quae oritur ex dubitatione ;" so the same m.ay
be said of our hopes of future happiness, that
those are the most sure and rational, that
were first ushered in with doubting and dis
trust. I say distrust, not of God, but of our
selves ; for this kind of doubting causes trial,
and trial produces knowledge, and knowledge
brings assurance, aud assurance so obtained
maketh not ashamed.
He that shall observe what the Scripture
says of the deep, inconceiv,able treachery of
man's heart, will have sufficient warrant from
thence to bid the raost holy in appearance
suspect his condition. Let none say that he
was converted so many years since, and th.at
therefore, though he knows himself under the
present power of some siu, yet his hopes of
heaven stand sure and good, in the strength
of that his former conversion : but let him
consider rather, how easy it is for a man to
think that he is converted, when he is yet in
the very " gall of bitterness, aud the bonds of
iniquity ;" aud to take that for .assurance, that
is only self-flattery ; and to think that he has
a lively faith aud a lasting hope, which yet,
being spurious and unsound, will one day
miserably deceive hira ; and, having raised
him up to heaven, leave him in the lowest
regions of hell : much like the flattering dis
appointment of the hungry man's dream iu
Isaiah, xxix. 8, " The hungry man dreameth,
and behold he eateth ; but he awaketh, and
his soul is erapty." This know fur certain,
that the only way for a man to make his hopes
sure and lasting is to be sincere; and the next
way to attain sincerity, is first thoroughly to
know and understand his hypocrisy.
And thus much concerning the second thing
proposed, which was to shew by -what means
the hypocrite lakes his first rise, and how he
gets aud obtains this hope. The third and

^

last will be to shew, how he maintains and
preserves it.

SERMON XLIV.
PART II.
** The hypocrite's hope shall perish." — Job, viii. 13.
I FORMERLY made an entrance upon these
words, in which, after some brief explication
of the terms, I shewed that they naturally
cast theraselves into these two propositions :
I. That even a hypocrite may proceed sn
far, as to entertain hopes and expectations of
a future happiness.
II. That the hypocrite's fairest and most
promising expectation of a future blessedness
would in the end vanish into miserable disap
pointraent. For the first of these, I cast the prosecution
of it under these three heads, —
1. To prove that a hypocrite raay aud does
entertain such hopes.
2. To shew by what ways and means he
coraes first to obtain thera.
3. and lastly. To shew how he continues
and preserves tliem.
For the first, That a hypocrite raay and
does entertain such hopes : 1 proved it by two
reasons, the first of which was taken from the
nature of man's mind, which was vehement
and restless in itspursuit after a suitable good,
and accordingly was put to seek out for a good
that might bear proportion to both its condi
tions ; that is, both a present and a future :
and a present good it takes in by actual pos
session, and a future only by its hopes.
2. The second reason was taken from that
peace and tranquillity of raind that even hypo
crites enjoy ; which are the certain effects, and
therefore the infallible signs of some hope
abiding in the mind.
As for the next thing, which was to shew
by what ways and means the hypocrite comes
first to obtain this hope :
I mentioned four.
1st, By his misunderstanding of God, espe
cially in his two great attributes, his justice
and his mercy. 2dly, His misapprehending
of sin. Sdly, By his ignorance of the spiri
tual rigour and strictness of the gospel. And
4thly, By his raistakes about the nature of
repentance, faith, and conversion.
These things I then insisted upou at large,
and so far I have gone ; and I shall not pre
vent rayself iu what remains by any farther
repetitions ; but shall now proceed to the third
and last thing proposed for the prosecution (.t
the first proposition, which was to shew by

ON JOB, viii. 13.

369

what ways and means the hypocrite preserves
and continues this false hope. And here we
must observe, that those raethods by which
he first gets it, have in thera also a natural
fitness to continue, cherish, and foraent it :
the same thing being usually the producing
and the preserving cause : as the parent that
begot the child will also foster and maintain
it. But I shall instance iu three ways more
especially, by which the hypocrite keeps up
and continues those hopes, which upon the
former false grounds he took up.
1. The first is, by keeping up a course of
external obedience, and abstaining from gross,
scandalous sins. Now the hypocrite's confi
dence having no reality or ground in being,
but only an imaginary foundation in his own
apprehensions, it concerns him by all means
to keep fair with conscience ; forasrauch as
that has the keeping of, and the power over
all his contents. And it is withal of a lively,
active uature, apt to discern sin, and apt to
pursue and vex the soul for it ; it will be fly
ing in a raan's face, if not pacified, or at least
deluded by sorae seeraing pursuit of religion.
It is to the soul as the disease called the wolf
to the body ; if it be not continually fed, it
will gnaw and prey upon the body itself,
devour and consurae the flesh. So if con
science be not gratified by sorae outward
services, it will recoil upou the soul, aud with
much rage and bitterness torment and feed
upou that.
Wherefore the hypocrite, that his conscience
may not pass the condemning sentence upon
him, will be ofteu bribing it with sorae spe
cious outward perforraance : and that he may
pacify it, his chief work and business raust be to
possess it with this persuasion, that he is in a
state of grace : which being that which the
Scripture in other words calls "spiritual life,"
it does by consequence iraply in it two things ;
first, the principle and fountain of this life,
which is faith : and this the hypocrite thinks
hiraself endued with, from his forementioned
mistakes about conversion. The second is the
acting and exercise of this principle, which is
called " gospel obedience ;" and of this the
hypocrite must endeavour to assure hiraself
by his behaviour, in the continued tract and
course of his life. Hereupon he is careful to
conforra himself to the exact letter of the law,
and not to pursue those practices that carry in
them an open, barefaced opposition to it. And
so long as he does this, his conscience is silent,
and his hope continues.
The young man in the gospel was a preg
nant instauce of this, who, reflecting upon his
strict and unblaraeable conversation acccor
ding to the several precepts of the law, vaunted
hiraself in that confident reply to Christ in
Matth. xix. 20, " All these things have I kept
from my youth." See Saint Paul also before
VOL. It.

his conversion : questionless his hopes ot
heaven were as full and fair, as large and
proniising, as his heart could desire, and tho
foundation of them all (as we may collect
from his own writings) was only his external
conforraity to the words of tbe law. (Philipp.
iii. 6,) "Touching the righteousness" (says
he) " that is in the law, I was blameless."
That is, according to the doctrine of the
pharisees, of which sect he was, he placed a
legal righteousness in abstaining frora those
external commissions of sin, that were prohi
bited in the letter of the law, and iu the per
formance of those outward acts of duty that
were there enjoined ; whereupon, leading his
conversation iu an accurate observance of the
outward letter, he pronounces himself blame
less; and therefore, doubtless, while he thought
hiraself thus blameless, he had all those hopes
of happiness that it is natural for a person,
that thinks himself blameless, to entertain.
And that he gathered this opinion of hiraself
and of his condition only from his fulfilling
the outward letter, without insisting upon the
inward, spiritual, stricter part of it, is clear
and raanifest frora Rora. vii. 7, " I had not
known siu" (says he) " but by the law : for I
had not known lust, unless the law had said.
Thou shalt uot covet." In which words he
considers the law not barely according to the
letter, but according to the spiritual scope and
intention of it : and though the law taken in
the forraer sense did acquit and absolve, yet
in this latter sense it did condemn hira. And
the reason is, because the law considered in
the letter did only regulate external actions :
but, thus considered, it was a searcher into
and " a discerner of the thoughts and intents
of the heart ;" and consequently did arraign
the very desires of sin, the first risings and
raovings of concupiscence.
Now that this external obedience to the
law, and refraining from gross, notorious sins,
is a singular preservative of the hj'pocrite's
hope, and a strong raaintainer of his confi
dence, as it has been sufficiently proved by
these Scripture instances ; so the same is yet
farther manifest from that strange method
that God has sometimes used for tbe conver
sion of formal hypocrites. He has let them
fall iuto some gross, open, scandalous sin, the
cry of which has exceedingly troubled and
disquieted them, and beat them out of all
those refuges of hope, which the former
civility of their conversation had afforded
thera. Whereupon being utterly bereaved of
their confidence, God has took this occasion
to let into their hearts a full sense of all their
sins, even so far as to discover and rip opeu to
them their sinful nature, their original corrup
tion, and thereby to convert and cause thera
to repair to Christ, and by a lively faith cast
all their hopes upon his satisfaction. And no
doubt but it was upon this account that our
2 A

370

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Skum. XLIV.

Saviour said, that tho publicans and harlots,
persons of scandalous lives aud prostitute re
putations, yet went to heaven sooner than thoso
glorious but rotten counterfeits, the scribes
and pharisees. This therefore is the first way
by which the hypocrite continues and pre
serves his false hope, naraoly, by the civility
and outwardly blameless carriage of his con
versation. 2. Tho second way by which tho hypocrite
keeps up his hopes, and maintains the good
opinion ho has conceived of his spiritual
estate, is by comparing himself with others,
who wore openly vitious, and apparently
worse thau himself. There is no way moro
effectual for a, man to argue hiraself into a
delusion. It is an easy matter to enhance
our apprehensions of the value of any thing,
while there is a worse in our viow. Clipt
money may be accounted good, if compared
to counterfeit. The hypocrite thinks himself
religious, not from any goodness of his own,
but from the badness of others. He raises
a structure of reputed holiness upon tho
deplorable ruins of other men's, and so
entertains both hope and comfort not upon
judgment, but coraparison.
But as in other things comparisons are
justly accounted odious, so hero thoy are
dangerous and pernicious. For it is this that
raakes hira overrate his condition, and sot that
price upon it that God will novor come up
to. This makes him overvalue hisown estate,
and despise others ; while ho should pity aud
lament theirs, and araend his own.
This was the chief ground of tho pharisoe's
hope and confidence, that " ho was not as
other men ;" an adulterer, covetous, swearer,
or the like. When he seiw tho enormous iii-
tcmperanco of tho drunkard, and compares it
with his own HtrictnoH.s, he blesses himself
with all tho promises and assurances of
heaven, because he kuch tho other directly
posting to hell. When he sees tho opon pro
faneness of sorae, then ho reflects upon his own
religious duties and fa,stiiig8, and so by a fal
lacious comparison concludes hiraself happy,
because he sees another very miserable. Ho
does uot measure the holiness of his actions
by their conformity to tho law of God, but
by their inconformity to tho actions of others.
In short, the hypocrite could never with any
colour of confidence think himself holy, if
others were not exceeding wicked.
But he that is apt to overvalue hiraself
upon such deceiving grounds, and to owo his
perfection not to any worth of his own, but
to u foil, should consider, that sin admits of a
large latitude of degrees, the least of which
will ruin and condemn as surely, though not
as deeply, as the greatest ; and withal, that
there are as many degrees of sinners as of
sins. 'There are m.auy paths in the broad
way, some of which arc more cleanly, some

moro foul ; yi^t thoy all tend to thoHiimeeildi
.•md those kIuiII in tho issue as cortainlv arrive
at boll, that treail tho cleanlier paths of |
relinod hypocrisy, .'is IIkw that trash through
tho mire and dirt of tho grossest aborniimtioni,
And therefore lot not tho hypocrite think
himself iu a good condition, because othen
aro in a worse ; let him not compare his lifo
to theirs, but lot hiui rather bring and com-
p.'iro it " to tho law and to tho testimony,"
und thoro he shall read tho vanity of lili
hopes, tho deplorable defects of his moil
exact righteousness, and find that it is in
finitely more below tho perfect purity re
quired iu God's coraraands, than it is above
the foulest |>i'.'ictici!S of tho raost scandalou),
shameless transgressors.
3. The third way by which tho hypocrite
keeps up and maintains his hopes, is bv for
bearing to make a strict and impartial trisi
of his estate. That which first raised hit
hopo, I show, was ignorance ; and that which
continues and foments ignorance is want of
solf-trial. llo that would thoroughly under
stand hiraself, must first thoroughly try him
self. For it is this that dives into the retired
depths of a deceitful heart, that does (ne it
wore) sift und winnow the soul, and single!
out the precious from the vile, that before
lay ill ;i coufused heap, and placing them
under a distinct viow of the judgment, givee
it :i full and a clear prospect into thom.
No wonder if the hypocrite disoorne not
hiu condition, when ho novor turns his eyej
inwards by a thorough faithful oxamiuation,
For as in a trade a man may go on and tralBc,
thinking hiinsolf to bo rich, when indeed he
is poor and near breaking, only because ho
does not examine his stock, nor take a survey
of hia accounts, so is it in tho hypocrite!
profession of religion ; ho proceeds in it, and
thinks himself in a thriving condition, while
in the mean tiino ho withers and decays, and
is " near to cursing :" and all this befalls him
because ho considers not whether ho has »
sufficient stock of grace to carry hiin through
his Christian profession. A man must de-
scotid into himself, and retreat into his own
bosom by a sovoro inquiry, or live and die a
stranger to his spiritual cstati!, and at as great
a distance from his own heart as that is from
a sure peace. Wo know how apt evory ma"
is to think his case good, and such as vvill
abide tho law, till tho woaknessof it be made
manifest in tho trial. " Tho rich man (says
Soloraon) is wise in his own conceit ; but ne
that has understanding Hearclies him out.
And so may it be said of tho hypocrite, that
he conceits himself holy and happy, and in a
state of grace, and favour with God, till such
time as an awakened cuiibcii-iice searches him
out, and discovers to him tho vanity of bis
groundless imaginations.
The foulest soul may think itself fair nnd

ON JOB, viii. 13.

371

beautiful, till it comes to view its deformity
iu the glass of God's word. No man can dis
cover the depth and danger of his spiritual
wounds but by searching them. But it is not
to be wondered, that a hypocrite is so fearful
to engage in this work ; for he has a shrewd
suspicion that it will overthrow and put an
eud to all his comforts : and every raan is natu
rally averse from seeking after that, which he
is unwilling to find. He that would fain seera
holy, will hai-dly be brought to set about that
duty, that will certainly convince him of his
unholiness. But how irksome and unpleasing
soever this work is, the hypocrite must know
that it comes authorized both with God's
counsel aud coramand ; and I shall here add
only this argument to enforce this duty upon
him, that if his hopes and confidence will not
abide the examination of his own conscience,
he mnst not expect that they should ever en
dure the trial of God's tribunal.
And thus much for the third way or means
by which the hypocrite continues and pre
serves his false hope ; which was the last
thing proposed for the prosecution of the first
proposition : I proceed now to the
Second, namely. That the hypocrite's fairest
and most promising expectation of a future
happiness will in the end vanish iuto miser
able disappointment.
For the prosecution of which, I shall,
1 I. Prove the proposition, and shew that the
hypocrite's hope and expectation of a future
happiness will perish and be disappointed.
II. I shall shew those critical seasons and
turns, in which more especially the hypo
crite's hope will be sure to fail hira.
III. And lastly, make some application of
the whole.
I. For the first of these, I shall prove the
proposition two ways :
1. From clear testimony of Scripture. And
here, though the text itself be sufficient to
prove the doctrine drawn from it, this being
ouly a variation of that into other words ;
yet, for the more clear and evident illustra
tion of the truth iu hand, we will take in
also the suftrage of other scriptures. And
first, in this very chapter we have seen the
hypocrite's hope compared to flags and rushes,
which iu their most flourishing conditiou are
not far frora fading ; but while they have
oue part iu the spring, have another usually
in the fall. To-day they are fresh aud ver
dant ; to-morrow they wither and die, and
are cast into the oven : you may spare the
sickle, they will drop and fall of themselves.
And in the 14th verse of this Sth chapter of
Job, we have the hypocrite's hope compared
to " a spider's web ;" a similitude of great
elegance and significance ; aud we may ob
serve a great analogy between the spider's
web and that in a double respect. 1st, In re
spect of the curious subtilty and the fine arti

ficial composure of it. Ths spider iu every
web shews itself an artist : so the hypocrite
spins his hope with a great deal of art, iu a
thill, fine thread. This aud that good duty,
this good thought, this opposing of some
gross sin, are all interwoven together to the
making up a covering for his hypocrisy. And
as the spider draws all out of its own bowels,
so the hypocrite weaves all his confidence out
of his own inventions and imaginations.
2dly, It resembles it in respect of its weak
ness ; it is too fine spun to be strong. After
the spider has used all its art and labour iu
fraraing a web, yet how easily is it broke,
how quickly is it swept down ! So after the
hypocrite has wrought out a hope with
rauch cost, art, and industry, it is yet but a
weak, slender, pitiful thing. He does indeed
by this get some name and room amongst
professors ; he does, as it were, haug his hopes
upon the beams of God's house. But when
God shall corae to cleanse, and, as it -n-ere, to
sweep his sanctuary, such cobwebs are sure
to be fetched down. Thus the hypocrite,
like the spider, by all his artifice and Labour
ouly disfigures God's house. A hypocrite in
a church is like a cobweb in a palace ; all
that he is or does serving only to aunoy and
misbecome the place and station that he
would adorn.
Suudry other scripture-expressions there
are, that cast much light .and evidence upon
this truth ; as in Job, xx. 5, " The triumph
ing of the wicked is short, and the joy of the
hypocrite but for a moment." The hypocrite
takes a great deal of pains, and by much ado
pieces up his broken evidences for he.aven,
bolsters up his decaying hopes, and by many
shifts keeps up a contented heart for the time
of a transitory life. But, alas ! what is hope
lengthened out for a few raoments, to au eter
nity of despair ! wheu he shall be swallowed
up in that black abyss of darkness and des
pondency, from whence he shall never enjoy
the least glimmering hope of an after-delivery.
Could he prolong his hopes beyond the years
of Jlethuselah, yet all these together put into
the bal.ance with perpetuity, are but as a
moment, as an instant, that vanishes as soon
as present. Hence (Job, xiii. 16,) Job
raaking mention of God, says, "that the
hypocrite shall uot come before hira." Such
an one, indeed, while he jogs on in a formal,
seeraingly pious course, raay think that every
step sets him nearer and nearer to God ; but
it is with him here, .as with a ra.an out of his
way, the farther and faster he goes, the w ider
he is from his intended journey's end. Again,
in Job, xvii. 8, there is a pathetical inter
rogation raade ; " What is the hope of the
hypocrite, when God taketh away his soul ?"
A sad exchange certainl_y ! But that which
begins in vanity raust needs determine in
vexation of spirit, horror of conscience, and

372

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Sbrm. XLIV.

eternal confusion. And, to shew yet farther
how contemptible and vain a thing it is, we
have the wise man emphatically coraparing
it to a candle, iu Prov. xxiv. 20, where he
tells us, " that the caudle of the wicked shall
be put out." And what is a lamp or candle,
but a diminutive, dwindling, contracted light
at best? made only to raeasure out a few
moments, and to burn for a little time, both
shining and spending itself at once ; so that
although it should not be blown out, or ex
tinguished by any violent accident, yet it
would at length go out of its own accord, and
that with an offensive farewell too left be
hind. Ill like manner, though God should
not, by any severe aud boisterous dispensation
of judgments, forcibly rend and tear the
hypocrite's hope out of his heart ; yet through
its own native weakuess, having lasted its
term, and, like a larap or candle, having con
sumed its little stock, it must die, and sink,
and drop away of itself. In short, we have
Christ's own word, assuring us that it cannot
last, in Matt. XV. IS, "Every plant" (says
he) "that ray heavenly Father hath not
planted, shall be rooted up." But the hypo
crite's hope is a slip of his own planting, of
his own watering and dressing ; and there
fore, when God shall come to purge his gar
den, such weeds and nuisances are sure to be
cast out. Thus we see the whole current of
the Scriptures directly set against the hypo
crite's confidence ; we may read its doom
almost in every page aud period of God's
word ; so that if this be certain, that the
word of God shall stand and abide, then this
must be also as certain, that the " hypocrite's
hope shall perish."
2. That the hypocrite's hope of future hap
piness shall assuredly perish, may be proved
from the weakness of the foundation upon
which it is built. And we know, that in all
buildings, if this be rotten, the superstructure
cannot be lasting ; if the supporters reel, that
which is supported must needs shake. I have
already shewn, that ignorance and raisappre
hension were the grounds upou which the
hypocrite's fairest confidences were raised,
and the only pillars upon which they were
borne up : and can we iraagine, that errors
and mistakes are such foundations, as to rear
upon thera a hope that must stand and last
to eternity ? I have made it appear, that all
the hypocrite's hopes are taken up from erro
neous, mistaken conceptions of God, of sin, of
the gospel, and of repentance, faith, and con
version. And are these, thiuk we, likely to
bear him out? Because the hypocrite builds
an unreasonable, presumptuous confidence
upon God's mercy, do we think that this will
secure him from the dreadful blow of his jus
tice ? Because the hypocrite never truly appre
hended sin, will it therefore follow that he
shall never smart for sin ? Will shutting our

eyes against a danger secure us from it? Be.
cause the gospel, through the deceit of his
ignorant mind, seeras to favour and release
him from duty, will this warrant him in the
neglect ofit? "Will ignorance of the spiritus-
lity aud strictness of the gospel discharge
him from the curse of the law ? Or because he
falsely thinks he has repented, will this entitle
him to the privileges of the penitent ? Because
he mistakes the nature of faith, shall he there
fore inherit the portion of believers ? Thus we
see how the whole fabric of his hope bears
upon the false aud treacherous bottom of iguo.
ranee and mistake, which support and hold
together all the parts and parcels of it.
And as ignorance is one of its raain founda
tions, so it equally rests upon another altoge
ther as weak and as uncertain ; which is self-
love. For as wicked and as confident as such
persons are, they are yet afraid to be damned;
and therefore they are willing to believe that
they shall not. And howsoever they live
here, they are very desirous to be happy here
after ; and therefore they find their hearts
very prone to be persuaded that they shall be
so. For I challenge the most confident and
iraproved hypocrite iu the world to shew any
other ground for his hope of ever coming to
heaven, but only because he thinks so, and
because he would have it so. But can bare
thought or desire alter the reality and stato
of things ? Well, therefore, may we conclude,
that that which is founded only upon igno
rance and self-love must needs end in disap
pointment aud sharae. And thus much for
the first thing, which was the proof of the
proposition : I proceed now to the
Second, which is to shew what are those
critical seasons and turns, in which more
especially the hypocrite's hope will be sure to
fail him. I shall mention two :
1. The first is in the time of some heart
breaking, discouraging judgraent from God.
And here we must know, that the hypocrite
has two supports upon which jointly he casta
the whole burden of his spiritual estate;
naraely, his hope in God, and his enjoyment
of the creature. With the former he quiets
his conscience, with the latter he coraforts his
heart. For whatsoever he pretends, and how
soever he seems to place all his expectations
above ; yet he draws all his content, his de
light and satisfaction frora the world. Like
a tree, though he seems to flourish upwards aud
rise towards heaven, yet his root is in the
ground, and he lives from beneath. He can
uot place his joys entirely in God, but he ,
must have something else besides. Ananias
and Sapphira will c.ast in their estate into the
common stock of the church ; but the public
faith will not satisfy them, unless they reserve
a secret portion to themsel vos. The hypocrite
cannot hope for another world any longer
than he enjoys this. Wherefore when God

ON JOB, viii. 13.

873

strips him of all his teraporals, then he is
utterly cast down, his heart breaks, his hope
fails, and his confidence of future happiness
vanishes before his present afflictions. He
can look up to heaven no longer than he
stands firm upon the earth. Had Job been
a hypocrite, when he was brought so low, and
utterly spoiled of all earthly comforts, no
former hope he had in God could have kept
him from following his wife's advice ; but he
would have beeu ready to curse God, aud spit
the venora of his discontented heart in his
face, though he died for it. No hypocrite is
so far of Job's teraper as to be able at the sarae
tirae to hold fast his hopes, and to " erabrace
a dunghill, and (according to his phrase) to
" trust in God though he kills hira." He
cannot heartily call God father, while he
whips and chastises hira.
Hence Job clears hiraself of hypocrisy by
this notable question, (Job, xxvii. 10,) " Will
the hypocrite delight hiraself in the Al
mighty?" God indeed is usually made the
prop of his presumption, but never the object
of his delight. He never attains to those
well-tempered, durable, victorious hopes of
the righteous, so excellently set forth in
(Habak. iii. 17, 18,) "Although the fig-tree
shall uot blossom, neither shall fruit be in the
vine, aud the labour of the olive shall fail ;
yet I will rejoice in the Lord, and joy in the
God of ray salvation." No, the hypocrite's
hope aud joy is quite of another raake and
mould. He finds uo taste or relish iu celes
tial joys, abstracted from the plenties and
jollities of the world. He finds no feast in a
good conscience any longer than he sits down
to a full table. Come to such an one while
he is flushed in honour, strong in interest,
and all things flow in full and fair to his am
bition, and what devout discourses shall you
hear from him, especially after a large meal ;
and what conterapt of the world, and affiance
in God, as if his heart were already lodged in
Abrahara's bosora I But let God once put
forth his hand and touch him in his beloved
name or interest, toss him upon the tongues
of his enemies, and lay him low in conterapt
and disgrace ; and theu corae to him, and see
whether he can now live upon his former
talk, and support his spirits with those glo
rious pretences he used to flourish his discourse
with, in the raidst of his former affluence.
No ; the case is quite altered, and you shall
find him a pitiful, abject, dispirited lump of
clay : pale and whining, and creeping into
every company to tell doleful stories of him
self and his sufferings. Or, as the prophet
Isaiah, li. 20, much better expresses it, you
will find him " like a wild bull in a net ;"
tumbling and tossing, hampered and impa
tient, aud fit for nothing but to let the world
see the strange and ugly difference between
the way aud postures of a hypocrite in a

prosperous and in a calamitous condition. It
IS clear, therefore, that in the tirae of such
severe judgraents the hypocrite's confidence
leaves him, deserts, and utterly fails him : for
he cannot hold his hope in one hand, unless
he grasps the world iu the other.
2. The other season, in which the hypo
crite's hope will be sure to fail and to forsake
hira, is at the time of death. Although he
has by many arts and shifts prolonged his
confidence hitherto, yet this hour will put a
period both to his life and his expectations at
once : for the hypocrite's hope is but an an
nuity at the best, he has it but for terra of
life at the longest. When a few days in the
flesh shall be passed, he raust be forced to lie
down, and breathe out his soul aud his hopes
together. And though it might be said of
him, that as long as there was life there was
hope ; as long as his body breathed, his soul
hoped : yet at this tirae that sayiug of the
Psalraist raust pass upon hira, (Psalra cxlvi.
4,) " His breath goeth forth, he returneth to
his earth, and in that very day all his thoughts
perish." All his fond expectations shall then
upbraid him to his face : Satan, his greatest
flatterer, shall then laugh him to scorn ; death
shall confute all his confidences, and hell con
vince hira that his hopes of heaven were
groundless aud irrational. He now steps out
of an old world, and finds that " old things
are passed away," and all things presented to
hira in a new state and dress : his old thoughts,
his old reasonings, hopes, and confidences
vanish ; and he has new apprehensions of
God, new conceptions of the nature of sin,
and of his own state and condition.
For as soon as the soul is once dislodged
frora the body, it is also freed frora many
causes of ignorance and deception, that did
encumber it in that estate ; so that now its
reason is quicker, and its discernment clearer
both to perceive other things, and thoroughly
to reflect upon itself. It now spies out all the
flaws and fallacies of its forraer fair, but de
ceiving hopes ; it sees the non-con ciu dency of
those arguments that it rested upon before.
Death, as it shuts our bodily eyes, so it opens
and enlarges our spiritual. One moment
after death shall discover the errors of raany
ages : for the tirae of this life is a tirae iu
which all things are, as it were, huddled up
in a kind of raixture and confusion. The
righteous own aud profess Christ, aud so do
the hypocrites ; the righteous have their
hopes, aud so have they : and both of them
live and act, aud are supported by their
hopes ; and as to any outward appearance,
we cannot discriminate the unsound from the
sincere. But when death comes, that divides
them by an open and a raanifest distinction,
the hope of the righteous is crowned, and the
hope of the wicked is confounded : a line of
eternal separation is then drawn between

374

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Srrm. XLIV.

them ; the hypocrite must then let go his
hold, bid an everlasting farewell to all his
comforts, renounce his usurped confidence,
and take up his portion in those mansions of
endless despair, where he shall have abundaut
cause to wish, but uo grounds to hope for the
least redemption.
And thus much for the second thing pro
posed ; which -was, to shew those critical
seasons and turns, in which more especially
the hypocrite's hope will be sure to fail him.
I come now to the
Third and last thing, which is to make some
use and improvement of the whole foregoing
discourse. And it shall be to display and set
before us the transcendent, surpassing misery
of the final estate of all hypocrites ; whose
peculiar lot it is, not only to be damned, but,
what is infinitely more, to hope themselves
into damnation, and to perish with those
circumstances that shall double and treble the
weight of their destruction. Hope is the last
refuge and retreat of au afflicted soul, the last
support of a sinking mind. And in this life
the heart of raan is not capable of such
absolute, entire misery, but that some glim
merings of hope will still dart in upon him,
and buoy up his spirits from an utter despon
dency. But when it shall come to this, that a
man raust go one way, and his hopes another,
so parting as never to raeet again, human
uature admits uot of any farther addition to
its sorrow ; for it is pure, perfect, unmixed
misery, without any allay or mitigation.
The strongest affections and the greatest hopes,
if not answered, do of necessity leave behind
them the quickest pain : for if (as the wise
man says, in Prov. xiii. 12,) " hope ouly
deferred be so grievous," what theu must be
hope utterly disappointed ? If delay be so
irksome, what then must be total frustration ?
Nothing is more contrary and tormenting to
the nature of man than to be degraded ; to be
low is sad, but to be brought low is much
worse. Poverty is troublesome, but poverty
after riches is insupportable. Former happi
ness is the greatest ingredient of present
misery : for look what comfort springs from
past sorrows heretofore endured, the same
degree of misery arises frora past happiness
heretofore enjoyed. In Lament, i. 7, it is
represented as the height and sting of the
calamity of Judah, " that in the day of her
affliction and of her misery she remembered
all her pleasant things that she had in the
days of old." It would be sorae relief to a
condemned sinner, if with the loss of his hope
he could lose his memory too : but, alas !
when he shall liedown in sorrow and torment,
this will recall to his mind all that peace, com
fort, and tranquillity that his false hopes
formerly fed him with, and then force him to
write this emphatical character of misery upon
all: Thus and thus I was ; these things I did

enjoy. No voice will be heard in hell so lonii
and frequent as this sad and doleful one ; My
hopes deceived me, my confidences deluded
me. Aud (believe it) this will make it ten
times more hell, thau the " wailing and
gn.ashing of teeth," and all the other torments
of it put together.
For take the case in a similitude : When
a poor traveller, disheartened with bad ways
and weather turmoiling hira, and fear of
thieves besetting him, shall yet comfort him
self with this thought, that when he comes to
his journey's end he will refresh himself at
his inn ; and, as soon as ever he comes thither,
he is set upon, stabbed, and cruelly murdered ;
does not such au one, think we, die with a
strange horror and surprise ? So the hypocrite
cannot pass the stage of this world, but he
will meet with many crosses and discourage
ments, under which he is apt to think, through
the flattery of his hopes, that he shall find an
end of all these sorrows in another world.
But then, alas I they chiefly begin ; then he
enters upou thera in their height, fulness, and
perfection. Hopes of heaven, therefore, by
those that either teuder their own happiness,
or dread the extreraity of misery, are to be
entertained warily ; for ifthey are not genuine,
and of the right stamp, they will only end in
a greater load of sorrow and confusion. They
may indeed for a little time support and keep
us up in this world : just as a mau's clothes,
when he falls into the water, will for a while
hold him up from sinking ; but when they
are ouce thoroughly wet and heavy, then they
drown and sink him so much the faster and
deeper. This we may observe, that those appetites
and desires, the satisfaction of which brings
the greatest delight; the defrauding or dis
appointment of thera, according to the rule of
contraries, brings the greatest and the sharpest
misery. Now a strong hope, suitably and
luckily answered, comes, as it were, rushing
iuto the heart with a fulness of content ; it
bears in upon it like a favourable wished-for
wind upon a spread sail. Itis, according to
Solomon's expression, "health to the navel,
and marrow to the bones." Satisfaction added
to a longing expectation, is like a refreshing
shower upon a dry, gaping, thirsty ground.
Nothing so comfortable as hope crowned with
fruition ; nothing so tormenting, as hope
snapt off with disappointment and frustration.
And were it lawful to wish an eneray com
pletely miserable, I would wish that he might
vehemently desire, and never enjoy ; that he
might strongly hope, and never obtain.
Now, from what has been delivered, I think
we may truly conclude, that of the two, the
despairing reprobate is happier than the hop
ing reprob.ate. They both indeed fall equally
low ; but then he that hopes has the greater
fall, because he falls from the higher place.

ON JOB, viii. 13.

875

He that despairs goes to hell, but theu he
goes thither with expectation ; though he is
damned, yet he is uot surprised : he has inured
his heart to the flames, and has made those
terrors farailiar to hira, by the continual
horror of his meditation ; so that when he
dies, he passes but from one hell into auother ;
and his actual daranation is uot the beginning,
but the carrying on of his former torment.
In short, to express the wretchedness of the
hypocrite's hope, I shall only add this, that
certainly that must needs be exceeding
dismal, in coraparison of which despair is
desirable. And now, 0 God, thou that requirest truth
in the inward parts, cleanse us inwardly and
thoroughly from the leaven of hypocrisy ;
sanctify us by thy truth ; thy word is truth ;
and let our obedience to thee justify our hopes
in thee, that so trusting in thee, we may never
be confounded.
To whom be rendered and ascribed, as is
most dne, all praise, might, majesty, aud
dominion, both now aud for evermore.
Amen.

SEEMON XLV.
PART 1,
" 1 nas dumh, I opened not my mouth ; because thou didst it. "
Psalm xxxix. 9.
Ip we would give one general account of all
the duties that are incumbent upon a Chris
tian, we shall find them reducible to these
three, "faith, obedience," and "patience;"
and the vital principle that aniraates aud mns
through them all is " submission." Faith
being a submission of our understanding to
what God commands us to believe : obedience
being a submission of our will to what God
coraraands us to do : and lastly, patience beiug
a subraission of the whole raan to what God
coraraands us to suffer. Concerning which
excellent virtue, glorious things are every
where spoken, not only by the penmen of
holy writ, but also by the sons of reason and
philosophy : and great elogies of it might be
drawn, both from their writings and examples.
But, as we need not, so we shall not seek for
any beyond the corapass of the church. And
here we have this virtue represented to the full,
in that great hero in the ways of God, king
David ; a person signalized with that eminent
character, of being "the man after God's own
heart," and therefore certainly a most fit
example to make an impression upon ours.
It is impossible that a discourse of patience
should ever be unseasonable : for to such as

are in adversity, it will be a cordial to support
thera ; and to such as are in prosperity, it will
be an araulet to preserve thera. For since no
raortal raan can be so happy, as to hold his
happiness by a lease for life, every Christiau,
even in the height of his enjoyraents, ought
in habit, and disposition of raind, at least, to
be a sufferer ; that is, to have cast his resolu
tions into such a well ordered, confirraed
posture, as no calaraity, how sudden or great
soever, shall be able to surprise or shock hira,
either iu point of courage or subraission. It
is one of the arts of patience still to be before
hand with an affliction, and to expect that at
all tiraes which a raan raay endure at any ;
aud since the healthiest of raen may be sick,
it is but prudence, while they are well, to
have a remedy about them.
In the text we have these two general parts.
1. David's submissive deportment under a
sharp affliction : " I was dumb, I opened not
my raouth."
2. The ground and reason of such his
deportraent, which was the procedure of that
afflictiou from God ; " I opeued not my mouth,
because thou didst it."
And thus, the words being a full lecture of
patience, recommending it to us by a great
pattern, and consequeutly being designed to
argue us into an absolute submission to the
divine will, in our most pressing and severe
distresses, we shall endeavour the prosecution
of them in these two following things :
I. In declaring the nature and measures of
this submission. And,
II. In shewing the reasons and arguraents
for it, as the suffering person stands related to
God. Aud,
I. For the nature of this subraission ; which
I shall declare,
1st, Negatively, by shewing whereiu it does
not consist ; and,
2dly, Positively, by shewing wherein it
does. As for the negative part, that we may dis
tinguish this great virtue from all false and
mistaken reserablances of it, we shall observe
first of all, that this subraission, or rather
subraissive frarae of spirit, consists not in an
utter insensibility of, or an uuconcernment
under an affliction. For God, who gave us a
being, did therewithal give us a connate desire
to a well-being ; which every affliction in
some measure robs us of, and, as it were, rends
away a piece of our happiness ; the entireness
of which consists, not only in a freedom from
sin, but also from sorrow. It can be no man's
duty to be above the laws of his creation, and
to contradict his nature, by a senselessness in
the midst of those sufferings which oppress it.
We read in Ecclesiastes of " a tirae to mourn ;"
a time in which mourning is so peculiarly
in season, so proper, and so decent, that the
contrary is absurd and unnatural. God, who
7

¦376

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Serm. XLV.

calls and commands us to sympathize with
our friends in their distress, surely will not
forbid us to sorrow for our own. It was
noted for one of the most inhuman pieces of
tyranny in a Roman emperor, that when he
had cruelly put sorae to death, with a greater
cruelty he forbade their relations to lament
for them : thus, by the forraer act destroying
the meu ; by the latter, humanity itself.
A pensive consideration therefore of the
sharpness of an affliction does uot at all lessen
our submission to it : for God never heaps
such loads of grief upou us, but that he still
leaves us the relief and pleasure of weeping,
the privilege and free vent of our sorrows.
He never turns "children of Abraham into
stones ;" but whensoever he strikes, not only
permits, but also coraraands us to feel the
sraart. And indeed, how could we evidence
to the world a due sense of the favours and
srailes of God, if we should not droop under
his frowns? For to be asleep with Jonas,
while a tempest is rattling about our ears, is
not submission, but stupidity. Nay, let me
add this farther, that there canuot be a raore
dreadful sign of a raan left to hiraself, and
hardened by God, than to be unconcerned in
the midst of his afflictions. For he who is so,
certainly incursthese two great and fatal evils:
1. That he robs God of that honour which
he particulariy designs to hiraself by that
afflicting dispensjitiou ; for God requires that
raen should fear him for his judgments, as
well as love hira for his mercies ; and regard
the strokes, as well as the other operations of
his hands. Besides, that this insensible frame
of spirit clearly frustrates another great end
ofthese severities; which is antecedently to
fright and deter men from sin. For he who
does not feel God when he strikes, will hardly
fear hira when he threatens.
2. Such a person, by such an insensibility,
renders.every affliction befalling hira utteriy
useless to all spiritual purposes whatsoever.
For his heart, like an anvil, by bearing many
strokes, .and feeling none, grows so much the
harder by every blow. Afflictions are some
of God's exti'aordinary ways of reclairaing
sinners ; but can have no effect where they
can iraprint no sense. He that can overcorae
and digest his physic like his daily food, isnot
like to be purged or cured by it. In like
raanner, wheu God takes in hand the cure of
an overgrown sinner, and to that purpose
applies the corrosive of sorae afflicting pro
vidence, whether of poverty, banishment, or
disgrace, to eat away his proud, dead flesh,
and so to restore him sound ; if this mau
now can lightly pass over, outface, and wear
off the sense of these severe applications, let
hira never expect auy medicinal he,aling virtue
from them ; but conclude with himself, that,
being too sturdy to feel God's rod, he is cer
tainly too bad to be mended by it.

L

Let this therefore be fixed upon in the fint
place, that the submission here spoken of in
the text is not a stupid indolence or insensi
bility under such calamities as God shall be
pleased to bring upon us. Nor,
Secondly, does this subraission lay any
restraint upon us, from praying against any
calamity, either actually inflicted upon us, or
as yet but approaching towards us. For to
pray against such things is not only lawful,
but indeed our duty ; forasmuch as God has
coramanded us to pray : and prayer ought to
contain, not only a petition of things good
and suitable, but also a deprecation of what
soever is evil or noxious to us, as an integral
part of it. For though possibly God may
have designed to bring the evil we pray against
upou us ; yet, till providence has decided this
to be the will of God by the event, we are
(as much as in us lies) to prevent it by our
prayers. And the reason is, because though God's
secret will and purpose be the rule of his own
actions, yet his revealed will ought to be the
sole director of ours. And God has wrote this
in large characters upon every heart, that we
ought to preserve our being from whatsoever
may annoy it, by all lawful means ; and
surely there is none more lawful or approved
by God than prayer. We have an eminent
instance of this in David, in 2 Sam. xii. who,
though he had received a special revelation
frora God hiraself, that his child should die,
yet ceased not for a while to fast and pray,
and iraportune God, thatit might live : but
when God took away the child, then presently
he rose up, and turned his raourning for that
into a submission to the hand that took it
from him.
In this case, therefore, we are not to inquire
into the counsels of God, what he intends to
do ; it being impossible that they should be a
rule for us to steer our course by, forasmuch
as they are hidden and concealed from us;
and it is implied in the very essence and
nature of a rule, that it should be known.
From whence it follows, that till we know
that it is God's will to bring an affliction upon
us, we are not bound to suppose it to be his
will ; and consequently both may and ought
to pray against it : it being no ways incon
sistent for the sarae heart to have a spirit of
supplication to pray against an affliction before
it comes, and yet a spirit of submission to
endure it when it coraes.
Thirdly and lastly. To advance yet higher,
this submission is not such a thing as excludes
all endeavour to prevent or remove an afflic
tion. That we may lawfully pray against it,
has been already proved ; and it is certain
that we may (within our compass) lawfully
engage our endeavours against whatsoever
we may engage our prayers : prayer being
a duty of that nature, that ueither in the

ON PSALM, xxxix. 9.

377

accounts of God or raan will it pass for serious,
but as it is seconded with proportionable
action. He who is visited with sickness may
solicitously use all direct means for his re
covery ; and he who has lost his estate raay
vigorously endeavour to regain it frora the
spoiler's hand ; and he who has been defaraed
may use all imaginable industry to clear his
reputation : and yet, for all this, never iu the
least transgress the bounds of submission pre
scribed him by God, in auy of these visita
tions. For God seldom delivers men but by
the mediation of their own eudeavours, where
these endeavours may be used. But patience
has its sufficient scope and proper sphere of
shewing itself, even where the powers of
action cease. And that man who does the
utraost to rid himself from any pressure which
the laws of God and nature allow him to do,
aud wheu he finds the evil too big for hira
to master, humbly and quietly sits down
under it, has fulfflled all the measures of a
pious submission. For God casts no man
under such circumstances as shall make idle
ness aud pusillanimity his duty ; but bids
every raan upon the arrest of any sad cala
mity, " up aud be doing," for the removal of
it ; though perhaps, after he has done all, his
lot raay be to lie down aud suffer uuder it.
And thus I have done with the negative
part ; and shewn, what the subraission,
spoken of in the text, is not ; as namely,
that it is not any such thing as ought to re
strain us, either from entertaining a tender
sense of, or from using our prayers and (what
is more) our endeavours, against any disaster
or calamity inflicted by the hand of Providence
upon us.
Corae we now, in the next place, to shew
positively what this subraission is, and where
in it does consist.
And in order to this, we are to observe,
first in general, that it is a quiet composure
of the whole raan under any cross, or mis
chievous accident befalling him, either in his
person, interest, or any of his concerns what
soever. Aud since every raan is a compound
of several parts and faculties, both of body
and soul, which are all respectively to bear
their share in this present affair, we will there
fore trace the nature of this subraission seve
rally and distinctly through thera all. Aud,
(1.) For the understanding : there is re
quired a subraission of that to God, by a per
fect approbation of the justice and equality
of all his proceedings with us. And as the
understanding is the governing and first mov
ing principle of a 'nian's whole behaviour ;
so is it a matter both of the greatest difficulty,
and iraportance too, rightly to state and settle
the apprehensions and resentments of it : it
being to the other faculties of the soul like
the foreraan of a jury to his fellows, all are
apt to follow its verdict.

And therefore our subraission raust begin
here ; it raust move upon this great wheel ;
for in vain do we expect that the other parts
of the soul should keep the peace, while the
understanding mutinies aud rebels. To pre
vent which, we must endeavour by all means
to possess it with a full persuasion of the
infinite reasonableness of all God's trans-
actings with his creature, though the parti
cular reason of them does not always appear.
It being but suitable to the majesty of Heaven,
to exact our submission without assigning any
other reason for it but his own will : for sie
volo, sic jubeo, howsoever harsh aud tyranni
cal it raay sound frora a sinful raan, like our
selves, though never so great ; yet from God,
who is as essentially good as he is great, it is
the highest reason and the most rational
divinity : upon which account, let every man
silence the disputes of his froward reason, uot
only with an ipse dixit, as the very disciples
of Pythagoras could do, but also with an
ipse voluit : an answer and a solution becom
ing the most improved and eminent profi
cients in the school of Christianity.
For what was it that raised Job to such a
degree of insolence aud indiscretion, as to
venture to hold au argument with his Maker,
aud to dispute the case with the Alraighty,
but the sturdiness of his blind and saucy
reason falsely so called, that could not sub
scribe to the equity of those severe usages
which he smarted uuder? He could not com
prehend how the divine justice could degrade
so much uprightness and integrity to a dung
hill ; aud to all the miseries that a diseased
body, a distressed mind, and a desperate for
tune could reduce him to : uo, he thought
he had holiuess enough to have prescribed
gentler methods to Providence. But at length
when religion had cooled the boilings of his
passiou and discontent, aud taught his reason
more sober discourses, theu he sinks many
notes lower, and utters himself in a quite
differing strain, (Job, xl. 4, 5,) " Behold,"
says he, " I am vile ; what shall I answer
thee? I will lay my hand upon ray mouth.
Once have I spokeu,"but I will not answer."
And thus what conviction and satisfaction he
could not gain by disputing, he arrived to by
obeying : submission was his casuist, and
patience the best resol ver of his doubts. And
indeed what cau we account disputation in
such a case, but the hostility of the raind,
aud a kind of rebellion of the soul agaiust
God ; opposing reason and arguraent, or
rather arguraent without reason, to Provi
dence? So that a raan cau never be said
truly to submit, till he lays down these arras,
and acknowledges a sufficient reason of any
dispensation iu the sole good pleasure of
the dispenser; and in the midst of all his
misery, can confess that things ought to
he so, because actually they are so. And

378

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS. Serm. XLV.

thus much for the submission of the under
standing. (2.) This submission requires in the will
also a perfect acquiescence, and resignation of
itself to God's will. For the will being pro
perly the seat both of sovereignty and
activity, the resistance which this makes
must needs be the greatest and most con
siderable. The reluctancy of the understand
ing, in opposing God, aud complying with
sinful objects, is like Adam's seeing the for
bidden fruit and liking it : but the will's
embracing them, is like Adam's putting forth
his hand and taking it. So that by our sub
mission of the former to God, iu any of the
perplexing passages of our lives, the soul may
be said, as it were, to keep silence ; but by
this latter, it also gives consent. By that, it
confesses the reasonableness, by this also the
suitableness of the dispensation. By the
former it could say, it is just ; by this latter
it can say also witb David, " it is good that
I have been afflicted."
Aud how necessary an ingredient of our
submission this is, will appear to any one
who shall consider the absoluteness and auto
cracy of this faculty ; whereby the will is free
either to follow or not to follow the advice of
the understanding ; so that wheu that has
done its utraost in the way of counsel and
instruction, the issue of the execution follows
wholly the resolves of this. For it is this
which coraraands and lords it in the soul ;
every thing that a man does or desires being
entirely at its beck.
Upon which account it is, that the over
powering efficacy of the Spirit of God, in the
conversion of a sinuer, appears in nothing so
much, as that it conquers and subdues this
free, self-governing faculty to a perfect com
pliance with all its motions ; and that with
out the least intrenchment upon its freedom.
For it makes us willing, and draws us in
that manner, that we yet follow of our own
accord. Now such a readiness is here re
quired iu the business of our submission : it
must be perfectly free and voluntary ; and
that not only as to an exclusion of all force,
but also of the servilities of fear and terror ;
which take off sorae of the perfection of our
freedom in respect of the motive or induce
ment to an action, though they cannot in
respect of its productive principle. As wheu
a mau throws his rich wares into the sea, to
prevent a wreck, and to save his life, he does
indeed will what he does, but yet it is with
an unwilling kind of willingness : for though
the will absolutely commands the thing to be
done, yet still the motive of doing it is full
sore against its inclination.
But such a submission to the hand of God
will not suffice us here, nor turn to any ac
count in the reckonings of Heaven : where
every performance is rated chiefly by the

manner of it ; and the spring or principle as
much considered as the object. God regards
not that subraission that is not out of love to
him. And "perfect love," we know, "casts
out fear ;" that is, God will have us submit
not as slaves, but as sons : so as to kiss the
rod that corrects us; and, knowing from
whom the blow coraes, to receive it not only
with quietness, but complacency. And thus
to demean ourselves in our sufferings is the
very soul and spirit of a filial submission.
(S.) There is required also a submissive
coraposure and serenity in our passions and
affections. For naturally these are the most
unruly and outrageous faculties of the soul ;
and such indeed as set the whole world in a
combustion. For how insolent is pride, how
intolerable is anger, and how noisome and
imperious is lust? No confusion in human
affairs ever falling out but the cause of it
always lies here ; and still the commotion be
gins in the fury and violence of the affections,
those great masters of misrule, which, like
the waves of a troubled sea, swell, and rage,
aud rise up against heaven, when any thing
from thence blows rough and hard upon them.
It is impossible that either a proud, a lustful,
or au angry man, so continuing, should be
patient ; forasmuch as the same frarae of spirit,
which disposes hira to one, directiy indisposes
hira to the other. Patience is the effect and
consequent of self-denial and mortification ;
and the passions aud affections are the proper
objects of that, they are the things that are to
be denied and mortified ; so that a man must
have passed many stages in this excellent
course, before he cau arrive at the perfection
of making the duty of submission his practice,
and much less his pleasure. For how hard is
it to maintain a smooth and equal temper in
one's mind, wheu there is nothing but cross
and rugged accidents in the whole affiairs of a
mau's life ! How hard is it to see and feel
great disturbances without, and yet to keep
all quiet within ! to behold the prosperity of
the wicked, the false, and the treacherous,
and not to say in our haste, that " we have
cleansed our hands in vain," aud retained our
innocence to no purpose ! It is infinitely
difficult so to conquer and keep down the in
surrections of a furious passion, as to command
and hold it within corapass, when it meets
with fuel and provocation.
The faculties of the soul do much resemble
the economy and constitution of a common
wealth, in which the passions are like the
vulgar rout, or meaner sort of people, who are
always the most impatiently sensible of any
the least burden ; and when the government
imposes auy thing upon them are presently
apt to tumultuate, to rise, and to rebel : so
when the least chastiseraent from God pinches
us, forthwith the unruly passions are apt to
clamour aud cry out "grievance and oppres-

ON PSALM, xxxix. 9.

379

sion. But now God will have these clamours
hushed, all these resistances quelled, and a
humble subjection paid to the most grating
edicts of his will, proclaimed and made known
to us by the events of his providence.
And indeed thus to compose and master
our rebellious passions is a duty that may
coramend itself to us, not only from the
necessity of a strict command, but also from
the excellency of the work itself. For it was
this alone, which the greatest philosophers,
and particularly the Stoics, placed their highest
happiness and perfection iu ; uamely, to regu
late and subdue their passions to such a de
gree, as to bring themselves to a perfect apathy,
to stand fixed and unmoved, wheu auy thing
thwarted either their interest or desires ;
which glorious (aud perhaps more than
huraan) frame of miud, though it was not
their felicity to reach, yet it was their cora
raendation to aim at. But surely Christians,
who act by higher principles aud greater
helps, should think it but reasonable, with
such advantages, to go a pitch beyond bare,
unassisted nature ; and by their actions to
make good the heathen's pretences, aud to
count it a shame for themselves not to attain
(iu part at least) what the philosophers were
so generous as to attempt.
(4.) There is required yet farther to this
subraission, a suppressing of all hard and dis
contented speeches ; and this is so absolutely
necessary, that the whole work of submission
is set forth aud expressed to us by " silence,"
and " not opening our mouths," as here in
the text, and elsewhere, by " putting our
mouths in the dust ;" that is, by shutting,
and, as it were, even stopping them up, from
letting fly at any of the cross, irksorae, aud
severe passages of Providence. " He that
ruleth his tongue" (says Saint James) " is a
perfect man ;" forasrauch as by this he de
clares hiraself lord and raaster of his passions,
which, when they doraineer, chiefly make use
of this member as the prime instrument of
their rage. In like manner, he who can sub
mit without noise and raurraur proves his
submission perfect, as springing from a cora
plete conquest of all unruly motions within.
While Job let loose the reins to his irapa
tience, he let the same loose also to his lan
guage ; filling heaven and earth with querulous
outcries, veheraent imprecations upou himself,
aud expostulations with Heaven : sometimes
questioning the equity of the divine proceed
ings with him ; soraetiraes cursing and bitterly
exclairaing agaiust the day of his birth, and
the unhappy hour of his conception. Thus,
so long as his towering passion was upon the
wing, it beat the air with loud and vain cora
plaints ; and, like a froward child, was always
crying, and nothing could still its peevish and
impertinent rage. But the same temper of
mind which reduced him to submission.

reduced him also to silence, and checked the
sallyings out of such wild, ungoverned ex
pressions, as could tend to no other effect but
to increase the guilt of him that spoke, and
the indignation of him that heard thera. A
larab, we know, suffers with silence, and parts
uot only with its fleece, but even with its life
also, without noise ; but it is the unclean
swine which roars and cries when any one
lays hold of hira : and we read of uo such
creature in the flocks of Christ ; theyare only
the innocent, silent, suffering sheep, that have
a title to his care and protection.
Any kind of impatience under God's hand
does indeed offend hira ; but the irapatience
of the tongue has this peculiar raalignity in it
above all others, that it also dishonours him
iu the face of the world : for while our irapa
tience bounds itself within the understanding,
will, or affections, so long it lies retired from
the observation aud eye of men, which pierces
not into the secrets of the heart ; but when it
once comes to proclaim itself in words and
noise, the multitude round about is called iu
as witness of our insolent deportment towards
God ; the siu becomes loud and clamorous,
public aud provoking ; and so puts God upou
uew severities to revenge upon us the affront
openly passed upon his honour ; a thing
which he is too jealous of, to prostitute and
expose it to the scorn and arrogance of every
bold sinner.
Silence is a thing of great decorum in a
suffering person, whose condition properly
calls hira to sorrow ; the raost natural and
becoming dialect of which is, to say nothing.
For even the common and received raeasures
of human converse allow it only to the pros
perous, the gay, and the rising persons of the
world to talk high, and argue, and expostulate
much to no purpose ; but where afflictiou has
brought a man so low, as to raake it difficult
for him to be heard, it has made it also fit for
hira uot to speak.
Besides, no man ought to be endured to
complain, who is not presumed to have right
on his side. But can auy man have a right
agaiust God ? can he implead his Maker ? or
prefer a bill of grievances against his Pre
server ? I am sure, if his plea be traversed
in the court of conscience, that must and will
pronounce on God's side, and vote the accuser
the only criminal. " 'Why should a living
raan complain, a mau for the punishment of
his sins?" says the prophet Jeremy, (Lament.
iii. 39.) In which piece of Scripture there
are more arguments than words or syllables,
to demonstrate the unreasonableness of any
mau's coraplaining against God. For first,
shall any oue complain of his benefactor?
And does not God abundantly prove hiraself
so, even by this, that the person coraplaining
is yet alive, and thereby able to coraplain ?
Or shall a guilty person coraplain of his judge?

380

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Serm. XLV,

and complain also while he is punished, whicn
iraplies demerit ? aud, what is raore, punished
less than he deserves, which iraports mercy ?
For every sin revenged upon the sinner,
according to the full measure of its guilt,
would quickly put him out of all possibility
of complaining in this world, or bemoaning
his case ou this side hell ; where that he is
not disposed of already, is enough to teach hira,
that it were much fitter for him to turn his
complaints iuto gratulations ; and, instead of
crying out of the hardship of his condition, to
magnify the divine goodness, that it is not
remediless and intolerable. Let every afflicted
person therefore " set a watch before the door
of his lips," and beware that the intemperance
of his tongue robs him not of that crown, that
is prepared only for such as suffer with silence
and discretion.
(5.) And lastly, to complete our submission
to God in a suffering estate, there is required
also a restraint of all rage and revenge against
such as are the instruments, by which God is
pleased to hurable and afflict us. A perfect
subraission to the will of the first cause is
naturally apt to reconcile us to the second ;
though not for its own sake, yet for his, at
least, who was pleased to make use of it. For
what is an enemy, when he acts the utmost
of his fury and barbarity, but a scourge in the
hand of the Almighty, either punishing a
siuner, or chastising a son ? And therefore we
find David, when he was cursed aud railed at
by Shimei, in that villainous, lewd, insuffer
able manner, yet utterly refusing to revenge
upon him that high indignity, though passed
by a subject upon his prince, and his prince
in distress ; that is, against all laws, not only
of loyalty, but of nature and coraraon huma
nity. But now what could it be that induced
David to demean himself in such a raanner to
so bitter an eneray and so mean a wretch?
Surely nothing either desirable or forraidable
in the person hiraself ; no, nothing but this
one consideration, that at that time Shimei
came (as it were) upon an errand from heaven,
and cursed David by commission from God
hiraself. " God has bid Shiraei curse," says
David, (2 Sara. xvi. 10.) Not that God did
directly and indeed give hira any such cora
raand ; but that, by his providence, he had
theu cast David under such circurastances of
raisery and distress, as would infallibly pro
voke an adversary of a raalicious and a base
spirit to insult over hira. Now this quiet and
meek deportment of David towards so vile
and so provoking an object, was a direct act
of piety and subraission to God hiraself ; who
never accounts himself more honoured by us,
than when our reverence to hira can command
us to compliances so much against the grain
of our nature ; and tie up our hands from
those violences, which the fierce appetite of
revenge would otherwise so passionately and

easily, and many times so creditably, carry
us out to.
If upon any injury done us, we can but
prevail with ourselves to see the hand of God
princip.ally acting in the whole affair, it will
certainly much allay our spleen against the
immediate workers of the mischief ; andifwe
can but cease to be angry with the judge, and
the condemning sentence itself, surely we
shall not much concern ourselves to rage at
the executioner ; who is but a servant, and
only ministers to the will and command of a
superior. But, on the other side, all bitter and rin-
dictive treating of an injurious person is in
its proportion a contest with Providence;
even that Providence, that not only overrules,
but also employs the worst of events, and the
wickedest of persons. And he, whose spirit
frets, and boils, and raves against his enemy,
because of the calamities that he feels himself
brought uuder by his means, strikes as higli
and as far as he is able. The dog that bites
the stone that is flung at him, would do ii>
much to the hand that flung it, if he had it
within his reach. But the temper of a Chris
tian prompts him to quite other things, and
teaches him to raeasure his behaviour, not by
what his enemy has deserved, but by what
the grand exemplar of patience has both com
manded, aud himself in the same case prac
tised. Aud yet I do not say, that it is any man'.s
duty to account his enemy his friend ; to
court or erabrace a tyrant ; or to take him
into his bosora, who would have took the
bread out of his mouth. Some indeed may
think it a policy so to do ; and perhaps, by so
thinking, may prove just such politicians,as the
man, that took a frozen snake into his house,
aud cherished aud warmed it, till at length
it hissed, and bit, and stung him to death for
his absurd compassion. But be it a policy, I
ara sure it is no duty for a man to caress, aud
hug, and be fond of his mortal adversary ;
nor to fawn and cringe, and lick the foot that
basely and barbarously tramples upon him.
No man is forbid by any law of God or man
to look upon an eneray as an eneray, howso
ever he may be bound to treat him. Foras
much as no law, human or divine, can oblige
a man to entertain a false judgraent, either of
things or persons. But he who supplants a
mau in his estate, or auy of his lawful inte
rests, is and ought to be looked upon by that
man as a malicious underminer. And he who
by unworthy calumnies blasts his neighbour's
reputation and good narae, may and ought to
be accounted (as in truth he is) a black-
mouthed, virulent back-biter : and the name
of friend is by no means to be fouled or abused
by being applied to such an one. Yet still
for all this, I own it to be every raan's duty,
to leave such a person to the vengeance of

ON PSALM, xxxix. ».

Heaven, and not to act himself as judge in his
owu cause, by carving out his own measures of
revenge upon him. It is his duty to " stand
still," (as Moses bade the Israelites,) " aud to
see the salvation of the Lord." All the pains
that he is to take in this case, is to prevail with
himself to do nothing, and to be only a specta
tor, uot an actor in his enemy's confusion.
And, indeed, this is sometimes pains
enough ; aud no sraall piece of self-denial and
submission, thus to keep within the strict line
of God's coraraands, wheu either passion or
interest would tempt hira to leap over it ; as
it will do very importunately, when a man
finds himself grieved, and ill-used in his per
son, name, or estate ; and disturbed in any
of those interests, which God aud nature have
made it his birthright to enjoy. Yet since it
often so falls out, that God is pleased to let
loose the oppressor upon all these, he also calls
upou us to behave ourselves as persons having
uo authority to right ourselves, but depending
wholly upon the suprerae justice of Heaven
both for deliverance and reparation.
And thus I have finished the first general
head proposed for the handling of the words,
which was to declare the nature of the sub
raission spoken of in the text : and that both
negatively, by shewing what it is npt ; and
also positively, by shewing what it is. As,
namely, that it is a suppressing of the resti-
ness and contradiction of our understandings,
the rebellion of our wills, the tumult of our
passions, the querulous outcries of our tongues,
and lastly, the vindictive fierceness of our ac
tions or behaviours, under any calamity or
distress, injury or provocation whatsoever.
Now, by way of consequence and deduction
frora what has been delivered, we shall from
the foregoing particulars naturally infer these
three things : —
(1.) The worth and excellency of such a
submissive, composed frame of spirit.
(2.) The difficulty of attaining to it. And,
(3.) and lastly. The necessity of an early
and long endeavour after it. And,
(1.) For the excellency of it. It is that,
whicii all the great and wise men in the world
have both strove after in themselves, aud ad
mired iu others : and it is as irapossible for a
man to be great, as to be good without it. It
is the practice of the truest aud the highest
philosophy. And there is nothing that draws
so much contempt upon a man, as the want
of it. For how uncomely a sight is a raan in
a rage ! a raan fretting and fuming, and suf
fering his passion to ride his reason ; indeed
so uncoraely is it, that there is no man living
who allows it in himself, but will condemn
and despise it in another. Nor is there any
thiug that so peculiarly unfits a man for busi
ness, and doing such thiugs as may render
him considerable. Business is to be carried
on with counsel, and a calra, sedate conduct

of thiugs : whicli cau never take place, where
passion hinders all foresight, and fury and
fluster make thinking and contriving utterly
irapossible. It is not the storra, but the
gentle wiud that must carry the vessel to its
designed haven. And to lead and govern an
array, requires another kind of spirit frora
that whicli heats aud acts a raan in the battle.
On the other side, patience is (as it were)
the girding up of the soul, which, like the
girding up of the body, gives it both strength
and decency too. In the judgraent of all the
intelligent part of the world, patience is con
quest ; and in Saint Paul's esteera, (Rora. viii.
37,) it is something more ; it being hardly
possible to conceive any conditiou that a man
can fall into so raiserable ; nor any injury, or
contumely, that can pass upon him, so sharp
aud provoking, in which patience does not at
length get the better. And he that quietly
suffers the ill turn, will in the eud both shame
aud weary him that does it. For all violence
is its owu executioner : and indignation, not
enlivened by resistance, like a flame not blown
up, goes out of itself.
But the excellency of this great virtue ap
pears yet farther from this, that the greatest
persons that overlived, and whom Providence
sent into the world upou the most important
messages that ever were delivered to mankind,
have been signal and reraarkable for it. And
those were Moses and our Saviour Christ hira
self ; both of thera, iu their several times, the
meekest persons upon the earth : and such as
(according to the true measures of greatness)
were of too great and high a mind to do any
violence, but not of too great to suffer it. Both
of them shew their magnanimity in this,
"that being reviled," and that by persons
extreraely their inferiors, " they reviled not
again." Aud for the latter of the two, did the
royal diadem ever sit so gloriously upon the
head of any earthly prince, as the crown of
thorns did upon the head of our Saviour ? or
could any thing so fully prove hira more "ihan
a raan, as to be buffeted, scourged, scoffed at,
spit upon, and at length crucified, without so
much as one irapatient word ?
The achievements of passive valour are upon
many accounts raore glorious than those of
active : forasrauch as there is a great force and
inclination in uature, pushing it on to exert
itself in the way of action, but not at all to dis
pose it to suffer. This is a thing which mere
nature flies from, and abhors. And if we
compare these two together, whether doing or
suffering duly circumstantiated ought to have
the pre-erainence, still let us remember this in
behalf^of the latter, that it was suffering which
redeeraed the world.
(2.) Frora the foregoing particulars we
learn also the difficulty of attaining to such a
submissive frame of spirit. Which difficulty
will appear from these two things, —

I

382

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Srrm. XLV.

1. Frora that opposition which a man is to
conquer, before he can attain to it. Aud,
2. From that mean, though mistaken opi
nion, which the generality of men have of
such a teraper. And,
1. For the opposition that a man is to con
quer, before he can arrive to it. He is to
force and fight his way through all the resis
tance that the strongest powers of nature can
make against hira. For no man is born a
patient man ; whatsoever persoual advantages
aud dispositions some particular constitutions
may afford towards it, more than others. But
every man comes iuto the world with sorae
thing of pride and passion about hira, which
is to be subdued aud raortified, before he can
be fit to live in the world, and much more
before he can be fit to leave it. But now it is
patience, which must take down these heights,
and level these mountains into valleys. It is
patience, which must sraooth off the rugged
ness of passiou and the unruliness of appetite ;
and so raake plain a way for reason and reli
gion to run their course in. I shewed before,
that there was a natural stubbornness and
averseness iu every faculty of the soul to a
coraplianee with the divine will, especially in
those severer instances of it, which call upou
a man "to take the yoke upon his neck," aud
the " burden upon his shoulders," and to be
quiet, humble, aud content in the most cala
mitous condition. It is a hard lesson to do
God's will, but a much harder to suffer it.
Nature has not only an insufficiency for, but
also a contrariety to this. For reason will be
disputing, the will disobeying, and the pas
sions will murmur and rebel: and what is
there in bare nature that can overrule all
these? and from such a posture of defiance,
compose and quell them into the contrary
posture of the meekest submission? This is
that, which both Scripture aud philosophy
style a man's conquering of himself. A vic
tory, in the judgment of all wise and sober
men, more glorious and raore difficult too, than
any that crown the memory of Csesar and
Alexander. So much harder, and consequently
so much greater a thing is it, for one to endure
another man's rage, than to vent his own.
2. The other cause of the difficulty of at
taining to such a patient, submissive frame of
spirit, is frora the contempt and disregard
attending it, through the false estimate which
the generality, or rather vulgarity of men
have of it. For when patience raust pass for
pusillanimity, who would take pains to pro
cure hiraself so disadvantageous a eharacter?
and endeavour to conquer his passions, if for
the greatest conquest in the world he raust be
accounted a coward ?
Desire of glory is generally the great prin
ciple that animates men to high aud difficult
attempts. But when huffing and hectoring
must be looked upon as the only badges of

gallantry and courage, what can recommend
the exercise of patience against thedisgrace of
it? or induce a man to put up an affront,
when the result of virtue shall be reputed the
want of spirit ? This indeed is a discouraging
consideration ; but it is so only frora a most
unjust aud false judgraent of thiugs. For
patience is not the want of spirit, but the
government of it. It is a virtue ; and there
fore the ingredients of it are choice in the
agent, and difficulty in the object. And he
only is or can be a patient man, who is first
a man of courage ; who has sense enough to
resent a provocation, spirit enough to prompt,
and opportunity to enable hira to revenge it ;
and yet, in the midst of all these tempting
circumstances, chooses rather to offer up his
passiou a sacrifice to his virtue ; and by a
fixed, settled judgraent of mind, thinks it as
much nobler to pass by an injury, than to
repay it, as it is to slight an unworthy person,
than to strive tobe like him. But still, 1 say,
when the generality of men judge otherwise,
though by error and mistake, yet the tyranny
of a general mistake is so iraperious and intol
erable, thut for the most part it is too hard
for an ordinary virtue to contend with. And
that which puts patience out of credit will
(with sorae) quickly put it out of countenance
ioo : unless grace coraes in as a second to
nature, and the conscience of a practice over
comes the disrepute of it.
(S.) Aud lastly, we learn frora what has
been delivered, the necessity of an early and
long endeavour after such an excellent frame
of raind. The conquest, which the patient
man is to make, is uot by battle, but by siege ;
one is quickly over, but the other is ofteii <i
long .and a tedious task. The apostle calls
upon us to " let patience have its perfect
work ;" and few thiugs, we know, arrive to
perfection but by degrees. It is a high aud
a glorious ascent, and there is no getting up
to it but by steps. It must make its entrance
into the soul by a total extirp.ation of the
contrary habits : and uo habit cau be present
iy rooted up, where nature is the soil in which
it grows. For do we think it possible for a
proud man to grow humble in a day ? or for
a passionate man to get the absolute command
of his passions iu a few weeks? It is, I confess,
" possible with God," and omnipotence can
effect it ; but what God can do, is not the
measure of what he will. According to the
stated method of the divine actings upon the
soul of man, the Spirit of God proceeds gradu
ally, aud grace imitates even where it exceeds
the course of nature. So that where it rids
the soul of any vicious habit, it destroys it
in.sensibly and by degrees ; and where it
infuses good habits, it instils thera into tiie
soul by small proportions : they are an oil
that is dropt, not poured into it. And it is
thejudgment of all divines, that infused habits

ON PSALM, xxxix. 9.

383

come into the soul after the same manner
with those that are acquired. Grace acts like
uature, eveu where the effect is above it.
He therefore who would cooperate with the
grace of God, for the working of so uoble a
change upon hiraself, as to keep his passions
calm and regular in spite of all provocations
that would inflame them ; he who, in all the
cross accidents of life, would have his owu
will, as it were, wrapt up in the divine will,
and be able to say with his great raaster and
example, Christ himself, " Not ray will, but
thine be done :" he, I say, who would arrive
to such an height of Christianity, let him
begin early ; let hira consider with hiraself
the length, the difficulty, and the fatigue of
"the race that is before hira," and set out
betimes ; let him inure himself in his raino
rity to lesser self-denials and mortifications ;
let him learn to put up and pass by a slight
ing, undervaluing word, and in time he shall
find himself strong enough to conquer and
digest an injurious action ; let him learn to
overlook his neighbour's incivility, and iu
time he shall be able with patience and firm
ness of raind to endure his insolence aud his
cruelty, and tbat without being discoraposed
by any instigations to revenge : aud let hira
accustom himself to do tbis ofteu, and at
length he shall be able to do it always.
But if a man suffers his impatience to grow
up with him, and gives it its free, outrageous,
unbounded scope to the greatest part of his
age, he must not hope to master aud dis
possess such a giaut of his strong hold by a
few assaults ; he must uot think wholly to
alter and transform himself, and pick up snch
a virtue as patience on a sudden. He who
has allowed his passion to live, and rage, and
domineer to the age of forty or fifty, must not
expect, without a very extraordinary grace
indeed, to be patient at threescore. So infi
nitely sottish and ignorant of human nature
are those men, who think it iu their own
power to change and reform their manners
when they please. No, it is a long and a
severe discipline ; and the wisest and best o
raen have fouud it task enough for their
whole lives. And therefore, certainly none
deceive themselves so foolishly, and so fatally
too, as those, who design to learn, just as they
are leaving off to live. The times of youth
and prosperity are the proper times to
strengthen and to ballast the raind w^ith pious
principles and wise customs against the try
ing, searching times of age and adversity.
For if these seasons do not find a mau patient,
they seldora raake hira so. They are the
seasons to spend upon a stock, and not to
gather oue ; to crop the fruits of a virtuous
habit, and not to plant it. For surely no
man goes about to careen and fit up his ship
in the midst of a storm, nor to buckle on his
armour in the heat aud fury of the battle.

No, this is a work that should have been done
before. It is a work of preparation ; and it
can be uo time for a man to prepare a thiug,
wheu he is just about to use it.
This is certain, that afflictions will come,
trials and perplexing providences will some
time or other overtake us, and God knows
how suddenly and how severely. And then
happy, and ouly happy, is that raan, who, by
a long and daily exercise of this great virtue,
has forearraed and fortified himself against
the fierce and critical day of trial ; who, to
temperance has added patience ; that is, to the
proper virtue for prosperity, has joined the
proper oue for adversity : I say, " blessed is
that faithful aud wise servant, whora his
Lord, when he cometh, shall find so prepared."
Verily, as patience has raade hira ruler over
himself ; so, according to our Saviour's own
expression, " his Lord shall raake him mler
over all his goods."
To which our great Lord aud Saviour,
together with the Father and the Holy Ghost,
be rendered and ascribed all praise, might,
majesty, and dominion, both now and for
evermore. Araen.

SEKMON XLVI.
PART II.
" I was dumb, I opened not my moutii ; because thou didst it."
FsALM xxxix. 9.
I FORMERLY made an entrance into these
words, and observed iu them these two
parts, —
1. David's subraissive deportraent under a
sharp affliction : " I was durab, I opened not
my mouth."
2. The ground and reason of such his de
portment, which was the procedure of that
affliction frora God : " I opened uot my mouth,
because thou didst it."
And so I shewed the words were a full
lecture of patience, recoraraending to us a
great virtue by a great exaraple, and conse
quently designed to argue us into an absolute,
entire subraission to the divine will, in our
raost pressing and severe distress. The prose
cution of them I cast under these two general
heads :
I. To give some account of the nature and
measures of this submission.
II. To shew the reasons and arguments for
it, as the suffering person stands related to
God. The first of these I have already despatched,
and proceed now to the secoud ; which is to
shew, what reasons and arguments may he

384

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Sbrm. XLVL

produced for the submission here spoken of,
as the suffering person stands related to God.
Aud for this, I think, we may lead our way
with this general assertion ; that there is no
thought, which a man can possibly conceive
either of God or of himself aright, but will
afford a strong arguraent to enforce this sub
mission upon us. He that duly considers
both what God is, aud what he himself is, can
need uo other demonstration of the infinite
folly and absurdity of opposing or conteuding
with him. But yet to give light and life to
this general proposition by particular instances,
there are six things in God that offer them
selves to our consideration ; which are so many
invincible arguments to quiet and compose all
those unruly motions, that are apt to disturb
the spirit of a man, when God by any severe
passage of his providence calls him to a state
of suffering : and this is certain, that every
call from God to suffer, is a command also to
subrait. (1.) The first is God's irresistible power.
And there are sorae who place God's very
right of sovereignty in the boundlessness of
fais power ; affirraing, that the great reason
why God raay do any thing, is because he can
do any thiug. But far be it from any sober
person to discourse of the divine nature and
actings upon the stock of such a principle.
But yet to illustrate and make out the ab
surdity of any thing that looks like a non-
submission or repugnancy to the afflicting
hand of God, were it possible for us to iraagine
or suppose that God had no right to treat
his creature in so severe a raanner, yet the
surpassing greatness of his power has rendered
it irapossible for the creature to receive any
benefit by deraurring to his right. Such a
plea being like a poor conquered captive's
impleading a victorious sword, absolutely
senseless and ridiculous ; it being certainly
absurd to resist, where it is impossible to
conquer or escape. A good cause itself against
an overpowering force, is an impotent, iusig-
uificant thiug ; impotent as to self-support,
insignificant as to success. For power is the
great disposer of the issues and events of
things ; and wheresoever there is any effect,
it is certain that some power or other is the
cause. And therefore all acts of hostility or
opposition upon a mischief done or offered,
suppose in the person who raakes the opposi
tion, an opinion at least of power iu hiraself
able to repel or revenge that raischief ; and all
complaint supposes a likelihood of engaging
the strength and power of such as hear it, in
the help aud vindication of him who raakes
it ; and is indeed used only as a raeans or
instrument to supply the defect of a man's
own personal power, by the conjunction of
other men's. But now, where neither of
these considerations cau take place, both re
sistance and complaint are utterly irrational ;

as in the case of the divine power's dealing
with man, it raust needs be. For what is all
the world to hira that raade the world? (1
Cor. X. 22,) " Do we provoke God to jealousy?
are we stronger than he ?" All the nations,
all the arraies of the whole earth, are to him
but as " the drop of the bucket," or " the
small dust of the balance :" and can we pos
sibly think or speak of things under a greater
disparity ? And if so, will reason allow that
there should be any contention where there
can be no proportion ? " He has done what
soever pleased him both in heaven and earth,"
(Psalm CXXXV. 6.) As soon as his will gives
the word, his power executes. " No god can
deliver as he can," says Nebuchadnezzar,
(Dan. iii. 29 ;) nor can any one destroy as
he can, says our Saviour, (Matth. x. 28.) He
gives away kingdoms and erapires, disposes of
crowns and sceptres, with the breath of his
raouth. Aud after all this, can a pitiful piece
of animated dirt be fit to quarrel and ex
postulate with a power infinitely greater than
his very thoughts, and therefore certainly in
no degree to be matched by his strengths!
But to what purpose is it thus to argue or
dispute the matter? to light a caudle to the
sun ? or with much ado to prove a finite no
ways equal to an infinite ? For that in effect
is the thing now before us ; while we are dis
puting, whether a man may contest with, or
ought to submit to his Maker ; and whether
he should be permitted to talk high and loud,
who can do nothing ; and to be still upon the
offending part, who is wholly unable to de
fend himself. A man so behaving himself is
nothing else but weakness and nakedness,
setting itself in battle-array against omnipo
tence ; a handful of dust and ashes, sending
a challenge to all the host of heaven. For
what else are words aud talk against thunder
bolts ? and the weak, empty noise of a queru
lous rage, against him who can speak worlds,
who could word heaven aud earth out of no
thing, and can when he pleases word them
into nothing again ?
What can we utter or express greater of
the vast distance between God and man, than
by a kind of tautology to say, that God is
God, and mau is mau ! For it is certain that
the first can have no predicate but himself;
since he that is pure act, and perfect simpli
city, can be said to be nothing, but by an
identical Repetition ; iu which both predicate
and subject are uo more than one and the
same thing set forth in two several words : an
evident deraonstration, that words cannot
keep pace with things, wheu we discourse of
God. In short, since matters stand thus be- j
tween God and us, let us consider what handa
we are in, and what au irresistible gripe has
hold of us ; aud let that teach us, even for
our owu sakes, to be quiet under it. There is
indeed oue, and but oue way of encountering

ON PSALM, xxxix, 9.

385

au infinite power ; and that is, by an extra
ordinary and (if it were possible) an infinite
patience. (2.) The next thing to be considered in God,
as another argument for our submission to
him, is his absolute, unquestionable dominion
and sovereignty over all things. And this,
according to the true and exact notion of
thiugs, differs formally frora his power, though
sometimes they are unskilfully confounded.
For the difference between them is as great, as
between ^iiia(iig and k^ovaix, between strength
aud authority ; between a bare ability to act,
and a right to act ; whieh may be often one
without the other : for there may be force
and power without authority, and a right
ful authority without any force or power ;
both of which we have known by woful ex
perience. But to the subject before us. This domi
nion of God is founded upon the best, the
greatest, and most undeniable title ; which is
that of creation and providence. It being
infinitely reasonable, that the first cause should
upou that account be the suprerae governor ;
and that whatsoever has been made and pre
served by God, should be also commanded by
him. And besides, as God is the first cause, so
he is also the last end of all things ; they ter
minate in him, as well as they issued frora
him ; they were produced by his power, and
designed for his pleasure. (Rev. iv. 11,)
" Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory,
and honour, and power ; for thou hast created
all things, and for thy pleasure they are
and were created." God might have chose
whether he would have made the world or
DO ; for he had uo need of it, to complete
or add to his happiness, which was infinitely
perfect within the compass of his own glorious '
being. Yet he was pleased by a most free
and unconstrained motion of his owu will, to
coraraunicate and difFuse sorae little shadows
of those perfections upon the creatures, and
more especially upon those nearer resem
blances of himself, meu and angels.
Upon which account it is certain, that God
has the entire disposal both of our persons
and concerns ; which, giving him a full pro
priety in all that we are or have, it is also as
certain that he cau do us no wrong. God's
pleasure is his sufficient warrant, and there
fore ought to be our undoubted law : for
being vouched by the supreraacy of heaven,
there can be no appeal from it, uo address to
any higher tribunal ; for as it is in Job, ix.
12, " 'Who may say unto God, what doest
thou ?" It is not for the clay to expostulate
with the potter, though, instead of making it
¦ a " vessel of honour," he treads it under foot,
frora whence he took it.
Men indeed may contest their rights oue
against auother ; even an inferior against his
vox.. 11.

superior : because there is none so absolutely
superior to, or lord over auother, but holds
that superiority or preeminence by a limited
right, and by concession from him, who is
equally a lord and raaster to thera both ;
aud consequently will treat thera as fellow-
creatures and fellow-servants, and with an
impartial hand exact an account of the be
haviour of him who rules, as well as of him
who obeys. But it is not so with God, who
being absolutely first and suprerae, raust
needs upon the sarae score also be absolutely
unaccountable : for none can stand obliged
to render an account of his actions to his in
feriors ; such as we all are to God, and that
by vast and unmeasurable disproportions.
(3.) Together with God's irresistible power
and his absolute dominion, let the afflicted
person consider also his infinite and unfailing
wisdora : that wisdora by which he first made
the world, and by whicli he does and always
will govern it : that wisdom by which all the
strange events and odd contingencies which
sometiraes occur, are cast into a regular
method and au exact order ; though the
short reach of sense and natural reason is not
always able to fathom the contrivance, or to
discern the rare and curious disposal of thera.
But how rauch soever we are in the dark
as to this, still we are sure, that a being essen
tially wise cannot do any thing but wisely.
Our ignorance of the particular reason of God's
actings cannot infer or make them in the least
unreasonable. It is uot accouuted disoretion
to quarrel or find fault with the actions of a
wise man ; and much less can it be so to
question the proceedings of an infinitely wise
God ; who is wise without any mixture of
folly or imperfection, a privilege granted to
uo created nature : for " he has charged his
very angels with folly," (Job, iv. 18.) Aud
be they ever so wise, it is certain that they are
not wisdora itself.
It is arrogance in us to pretend so rauch as
to understand the counsel of God, iu his raan
aging the great affairs of the world, and rauch
raore to blame or carp at them. Providence
is more honoured by our adrairation, than our
inquiries : for these latter are for the raost
part the effects of pride, but alvvays of curi
osity ; whereas the forraer always produces
or at least accompanies humility. We can
not pierce into the designs which God may
have in every passage, every accident that be
falls us ; we cannot look through the long and
intricate traiii of causes aud eff'ects, and see by
what strange, mysterious ways the smallest
things are oftentimes directed by a sure hand
to an accomplishment of the greatest ends.
Providence is nothing else but infinite power
managed by infinite wisdora, and the divine
knowledge displaying itself in practice.
The consideration of which alone, one
would think, should bc abundantly enough
2 a

386

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Skrm. XLVI.

to compose all our murmurings and repinings
under any calamity that can possibly happen
to us ; and to reduce us to an acquiescence in
our present condition, be it wh.at it will.
For while we fret and repine at God's will,
do we not say in effect, that it is better for us
to have our own ? that is, in other words,
that we are wiser thau God, and could con
trive and project things much raore to our own
advantage, if we had the disposal of them? Do
we not as good as complain, that we are not
took in as sharers with God in the govern
ment of the world ! that our advice is not
taken, and our consent had, in all the great
changes which he is pleased to bring over
us ? These indeed are things that no man
utters iu words ; but whosoever refuses to
submit himself to the hand of God, speaks
them aloud by his behaviour : which by all
the intelligent part of the world is looked
upon as a surer indication of raan's mind,
than any verbal declaration of it whatsoever.
God, perhaps, is pleased to visit us with some
heavy affliction : and shall we now, out of a
due reverence of his all-governing wisdoin,
patiently endure it? or out of a blinrl presump
tion of our own, endeavour by some sinister
way or other to rid ourselves frora it ? Pas
sengers iu a ship always submit to their pilot's
discretion, but especially in a storm ; and
shall we, whose passage lies through a greater
and more dangerous deep, pay a less deference
to that great pilot, who not only understauds,
but also commands the seas ?
It is sometimes so far from being a privi
lege for a man to be governed by his own
will without the conduct of a wiser, that it is
indeed his raiserj^, and his great unhappiness,
and a direct throwing himself into the very
mouth of danger : forasrauch as uo huraan
wit or wisdom can always distinguish between
what will help, and what will hurt us. If
children might have their own wills, and be
their own choosers, they would certainly
choose poison before a cordial, if that were
but sweet, and this bitter. And so it is with
meu themselves in reference to the dealings
of God's providence ; every dispensation of it
may prove our physic or our bane, according
as it is ordered and applied. God can make
our most pleasing and promising enjoyments
become a plague and a destruction to us, and
" turn our very table into a snare :" and, on
the other hand, he can make ns " gather grapes
of thorns, and figs of thistles," and reap com
fort from the sharpest affliction. God's wis
dora still warrants all his actions to be for the
best. And as his glory is the grand end of all
that he does, and consequently ought to be so
likewise of all that we either do or suffer ; so
this is most worthy our observation. That
whatsoever befalls any man, that raakes most
for God's glory in respect of that man ; and

if he be a child of God, most for his own good
too. For in this case, things raust not bc
estimated according to their bare natures, bnt
according to their use and tendency ; and as
they lie under the direction of that providencr
which guides things to effects rauch beside
and beyond what their mere nature, left to
its own course of acting, would carry them
out to. Poison itself, by art, may be made
au ingredient in the composition of an anti
dote : and things in themselves really good,
yet, by ill circumstances aud misapplication,
may become hurtful and pernicious. Pros
perity, considered absolutely and irrespec
tively, is better and more desirable than
adversity ; and yet, perhaps, as our spiritual
estate and condition stands, adversity maybe
better for us : for that may harden, and this
raay humble us ; that may prepare ns for
judgment, this for mercy. As the having
blood iu our veins is in itself naturally better
than losing it, aud yet in sorae cases and under
some distempers, the very principle of life
becomes the occasion of death; and that
blood kept in, destroys, which being let out
would recover and preserve us. Now the
divine wisdom best knows all the maladies,
all the weaknesses and distempers of our souls,
and consequently ought to claira and challenge
our sole and absolute dependence upon it,
even in its harshest and roost amazing pre
scriptions. (4.) Let the afflicted person consider the
great goodness, the benignity and mercy of
God to all his creatures ; which is so great,
that the psalmist tells us, in Psalra cxlv. 9,
it spreads itself with a universal extent " over
all his works :" but especially the noblest
and most beloved piece of his workmanship,
mankind : which seeras to have beeu created
by God purposely to shew how much he de
lighted in mercy. God is the greatest of kingf
and potentates, but yet has nothing of a tyrant
in his nature, how ill and tragically soever
sorae may represent him : he takes no delight
in our groans, no pleasure in our tears, but
those that are penitential. It is no pastime
to him to view the raiseries of the distressed,
to hear the cries of the orphan or the sighs of
the widow. The prophet tells us, (Lament.
iii. 33,) tiiat " God does not willingly afBict
the children of men :" he seeras to share in
the suffering, while he jnflicts it ; and to feel
the very pain of his own blows, while they
fall heavy upon the poor sinner. And again,
in Isaiah, xxviii. 21, judgraent is called God'^
" strange work ;" a work that he has no prone
ness to, nor finds auy coraplacency in : .ind
therefore, whensoever he betakes himself to
it, we may be confident that it is not for thf
sake of the work itself, but that he has some
secret, overruling design of love, whicli he i>
to compass after an unusual, extraordinarj 1,
w.ay. He never lops and prunes us with hi? (
 ,-ZJ

ON PSALM, xxxix. 9.

387

judgments, because he delights to see us bare,
and poor, and naked, but because he would
make us fruitful ; rior would he cause us to
pass through the fiery furnace, but to purge
and to refine us. For can it be any pleasure
to the physician to adrainister loathsome
potions or bitter pills ? or can it be any satis
faction to a father to eraploy a chirurgeon to
cut off his child's arra, were not the taking
away a part found necessary to secure the
whole? Comraon huraanity never uses the
lance to paiu aud torture, but to restore the
patient. But now, the care and tenderness
of au earthly parent or physician is but a
faint shadow and resemblance of that infinite
compassion and affection, which God bears to
his children, eveu in the midst of his seve
rest usage of them. For what is or cau be
that affliction, through which God's love does
not shine and shew itself, to an eye spiritual
enough to discern it ? God sometiraes dashes
a man's beloved reputation, and exposes him
to the scorn of those, who are a juster object
of scorn themselves. Sometimes he lessens a
man's estate, and, after he has grown old in
wealth and plenty, brings hira at length, in
his declining years, to the irksorae change of
a poor, low, necessitous condition : and sorae
tiraes, again, God breaks iu upou a raan's
family, his dearest friends and relations, and
so bereaves hira of a right hand or a second
self. ¦ Bnt still, as grievous as all these things
may seem at first view, may uot yet the
traces and footsteps of divine love be discern
ible in all these strokes ? For some perhaps
may value more the esteem of men, than that
of God : and then is it not better for such an
one to have his name blasted amongst men,
than blotted out of the book of life ? Another
may idolize his money, and make his gold his
god ; and, in such a case, is it not really raore
profitable for him to lose an earthly estate,
than to have uo treasure in heaven ? Aud a
third may dote upon friends, and place his
whole heart and confidence in his relations ;
and if so, is it not indeed his advantage to be
stripped of a perishing, mortal friend, aud
took into the bosom of an everlasting father ?
Certainly every such person may write upon
all his losses, Periissem nisiperiissem. For be
it reputation, estate, friends, or whatsoever
else is or can be desirable to a man, that he
has lost ; yet if by all this God has given
laws to his outrageous appetites, and bounds
to his ambitious designs ; if by this he has ex
tinguished in him the spirit of pride, and
stirred up in him the spirit of prayer ;
and lastly, if by this he has mortified' his
worldliness and sensuality, and convinced
him of the infinite vanity, the emptiness,
and dissatisfaction that is in all created enjoy
ments ; how much soever such a man has
beeu a sufferer, it is certain that he has
been no loser. He has indeed been upon

a great tr.affic, he has driven the gaiiiluUest
bargain in the world, having exchanged his
pence for pounds, things carnal for things
spiritual ; things whicli perish iu their very
use, for things that never fade.
(5.) Let the afflicted person consider God's
exact and inviolable justice ; so that if he had
no kindness for us to do us any good, it is
certain that this alone would keep him from
doing us any wrong ; for this is athing which
omnipotence itself cannot do.
God never strikes without a cause, nor
wounds us, till our own sins draw the sword.
All punishment essentially supposes and
implies, one way or other, a guilt in the party
punished ; and every mau's sufferings are a
true coraraent upou his deserts. God punishes
no raan beyond the rate and proportion of
his own demerit, though short of it he does
very ofteu ; accepting sraall payraeuts for
great debts, and setting down fifty in the
punishment, where sin has run ns in arrears
to him many thousands in the guilt. And
can we then think it reasonable to maunder
and repine at him, who treats us with such
abatements ? chastising us " with whips,"
when he might lash us " with scorpions ;"
and only correcting, when he might, with full
warrant from his justice, confound us? The
divine justice never acts up to its highest
pitch, iu its dealing with sinners in this
world ; but still proceeds -with some temper
and allay of mercy, which makes it quite
another thing frora what it would be, if it
should flame out iu its own native, proper,
unrelenting severities. Aud sinners who taste
of it, both iu this world and the other too,
find the vast difference of it here and there,
by woful experience : for here it smites us
only with the rod of admonition, and puts
just so much sharpness into the blow, as raay
irabitter sin to us, not thoroughly revenge it
upon us. And therefore, in Scripture dialect,
God's " righteousness" is oftentimes but an
other word for his " mercy ;" raercy being still
predominant in the exercise and manifestation
of it. So that at the same tirae God punishes
men both for, and yet beneath their sins ;
aud with great lenity still proportions his
judgments, rather to the raeasure of their
strengths, than to that of their deserts.
(6.) and lastly. Let the afflicted person
consider the method of Providence, in its
dealing with suoh as have been eminent for
their subraissive deportment under God's
afflicting hand, and he shall see how mightily
God has turned all to their advantage at last ;
and that not only in the next life, but often
times very signally even in this too. The
consideration of which alone may and ought
to administer no small support to any one,
who has undei'standing enough to compare
past events with present, and so to read his
own case in other men's. For in thirigs of

388

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Serm. XLVL

this nature examples are the best arguments,
aud precedents the strongest persuasives : and
therefore Saint James, in his last chapter,
having several times pressed this grand duty
of patience, seals his exhortation with this
argument, iu verse 11, " Ye have heard of the
patience of Job, and have seen the end of the
Lord." Aud such an end and issue did God
put to Job's calamity, that we find his pros
perity returning, or rather with a full tide
flowing in upou him, in a more than treble
increase : nay, and we read of his losses made
up to him, eveu iu kind ; besides the peculiar
advantage accruing to his conditiou from the
circumstance of his restitution, that by thus
imraediately passing from one extrerae to
another, the very neighbourhood of his suffer
ings gave him so much a quicker and livelier
taste of his returning felicity. And then for
David, who so quietly endured the rage and
contumelies of Shimei, did he not presently
see a merciful turn of Providence restoring
him to a more established royalty than ever
he was master of before ; and bringing that
base tongue to lick the dust uuder his feet that
a few days befoie had so foully thrown dirt in
his face ?
Could we but trust God to do our business
for us, to assert our cause, and to vindicate
our innocence, we should find that he would
not only answer, but also outdo our hopes ;
we should find that our sorrows would prove
our harvest, .and our " sowing iu tears" raake
us reap sevenfold in joy.
Men are apt to think both themselves and
others raiserable, because they pronounce and
pass judgraent hastily, from the present sense
of a grievance, without expecting its issue ;
vyhich usually converts the sighs and laraeuta-
tions of a pious mourner into the triumphal
songs of a joyful conqueror ; and having led
God's chosen ones through a Red sea and a
howling wilderness, plants them at length,
safe aud free, in all the wealth and affluence
of a promised Canaan. No person, that ever
heartily submitted to the rough dealings of
Providence, could upbraid it with unkindness
at the last ; but has still found the same hands
raore bountiful iu rewarding than ever they
had been severe iu striking.
The ways of patience may at first indeed
appear rugged and frightful, full of terror and
discouragement ; but it is the end (we kuow)
" that still crowns the work," and the issue
and conclusion, from whence all things take
their estimate. A welcome reception at our
journey's end is a sufficient recompense for
all the fatigue and tediousness of the way :
aud the Scripture tells us, that as soon as a
woman in child-bed is delivered, all the pangs
and travails of her labour presently vanish,
and are swallowed up in the "joy, that a man
is boru into the world." True wisdom, in
taking the worth and value of things, never

terminates iu the preseut state of tliem, bul
casts its eye chiefly upon the future. And
therefore, as no raan can be accounted truly
happy, even as to the things of this world,
till his death ; so ueither can any one pass for
truly miserable, (and that even upon a tem
poral account,) till he has finished his course
here ; for every thing is well or ill, as it ends;
and this let every afflicted person cause his
meditations chiefly to dwell upon, still direct- j
ing his observatious to the final issue of God's
dealing with such as have signalized their
patience, by suffering his sharpest rebukes
with all the stillness aud coraposure, constancy
aud firmness, of a pious, humble, aud well-
resolved subraission.
Now these six things in God being seriously
thought upon ; naraely, his irresistible power;
his absolute, unaccountable sovereignty; his
infinite, unerring wisdora ; his boundless
goodness and benignity ; his exact aud inviol
able justice ; and lastly, his gracious v\'ay of
treating all patient and hurable sufferers, are
so many mighty and irrefragable arguments
to enforce this great duty of submission upon
us, as the most rational thing imaginable;
and that upon the account of three great and
noble qualities constantly attending on and
naturally resulting from it, as it stands related j
to and grounded upon those six foregoing |
considerations. And these are, 1. The neces- ;
sity ; 2. The prudence ; and, 3. The decency ;
of such a submission ; all which jointiy and
severally prove and demonstrate the high and
transcendent reasonableness of it. I shall
speak something of each of them, and so close
up all. And,
1. For its necessity. It is most certain,
frora what has been discoursed, tbat in this, a'
in all other cases, God will have his will ; and
how should it be otherwise, when nothing
can withstand it? Submit we must to the
calaraity inflicted on us, unless we could be
too wise or too strong for him that inflicts it;
for other ways of escape there can be none,
but either by wisdom to contrive, or by force
to wrest ourselves out of God's hand : but he
that does the former must outwit omniscience ;
and he that does the latter must overpovfer
omnipotence. But all such counsels are vain,
and ridiculously irapossible; for there is no
contending with Heaven, no wrestling with
God, but by prayer. We know what a weak,
pitiful thing a subject is, if contending with
his earthly prince ; but much more so,oppos- 1
ing himself to the almighty King of kings, |
before whom the powers of the whole earth i;
are as nothing, and all the empires and king- li
doras of the world but as so many bubbles j;
before the fury of the wind. He who carries
" his breath in his nostrils" surely should be
careful to carry a pious aud a discreet tongne
in his mouth. "Who" (says the prophet
Isaiah speaking of the dreadful power of

ON PSALM, xxxix. 9.

389

God,) " would set briers and thoms against
him in battle? he would go through them, he
would buru thera together ," Isaiah, xxvii. 4.
Briers indeed may be sharp and troublesome,
but not to the fire that feels them not, but in
a raoraent devours and consuraes them. In
like manner, men raay snarl, and word it high
against Providence ; but we have already
observed what silly, senseless things such
verbal assaults are against the Creator aud
Governor of the universe, and to what little
purpose we spend our breath against hira who
gave it, and cau take it away when he pleases.
Expostulations and invectives raay perhaps
affect and move a weak mau like ourselves,
but they are lost before they cau get to
heaven ; they canuot reach, and much less
pierce those glorious mansions. Words of
rage and irapatience can hurt none but him
that speaks them, especially when they are
shot at God : aud therefore, as the same
prophet says again, (Isaiah, xlv. 9,) " Wo
unto him that striveth with his Maker ! Let
the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the
earth," and theu possibly they may strike
one auother iu pieces. But a potsherd is a
very unfit thing to mn against a brazen wall,
or to dash itself upon the Rock of Ages.
All affronts put upon God by such a refrac
tory, contumelious behaviour as we have been
speaking of, are to be reckoned araongst the
absurdities, as well as the irapieties of our
actions ; such as reason itself would decry,
should religion be silent. Things so full of
paradox and brutish irrationality, that, could
great sins be fit to be laughed at, they were
fitter to be run down with scoff aud sarcasra,
than to be thought worthy of a serious con
futation : but though it is not for us to laugh
at them, we raay be sure that God does.
In fine, this we raay rest satisfied of, that
whensoever God's hand is upon us, we must
either yield a voluntary, or be forced to a
violent submission. If our stubbornness is
such, that we will not bend, it is certain that
our weakness is also such, that we must needs
break. If God's message will not win upon
Pharaoh, his plagues shall compel hira ; and
therefore, when he sent Moses to him, he put
a rod into his haud, as well as a word iuto his
mouth. Wheu God fully purposes to afflict
a man, he is like a bird in a net, the more he
strives and flutters, the more he is entangled ;
for the supreme Judge of all things is resolved
to go through with his great work of judg
ment, and to make all obstinate, sturdy sinners
know, that be has power to constrain, where
his goodness will not persuade.
2. The second qualification of the submis
sion here spoken of, which also is a farther
argument to enforce it, is the great prudence,
as well as the necessity of it. There are few
things iu the world so totally and entirely
bad, but some advantage may bc made of

thera by a dexterous management; and it is
certainly a man's wisdom to make the best of
a bad condition : there being a certain kind
of pious and prudential husbandry, by which
aman may so improve a calamity, as to make
the endurance of that the performance of a
duty, and, by his behaviour under it, to pro
cure a release frora it. We should with Isaac
take the wood upon our shoulders, though we
ourselves are designed for the sacrifice ; and
who knows but as in his case, so in ours also,
a patient resignation of ourselves to the knife
raay be the sure and direct way to rescue us
from it ? For, according to the coraraeree
that God has established between this and
the other world, momentary sorrows are im
provable into everl.asting joys ; and we may
build as high as heaven, if we lay the founda
tion deep and low in patience and huraility.
In 2 Cor. iv. 17, "Our light afflictiou," says
the apostle, " which is but for a raoraent,
worketh for us a far more exceeding and eter
ual weight of glory." In which words, it is
worth our while to observe the peculiar force
aud emphasis of the coraparison, and the vast
difference of the things that the apostle here
confronts one against another : it is a " light
afflictiou," set against a "weight of glory;"
" a light affliction for a raoraent," agaiust " an
exceeding and eternal weight of glory :'' so
that it is irapossible to word things to a
higher disproportion. And now, -when the
case stands thus, if a man would not endure
so much as the sraart of a cut finger to gain a
crown ; or (as I raay so speak) would not lose
a hair to save his head ; should we not ques
tion his wisdora as much as his courage ? and
look upon hira as one so far from living by
faith, that he does not so much as live up to
common sense? For, as Naamau's servant
said to hira, when he refused in scorn to
follow the prophet's advice, " Had the prophet
bid thee do sorae great thing, wouldest thou
not havedone it?" So, where beaven is the
prize, who would not endure hell itself for a
while, to obtain that at last ? But upon how
much easier terras are we treated by God,
when he says only. Suffer a few incousideiable
grievances here patiently, and that for a very
short time, and then be infinitely, unchange
ably happy for ever ? It is wisdom, wisdom
upon the truest aud strictest estiraate of
things, not only to endure, but eveu to choose a
teraporal evil, which leads to an eternal good.
But adrait that such a submission to the
hand of God should not rid us from the cala
mity he is pleased to bring upon us, yet this
we may be sure of, that it will give us ease and
relief under it ; and if it takes off nothing of
our load, yet it will certainly add to our
strength. For it is really armour to the inner
man, and (if you will adrait the expression)
it is a kind of breastplate within us ; it being
the nature of patience to make heavy things

390

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Serm. XLVI

seem light, and of impatience to make the
lightest things become really heavy. It is
this that renders every affliction, according to
the prophetic phrase, truly and properly, "the
burden of the Lord." And still the more we
strive to cast off God's yoke, the more it galls
us. The sum of all is this, that since there is
an inevitable necessity of our suffering wheu
God calls us to suffer, it must needs be the
highest piece of Christian policy, by our
submissive demeanour to make a virtue of
necessity, to extract good out of evil, and to
endure that with patience which we cannot
remedy bj' power.
3. and lastly. To the necessity and prudence
of such a submissive deportment under the
hand of God, let us add also the decency of
it, iis none of the le.ast enforcing considera
tions to oblige us to it : for we raay trust it to
the decision of any ordinary, if unprejudiced
reason, whether it can be comely for a sinful,
obnoxious creature to contend with him
in whose hand his very life and soul is, and
"whose are all his ways," as Daniel ex
presses it to Belshazzar, (Daniel, v. 23 ;) and
whether it can be fit for a slave, a vassal, to
quarrel and contest the will and pleasure of
his absolute lord and sovereign.
Add to this, the follies and absurdities of
impatience, considered simply in itself, and
abstracted from those aggravations that it
receives from the peculiar quality and condi
tion of some persons : for in the very natiire
of it, as such, it degrades a man not only from
the degree of a Christian, but also of a man,
stripping him of his very understanding and
consideration ; and so turning not only reli
gion, but also reason itself out of doors. " In
patience possess ye your souls," says our
Saviour, (Luke, xxi. 19.) It is this that gives
a nian the possession of himself; for impa
tience doe.s, as it were, thrust him out of the
present possession of his senses : it invades the
capitol, reason is enslaved, and passion domi
neers ; during the furies of which, he ceases
for that time to be rational, and passes into
the rankaiid order of brutes, which are wholly
governed by appetite, and the present impulse
uf sense, iu opposition to the sober conduct of
reason, discourse, and deliberation.
Impatience has always these two ill ingre
dients in the very constitution of it, pride
and anger : and can any thing possibly be
more indecent, more absurd, and more to be
exploded, than a proud beggar, an aspiring
lump of dirt ? or can there be a greater para
dox in manners, than at the same time to be
saucy, and to depend ; to be arrogant, aud
yet indigent? And then for anger, it is a
monstrous, irregular, unbecoming passion,
eveu when it shews itself against an equal ;
but how much more against a superior ; and
yet incredibh', inconceivably more when it
fumes and rages against the immense power.

and the unquestionable prerogative of the
supreme Sovereign of all things, whom our
anger cannot reach, but the least spark of
whose anger can for over consume us ! 'What
a discomposure does this ungoverned affection
work in the whole intellectual frame, turning
the mind topsyturvy, clouding its apprehen
sions, entangling its counsels, and confounding
its reasonings, till it has turned that little
light which is iu it into darkness, and so
quite blown out "the candle ofthe Lord." And
can this be a disposition of mind becoming a
rational uature? a nature that God has made
but oue pitch "lower than that of theangels?"
But so much the more intolerable is such .i
stubborn, unsubmissive frarae of spirit in
meu, when the whole host of the creation
besides are, with the highest readiness and
alacrity, continually intent upon the execu
tion of their great Master's commands. The
whole 104th Psalm, that noble and sublime
piece of sacred poetry, is a full description of,
aud a panegyric upon the creatures' readiness
to serve their great Lord. In ver. 6, 7, " The
waters," says the Psalmist, "stood upon the
mountains ; but at thy rebuke they fled, and
at the voice of thy thunder they hasted away."
Nothing to be seen but absolute obedience,
even in these inanimate creatures, which, it
seems, cau obey a command, though they
cannot so much as hear it. And then for
other creatures, endued with a bare principle
of life and sense, they also act in a constant
compliance with the divine will, and that
sometimes against the most natural inclina
tion of their own. What raore ravenous than
a hungry lion ? and yet he shall restrain his
furious appetite when God commands him
uot to touch a Daniel. What more devouring
th.an the ravens ? and yet even they shall
part with their own food to an Elijah, when
God bids them purvey for a servant of his in
distress. And shall raen, after all this ; man,
that has been so signally obliged by Heaven
above all tbe rest of the creation ; shall he, I
say, be the only thing that shall resist and
oppose the proceedings of the Almighty, by
fretting and striving against every passage of
Providence that comes athwart either his
desires or designs ? If this be not the highest
transgression of the rules of decency, then
surely there is no such thing as decency or
regularity, order or proportion, in the whole
frarae and economy of this visible world.
And thus having farther enforced this grand
duty of submission upon these three several
accounts ; to wit, of its absolute necessity ;
its high prudence and policy ; and lastiy, its
great decency : I suppose there can need uo
other arguments to bind it fast upon the
consciences of those who, besides their indis
pensable duty to God, hold it their no small
concernment to acquit theraselves to the
world also, in all these considerations.

ON PSALM, xxxix. 9.

391

In the raean tirae, the foregoing discourse
may teach us au art that all the wisdora of
the world caunot teach ; which is, to know
how to raake ourselves happy in the most
afflicted, abject, and forlorn condition of life :
and that is, iu short, to acquiesce cheerfully
antl entirely in the good pleasure of Alraighty
God, whatsoever our estate or coudition in
this world falls out to be : for, to put all
into one word, could raen be but willing to
do what God coraraands, and to suffer what
God inflicts, there could be uo moro room for
any such thing as discontent or misery in the
whole course of things here below. The
killing force of the greatest and the fiercest
judgraents is even broke by yieldance and
submission ; for still it is opposition that
strengthens a calamity. And when the
creature will needs wage war with God, God
acts with the greatest reason and equity that
cau be expected, even frora raen warring
against meu : those that will fight it out, he
kills ; and those that will yield, he spares.
The felicities and miseries of this world are
dispensed by God variously, aud the changes
of our lives are, for the most part, rauch raore
nuraerous than the years of them : so that he
who now flourishes with all the plenty and
glory that Providence can heap upou hira,
may, in a short tirae, see hiraself stripped
and disrobed of all ; aud then the use, the
worth, and value of a patient, subraissive
spirit will come to be understood ; since,
without it, it will be irapossible so to behave
ourselves uuder God's afflicting hand, as uot
to add provocation to provocation, or to fall
under one calaraity without making it the
occasion of another.
Which consideration surely should be suf
ficient to beget in us a readiness, not ouly to
bear, bnt eveu to " take up our cross ;" and
to make every suffering free and voluntary,
by a subsequent act of choice, " looking uuto
Jesus," our great pattern and example, who,
in obedience to his Father's will, " endured
the cross, and despised the sharae, and is now
set down at the right hand of God."
To which he, of his mercy, vouchsafe to
bring us all ; to whom be rendered and as
cribed, as is most due, all praise, might,
majesty, and dominion, both now aud for
evermore. Amen.

SEEMON XLVII.
PART I.
*' If it bo possible, as much .-is lieth in you, live peaceably with
all men.*' — Romans, xii. 18.
Christianity, if we well weigh and consider
it, in the several parts and members of it,
throughout the whole systera, raay be justly
called the last and the raost correct edition of
the law of nature ; there being nothing excel
lent amongst the heathens, as deducible from
the external light of uature, but is adopted
into the body of Christian precepts. Neither
is there any precept iu Christianity so severe
and mortifying, and jit the first face and ap
pearance of things grating upou our natural
conveniencies, but will be resolved into a
natural reason ; as advancing aud iraproving
nature in the higher degrees and grander con
cerns of it.
And of so universal a spread is the benign
influence of this religion, that there is no
capacity of man but it takes care for ; not
only his religious, but his civil and political.
It found the world under government, and
has bound those bonds of govemment faster
upon it, by new and superadded obligations.
And by the best raethods of preservation, it
secures both the magistrate's prerogative and
the subject's enjoyment, by the happy provi
sions of peace ; the encomiums of which great
blessing I shall not now pursue, nor forestall
here what will more aptly be inserted here
after. The text, we see, is a vehement, concern
ing, passionate exhortation to this blessed
duty, and great instrument of society, peace.
" If it be possible, live peaceably." It is
suspended upon the strictest conditions,
stretching the compass of its necessity com
mensurate to the utmost latitude of possi
bility. The words are easy, but their raatter full ;
aud so require a full and a large, that is, a
suitable prosecution ; which I shall endea
vour to give them in the discussion of these
four particulars :
I. The shewing what is iraplied in the duty
here enjoined.
II. What are the raeasures and proportions
by which it is to be determined.
III. What are the means by which it is to
be eft'ected.
I'V. What the motives by which it may be
enforced. I. And for the first of these, the duty here
enjoined is, " live peaceably ;" which expres
sion is ambiguous, and admits of a double
signification : —

392

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SEUMONS.

Skrm. XLVH

1. It may be taken for the actual enjoy
ment of peace with all men. In which sense
he only " lives peaceably," whora no raan
molests. 2. It may be taken for a peaceable behaviour
towards all men. In which sense he " lives
peaceably,"' by whom noman is molested.
The first of thesc senses cannot be here
intended by the apostle, and that for these
two undeniable reasons :
(1.) Because so to live peaceably is impos
sible ; and what cannot possibly be done,
cannot reasonably be commanded.
The irapossibility of it appears upon those
two accounts :
1st, The contentious, unreasonable humour
of many men. Upon this score, David cora
plains of his enemies, that " when he spoke of
peace, they were for war." Many of the en
mities of the world commence not upon the
merit ofthe person that is hated, but upon the
huraour of him thtit hates : and some are ene
mies to a man for no other cause in the earth,
but because they will be his enemies. The
gi'ounds of very great disgusts are not only
causeless, but oftentimes very senseless. Some
will bea man'senemies for his looks, his tone,
his luien, and his gesture ; and upon all occa
sions prosecute hitn heartily with rauch coii-
ceniinent and acrimony. And therefore that
argument is insignificant, which I have ofton
heard used bj' some men to others ; who, when
they complain of injurious de.alings, think they
h.ave irrefragably answered thera in this : Why
should such an one be your enemy? what
hurt have you done him? or what good can
he do himself by injuriously treating of you ?
All which supposes that some reason may and
must be given for that vvhich, for the most
part, is absolutely unreasonable. A little
experience in the world would quickly and
truly reply to these demands ; that such or
such an one is an enemy, not upon provoca
tion, but that his genius and his way inclines
hiin to insult, and to bo contentious. And
nature is sometimes so favourable to the world,
as to set its raark upon such a person, and to
draw the lines of his ill disposition upon his
face ; iu whicli only .vou are to look for the
causes of his enraities, and not in the actions
of him ¦whom he prosecutes.
There arc sorae persons, that, like so many
salamanders, cannot live but in the fire ; can
not enjoy themselves but in the heats and
sharpness of contention : the very breath they
draw does not so rauch enliven, as kindle .and
infl.ame them ; they have so rauch bitterness
in their nature, that they must be now and
then discharging it upon somebody ; they
must have vent, and sometimes breathe them
selves in an invective or a quarrel, or perhaps
their health requires it: should they be quiet a
week, they would need a purge, and be forced
to tale physic.

And now, if any ono should be molested
and have his peace disturbed by such a person,
would he be solicitous to find out the cause,
and satisfy himself about the reason of it!
When you see a mad dog step aside out ofhis
walk only to bite somebody, and then return
to it again, you had best ask him the reason
why he did so. Why, the reason is, that ho
is mad, and his ¦worm will not lot hini be
quiet, without doing mischief, when he has
opportunity. Now such tempers there are in the world,
and always were, and always will be ; and so
long as there be such, how can there be a
constant, undisturbed quietness in societies?
We may as well expect, that nobody should
die when the air is generally infected, or that
poison should be still in the stomach, and yet
work no effect upon the body. God must
first weed the world of all contentious spirits
aud ill dispositions, before a universal peace
can grow iu it. And this may be one reason
to prove, th.at a "living peaceabljr with all
raen," as it signifies the actual enjoying of such
a peace, is utterly impossible.
2dly, Tho second reason is from the contrary
and inconsistent interests of raany men.
Most look upon it as their interest to be great,
rich, and powerful : but it is irapossible for
.all that desire it to be so ; forasrauch as some's
being so, is the very cause that others cannot.
As the rising up of one scale of the balance
does of necessity both infer and effect the
depression of the other.
This proraised, we easily know farther, that
there is nothing which raen prosecute with so
much vigour, vehemence, and activity, as their
interest ; aud the prosecution of contrary
interests must needs be carried on by contrary
w.ays and motions ; which will be sure to
thwart and interfere one with another : and
this is the unavoidable cause of enmity and
ojiposition betweeu persons.
Sometiraes we see two raen pecking at one
another very eagerly, with all the arts of
undermining, supplanting, and ruining one
another. WliJit! is it because the one had
done the other au injury ? or because hc is of
a quarrelsome temper ? Perhaps neither ; but
becfiuse he stands in his way ; he cannot rise
but by his disgrace and downfall ; he must be
removed, or the other person's designs cannot
go forward. Now as long as both these
interests bear up together, and one has not
totally run down and devoured the other, so
long the persons will be engaged iu a constant
enraity aud contest.
The ground that the poet assigned as one
great cause of the civil wars between Casar
and Porapey, "multis utile bellum," is that
into whicli most raen's particular quarrels and
enmities aro resolved. In peace, every man
enjoys his own ; an<l therefore he that has
nothing of his own, will be ready enough to

ON ROMANS, xiu 18.

393

blow the trurapet for war, by which he raay
possibly gain an estate, beiug secure already
that he cau lose none.
What is the reason that it is observed in
tradesraen and artificers, that they are always
almost detracting from one another ; but that
it is the apparent interest of one, by begetting
in men a vile esteem of the other, to divert
his custom to himself ; or at least to secure
that in his own hands, which he has already?
If the other person is the only workman, why
then he shall monopolize all the custora ; if
he be as good as this, then this shall have the
less : and this is that which sets them upon
perpetual bickerings and mutual vilifications.
The sum of all is, that most raen's interests
lie cross, their advantages clash, or at least are
thought to do so : and contrary qualities will
prey upon one another. Where raen's in
terests fight, they theraselves are not like to
be long at peace. But now God, in his wise
providence, is pleased to cast the affairs of
mankind into such a posture, that there will
be always such inequalities and contrarieties
in the conditions and estates of men. Aud
this is the other reason, why to enjoy " peace
with all raen" is impossible.
(2.) But, iu the next place, admitting that
it were not impossible, yet thus " to live
peaceably with all men" cauuot be the sense
of the apostle's exhortation, forasmuch as it
can be uo mau's duty. That which is the
matter of duty ought to be a thing not only
possible in itself, but also in the power of him
to whom it is enjoined. But it is not in my
power to enjoy peace with all men, since this
depends upon their behaviour towards me,
aud not immediately upon mine towards
them. And therefore it can be no more my
duty, than it is my duty that another man
should not be a thief or a murderer. If he
will be so, I cannot prevent hira ; he only is
the master of his owu will and actions : and
where the power of acting is seated, there only
lies the obligation of duty ; otherwise, if I
should be obliged to that which depends not
at all npon my power, a man might as well
tell me that I am obliged to see that it does
not thunder, or that the Turk does not invade
Germany. Wherefore it is clear that the
words of the text are to be understood only
in the second sense propounded ; and that
"living peaceably" iraports no more than a
peaceable behaviour towards all men : which
being the duty here enjoined, we are to see
what is included in it.
And for this it seeras adequately to consist
of these two things, —
1. A forbearance of hostile actions.
2. A forbearance of injurious, provoking
words. This seems to take in the whole scope of it,
as comprehending all that makes up the be
haviour of one man towards another, which

are his actions and his words ; what he does
.and what he says. Aud if those unruly in
struments of action, the tongue and the hands,
be regulated and kept quiet, there raust needs
ensue an entire peace.
1. And first, the " living peaceably " im
plies a total forbearance of all hostile actions,
and that in a double respect :
(1.) In a way of prevention.
(2.) In a way of retaliation.
(1.) For the first, I call that prevention,
when a man unprovoked makes au injurious
invasion upon the rights of another, whether
as to his person or estate, God for the pre
servation of society, has set a defence upon
both these, and made propriety sacred, by
the mounds aud fortifications of a law. For
what living were there, did not the divine
authority secure a mau both in his being and
in the means of his being ; but should leave
it free for the stronger to devour and crush
the weaker, without being responsible to the
alraighty Governor of all things for the in
jury done to his fellow-creature, andthe con
terapt passed upon the divine law ?
And certainly oue would think it not only
a reasonable, but a very easy thing for a raan
wholly unprovoked to keep his hand from his
brother's throat, to let hira live and enjoy
his lirabs, and to have the benefits of nature,
and the coramon rights of creation. It is a
sad thing for a mau uot to be safe in his own
house, but much raore iu his own body, the
dearer earthly tabernacle of the two. How
barbarous a thing is it to see a Roraulus ira-
bruing his hands in the blood of his brother !
and he that kills his neighbour, kills his
brother, as to the common bonds and cogna
tion of humanity. Now all murders, poisons,
stabs, and unjust blows, fall under tliis just
violation of the peace iu reference to men's
persons ; which God will avenge and vindi
cate, as being parts of his image : for there
is none who requires to be honoured in hira
self, who will endure to be affronted so rauch
as iu his picture.
It is looked upou by sorae as a piece of
gentility and height of spirit, to stab and
wound, especially if they are assured that
the injured person will not resist ; and so
secure thera the reputation of generosity,
without the danger of betraying their cow
ardice. The other instance of violence, is the for
cible wringing frora men the supports of life,
their estates, their revenues, or whatsoever
is reducible to this notion, as contributing
either to their subsistence or convenience.
And this is not to be understood barely of
oppression managed by open and downright
defiance ; but by auy other sinister way what
soever, as the overbearing another's right by
the interest and interposal of great persons,
by vexatious suits aud violence cloaked with

I

394

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Serm. XLVII

the formalities of a court and the name of law.
And whosoever interverts a profit belonging
to another by any of these courses, is a thief
and a robber : perhaps a raore safe and credit
able one indeed, but still a thief; and that as
really, as if he did it by plunder and seques
tration ; which is only a more odious name,
but uot a more unjust thing.
And he is no less a disturber of the peace,
and a breaker of this law, who oppresses the
widow, and grinds the face of the fatherless
and the poor, than he who forages a couutry
with an array. For that is only violence
with a greater noise, and more solemnities of
terror. But God, who weighs an evil action
by the malignity of its principle and the un-
justness of its design, and not by those ex
terior circumstances which only clothe its ap-
pear.ance, but not at all constitute its nature,
has as much vengeance in store for an op
pressing justice (if that be not a contradiction
in the terms) as he has for the pillaging soldier
or the insolent decimator ; it beiug as truly
oppression in the accounts of heaven, when
proclaimed by the groans and cries of the or
phan, as when ushered in with the sound of
the trumpet aud the alarm of war.
For whereiu should consist the difference?
Is it because one stands upon his ground, and
repels the invasion? and the other opens his
bosom to the blow, and resigns himself to his
oppressor with patience and silence? Is it
peace, because the man is gagged and caunot,
or overawed and dares not, cry out of oppres
sion ? Or is he therefore not wronged, because
his adversary, by his place or greatness, has
set himself above the reach of justice, and is
grown too big for the law ?
It was an acute and a proper saying of one
concerning a prevailing faction of men, " So-
litudinera cum fecerint, pacem vocant ;" when
they have devoured, wasted, and trampled
down all before them, so that there is none
indeed so much as left to resist, that they call
peace. But certainly neither are the peace
makers blessed, nor is the peace a blessing,
that is procured by such dismal methods of
total ruin and desolation. And thus much
for the forbearance of hostility in poiut of
prevention or provocation.
(2.) In the next place, there is required
also a forbearance of all hostile actions, as to
retaliation. I shall not run forth into the
common-place about revenge, it being a sub
ject large and important enough to be treated
of in a discourse by itself. But tbis I shall
say, that according to the weights and measures
by which Christianity judges of things and
actions, he that revenges an injury will be
found as truly a malefactor in the court of
heaven, as he that does one. And he that re
quires " an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a
tooth," is a Jew, and uot a Christian ; a per
son of a mean spirit, aud a gross notion, unac

quainted with the sublimity and spirituality of
so refined and excellent a religion.
A peaceable deportment is one of the great
duties enjoined in it : and the rule and mea
sure of that is to be charity, of which divine
quality the apostle tells us, (1 Cor. xiii. 7,)
that it " suff'ers all things, hopes all things,
endures all things." The very genius and
nature of Christianity consists in this, thatit
is a passive religion : a religion that composes
the mind to quietness, upon the hardest and
the most irksome terms and conditions.
And the truth is, if it drives on a design of
peace, we shall find that the consequences of
revenge make as great a breach upon that, as
a first defiance and provocatiou. For were
not this answered with resistance and retri
bution, it would perhaps exhale and vanish;
aud the peace would at least be preserved on
one side. For be the injurous person never
so quarrelsome, yet the quarrel must fall, if
the injured person will not fight. Fire some
times goes out, as much for want of being
stirred up, as for want of fuel.
And therefore he that can remit nothing,
nor recede, nor sacrifice the prosecution of a
small dispensable right to the preservation of |
peace, understands not the full dimensions and
latitude of this great duty ; nor remembers
that he himself is ruined for ever, should God
deal with him upon the sarae terms.
The great God raust relax his law, and
recede from some of his right ; and every day
be willing to put up, and connive at many
wrongs, or I am sure it is impossible for him
to be at peace with us. He shines upon his
eneraies, and drops the dew of heaveu npon
the base and the uuthankful. And in this
very instance of perfection, (M,atth. v. 48,) he
recomraends hiraself to our iraitation.
If revenge were no siu, forgiveness of inju
ries could be no duty. But Christ has made
it a grand and a peculiar one : indeed so great,
as to suspend the whole business of our justi
fication upon it, (Matth. xviii. 36.) And in
the foregoing verses of that chapter, treating
of the unmerciful servant, who exacted a debt
from his poor fellow-servant, we find "that
his lord was wroth with him, and delivered
him to the tormentors." Neither could it I
have profited him to have said, that he ex
acted but what was lawfully his own ; ¦what
was due to him upon the best and the clearest
terms of propriety. No ; this excused not the
rigour of a merciless proceeding from him,
who had but newly tasted of mercy, and
being pardoned a thousand talents, remorse
lessly and unworthily took his fellow by the
throat for an hundred pence.
It is or may be the case of every one of ns.
We pray every day for forgiveness ; nay, we
are so hardy as to pray that "God would
forgive us just so as we forgive others:" and
yet oftentimes we can be sharp, furious, and

ON ROMANS, xii. 18.

39.0

revengeful ; prosecute every supposed injury
heartily and bitteriy ; and think we do well
and generously not to yield nor relent: and
what is the strangest thing in the world, not
withstanding an express and loud declara
tion of God to the contrary, all this tirae we
look to be saved by raercy ; and, like Saul, to
be caught into heaven, while we are breath
ing nothing but persecution, blood, aud
revenge. But as to the great duty of peaceableness
which we have been discoursing of, we raust
know, that he who affronts and injures his
brother, breaks the peace ; but withal, that
he who owns and repays the ill turn, perpe
tuates the breach. By the former, a sin is only
born into the world ; but by the latter, it is
brought up, nourished, and raaintained.
And perhaps the greatest unquietness of
humaii affairs isnot so much chargeable upon
the injurious, as the revengeful. The first
undoubtedly has the greater guilt ; but the
other causes the greater disturbance. As a
storm could not be so hurtful, were it not for
the opposition of trees and houses ; it ruins
no where, but where it is withstood and re
pelled. It has indeed the sarae force when it
passes over the rush or the yielding osier ; but
it does not roar uor becorae dreadful, till it
grapples with the oak, and rattles upon the
tops of the cedars. And thus I have shewn
the first thing included in a peaceable beha
viour, naraely, a forbearance of hostile actions,
and that both as to provocation and retalia
tion. But whether all kind of retaliation be
absolutely unlawful, shall be inquired into
afterwards. 2. The other thing that goes to constitute a
peaceable behaviour, is a forbearance of inju
rious, provoking words. I know none that
has or deserves a reputation, but tenders the
defence of it, as much as of his person or
estate. And perhaps it has as great an in
fluence upon his contents and emoluments as
both of thera. It is that which makes him
considerable in society. He is owned by his
fi'iends, and cannot be trarapled upon by his
eneraies. Eveu those that will not love him,
will yet in sorae raanner respect hira. For
till the enclosures of a raan's good name are
broke down, there canuot be a total waste
made upon his fortunes.
Upon this it is, that abusive language, by
which properly a raan's repute is invaded, is
by all men deservedly looked upon as an open
defiance, and proclairaing of war with such a
person : and consequently, that the reviler is
as great a disturber as an arraed eneray ; who
usually invades a raan in that which is rauch
less dear unto him. Rabshakeh broke the
peace with Hezekiah, as much by his railing,
as by the array that besieged hira. And he
that flings dirt at a raan, affronts him as much
as he that flings a stone at him. A wound

upon the skin is soraetiraes sooner got off
thau a spot upon the clothes.
I would fain know, what man almost there
is, that does not resent an ugly, reflexive
word with raore acrimony and impatience,
than he would the stab of a poniard. He re
raerabers it raore tenaciously, prosecutes it
more thoroughly, and forgets it much raore
difficultly. And the reason is, because a blow
or a wound directs an evil only to a raan's
person, but an ill word designs him a wider
calaraity ; it eudeavours the propagation and
spreading of his unhappiness, and would ren
der him miserable as far as he is, known.
Besides, it hurts him so as to put the repar
ation of that hurt absolutely outof his power :
for it lodges his infamy in other men's
thoughts and opinions, which he cannot com
mand or corae at, so as to rectify and disabuse
them. But adrait that the defaraed person,
by a blaraeless and a virtuous deportraent,
wipes off aud confutes the calumny, and clears
himself in the esteem of men ; yet it is of
those only with whom the scene of his con
verse lies : but in the meantime tho slander
spreads and flies abroad ; and many hundreds
come to hear the ill words by which the man
is abused, who never come to see his own be
haviour by which he is righted.
I conclude, therefore, that this great duty of
living peaceably is not consummate, without
a constant and a careful suppression of all
offensive and provoking speeches. And he
who does not acquit himself in this instance
of a Christian behaviour, will find hereafter,
that raen will raeet with as certain a condera
nation for what they have said, as for what
tbey have done.
And thus much for the first general thing
proposed for the handling of the words ;
namely, to shew what was implied in tho
duty enjoined in them. I pass now to the
Second, which is to consider, what are the
measures and proportions by which it is to be
determined. And those are expressed in these
words ; " If it be possible, live peaceably."
Now " possible" may be taken two ways.
1. As it is opposed to naturally impossible,
and thatwhich cannot be done. Wbich sense
caunot be here intended, as being supposed in
all just aud reasonable coraraands. For none
can rationally command or advise a mau to
that, which is not naturally within his power,
as has beeu already observed.
2. It may be taken, as it is opposed to
morally impossible, and that which canuot be
done lawfully : for it is a maxim in the civil
law, " id possumus quod jure possumus ;"
which was the sense of Joseph's answer to his
mistress, (Gen. xxxix. 9,) " How can I do
this great wickedness, and sin against God ?"
and of that of the apostle, (2 Cor. xiii. 8,)
"We can do nothing ag.ainst the truth, but
for the truth." In both which places, not

396

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS. Sbrm. XLVII.

the possibility, but the lawfulness of the
action is specified ; and that is the sense here
intended. But now the observance of peace being
limited by the measure of lawful, it follows,
that where the breaking of the peace is not
unlawful, there the maintaining of it ceases
to be a necessary duty. It is of some moment
therefore to satisfy ourselves when it is law
ful, and when unlawful to break the peace.
And all inquiries concerning this are reducible
to these two, —
1. Whether it can at all be lawful.
2. Supposing that it may be lawful, when
and vvhere it ought to be judged so.
Under the first of these I shall discuss that
great question, whether war can be lawful for
Christians. Under the second, I shall shew
those general grounds that may authorize a
¦war, and from thence descend 'to the resolu
tion of particular cases. As,
1. Whether it can be lawful to break peace
with the magistrate.
2. Whether it may be lawful for one private
man to make war upon another, in those en-
.counters which we coraraonly call duels.
3. Whether it be lawful for a mau to repel
force with force, so as to kill another in his
own defence.
4. And lastly, since the prosecution of
another in courts of judicature is in its kind
a breach of the mutual bond of peace, I shall
inquire whether it be allowable for Christians
to go to law one with another.
_ All these things admit of much doubt and
dispute ; and yet, being matters of common
aud daily occurrence, it concerns us to have a
right judgment of them.
I shall begin with the first question, which
is concerning the lawfulness of war ; iu order
to the resolution of which, I sh.all premise
what it is. "War may be properiy defined a
st.ate of hostility, or mutual acts of annoyance,
either for the preservation of the public frora
some raischief intended, or in the vindication
of it for some raischief already done to it.
The ground of war therefore is some public
hurt or mischief; aud since this may be two
fold, either intended or actually done, there
are accordingly two distinct kinds of war,
defensive or offensive.
1. Defensive is in order to keep off and re
pel an evil designed to the public ; and there
fore is properly an act of self-preservation.
2. Offensive is for the revenging a public
injury done to a coraraunity, and so is pro
perly an act of justice.
It is clear, therefore, that the lawfulness and
justness of war is founded upon the justness
of its cause ; and this being once found out,
and rightly stated, I affirra, that it is allow
able before God to cease frora peace, and to
enter into a state of war ; and that upon the
strength of these arguments : —

(1.) That which is a genuine, natural, and
necessary consequent derived from one of the
chief principles of the law of nature, that is
lawful : but so is war, namely, from the
principles of self-preservation, the noblest and
the most acknowledged of all those principles,
by which nature regulates and governs the
actions of the creature. " Hoc et ratio doctis,
necessitas barbaris, feris natura ipsa praescrip-
sit, ut omnem semper vim, quacunque ope
possint, a corpore, a capite, a vita sua propul-
sarent." Cicero, in his defence of Milo. And
that self-preservation caunot be raaintained
without war, is too evident to be proved. The
Jews, when they were set upon by their ene
mies on the sabbath day, and then murdered
and massacred, because they thought it unlaw
ful to make any resistance, or to defend them
selves on that day, have transmitted the sad
truth of this assertion in bloody letters to
posterity. That raen will soraetiraes invade the rights
and the lives of others, is certain ; and it is
also as certain, that the naked breast is not
the surest arraour, nor patience the best wea
pon of defence.
Do we expect q, rescue from heaven? and
that God should send down fire from the
clouds, and work rairacles for our preservation?
Experience sufficiently convinces us that such
an expectation is vain. God delivers men by
means, when raeans are to be had, and by
the interposal of their own endeavours : and
therefore he that flies to the church when he
should be in the field, and takes his prayer-
book in his hand when he should take his
sword, tempts God, and loses himself; and,
according to a due estimate of things, becomes
a murderer, by so patiently suffering another
to be so.
"'Victrix patientia" is a puff and a meta
phor ; and may, perhaps, in the issue of things,
bear a man through a domestic injury or a
private affront ; but I never read that it put
an array to flight, or rebated the courage or
controlled the invasion of a fighting enemy.
Besides, patience is properly the suffering
quietly, when God in his providence calls us
to suffer : but it is not a suffering, when God
calls us to act, aud to stand upon our own
defence. As in some men we see it usual to
veil their cowardice and pusillanimity with
the names of prudence aud moderation ; so
that, which some call patience, will be once
found nothing else but a lazy relinquishment
of the rights and privileges of their nature ;
and that a life aud a being was much cast
away upon such as would not exert the utmost
power they had to defend it. This argument
is properly for defensive war.
(2.) The second is for offensive ; and it
proceeds thus : That which is a proper act of
distributive justice is lawful ; but such athing
is war, it being a retribution of punishmeut

ON ROMANS, xii. 18.

397

for a public hurt or inju.y done by one nation
to auother. That he who does a wrong should
suffer for it, is a thing required by justice, the
execution of which is committed to the
supreme power of every nation : and why
justice may not be done upon a company of
malefactors defending themselves with arms,
as well as upon any particular thief or mur
derer, brought shackled and disarraed to the
block or the gallows, I cauuot understand.
The case in a civil war is clear between a
magistrate assisted by his subjects, against
another rebel part of his subjects : for he be
ing the supreme power, the right of punish
ing offenders, whether single or iu companies,
is undoubtedly in him. But since to punish
is properly an act of a superior to au infe
rior, and two kingdoms or nations seem to
be equal, and neither to have any superio
rity or jurisdiction over the other, it may
be doubted, how the one's making war upon
the other can be properly an act of punitive
justice. To this I answer, that though these two
kingdoras or states be in theraselves equal, yet
the injury received gives the injured people
a right of claiming a reparation frora those
that did the injury ; and consequeutly, in
that respect, gives them a kind of superiority
over the other. For, in point of right, still
the injured person is superior : and the reason
is, because common justice is concerned in his
behalf ; to whose rules all nations in the world
owe a real subjection.
If it were uot for war, therefore, there could
be no provision raade of doing justice upon an
offending natiou ; justice would only prey
upon particular persons ; but national rob
beries, national murders, must pass in triuraph
with the reputation of virtues, as high and
great actions, above the control of those cora
raon rules that govern the particular members
of societies.
In a word, society could not consist, if it
were uot lawful for one natiou to exact a
compensation for the injuries done to it by
another ; and upon the refusal of such com
pensation, to endeavour it by force aud acts of
hostility. Wherefore I conclude, that war
must needs be just, when the instruraent of
its raanagement is the sword of justice. Aud
this arguraent is for offensive war.
But before I dismiss it, there is one doubt
that may require resolution, and it is this ;
that admitting that an injured nation may
lawfully raake war upon the nation that
injured it, yet is it lawful for the injurious
nation, being thus justly assaulted by war,
also to defend itself?
I answer, that it is ; and that upon this
ground, that be a man's delinquency against
the laws of society never so great, yet, as long
as he retains the nature of a man, he also
retains the natural right of self-defence and

preservation ; unless wliere, by his own con
sent, he has quitted it.
But you will say, a particular malefactor is
bound to resign up his life to the punishment
of the law without resistance : and the case,
as to this, seems to be the sarae in a particular
raalefactor aud an injurious nation ; war being
a doing of justice upou one, as the execution
of the gallows is upon the other : and con
sequently the obligation to a non-resistance
seeras to be the same in both. I answer, that
the case is very different ; and that upon this
reason, that a particular member of a com
monwealth has consented and submitted to
the laws of the n.ation of which he is a
meraber, whicli laws enjoin malefactors to
surrender up their lives to justice without
resistance ; whereupon, the right of resisting
is lost by his own consent. But now there is
no law imposed upon one nation by another,
or owned and submitted to by any nation,
that obliges it, for having done an injury to
another nation, without resistance to endure
the effects of war and a hostile inv.asion ;
whereupon it still keeps the right of defending
itself against all opposition, how just soever it
be on their sides that make it.
(3.) The third arguraent is for all kind ol
war indifferently, and it runs thus : If Saint
John the Baptist, Christ hiraself, and the
apostles, judged the employraent of a soldier j
lawful, then war is lawful. The consequence
is apparent ; for every employment is lawful
or unlawful, according to the lawfulness or
unlawfulness of the actions to which it is
designed : au eraployment being indeed no
thing else but a constant engaging of a raan's
self in such or such a way of action. And
now for the assumption, that Saint John the
Baptist, Christ himself, and the apostles,
judged the life and employraent of a soldier
lawful, it shall be made appear particularly.
And first, for Saint John the Baptist. It
was his great office to be the preacher of re
pentauce, and to consign it with the great
sacraraent of baptisra : upon which it is
rational to conclude, that he admitted none to
baptisra, without declaring to thera what sins
they were to repent of. And since the sum
of his doctrine was, that raen should bring
forth fruits worthy of repentance ; when any
raen asked hira what they were to do, to ful
fil this great coraraand, it is raost consonant to
reason to judge, that his answer taught them
all that was included in that duty, and shewed
them whatsoever was inconsistent with it.
But now, wheu the soldiers amongst others
asked John "what they should do," (Luke,
iii. 14,) he speaks nothing at all of laying
down their eraployment ; bnt rather confirms
that, by prescribing rules to them how they
should manage it ; as, " Do violence to no
man, neither accuse auy one falsely ; and be
content with your wages." In short, it is not

398

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS. Skhm. XLVII.

imaginable that the great forerunner of the
Messias, eveu one of the greatest persons that
was born of women, should busy himself to
instruct men how they should lawfully man
age such an employraent as was in itself abso
lutely unlawful ; and to countenance meu to
receive wages for a work that he judged
highly impious aud unjust.
In the next place, for the judgraent of Christ
and his apostles about this matter ; the first
we have iu Matth. viii. 10, ¦where Christ,
speaking of the centurion, said, " that he had
uot found so much faith, no not in Israel."
And the like is testified of Cornelius the
centurion, in Acts x. 1, 2, " that he was a
devout man, and one that feared God with all
his house."
From whence I argue thus : he whose faith
Christ commended, and he to whom the
Spirit of God bore this testimony, " that he
was a devout man, and feared God," could
neither of them be engaged in a course of life
absolutely unlawful ; otherwise saving faith,
and the fear of God, would be consistent with
a settled, constant, resolved living in sin. For
he whose employment is sinful, sins habitually,
and with a witness ; and we might, with as
rauch propriety of speech, and truth iu divi
nity, coraraend the faith of a highwayman,
and say, a devout bawd, and a devout cheat,
as a devout centurion.
I conclude therefore, that war is a thing in
itself lawful and allowable, and that the proof
of it stands firm, both upon the principles of
nature and the principles of Christianity.
Aud being so, it is a great wonder that
Faustus Socinus, and his school, in other
things too partial defenders of nature, should
yet in this so undeservedly desert it, as to
assert all war to be utterly unlawful ; not
indeed by virtue of the law of nature, or of
Moses, but of Christ, who, they say, has jier-
fected the two former, and superadded higher
and more sublime precepts.
But still I canuot see that this sect of men
are able to quit themselves from the charge of
very gre.at unreasonableness in this assertion.
For in those truths that concern the theory
of the Christian religion, as about the Trinity
and the like, they vehemently contend that
all scriptures, howsoever in the clearest aji
pearance of natural construction looking that
way, yet ought tobe interpreted aud brought
down to the analogy and rules of natural
reason. But here, in the highest concerns of
practice, in which men's lives and fortunes,
their being and well-being, are iramediately
interested, they strip raen of all the rights of
nature, and that under pretence of such an
injunction frora the Christian religion.
It concerns us therefore to inquire into their
arguraents ; which we shall do, first by ex
amining tbe general ground upon which they
stand ; .and then by traversing those several

scriptures ; which these men allege in the be
half of their opinion.
First of all then, they lay this as the foun
dation of all their arguings in this particular,
that God, under the Mosaical covenant, made
only promises of temporal possessions and
blessings to his people; and therefore giving
thera a teraporal Canaan, it was necessary that
he should allow them the raeans of defending
it, which was properly by war, and repulsing
tbeir temporal enemies ; but now under the
covenant of grace, established by the medi
atorship of Clirist with the world, God has
made uo express promise of any temporal en
joyments or felicities ; but rather, on the
contrary, bids us despise and take our minds
wholly off from thera. And therefore, accord
ing to the tenor of such a covenant, he has
made no provision to secure his people in auy
such temporalities, but took frora them all
right of war and resistance.
To this, which is a proposition current
through the main body of the Socinian divi
nity, I answer,, that it is both false in itself,
and as to the present purpose hugely incon
clusive. For first, it is to be denied that God trans
acted with his people, under the Mosaical
covenant, only in temporal promises: he
did indeed, according to the thick genius
of that people, too much intent upou worldly
happiness, express and shadow forth spiri
tual blessings under temporal ; but that they
had hopes, and consequently proraises, of a
better life after this, is clear from sundry
places, as particularly that in Psalm Ixxiii.
24, where David says to God, " Thou shalt
guide rae with thy counsel here, and after
ward receive rae to glory." And it is clear,
frora all the foregoing verses, that by the
guidance of God's counsel, he understood God's
favour to him throughout the whole compass
of his life. But more fully in Heb. xi. 13,
where the divine author, speaking of the
ancient heroes before the times of the gospel,
says, " that they all died in the faith, not
having received the promises, but having
seen them afar off, and were persuaded of:
them, and erabraced thera, and confessed
that they were strangers and pilgrims on :
tiie earth." What could be said more fully
and expressly to shew the insolence of that
assertion, that by taking from the Mosaical
church all promise of future blessedness, would
degrade them to the rank of brutes and
swine, and epicures, who live only by this
beastly principle, " Let us eat and driuk to
day, for to-morrow we shall die?"
And farther, it is also false, that God has
under the covenant of grace made no tempo
ral provision for the persons under it. For
what mean those words of Christ, (Mfitt. vi. i
3.3,) " Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and
all these things shall be added unto you?"

ON ROMANS, xii. 18.

399

God indeed did not design these temporals as
parts of the great promised blessing, as he did
under the Mosaical covenant, but only as ap
pendages and concoraitants of it, that so he
raight shew the spiritual uature of tbis cove
nant to be much above that of the other : but
still it follows not, but God has made an allow
ance of temporal necessaries under the second
covenant, though not in the same raanner
and upon the sarae terms that he did uuder
the first.
It is clear, therefore, that the contrary pro
position is false ; and that it is as weak in the
nature of an argument, as it is false iu the
nature of a proposition, is no less manifest.
For if the ouly reason that made war law
ful to the Jews was because it was a means
to secure them in the possession of their tera
poral Canaan, ag-ainst the invasion and in
cursions of the eneray, then when there was
no such incursion or invasion, it ceased to be
lawful : this is a natural inference. But the
contrary is evident : for we know that they
coraraenced a lawful war against the tribe of
Benjarain, their brethren, iu which there
could be no pretence either of securing or en
larging the borders of the proraised land ; but
ouly a just revenge acted upon thein, for a
black and villainous trespass upou the laws of
coraraon justice and huraanity.
Aud then for the Christian church ; sup
pose they should have uo federal or spiritual
right to their earthly possessions, yet they
have a civil and a natural right ; which right
they may accordingly defend : since, by vir
tue of the covenant of grace, to have a title
to heaven ; and withal to have a civil and
temporal claira to their earthly estates ; and
farther, to maintain that claira against the
violence of an enemy ; are not at all opposite
or contrary one to the other, but very fairly
subordinate. But that I may thoroughly pluck up this
false foundation, grounded upon the difference
of the two covenants, I shall observe this : that
since in the forraer covenant there were some
things of moral and external right, some
things only of positive institution, peculiarly
made for and restrained to the church aud
coraraonwealth of the Jews ; whatsoever alter
ations aud abrogations have been made by
Christ under the second covenant, were only
of those positive laws peculiar aud proper to
the Jews ; all other things which depended
upon the eternal irarautable laws and rights
of nature, reraaining inviolately the sarae
under both covenants, and as unchanged as
nature itself.
Now such a thing I affirra the right of war
to be, as being the result and dictate of that
grand natural right of self-preservation. It is
the voice of reason and nature, that we should
defend our persons from assassination, and our
estates from violence : and he that seeks for

rescue from any thiug but a vigorous resis
tance, will find hiraself wronged to that de
gree, that it will be too late for him to be
righted. Having thus reraoved the false ground of
the arguraents, proving the utter unlawfulness
of war, I come now to see what countenance
this opinion receives frora Scripture ; from
which the abettors of it argue thus :
If we are expressly coraraanded " not to
resist evil, but being smote on the right cheek,
to turn the other also," as in Matt. v. 39 ; and
to " recorapense no raan evil for evil," nor to
" avenge ourselves, but rather to give place
to wrath," as in Rom. xii. 17, 19 ; if also we
are coraraanded to " love our enemies," as in
the same Matt. v. — then war, which includes
iu it the clean contrary, is utterly unlawful.
Before I answer these particular scriptures,
I shall premise this :
What if we should answer Socinus in his
owu words, who, iu his book De Jesu Christo
Servatore, disputing agaiust Covelus for the
disproving of Christ's satisfaction, has the
hardiness to say, that the word satisfaction is
uot to be fouud in Scripture ? which is true.
But supposing that it were ; yet it being, in
his judgment, contrary to right reason, it was
uot, he says, to be adraitted in the sense natu
rally signified by it. So say I ; these scrip
tures indeed, however they prohibit self-de
fence, yet this being contrary to the light of
uature and right reason, they are not to be
adraitted in their proper signification. Surely
this, though it were a bold and a profane
speech, yet to hira it were a very full answer,
who raakes the very same plea upou a parallel
occasion. But we shall not need such refuges. To
those scriptures therefore I answer, that they
are to be understood only of private revenge
acted by one particular mau upou another,
and uot of a public, managed by tbe authority
of the magistrate : but such a revenge only is
war. That the words are so to be uuderstood
is clear, as the occasion of those iu Matt. v.
shews ; for Christ's design was to beat down
that cormpt and false gloss of the Pharisees
upon the law, who taught that it wsrs lawful
for any private man to right and revenge hira
self with his own hands ; provided that he
observed the just raeasure of equality between
the evil which he suffered, and the evil which
he returned : whereas, indeed, Moses com
mitted the execution of this law of retaliation
only to the magistrate.
Hereupon Christ tells them, that it was
the duty of private men uot to resist evil,
nor to revenge themselves, but being smote
upon one cheek to turn the other ; which
words are not literally to be understood, for
neither Christ himself nor the apostle Paul
so behaved theraselves : but being smote upon
the face, tbey expostulated the injury of the

400

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS. ' Skrm. XLVIII,

blow, (Johu, xviii. 23, aud Acts, xxiii. 3.)
But they are only a hyperbolical speech,
prescribing a very great degree of patience
aud composure of mind ; and that of the
two we should rather choose, having received
one injurious blow, to off'er ourselves to
auother, than to sin against God by reveng
ing it.
But that this prohibition of revenge, farther
urged iu Rora. xii. 19, concerns only private
men, and not absolutely damns all kind of
revenge, acted by a public person, is mani
fest ; for uot above six verses off, uamely, in
verse 4, chap. xiii. the apostle is so far frora
denying this to the magistrate, tbat he tells
us it is the very design of his office, and that
" he heareth not the sword in vain ;" as being
" the minister of God, a revenger, to execute
wrath upon him that doeth evil." We can
not therefore make the apostle to forbid all
revenge, without a gross and a palpable con
tradicting of himself.
But besides, as touching revenge, which is
properly a retaliation, or repaying one evil
for another, that this is uot a thing in its
nature unlawful, is invincibly proved by
this: that God, by an express law, under the
Mosaical economy, committed the exercise of
it to the magistrate. But were it a thing iu
the very uature of it unjust, God could not
so much as permit or allow the practice of it,
much less countenance it by a law.
As for the next injunction, of " loving our
eneraies," I answer, 1. Thatitis there directed
by Christ to particular persons, not public
bodies or whole nations. 2. But, secondly,
admitting that it extends to these also, yet I
assume that the love here commanded is' not
properly a love of friendship, but a love of
charity ; which consists in a freedom from
any raalice to, or hatred of our enemies' per
sons : and this may continue and be main-
taiued, even while a man, either in the de
fence or vindication of his country, kills his
adversary iu the field.
For I suppose a judge raay be in charity
with a raalefactor while he condemns him ;
and the executioner have no desigu of hatred
to him, whom by the duty of his office he
makes a sacrifice to comraon justice.
The case is the same in war ; where, when
a man kills another, it is not because he has
not a love of charity to his person, but be
cause he is bound to love his prince and his
couutry with a greater.

SERMON XLVIII.
PART II.
*' If it be possible, as much as lieth iu you, live peaceably irlth
all men." — Romans, xU. 18.
II. The second argument to prove the
unlawfulness of all war is taken from that
prophecy, in Isaiah, ii. 4, where it is said of
those that shall live in the tiraes of thegospel,
that " they shall beat their swords into plough
shares, aud their spears into pruning-hooks;'
aud " nation shall not lift up sword against
nation, neither shall they learn war any
more." Ans. But to this I answer :
1. That prophecies only foretell the future
event of things, but determine nothing con
cerning either the lawfuluess or unlawfulness
of those things.
2. If these words are understood literally,
that after the coming of the Messias war shall
every where cease ; then they prove nothing,
but what the Jews pretend to prove by them,
which is, that Jesus Christ is not the Messias;
forasmuch as since his coming, we have seen
no such thing as a general cessation of vfat
over the world.
For the explication of this place therefore
we must observe ; that iu Scripture, things
have those effects ascribed to them which
they have a natural fitness to produce : though
by accident, and other impediments, they
never actually produce them. Thus, because
the gospel delivers such precepts to the world,
which if meu would live up to, there would
certainly ensue such an universal peace and
tranquillity ; therefore the production of snch
a peace is ascribed to the gospel, though,
through the vice and corruption of men,
the case of things fall out to be much other
wise. But it may be replied, that then, however,
those who o'bey and live up to the precepts of
the gospel, ought to abstain from all war:
whence it follows, that, according to those
precepts, war is unlawful.
I answer, that upon supposition of such an
absolute obedience to the doctrine of Christ,
war indeed would uot be lawful, because the i
very ground and occasion of it would be taken
away, by the inoffensive behaviour of one
mau towards another. But the dispute is
here concerning what is lawful to be done,
when the generality of the world live not
according to the tenor of this doctrine, but
invade the rights of others. In which case 1
affirm, that the gospel rends not frora any the
privileges of a natural defence, and the prose
cution of justice iu a lawful war.

ON ROMANS, xii. 18.

401

As for instance, the gospel, as much as any
doctrine can do, makes provision that there
should be no thieves or murderers in the world,
by a prohibition of those unhallowed courses;
but yet when it falls out that men obey not
those prohibitions, but engage in such prac
tices, surely it does not strip the magistrate
of all right to animadvert upon such offenders,
but leaves the axe as sharp, and the gibbet as
strong as ever it was under the law. This
exception therefore concludes nothing.
But then by the way, for the farther clear
ing of the text from the Jews' objection,
raised out of it against Jesus Christ's being
the Messiah ; besides what has been said, I
add farther, as to the very literal impletiou
of the prophecy, that when it is foretold that
a thing shall come to pass in the time of the
gospel, it is not necessary to understand that
it raust happen iramediately upon the intro
duction of it, and be always to be found in
the world, during the continuance of the gos
pel : but it is sufficient if it corae to pass and
be fulfilled in any period of it. And who
knows but before the world ends, God may
give the gospel such a progress over the earth,
and withal such a mighty influence upon the
hearts of those that profess it, that there may
be such a universal peace to be seen amongst
all nations, and such glorious halcyon days,
as the very literal purport of these prophecies
seems to exhibit to us. From whence I infer,
that we must first see an end of all things,
before the Jews' objection can be admitted to
prove what it does intend.
III. The third arguraent for the unlawful
ness of war is taken frora that place iu Matt.
xxvi. 52, where Christ coraraanding Peter to
put up his sword, tells him, " that all they
that take the sword shall perish by the sword."
From whence it follows, that since Christ
allowed not his disciple the use of the sword,
and that upon such an occasion as the defence
of his master, aud hira also the Lord and
Saviour of the world, certainly he would not
allow of it as lawful upon any other occasion
whatsoever. To this I answer, that the sense
and meaning of every speech is to be liraited
to the subject-matter of it, and also to be
measured by that which first occasioned the
utterance of it. Now Christ reprehends Peter,
because that by an unwarranted, though per
haps a well-meaning zeal, and without any
leave, either had or asked from Christ himself,
he flew upon the high priest's servant in that
manner. The words therefore, howsoever
uttered in general terms, signify only thus
much ; that those who without any call or
warrant from the lawful superior power, but
merely by the instigation of a hot zeal, aud
a hotter head, shall presurae "to use the
sword, such shall perish by the sword." But
this concludes nothing against the lawfulness
of those men's waging war, who come to it
VOL. II.

armed with the authentic call of the suprerae
magistrate, to whom God has committed the
defence of the subject, and the administration
of justice. It is indeed a dagger in the throat
of their cause, who can dare to raise armies,
ruin countries, and subvert governraents, upon
no other coraraission, than the impulse of a
furious ambition and a pretended inspiration,
TV. The fourth and last argument for the
unlawfulness of war may be framed thus :
That which proceeds from a sinful cause, and
produces sinful, unlawful effects, that itself is
unlawful. But so does war. For the sinful
ness of its cause, we have an account of that
iu James, iv. 1, " Whence corae wars aud
fightings araong you ? come they not hence,
even of your lusts ?" And for the unlawfulness
of its effects, we need only survey our own
experience, without recurring to any farther
histories to inform us what dismal cruelties,
rapines, and outrages, are the constant, in
separable attendants of war. Now for that
which issues from so evil a beginning, and
draws after it such evil consequences, it is
certainly very strange, if it should not be in
a high degree evil itself. But to this I
answer, 1. As for that place of Saint James, it
speaks only of personal quarrels and dissen
sions between particular men, and not of
national hostilities managed by the public
conduct of the magistrate : which ouly is the
thing here disputed of.
2. But secondly, admit that the words may
be extended to national hostilities and wars
between people and people ; yet the apostle
speaks only of what usually are the causes of
war ; and not, what are so of necessity, and
according to the nature of the thing itself :
which, though on one side they are unlawful,
uaraely, ou that whicli gives the offence ; yet
on the other, the causes of it are not always
men's lu.sts ; but a rational defence of their
country, and a due vindication of public
justice. In a word, it is one thing to speak of war, as
actually it uses to be managed, and another
to speak of it, as it ought and raay be
managed. And this affords also an answer to
the second part of the argument, concerning
those sad and sinful eff'ects that follow it, as
unjust violences, rapines, cruelties, and the
like. Of all which it is to be said, that they
proceed only from the corruption and vice of
those who manage it, but are utterly extrane
ous to the nature of war, considered precisely
in itself. I know no action so good and
allowable but raay derive a contagion by
passing through ill liands. But we are not to
judge of the nature of any thing or action by
that which is only accidental to it. The
nature of war consists properly either in the
repelling of an intended, or the revenging of
a received injury. But whether this be done
2c

40-2

SOUTH'S' POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Sbrm. XLVIII,

with unjust rapines and hideous cruelties upon
the innocent, or duly and justly, the nature
of war is still the same : the quality is indeed
altered frora just to unjust, but that amounts
•^0 no more thau the ill performing of a thing
in itself indifferent.
Aud thus I have answered all the arguments
that to me seera to be of any moment to prove
the absolute unlawfulness of all war; upon
the strength of which answers, I think I may
reckon upon it as a proved assertion, that
war is uot a thing in itself unlawful.
I suppose nobody will conclude the fore
going discourse to have been a commendation
of war, much less an exhortation to it. It is
indeed a lawful, but a sad remedy. And I
think there is none who looks upou it as a
sufficient argument to persuade him that the
cutting off a leg or an arm is a desirable thing,
because it is better to do so, thau to have a
gangrene spread itself over the whole body.
Caustics and corrosives may be endured, but
certainly the causes that make them necessary
are not to be chose. War can be desired only
in the nature of a remedy, and a remedy
always supposes au evil. And I know no
argument so strong to prove the lawfulness of
war, but that war itself is a stronger argu
ment to prove the worth and the convenience
of peace,
I have now done with the first general in
quiry, concerning the measures by which the
great duty of peaceableness is to be determined :
which was, "Whether war could be at all law
ful ? I come now to the second, which is to
inquire, upon supposition that it may be law
ful. When and where it ought to be judged
so? And here I shall.
First, Lay down some general grounds that
may authorize war. And,
Secondly, Descend to the resolution of parti
cular cases.
For the first of these, I shall Lay these four
general grounds of the lawfulness of it, pre
mising first what is the nature of peace.
Peace is properly the mutual forbearance of
acts of hostility or annoyance, in order to the
preservation of our uature in all its due rights
and capacities.
It is clear, therefore, that peace is a means
or instruraent designed only to such an end.
Now that ceasing to be able to compass this
end, to which it is designed, ceases also to be
au instrument or raeans, and consequeutly to
engage us to use it : whereupon it is lawful to
enter into a contrary estate, uamely, of hosti
lity or war.
From whence follow these assertions, as so
many general grounds of it.
1. When those with whom we are at peace
declare that they will annoy us, unless we cut
off our lirabs, and injure and mangle our
bodies ; and accordingly upon our refusal dis
turb us; as N abash the Ammonite did to the

men of Jabesh Gilead, off'ering them peace
only upon coudition that they would let him
thrust out their right eyes, (1 Sam. xi. 2;) it
is iu such a case lawful to repel and resist that
force or disturbance. For every oue has a
right to preserve his limbs and the faculties of
his nature.
2. When those with whom we are at peace
declare war with us, unless we will renounce
our religion, and upon our refusal, do so;
(which is the case of the pope's exposing the
dominions of those whom he calls heretics to
the invasion of other princes ;) it is then law
ful to repel and resist that force or invasion.
The reason is, because every man has a natu
ral right to the use of that which he appre
hends indispensably to conduce to his chiefest
good : and that is his religion.
3. When one natiou injures another to that
degree as to blast its honour and reputation,
it is lawful to revenge that public breach of
honour by a public war. The reason is, be
cause the lionour of a nation is as absolutely
necessary to the welfare and support of it, as
its trade or commerce ; it being indeed the
great instrument of both, and perhaps also of
its very safety and vital subsistence : it being
seldom known that a governraent, dishonoured
and despised abroad, did long preserve itself
in credit and respect at home.
4. When those with whom we are at peace'
declare war with us, unless we will quit our
civil rights, as our estates and families, and
the protection of the laws, aud accordingly
upon our refusal do so ; it is lawful to enter
into war with those who make Such encroach-
raents upon us. The reason is, because when
civil societies are constituted aud submitted to,
every man so subraitting to them, hasanatu-
ral right to the conveniences and enjoyments
of such societies.
Now the foundation of the lawfulness of
war in all the foreraentioned cases is, because
whatsoever a raan has a lawful right to jios-
sess or enjoy, he has by consequence a right
to use all those meaus which are absolutely
necessary to the possession or enjoyment of
that thing.
You will say now, that, according to this
doctrine, when the prince encroaches upon his
subjects' bodies, estates, or religion, they mayj
lawfully resist or oppose him. _ j
This objection brings in the resolution O'
the first particular case proposed by us to be
discussed, which is. Whether it be lawful for;
subjects iu any case to make war upon thej
magistrate ? My answer to it is in the n^ [
tive; and the reason is, because the subject ^
has resigned up all right of resistance into tne-
hands of his prince and governor. ii
And for this we must observe, that as every ^j
man has naturally a right to resist any one
that shall annoy him in his lawful enjoyment^ jj
so he has a general, natural right, by whicli f
 J

ON ROMANS, xii. 18.

403

he is master of all the particular rights of his
nature, so as to retain them or recede from
them, and give them away as he pleases.
Now when a man consents to be a subject,
aud to acknowledge any oue for his governor,
he does by that very action invest him with
all the necessary raeans of beiug a governor ;
the chief of which is, a quitting and parting
with that natural right of resisting him upon
any occasion whatsoever.
And every man consents to have such an
oue his governor, frora whora he covenants to
receive protection, and to whom he does not
actually declare a non-subjection.
This being laid down, it follows, that it is
not more natural for a raan to resist another
particular raan, who would deprive hira of
his rights, than it is' natural for hira uot to
resist his prince upon the sarae occasion. For
asmuch as by a superior and general right of
uature, he has parted with this particular
right of resistance ; and consequently, having
given his priuce the propriety of it, he cannot
any raore use it, unless his prince should sur
render it back to him again ; which here is
not supposed.
And this is the grouud upou which I judge
a resistance of the supreme magistrate both
unlawful aud irrational. But there have not
been wanting in the world scholars to teach,
as well as soldiers to act the contrary. Such
as have weakened the ties of govemraent, and
shook the supremacy of princes, by prescrib
ing of cases in which this duty of nonresis-
tauce binds not the subject ; and by -which
they are so discharged of their allegiance, as
to be let loose to carve for themselves, and to
restrain their superiors.
Bnt before I come to survey any of their
opinions, I shall premise this rule or maxim :
that those whom the people have a right of
proceeding against, so as to punish them by
law ; those also they raay proceed against by
war and open force, in case that legal course
of proceeding be obstructed.
The reason is, because war is a reraedy upon
the default of law ; and therefore, where the
coercive power of the law caunot have its
effect, war is to take place, and supply the
want of it : " Ubi judicia desinuut, incipit
bellum," says Grotius in his secoud book de
Jure Belli, cap. i. sect. 2.
Upon which ground it i.«, that one private
raan cannot revenge au injury upon another
by open force, the law being open for him to
right himself by ; but oue natiou may by
force aad war revenge an injury done to it by
another nation, because there is no provision
of a coercive power stated by a law between
them, by which one natiou may implead the
other, and so have a reparation of an injury
made it by the sentence of a common judge.
Now I premise this observation to shew, that
whosoever teaches that the people may judi

cially proceed against and punish their prince,
the same person does by consequence affirra
that the people raay also take up arms against
him, when they cannot otherwise bring him
to such a judicial process.
This being observed, I cannot but set before
you those several cases assigned by Grotius
in his first book de Jure Belli, and fourth
chapter, iu which he asserts it lawful for the
people to proceed agaiust their priuce. As,
(1.) When, according to the professed con
stitution of the governraent, the prince is ac
countable to the people, as in Lacedaemon,
where the people owued a coercive power over
their king, which power they deposited in
the hands of their ephori ; who, by virtue
thereof, restrained the king at the people's
pleasure. (2.) Wheu a prince quits and relinquishes
all right of governraent : after which action,
he says, the prince may be dealt withal as any
other private man.
(3.) When he would tr.ansfer and alienate
the right of government to another : in which
endeavour, he says, the subjects may hinder,
and by force resist him.
(4.) When he actually attempts the destruc
tion of all his people.
(6.) When he liolds the grant of the sove
reignty from the people upon conditions, aud
fails iu the fulfilling of those conditions.
(6.) When the prince holds but part of the
supreme power, the senate or people holding
the other part : in which case, if the prince
invades that] part of the sovereign power not
belonging to him, those to whom that part
does belong may resist him. According to
this doctrine, those amongst us who taught
that the king was one of the three estates,
and that the parliament was a power coordi
nate with him, did by consequence teach, that
iu some cases they might make war upon him ;
and their practice was not short of their
doctrine. (7.) Wheu, in the conferring of the sove
reignty to a prince, the people declare, that
in certain cases it shall be lawful for them to
resist him ; and the reason is, because he who
transfers his right to another, may trausfer it
upon what terms or uuder what reserves he
thinks fit.
This seems of near affinity with the fifth
instance, but it is not altogether the same :
for the forraer is suspended upon the prince's
not doing of something which he conditioned
to do ; but this speaks not of the prince's ac
tion, but of some events of affairs, under which
the people put in caution, that their subjection
to him should cease.
These aphorisms I had rather rehearse than
animadvert upon ; the great reputation of the
author making all censures upon him, though
perhaps true, yet unhandsome.
But the foundation which he had laid a

404

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Seem. XLVIII.

little before, in the seventh section of the
same chapter, seems large enough to bear all
these superstructures, and many more.
For proposing the question, Whether the
law of not resisting the magistrate binds the
subject in a great, irarainent, and extreme
danger? he answers, that most laws, human
and divine, though running in absolute terms,
yet imply a condition of relaxation in cases of
extremity. And for this law, of not resisting
the magistrate, he says it sprung first from the
consent of the people, who, for the benefits of
government and society, resigned themselves
up to the absolute disposal of a sovereign ;
which people, he says, had they beeu asked
whether they would have chose rather to die,
than ill any case whatsoever to resist their
sovereign with au armed power, he conceives
they would never have owned that to have
been their will or intention ; and conse
queutly, that the sense of that law, which
is to be measured by the sense of those
from whose consent it took force, ought still
to be supposed to imply an exception in cases
of extrerae danger. And accordingly he con
cludes, in the eighty-seventh page, that for
his part he could not condemn a people,
uuder such a danger, so defending them
selves ; that is, by a resistance of the magis
trate ; for that is the thiug that he is debating
of expressly, and exemplifies it by the Mac
cabees defending themselves with an army
agaiust Antiochus.
This assertion, I am apt to think, in the
full iraprovement of it, would widen itself to
a very strange latitude. But thus much may
be said for this author, that he breathed a
popular air, aud lived a raember of a common
wealth, which needed such maxims as these to
justify its being so.
But David Paraeus has, with a much more
barefaced impudence, flown iu the face of
sovereignty, in a set and long dispute upon
Rom. xiii. a strange text, one would think,
to preach rebellion upou. His arguments
therefore I shall briefly examine and reraove,
and so conclude this question.
The whole discourse stands upon these two
propositions. Prop. I. The first is, that it is lawful for the
inferior raagistrates to resist and punish the
supreme ; and some of the cases in which they
may do so are these :
1. If he blasphemes God, or causes others to
do so. 2. If he does the subjects sorae great
injury. His words are, "si ipsis fiat atrox
injuria ;" a term of a very large comprehen
sion, aud it is hard if any pretence caunot
clothe itself with this name. 3. If the subjects
caunot freely enjoy their lives, estates, and
consciences. This, I say, subverts all govemment ; for,
if the prince raay be punished, it follows,
(1.) That heis uot supreme; forall punish

ment, as such, is an act of the superior upon
the inferior.
(2.) If the inferior magistrates may punish
him, then they may also judge when he is to
be punished ; aud consequentiy the prince Is
never secure, since it is in their power to
judge this wheu they think fit ; and they
will undoubtedly think it fit, when they find
it for their advantage.
His reasons for this doctrine are principally
these two :
1. He lays down this division : kings are
absolute, or by compact ; and subjoins, that
there is none in Europe, but is hy compact,
and upon conditions. IJpon this he reasons
thus ; that such a prince, violating the condi
tions upon which he holds the sovereignty,
may be judged by the people or senate that
made him priuce, upon those conditions.
To this I answer, first, that those who hold
the supremacy upon any such conditional
grant, upon default of these conditions, may
indeed be made accountable to their people;
but then I deny that either the kings of
England, France, or Spain, hold their king
doms by any such compact. Yet, because the
kings of England take an oath at their corona
tion to govern by such and such laws, which
in case they should not, Milton, and sucb
others, are so bold as to absolve the subject
from his allegiance; I shall, to dash that
puritan, antimonarchical tenet, lay down this
distinction ; that it is one thing for a king to
proraise to manage his kingly office according
to such rules, and another thing to take upon
him the kingly office upou condition that he
so governs : it is this latter only that would
render him accountable to his people; butthe
forraer, if not fulfilled, is not breach of an
antecedent coudition, but only breach of a
subsequent promise, for the sin of which heis
answerable only to God.
2. The other reason for the inferior magis
trate's resisting the supreme is this ; because
they are joined with him as associates in the
government, and God has committed the
defence of the people to thera in their order;
by virtue of which coraraission, they are to
defend tiiera against the supreme magistrate
hiraself, if a tyrant, as well as against any
other : forasrauch as being intrusted withthe
people's defence, it matters not who the
persons are, against whom they are to be
defended. But to this the answer is ready, by a positive
denial of that false and base principle, ih»t
the inferior raagistrates are associates withthe
supreme ; aud that God immediately commis
sions them to govern and defend the people.
For they are not the prince's associates, but
his instruments in government, and haye bo
power but what they receive immediately
from hira : aud that he who acts hy authority
from another, cauuot by that authority »«'

ON ROMANS, xii. 18.

405

against him, whose will and gift is the alone
cause of that authority, is too clear to need
any proof.
It would be too long particularly to insist
upon his other reasons to this purpose ; I shall
reduce them therefore to general heads, annex
ing to each their respective solutions.
(1.) He argues frora several scripture in
stances , as Ehud killing Eglon, and Jehu
killing Joram.
(2.) From many instances of the heathens ;
as the Roraans deposing Tarquinius.
(3.) From several speeches of princes, ac
knowledging a kind of dependence upon, and
an accouutableness to their people. I'o which
I answer, 1. For those scripture instances and ex
amples, that most of them are set down with
out any approbation or disapprobation, but
only by a bare historical narration ; and
withal, that the honesty of the person does
not legalize every one of his actions. And
perhaps it cau no more be said, that to depose
or kill a prince is just, because Ehud aud Jehu
did it, than, because David left Soloraon in
charge to revenge an old injury upou Shiraei,
a man raay now-a-days, having pardoned an
injury, yet justly cause his son to revenge it.
Add to this, that those persons are said to
have done what they did by an especial cora
mission or warrant frora God ; which men
now-a-days cannot pretend to.
2. In the next place, to his allegation of
tiie example of the Romans, I answer, thatit
was unlawful, and that to use it here is to
prove the lawfulness of one rebellion by
another. 3. And for those several speeches and con
cessions of princes, acknowledging their right
at the people's dispose, I answer, that we are
not to judge of the right of princes by what
they may sometimes speak in flattery, upou
design or necessity. Besides, that the conces
sions this or that prince raakes from his own
right cannot prejudice or infringe the right of
others. And thus much for Paraeus's first
proposition, by which we see how he has
armed inferior magistrates, as sheriffs, con
stables, bailiffs, and the like, against their
prince ; and it is much, that he did not take
care also for their calling of triennial parlia
ments. But does he stop here ? no, he proceeds
farther in auother proposition, which is this :
If the prince shall offer violence to the
subject, as a tyrant, murderer, or adulterer,
and there is no help to be had frora any in
ferior raagistrate, then it is lawful for every
private man to defend himself vi et armis, as
from a comraon thief or murderer.
This is wholesome divinity indeed ; and it
was not to be doubted, but that the former
assertion would in the end produce this.
His reasons for it are these two :
(1.) Because what the inferior magistrates

may do, that every private man raay do in
his own behalf, in a case of necessity. The
consequence, I confess, is good, and therefore
grant this to be just as lawful as I have already
proved the forraer ; that is, indeed, absolutely
wicked and unlawful.
(2.) Because otherwise God would have put
it iuto the power of the magistrate to destroy
the coraraonwealth. To this I answer, 1.
That the raagistrate is but a particular man,
and therefore cannot effect such a thing by
himself, but by the assistance of others, against
whom sorae are of opinion that the subjects
raay defend themselves. As amongst us, let
auy -man rob or injure us, and although he be
ever so much coramanded by the king to do
so, yet we have our action against him at
law. But still those who hold that the king's
instruraents, in any act of violence upou the
subject, raay be resisted, qualify their asser
tion with these two cautious : first, that the
violence offered be apparent and notorious,
such as no man endued with coraraon reason
can doubt of or deny ; secondly, that the
person of the king be still sacred aud un
touched : yet, since a king, without an absolute
obedience to those instruraents whom he shall
think fit to employ, is but a mere raockery
and an insignificant shadow ; and since to
make the subjects judges, when they are
to obey persons so coraraissioned by hira, aud
when to resist them, clearly opens a door to
an insolent shaking off all subjection ; I cau
not think it safe to build any thing upou this
assertion. 2. In the secoud place, therefore, I
answer, that I see no incouvenience iu grant
ing, that that absolute authority which kings
areinvested withal, puts it within their power,
by the abuse of it, to ruin the coraraonwealth.
For if God puts it in the prince's power to be
able to preserve, undoubtedly the same power,
misemployed, will be as able to destroy
society : he indeed is to be responsible to God
for his tyrannical abuse of his trust ; but
subjects, whether their subjection makes them
happy or raiserable, yet still are to be subjects.
And thus I think I have answered Paraeus's
discourse, iu which he sets hiraself as a bold
arbitrator between the prince and the subject,
so stating the privileges of one, as utterly to
.subvert the prerogative of the other. The
usual patrons of this doctrine against princes
are the Jesuits, who are properly the pope's
janizaries ; aud those of the presbytery,
whether at horae or beyond the seas. But
this opinion, that the suprerae raagistrate
may be resisted by his subjects, I think noue
can confute so fully as the supreme magistrate
hiraself. II. The next case that coraes to be resolved,
according to the order proposed by us, is.
Whether it can be lawful for oue particular
man to make war upon another in those
encounters which we commonly call duels ?

406

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS. Sf.rm. XLVIII

A duel, called by the Greeks fit,ovofjt,x%ia, and
by the Latins duellum, receiving its denoraina
tion frora the persons engaged iu it, is proper
ly a fight or combat betweeu two persons,
niutually undertook, appointed, and consented
tb, by each of them.
That the action is not a thing in itself
absolutely unlawful is apparent, because
otherwise it could not be lawful for two men,
meeting in a battle, to fight one with another ;
nor for oue mau to fight for the defence ofhis
life, with the murderer that assaults him.
Since therefore this falls within the number
of those actions, which, being indifferent in
their nature, come to be staraped lawful or
unlawfulby their principles and circurastances,
and other determining ingredients of action,
we are to inquire when it is to be allowed,
when not. In which inquiry we shall set
down, 1. The cases in which a duel is lawful.
2. The cases iu which it is impious, unlawful,
and utterly to be disallowed.
(1.) First of all then, when two malefactors
stand convict, and condemned to die, and the
magistrate appoints them to fight singly ; in
which fight he that overcoraes shall have his
life : in this case it is lawful for persons so
conderaned to accept of such a fight. The
reason is, because on either side it is only a
mutual desire of doing execution upon a male
factor convict : and it is lawful for one raale
factor, upon the warrant or allowance of the
magistrate, to do execution upon the other.
(2.) When two armies are drawn out to
fight, and the decision of the battle is cast
upon a single combat, it is lawful for any two
persons, upon the appointment of the generals,
to undertake such a combat ; the reason is,
because it is allowable for soldiers under com
raand to obey their generals in all things not
apparently unjust : and a general has full
power to draw out as much or as little of his
army to fight, as he shall judge most condu
cible for the success ; there being uo ground
to conclude, why he may not as well comraand
one single soldier, as oue regiraent or body of
raen, to fight, how and when he shall judge
fit. Besides the convenience of this course,
that it is a compendiura of war, and a rederap
tion of the lives of thousands by the death of
one, bringing all the advantages of a conquest,
without the disraal miseries of a battle.
(3.) When one challenges another, and
resolves imraediately to kill the challenged
person, unless he accepts the combat, it isthen
lawful for him to accept it ; forasmuch as this
is nothing else but a repelling of force by
force, and so is resolved into pure self-pre
servation : which shall be considered of by
itself afterwards.
But a case may be here propounded : Sup
pose one should accuse another for his life
falsely, offering to verify his accusation by

single fight, and the judge should declare that
he would proceed to the sentence immediately,
unless the person so accused would undertake
thus to fight with his accuser in single combat
In answer to this, some affirm that the
accused person may lawfully accept the ch^-
lenge, it seeming to be equally a repelling of
force, and the result much the same, whether
the accuser endeavours to kill the accused by
his owu haud, or by the unjust sentence of
the judge.
But, with submission to better judgments,
I conceive that it is not lawful for him in this
case to accept the combat, the instances pro
pounded being not indeed the same ; for in
one the danger is frora the sentence of the
judge, which, however unjust, a raan is bound
to submit to ; in the other, the danger is from
the force of a private person, which no man
is obliged to submit to, but has a natural
right to repel.
And if it be replied, that such an one is
necessitated to fight with his challenger in his
own defence, for that otherwise he must die ;
I answer, that this very thing implies, that
the necessity or compulsion is not absolute,
but only conditional, unless he will submit to
death ; which, of the two, he is rather to
choose, thau to corarait a sin.
For the man is under a judicial proces8,and
so has no right to defend himself by force:
ueither matters it to say, that the judge, by
his permission or comraand, gives him a
right ; for the judge, by coraraanding or per
mitting him so to defend himself, unjustly
balks his own duty, which would oblige him
to decide the case of the innocent another
way ; and the judge's going against his duty,
by an unjust command, cannot give any man
a right to do according to that command. H
the man is condemned, aud dies, he suffers;
but if he fights with his accuser, when thelavf
ought to deliver him, he acts, aud that un
justiy. Aud this is to be observed, that though
a man, by the unjust sentence of a judge, is
obliged to suffer au unjust puuishment ; yet
he cannot, by any allowance or command of
the judge, have any right or obligation to do
an unjust action.
The sum of this case is, that a man, under
the foreraentioned condition, is bound rather
to die by au unjust seutence, than to take an
undue course for his vindication. _
2. 1 come now to shew those cases in whicb
duels are to be judged utterly unlawful. _
(1.) As first, when they are underi;ook for
vain ostentation, and that either of affection
to the dead ; as it was the custom of the
Roraans heretofore, upon the death of some
corainander or great raan, for some soldiers
voluntarily to undertake a single fight at the
funeral soleranities, and to kill one another,
as it were, by wav of sacrifice, in honour ofthe
dead ; by that, declaring their loss so great,

ON ROMANS, xiL 18.

407

that they had uo will to survive them. It
was a custom also, for ostentation of strength
and valour at their public sights and shows,
for persons to entertain the spectators with
duels, and to die like fools, to please they
knew not whora ; till at length this wretched
custora so prevailed, that sorae would hire
themselves at the Praetorian shows, to fight
thus in single combat, as men are now-a-days
hired to act upon the stage ; and these were
called gladiators, a terra that grew to as great
ignominy araongst the Romans, as thief or
cutter is amongst us. I suppose I need not
take any pains to prove the unlawfulness, nay,
the sottishness of such duellings, where men
sold their lives for a crown or au .angel ; and
by a preposterous way of labouring, earned
wages, not to get their living, but to procure
their death. It argued also, by the way, a
strange savageness in the Roman teraper, that
men, women, and children should corae with
such eagerness to, aud enjoy theraselves with
such delight at those barbarous spectacles, iu
which their chiefest diversion and recreation
was to behold these duellers kill one auother
upou the stage. Frora which custom, as vile
as it was, both on their parts that beheld, and
on theirs that fought, most learned men are
of opinion, that the use of duels, now so fre
quent, had its infamous original.
(2.) Another case in which men used to
undertake single combats, was for the cleans
ing of themselves from some crirae objected
to them ; which must needs be unlawful and
highly irrational, as being a raeans no ways
suited iu its nature to such a purpose ; aud
withal a bold presuraption upon Providence,
that any oue, without auy warrant from the
revealed will of God, should presurae that he
raust determine the success on the right side.
For the ridiculous unreasonableness ofit, be
sides the demonstrations of experience, that
the guilty has frequently killed the innocent,
it is farther evident, frora the very nature of
the thiug : for is there any natural inference,
from a man's strength or success, to his inno
cence ? or is it any arguraent, that the raan
did not steal another's goods, or defile his bed,
because he had better skill at his weapon
than his accuser, and so slew hira ? I should
both abuse my own labour and your patience,
should I endeavour to beat down this sense
less custom by any farther confutation.
(3.) A third case is, wheu two agree upon
a single corabat, for the decision of the right
of possessing any goods or estate, mutually
clairaed by both, in which it is agreed that
the right shall fall to the conqueror. This
also is utterly unlawful, as being a course
wholly extrinsical to, and unfitted for the
decision of raatters of right.
_ For in every doubtful case, there is yet a
right on one side ; and where there is a right,
there a right raay be proved : the proving of

which belongs to the law, and the courts of
justice ; and he that seeks for law frora his
rapier, which he should seek frora the judge,
deserves to have his person instead of his case
brought to the bar. No man has a right or
power to choose the way of having his right
tried, by any course not prescribed or per
mitted by the law.
He indeed whose right the thing is, may
possess and defend it against hira who is
pleased to "doubt of the other's right ; and in
the defence of it raay lawfully kill hira in his
unjust and violent invasion : but yet he raay
not voluntarily and by choice cast the deciding
of his questioned right upon the issues of a
single corabat, a thing otherwise disallowed.
The reason is, because though every man is
master of his owu right, yet he is uot master
of the way by which that right is to be tried :
that being by all laws took out of private
hands, aud vested iu the person of a public
judge. And to what purpose are courts open, and
tribunals erected, if causes must be tried in
the field, and inheritances conveyed by the
decrees of a lawless combat aud a contingent
conquest? (4.) The fourth and grand case is, when a
duel is undertaken either for revenge of some
injury done, or for vindication of a raan's
honour, upon the account of some affront
passed upon hira. As for the first of these,
all plea of lawfulness is taken frora it, by
what has been already said iu conderanation
of private revenge. And for the second, whioh
is the defence of the great idol and Diana of
the duellists, called honour ; it is confessed
that the case of the challenger, and of him
that is challenged, is very different. And for
the forraer there are few that patronize or ab
solve him under what pretence soever he raay
absolve himself. But for the latter, many fair
allegations may be raade : as, that he loses
his reputation upon refusal of the combat ;
and that, as to the real concernments of life,
and the advantage of his fortunes, heis thought
unfit for any public command or preferment
which requires a person of courage ; he is
despised, scorned, aud trampled upon, by
which the contents and comforts of life, dearer
than life itself, are tora from him : but with a
non (^stante to all this, I affirra any acceptance
of a duel in such a case to be unlawful. And,
iu answer to what has been alleged, I reply,
first, that it proves only to be a difficult duty ;
such as the exercise of most virtues are, espe
cially according to those straight lines of duty
drawu by Christianity. For if every incon
venience attending the performance of a duty
should change it from being a duty, where is
the difficulty of being religious? How can
any man be obliged to suff'er for conscience
sake, if fear of suffering unties the obligation.
The upshot of the dispute is, God by his

408 SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS. Skrm. XLVIU.

providence, for the trial of a ra.aii's sincerity,
and his obedience to the divine law, calls hiin
to an act of duty, beset with high dissuasives,
grim circumstances, and great discourage
ments. So that the point lies here : Will
you lose your soul, or your reputation, the
favour of God, or the opinion of men ? quit
your hopes of eternity, or the momentary
breath of a popular applause ? I suppose here
the weight .and reason of the thing is sufficient
to determine his choice, and to support his
spirit in all the calamities that shall attend it.
Besides, that which is here supposed, ¦which
is loss of honour, is indeed no such thing : the
measure of honour, is the judgnient of the
knowing, and the pious, .and the virtuous,
who will value and .applaud the passive mag
nanimity of such an one, that durst look a
duty in the face, in spite of scorn, aud conquer
the scoffs of the world, of which the most re
puted for valour are afraid. All that he
loses is the opinion of thoso who rate honour
by a false rule, and measure glory by the
standard of their own ignorance, vanity, and
rashness : and the same persons who conderan
him for this, would slight hira <as much for
not talking obscenely, not scoffing at religion,
and whatsoever is sacred, and for not drinking
himself to the condition of a barrel or a
spunge ; or not rapping out such hideous
oaths, as niight even provoke divine justice to
revenge the impiety of them upon a place or
a nation. Those indeed who look upon the
not doing of these things as pedantry, would,
no question, account .all refusal of a duel poor
ness and pusillanimity.
It was a wise, a prudent, and indeed a
valiant answer of a certain commander, who
being challenged by one of his enemies to a
duel, told him, that he would meet him in
the head of the enemy ; which to a soldier w.as
the true opportunity of fortitude, because in
deed the scene of duty.
But he that has not the courage to puff at
.all popuhir surmises, .and to esteera hiraself
superior to tlie riots and raLstakes of hectors ;
but by a foolish facility appears and ventures
his life at the word and challenge of a furious
sot, whose life is not worth the keeping, falls
ingloriously, and descends to his grave with
the burial of au ass; shame is his winding-sheet,
and the solemnity of his funeral, the repre
hension of the wise, the pity of the good, and
the laughter of his corapanions ; who can
raake sport at the loss of a soul, and the mise
ries of damnation.
And thus I have shewn the several cases in
vvhich duels are unlawful ; and I suppose I
preach to an auditory that needs no other
argument against them, thau the deraonstra
tion of their unlawfulness ; yet since other
arguments there are, I think a truth cannot
be too much confirmed.
1. And amongst these, the judgment of

men gener.ally condemning them is no con
temptible one. I have already observed what
an ignominous name the narae of gladiator
w,as amongst the heathen Roraans : and in the
laws of the Lombards, even while they per
mitted the use of those duels, they branded
them with a mark of infaray. " Incerti su
mus de judicio Dei, et multos audivimus per
puguain sine justa causa suam causam perdere.
Sed propter consuetudinem gentis nostne
Longobardorum legem impiam vetare noo
possumus." They called it an impious law,
even while they suffered it to continue ; and
declared that they did so, because the corrnp
tion and vice of the natiou was too strong for
them, and beyond the control of remedies,
The canon law, even to those that died in
justs or tiltings, (which were but in a manner
the shadows of a duel,) yet denied them the
privilege of Christian burial, in the fifth book
of the Decretals of Gregory, chap. i. de Tor-
neamentis. And ifyou will, you may to these
add the judgment of the council of Trent,
orthodox enough in this raatter, where their
interest gave them no cause to be otherwise,
sess. XXV. chap. 19. " Detestabilis duelloriim
usus fabricante diabolo introductus, ut crnenta
corporum raorte animarura etiam perniciem
lucretur, ex Christiano orbe penitus exter-
minetur." Were it .as needful as it is easy,
mauy more authorities might be added, to dis
countenance this profane practice : but I sup
pose these are enough to give more credit to
the refusal of a duel, than can accrue npon
the acceptance of it, frora the opinion and
vogue of debauched persons ; whose infamy
will not let their censure be a reproach.
2. But the secoud and chief argument shall
be taken from the wretched consequences of
the thing itself; which are twofold :
(1.) Such as attend the conquered person,
(2.) Such as attend the conqueror.
As for the conquered person, he is sure of
these two evils :
(1.) A disastrous death. And surely it
ought to be a very great gain that is to conn-
terbalance the loss of life ; something more
than the reputation of not giving the wall,
not enduring a slighting word or a trivial dis
respect ; which might otherwise have been
confuted by silence, conquered by contempt,
and o-*.tlived by the next hour.
But now all the labour and expense of a
raan's former education, all the hopes and
usefulness of his rem.aining years, the expec
tations of his friends, aud perhaps the supports
of a family, are lopt off at a blow, extinguished
in a moment, with au overplus of misery
from the sadness of the occasion.
It is a sad thing for auy 'hopeful man, m
the vigour of his years, to be carried off by a
plague or a fever, or an unfortunate accident;
but still all that is uncomfortable in these
is, that the man is dead ; but there is no

ON ROMANS, x-ii. 18.

409

criminal circumstance, from the manner of his
death, to irabitter his remerabrance : he did
not die by a siu, or by any thing that raight
stain his surviving name or endanger his
future condition. It was the action of Pro
vidence, which piety will, and mortality must
submit to.
But he that dies in a duel, so falls to the
earth, that it is to be feared he falls much
lower ; and that the iron enters deeper into his
soul than into his body, and kills much farther
than it reaches. And this introduces the
other fatal consequence whicli attends the
person thus vanquished, and that is,
(2.) Death etemal. When two persons
corae into the field upon such au expedition,
they defy one another, tbey defy the laws
both of God and man, and they defy hell :
their business is, which shall send the other
to that place of misery first. For certainly
whosoever quits the body with the marks of
murder and revenge fresh upon his soul, aud
passes from his conquering adversary to his
dreadful Judge, shall in that world be con
demned for a raurderer, though it was his ill
hap to be murdered in this.
Nay, there will lie a double charge of
murder upon him : namely, for being both
the unjust occasion of his own death, and the
designer of his adversary's : for it is the design
that makes the murderer, and not the event
and issue of the action, which is wholly con
tingent and'extrinsical to the will. For shall
a raan be therefore accounted no murderer,
because he had less courage, less skill, or less
luck than his opposite? because his purpose
was stronger than his arra? or because his
foot slipt, or his misguided rapier hit upon a
rib, and kept the fatal point from the regions
of life, and so gave the adversary opportunity^
to be more sure and mischievous in his thrust?
All which plea or excuse amounts to no raore
than this, that he would have slain his adver
sary with all his heart, but was prevented,
and could not.
I neither will nor dare pronounce any thing
in limitation of the extent of God's mercy ;
but this I shall say, that according to the
standing rule and tenor of God's revealed
will, he that dies in a duel, undertook upou au
unjust cause, affords no ground for any one
to judge that he is saved : for he dies iu his
sin, directing his sword to his brother's heart ;
so that there is nothing but his last breath
passing between his murderous intention and
the final giving up of his accounts to God ;
before whom he has no other cause to allege
for his dying in this manner, but that he was
proud, passionate, or revengeful ; sad qualifi
cations to recomraend a man to the tribunal
of such a Judge.
We have seen here the miserable conse
quences that befall the conquered dueller.
Let us now, in the next plaoe, take a survey

of those that befall the conqueror ; and these
also are three, —
(1.) In case he is apprehended : the law
has provided that for him which he did for
his adversary, but iu a more ignominious
manner. The rope and the gibbet is to be
his portion ; die he must ; and what honour
a man wins or saves, by that which gives hira
an opportuuity of being hanged, is hard to
be understood ; but he that raistakes the cart
for a triumphal chariot, or the gallow-tree
for a triuraphal arch, may apply himself to
the obtaining such victories as these.
(2.) But secondly, suppose that he escapes
by flight ; yet then he quits his country, aud
lives a banished man, and like Cain, having
murdered his brother, he presently betakes
hiraself to wander about the world, leaving
behind hira the confiscation of his goods, a
faraily laraenting and perhaps starving ; and
sorae of thera peradventure dying for grief,
and so feeling the murderous iufluence of his
action as really, though not in the same man
ner, as his slain adversary.
Surely these will be sad accidents to a mau
in cold blood, when the fury of his passiou,
which abused his reason, and rejiresented
revenge so pleasant, shall be over, and trans
rait the thing naked to his recovered judg
ment, to be considered according to its real
aspect and all its sharp events.
By this tirae, undoubtedly, he will see how
much better it had been for him to have
kept himself quiet and innocent in the peace
able enjoymeut of his friends, his estate, and
country ; than to wander as au indigent raur
derer in a strange land, frora whence the
sense of his guilt, tbe severity of the laws,
and the exasperation of the raurdered per
son's friends, ready to prosecute those laws
against him, continually terrify him from all
thoughts of a return.
(3.) But, in the third and last place, we
will suppose the man to have better fortune :
that he has fought and killed his adversary,
and so satisfied his revenge ; and moreover,
that through the intercession of great friends,
willing to share his guilt, and to derive sorae
of the blood upon their own heads, he has
not by flight escaped, but by a full acquitraent
outbraved justice, and triumphed over the
law, and so stands secure as to all temporal
retribution. But still, after all this, raay we
not ask conceruing such an one. Is all well
within ? How fares it with hira in the court
of conscience? Is he able to keep off the
grira arrests of that ? Can he drown the cry
of blood, and bribe his own thoughts to let
hira alone ? Cau he fray off the vulture from
his breast, that night and day is gnawing his
heart, and wounding it with ghastly and
amazing reflections ?
Whether it is, that God has done it for the
defence of men's lives, or whether it is the

410

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Sehm. XLIX.

unnaturalness of the sin, or whatsoever else
may be the cause, certain it is, that there is
nothing which dogs the conscience so inces
santly, fastens upon it so closely, aud tears it
so furiously, as the dismal sense of blood-
guiltiness. The man perhaps endeavours to be merry,
he goes about his business, he enjoys his cups
aud his jolly company : and possibly, if he
fought for revenge, he is applauded and ad
mired by some : if he fought for a mistress,
he is smiled upon for a day. But when, in
the midst of all his gaieties, his conscience
shall corae and round him in the ear : Sir,
you are to reraember that you have murdered
a man, and what is more, you have murdered
a soul ; you have sacrificed an iramortal uature,
the image of God, and the price of Christ's
blood, to a pique, a punctilio, to the loves of
a pitiful creature, lighter than vanity, and
emptier than the air : and these are the worthy
causes for which your brother now lies in the
regions of darkness and misery, without re
lief, without recovery ; an eternal sacrifice to
a short passion, a rash anger, and a sudden
revenge. Now when these reasonings shall be joined
with the considerations of the divine justice,
and the retributions that Heaven reserves for
blood ; these sad reckonings, that are in store
for the successful acquitted murderer : be-
lieveiit, where these thoughts shall lay hold
of the conscience, they will leave their marks
behind them.
But if the man feels none of these stings or
remorses, his condition is infinitely worse : he
is sealed up under a spirit of searedness, and
reprobation, and an invincible curse. And it
is a sign that God intends him uot the grace
of repentance, perhaps for denying his brother
the opportunities of it, by a sudden death ;
and sending hira out of the world in such a
condition, that it were ten thousand tiraes
better for hiraself never to have corae into
the world, than that he should leave it uuder
the like.
I have nothing raore to say concerning such
a person, but that his sin has put him into
such au estate, that, living or dying, he is un
avoidably miserable.

SEKMON XLIX.
PART IIL
* ' If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaeeably with
all men." — Romans, sii. IS.
You raay reraember that the second parti
cular laid down for the prosecution of these
words, was to assign the measures and pro

portions by which the duty of "livinj
peaceably" was to be determined: whichi
shewed were contained witiiin the bounds of
lawful. In my inquiries into which, I undertook
the resolution of several cases. As, conceminj
the lawfulness of war ; of keeping or brejk.
ing the peace with the raagistrate ; as also of
duels. All which I have already finished-
so that there reraain only two more to be
discussed. One of which is.
Whether it be lawful to repel force by
force, so as to kill another in one's own de
fence? The matter of which question is very diffe
rent from that about duels. For a duel is ,i
fight freely and voluntarily undertook by tbe
offer of one party, and the acceptance of the
other. But this is a sudden, a violent, and
unforeseen assault, in respect of him that Is
assaulted : who thereupon enters not into
combat upon any precedent choice or delibe
rate appointment ; but upon the sudden alarms
of force and necessity, and the compulsions of
an extreme danger.
In which condition we are to suppose the
man cut off from all possibility of flying, shut
up from all succour by a rescue", or remedy by
the law ; but drove into those straits, both of
place, time, and all other circumstances, that
all evasion is rendered desperate and impossi
ble, but through the blood of his adversary.
In this case I affirm it to be lawful for a
mail to save himself by destroying his enemy,
aud that upon these two reasons, —
1. The first taken frora that whieh we have
already insisted upon ; the great natural right
of self-preservation : which right is as lull
in particular persons as in public bodies. It
is the very first born of all the rudiraents of
nature ; and thoi very ground and reason of
its actions ; not instilled by precept, but
suggested by instinct. A raan is no more
instructed to this, than he is to be an hungry
or thirsty, when nature wants its due refec
tion. And that, as to this particular, the rights
of nature are not abridged by Christian reli
gion, will appear from the
Second arguraent, taken from that place
where Christ commands his disciples to pro
vide themselves swords : but to have allowed
thera the instrumeuts of defence, and at the
same time to have forbid the use of them as
unlawful, had been highly irrational. I
suppose Christ did not coramand those poor
fisliermen to wear swords for omameut only,
as men do now-a-days ; but that he might
countenance them in the management of their
own preservation, amidst those raany unjust
violences and assaults, that were likely enough
to attend meu odious to the world for the
proraulgatiou of severe truths.
Add to this the suffrage of tho civil law, j
where the code in the Cornelian lavf «

ON ROMANS, x-ii. 18.

411

Sicaris utters itself thus: "Is qui aggres-
sorera vel quenicunque aliura iu dubio vitae
discriraine constitutus occiderit, nullam ob id
factum calumniara raetuere debet." And
farther, in the Aquiliau law, to the same
purpose : " 'Vim vi repellere omnes leges
omniaque jura permittunt."
So that we have seen the verdict of nature,
of Christ, and of the civil law, in the present
case ; and he whora these absolve is a just
and au innocent person, whatsoever other
law may condemn hira.
Yet since nature, iu the present corruption
of raankind, is weak aud dark, and so apt to
raisjudge of the necessity of self-defence ;
oftentimes making that to be so, which indeed
is nothing else but an unnecessary fear or a
sinful revenge ; it being a very easy thing to
clothe an unlawful action or desigu with a
Lawful name : therefore it concerns us so to
assert the privilege, as to take off the danger ;
and this will be done by stating it under its
due limitations.
Ill order to which, I shall endeavour to clear
these three inquiries :
1st, What are those things, forthe necessary
defence of wbich it may be lawful to kill the
unjust invader ?
2dly, What are the conditions required to
render that defence lawful ?
Sdly, Who are the persons against whora
we raay justly raanage such a defence?
And first, for the things that raay be thus
defended. 1. The first is lifo ; the erainent and cer
tain danger of which does lawfully unsheath
every raan's sword iu the defence of it. For
where it is lawful to live, it is lawful to do all
those things without which life cannot be pre
served. Life is a purchase to be rated at the
loss of all things else. He that loses it, loses
all the world with it, aud every thing dies, as
to the fruition of the dying man. There is
uo repjiration to be made for it, either in kind
or any thing else, as iu some degree it raay be
done in all other losses. For he that loses his
friend or his honour raay be repaid with au
estate, though not to au equality of corapensa
tion. But a lost life cau be repaid with no
enjoyraent, since it is the foundation of all
other enjoyraents ; and no raan enjoys any
thing but the living.
For can we think that a porapous burial or
a fine torab will make the dead any amends,
or to have a few moumful words spoken of
hira for fashion's sake, as, that he was an ex
cellent person, and that it was a loss to the
public that he should be snatched away by
such a disaster ; which words, being dead, he
cannot hear ; aud if alive, perhaps would not
much regard.
But all this while the man continues the
portion of worms and rottenness, and the
great injury of death mainttiins its full effect

upon hira. All after-honours and com-
moraorations being but like the serving up of
a banquet to a grave, or like the cereraony of
courtship aud corapliraent to the cold flints
and the insensible rocks.
2. When a raan is in imminent danger of
the mutilation of a leg or an arra, or the like,
it is lawful to prevent the loss of either by
the death of the assailant. For who knows
but the loss of a part may bring the destruc
tion of the whole. Where the danger is inde
finite, there the utraost aud the greatest is to
be feared, and proportionably to bo provided
against. The raan perhaps, in the issue ofthe conflict,
may lose but a finger, but thereupon his hand
may gangrene, and then his arm, and from
thence the mischief reach his heart : or he
may receive but a blow only, which blow
may sow the seeds of death in his body, in au
imposthume, which shall grow and prevail,
and at length break, and bear him to his
grave. In which case there is no doubt but
the man is raurdered, though it be ten years
before ho dies, as truly as if he had breathed
his last the very next minute. For he raur
ders a man, who gives hira a hurt, upou
which death certainly and irrecoverably fol
lows, whatsoever the tirae of it chance to be.
The cause may have its effect, be the distance
of time or place what it will, so long as it
reaches it by the conneotion of a certain in
fluence. And he that pulls one eud of the
chain, moves the remotest link of it as surely,
as if he did it by an irnmediate touch.
But suppose that death should not follow
upon the loss of a lirab, and moreover (which
is yet impossible) that the assaulted person
knew so much, yet nature no less dictates the
preservation of every part ; it being as natu
ral to a man to be entire and perfect, as to be,
and to have all his limbs, as any one of thera.
Besides that it is often worse thau death itself
to live with the deformities and pains of a
shattered, raangled body ; as a burden to one's
self, and a conterapt to others. From which I
miseries there are few, but, were it in their i
power, would ransom themselves with the .
price of the world ; and of their blood too,
did not the awe of God and the terrors of
another death keep them frora breaking the
uncorafortable prison of such a body, to pass
to au eternal execution.
3. Wheu a person's chastity is invaded by
force, it is granted on all hands to be lawful
to kill the person that invades it. For this is
.as irreparable as life itself; itis lost but once,
and if it should corae in corapetition with
life, it would be judged raore v.aluable. Upon
which ground, 'Taraar, had she had strength
and courage enough, might have saved her
brother Absalom the labour of killing Amnon,
and prevented an unjust reve;igo by a just
defence.

412

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Serm. XLIX.

To lose one's life is indeed a misery, but it
is no dishonour; but the ravished person is dis
honoured, her glory stained, aud the lustre of
that reputation hy whicli she lives and stands
accepted in the world, is blasted for ever.
I know no parent, who deserves to be a pa
rent, who had not rather see a child dead, than
deflowered. Virginius rescued his daughter
from the lust and violence of Appius Clodius
the decemvir, by stabbing her dead with his
own hand. I am uot concerned to warrant
his action ; but surely it argues the value that
the very heathen put upon their chastity,
when the very design against it was thought
fitto be prevented by the death ofthe innocent,
and to be revenged upon the nocent, even to
the subversion of a government.
4. In the fourth place, as for the preserva
tion of estate or goods, the case admits of
sorae raore doubt. And there are opinions
both for the affirraative and the negative.
Those who hold the negative argue.
First, Frora the law of Moses, which, in
Exodus, xxii. 2, 3, distinguishes tlie case of a
thief robbing by d.ay and by night, allowing
it for lawful to kill him, if he makes an inva
sion iu the night ; whereas if he is killed in
the day, the same law avouches the man that
killed him guilty of murder.
Of which difference, these two reasons are
dleged :
(1.) Because it cannot be distinguished in
the night, whether he comes barely to steal or
ro murder also ; .and therefore it is l.-iwful to
^ill hira, not considered merely as a thief, but
upon just suspicion that he might come as a
murderer. (2.) Because goods taken away in the night
leave the person robbed destitute of all raeans
i)y whicli to discover the robber, and con,se-
[uently of all legal raeans by which to recover
vvhat he had lost.
Ans. This is true, and upou the strength of
•his very ground, I answer this arguraent
irought from the Mosaic law, by affirraing,
:hat howsoever the letter runs, yet the desigu
if that law was not to make every killing of
I thief in the day-time murder, but that
usually aud ordinarily it was to be accounted
-0. For since the law makes it lawful to kill
I thief in the night, because at that time all
ucople being usually disposed to their rest, it
¦upposes that there are no witnesses preseut,
by whose means the injured man might have
right against him at law : but unlawful to
kill hira in the day, because then it supposes
that there raay be witnesses, as for the most
part there are. Yet since sometimes it so falls
out, that there neither are nor can be any ; it
will follow, by analogy of reason, that a man
under such circumstances is permitted to deal
with a thief as in the night ; since the very
cause for which he was permittetl to do it
then, does equally take place now.

(2.) In the second place, some argue against
the lawfulness of killing a robber for the pre
servation of our goods, from the tenor of the
gospel, and the design of Christian religion ;
which bids the professors of it despise and
trample upon these teraporal things, and
therefore certainly permits them not to pre
vent the loss of them with the blood of any
one who should presurae to take them. To
this I answer, that the gospel commands us
only to despise these things coraparatively, in
reference to spiiitual and eternal felicities.
Otherwise if the words be understood abso
lutely, it could not be lawful for us so much
as to defend our lives ; since some texts in the
letter of thera coraraand us no less to despise
these, than those other enjoyments.
I conclude therefore for the affirmative, that
it is lawful for a man to defeud his estate and
goods against an unjust force, even with the
death of him who offers that force, if they
cannot be retained and possessed otherwise.
The reason is, because they are the means
and support of life, and therefore are to be
reckoned in the same account with life itself.
If one should say, that it were lawful for a
man to knock him ou the head, that should
offor to batter down his house to the ground
before his face ; but that he was by no means
to touch him, in case he only took away the
chief pillar, upon which the house leaned;
notwithstanding that upon the removal ol
that pillar it raust fall as unavoidably as if it
were pulled down : surely such a distinction
were grossly absurd and ridiculous.
The case is the same here. Neither does
that reply take off the argument, that a man
may live though his estate be lost, as by
labour, charity, or the getting of another.
For this is accidental, and it may fall out
otherwise. And every raan is to look upon
what he possesses as his only subsistence; since
he is not certain, upon the loss of it, to have
any other : nay, he is certain that at the pre
sent he has none ; nor is like to have any for
the future, unless some accident or opportunity
of a livelihood offers itself, whioh he is not to
.'uppose or build upon, it being wholly uncer
tain and contingent ; especially, so as to take
bim offfrom his dependence upon that which
is certain and present.
Should a mau put his whole estate into a
jewel ; either for concealment of his estate, as
being otherwise in danger, or for some other
advantage or convenience ; aud should be set
upou for it by a thief upon the road, so that,
all hope of rescue being out of the way, there
remained no other means to preserve it but
by killing the robber upon the place ; I m"*'
confess, I can see no solid reason, why he
might not do justice upon him, and right to
himself, by sending him out of the world,
with his blood upon his own head. If auy
excellent and pious persons have chose to do

ON ROMANS, xii. 18.

413

otlierwise, the thief was behohlen to them ;
and they have only quitted their own right,
vvhich lays no injunction at all upon others
to quit theirs.
For if a man sets upon rae in the highway
to kill me, all grant that I may iu my own
defence kill him ; but if he would only take
my mouey, that, it seems, I raust relinquish
by any means rather than take his life. But
let the reason of the difference be assigned.
If I ask, what makes it lawful for rae to kill
him in the former case? it will be answered
surely, to preserve ray life. But I reply. Is
not my life as much destroyed if I am starved,
as if I am stabbed? And wheu my money is
once gone, I am sure I may be starved, and
none can assure me that I shall uot. For ara
I certain that I shall find a bag of money or a
table spread in the road, or that people will
be so charitable, as upon free cost to keep rae
from hunger aud cold ? which annoyances,
unless they will do so, must as surely despatch
ine, as either a rapier thrust into my bowels,
or a bullet sent to my heart.
Neither is that farther exception of any
moment, that there is uo proportion in point
of value between the loss of mouey and the
loss of a life. For in the present case, my
money, compared to my enemy's life, is not
to be considered barely as such a sum of
money, but as it is the necessary support of
my life : so that really, and in effect, the
comparison is between his life and mine ; in
which I conclude myself warranted, by the
rights and laws of nature, to prefer ray own
before his. Nay, if it were but a sixpence
that he would rifle me of, and I had uo other
visible subsistence in the world but that poor
sum, I might lawfully defend that, as I would
myself, that is, with the death of my enemy ;
and count it as equal a stake against his life,
as if it were ten thousand millions.
And thus I have shewn those four thiugs
which it is lawful for a man thus to defeud ;
namely, life, limbs, chastity, and estate :
where, before I pass any farther, I shall add
this, that whatsoever it is lawful for a man to
do iu these cases for hiraself, the sarae also is
lawful for him to do in the same danger aud
extremity of his neighbour. The reason is,
because the measure and standard of his love
to his neighbour, is to be the love that he bears
to hiraself.
Which yet, by the way, is to be understood
under equal cases and circurastances ; for
though we are coraraanded "to love our
neighbour as ourselves," yet it follows not,
but when the danger must inevitably fall
upon one of us, we raay preserve ourselves
before our neighbour ; because, in the sarae
condition, we are bound to desire uo raore for
ourselves, but that our neighbour should save
us iu the next place to hiraself ; and therefore,
by virtue of this precept, he can desire uo

more of us. In a word, we are to " love our
neighbour as ourselves," putting hira into the
same coudition aud circumstances in reference
to us, as we are in reference to hira : and
therefore, as I myself could not in reason
desire, but that my neighbour, iu a danger
equal to us both, should first defend himself ;
so my neighbour canuot deny, but that 1
should do as much for myself under this
condition, as I allow hira to do for hiraself
under the same. But this by way of digres
sion. Certain it is, that the defence of our neigh
bour in his extremity engages us to all those
extraordinary courses that we took for our
own preservation. Upon this account it was,
that Abrahara armed his household, and slew
kings for the rescue of his kinsman Lot, took
captive by thera, (Gen. xiv. 14, 15.) And there
is no raan, whose concerns and obligations
terrainate within himself ; but he is a relative
person, and must own a debt to friendship,
to consanguinity, and society. For as iu tho
natural body the whole is maintained by that
sympathy and mutual feeling, that the mem
bers have of the coudition of each other ; by
which, when any of them is iu distress, it calls
for and receives help and relief from all the
rest : so it is, according to its proportion, in
the political body, which is only an aggregate,
artificial raan. Every particular person lies
uuder an obligation to corae in to the succour
of his endangered brother, as the hand wonld
presently lift itself up in the defence of the
leg or the face, to repel aud beat off whatsoever
would annoy thera. And the contrary would
be barbarous aud absurd, a perverting of the
designs of nature, which, by thus leaving the
interest of every part single in itself, and
divided from aud independent upon the con
cernment of its fellows, would quickly draw
a min and dissolution upon the whole fabric.
That man who could stand and see another
stripped or hacked in pieces by a thief or a
rogue, and uot at all concern himself iu his
rescue, is a traitor to the laws of humanity
and religion ; he coramits murder with his
eyes, and sheds blood by not striking a blow ;
and shall one day account to God for the guilt
of that action, that was as criminally permitted
by hira, as done by the other.
2dly, I corae now to the second thing, which
is, to shew the conditions required to legalize
such a defence of ourselves and fortunes. And
they are these :
(1.) That the violence offered be so appa
rent, and withal so great aud pressing, that
there can be no other means of escaping it,
but by killing the adversary : otherwise, if a
man makes it great by his own presumptions
and fears, and so raakes it necessary to him
self to repel that injury with a mortal wound
from his rapier, which he might have done
with a blow of a switch or a thrust of his

414

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Serm. XLIX.

arm, he is a raurderer ; nor will it excuse hira
to plead a danger which was only created by
his own apprehensions. Thus iu the late
rebellion, when some persons, by the guilt of
great -villainies, had exasperated majesty, aud
so having deserved, were pleased also to fear
the just consequences of their actions ; they
were so bold as to strike the first blow, aud
then so impudent as to say that they did it
in their own defence. But that saying of
'Vibius Crispus, commended by Quiutillian,
may be here fitly applied, " Quis tibi sic
timore permisit?" Fear greatens aud redoubles
every evil, it stretches the shadow, and enlarges
the suspicion : but blood raust not be shed
upou surmise.
That which must warrant a mau in this
before God and his conscience, must be a
danger as manifest as the light ; a life even
perishing, and in the very jaws of death : not
a hazard that raay be disputed, but au ex
treraity that calls and cries, and admits of no
answer but an immediate deliverauce. Aud
if iu this case a life be taken away, he only is
a murderer that deserved, not he that in
flicted the blow.
(2.) It is required, that all possibility of
recourse to the magistrate for a legal protec
tion be taken away. In which case the law
leaves every mau to his owu natural defence.
For raen are not made for laws, but laws for
the good aud preservation of men : and there
fore, though they enjoin the injured person
to fly to them for succour, yet, when he is
surrounded with such circumstances as render
such access to thera irapossible ; and iu the
meantime that life, for the preservation of
which those laws were designed, is under an
unavoidable danger, without flying to other
remedies; should those laws tie a man's hand
in such a case, they were ouly suares and traps,
and means to deliver a man naked and unde
fended to he devoured by his enemy.
But, as I observed before, war is a remedy
upon the failure of law. And when the
supreme aud fatal law of necessity comes to
be in force, all inferior obligations disband
and vanish : aud the law that tells a man
that uo particular person's injury can take
from him his right to live, ought to take place,
and both to direct him what he is to do in
this affair, aud to absolve him when he has
done. (3.) In the third place, it is required that
a raan in the act of defending himself designs
merely his own defence, without any hatred
or bitter purpose of revenge towards the per
son who thus invades him. A lawful action
may be depraved and changed by the inter-
venience of an ill intention. Jehu executed
the commaud of God in extirpating the house
of Ahab, and consequently that action of his
was lawful ; but yet we find that the same
action was reckoned to him for sin, because a

particular malice and design against Ahab's
house mingled with it, and so altered the
whole complexion ofthe performance.
To discern whether a man in these defen
sive conflicts be acted by a purpose of self-
defence, pure and unmixed from any spice of
revenge, I confess is very difficult, in case the
assault shall be contiuued till it determines in
the death of oue party. But if the defendant
chance to prevail over the assailant to that
degree, as to be able to secure himself from
him without taking of his life ; and yet shall
not be brought to give over, or acquiesce, till
he has despatched him : though his first
stroke in this engagement was but defence,
and so lawful ; yet the sharpness of revenge
growing upon his spirit in the midst of the
action, it is to be feared that the last stroke
was murder, and so will pass in the accounts
of Heaven.
And thus much for the second thing,
naraely, to shew the conditions required to
render the killing of another in our own de
fence lawful.
Sdly, The third, which I shall despatch in
a word or two, is to inquire who are the per
sons against whom we may lawfully thus
defend ourselves. And for this, I cannot con
ceive that any doubt can be raised, but con
cerning these two, a magistrate and a parent..
As for the magistrate, the grounds that 1 have
already laid of non-resistance, hy virtue of
every subject's quitting his natural right of
defending himself against the magistrate, and
resigning up all power of resistance into his
governor's hands, sufficiently proves, that this
doctrine gives no countenance to the subject
in repelling auy invasion made upon him by
his prince.
But as for a parent ; the son has made no
such resignation of his right up to him. And
therefore there are not wanting some casuists
araong the Jesuits, who have ventured to ovfn
the lawfulness of a man's defending himself
against parents as well as kings, and all
superiors whatsoever ; even with the death of
those who shall invade him. But yet I affirm,
that for a son in any case whatsoever to take
away his father's life, from whence, under
God, he received his own, seems to imply
such a turpitude in the thing itself, and to
offer such a grievance to nature, that he
is to choose to die rather than, upon any
induceraent of extreraity, to stain his hands
in the blood of his father. This I will grant,
that in case a father shall unjustly assault the
life of his sou, his son may proceed to defend
himself so far as to disarm hira, shut him up,
and bind bira ; but to kill him is unnatural
and intolerable. And if a son cannot other
wise secure his life from his father's violence,
it is more eligible to die a thousand deaths,
than to make such a monstrous aud inhuman
trespass upon so sacred a name and relation.

ON ROMANS, xii. 18.

415

And thus I have endeavoured both to clear
and to assert the doctrine of self-defence iu
its due latitude. In all which discourse I am
not sensible that I have uttered any thing but
the voice of nature, and the rightly explained
sense of religion.
As for those who assert the contrary, and
by taking from mankind all right of self-pre
servation, would have them still live in the
world as naked as they came into it ; I shall
not wish them any hurt, but if I would, I
could scarce wish them a greater, than that
they might feel the full effect and influence of
their own opinion.
IV. The fourth and last case to be resolved
is ; Since to prosecute another in courts of
judicature is in its kind a certain breach of
the mutual bond of peace, whether it be
allowable for Christians thus to prosecute and
to go to law one with another.
It may perhaps, at first sight, seera a strange
and an insolent design, to bring a thing
vouched by custom, owned by practice, and
established by authority, uuder dispute : yet
since it is uo less our duty to be able to give
a reason of what we do, than of what we
believe ; aud since there are not wanting
scriptures, to whose rules we profess to subrait
our practice, yet in appearance contrary to
this ; and since there are also sorae in the
world, who think they have sufficient grouud
frora those scriptures to entertain a contrary
opinion ; I conceive I raay, without blarae,
enter into a disquisition of a thing already
controverted ; that so, by an irapartial survey
of the reasons of both sides, we raay settle our
future practice upou such sure grounds, that if
it appears we have been iu the wrong, we
may be convinced, aud brought off frora, but
if in the right, we may be confirraed in the
thing hitherto allowed by us.
As for those who have been so bold as to
arraign the courts of law theraselves, theyare
the anabaptists ; who succeed into all the
principles aud opinions of the old anabaptists,
those sons of confusion, that once so infested
Germany ; conceruing the nature of whose
opinions I cannot but judge this, that those
who own a design to remove and cast down
all huraan laws and judgments, ought to be
persons either absolutely, and even to a neces
sity innocent, or very highly malefactors ; the
forraer of which raight oppose thera as need
less ; the latter as dreadful and destmctive.
As for their innocence ; the stories of their
barbarous rebellions, murders, and the deso
lations made by thera, have settled men's
judgraents concerning that. And therefore,
if their opinions grow from tbeir guilt, in
conjunction with their ignorance ; as it can
not appear from what root else they should
grow ; I shall endeavour to remove the latter,
leaving the laws themselves to deal with the
former.

In the management of this question, I
shall, 1. Examine the arguraents brought
agaiust the allowableuess of Christians going
to law. 2. Consider what raay be argued
and alleged for it. 3. Propose the condi
tions required to warrant men in such a
practice. 1. First of all then, their arguraents seera
principally to bear upou two places of scrip
ture :
(1.) The first is, that forraeriy hinted by
rae, and reserved to be discussed in its proper
place here, which is in Matthew, v. 40, where
Christ determines that general precept of not
resisting evil, to an utter abolition of all law
suits ; commanding every disciple of his, that
iu case any man " will sue hira at law, and
take away his coat, he should let hira have
his cloak also." And certainly there is scarce
any thing raore indispensably necessary to a
raan's subsistence, than his rairaent. But
now if a man shall be obliged eveu to relin
quish this, and resign it up to the hand of
violence, rather thau to recover it by a legal
trial, it raust needs follow, that the rigour of
this command cuts off all pretences of going
to law whatsoever.
In answer to this, I caunot but observe,
that it is the custom of this sort of men still
to argue from the letter of scripture, in ab
straction from the sense ; and without auy
pondering either of the occasion, circum
stances, or coherence of the text, immediately
to fly and fasten upon the bare outside of the
expression. Two things, therefore, may be answered to
this text :
1. That it is not certain, that what we
render by " suing at law" signifies any such
thing ; the Greek is t$ 6i\ouTi aoi xpilijvxi ; but
xpluofixi signifies to strive, war, and contend
with another by force ; so that it is all one with
fixx^aSxi, XXI liri^iaixi aoi. But to SUO another
at law is xpiueiu ; and that with au accusative
case, T$ iihouTiai xpiueiu ; and to be sued in the
passive, xpiuofixr. according to which, tm ^i'hovTi
aoi xqiSiiuxi, taking aoi for j^tto aov, must signify,
" to him that is willing to be sued by thee at
law :" the raeaning being this ; He that has
took thy coat frora thee, and is willing to be
brought by thee into a trial for it, to him
give thy cloak also. Whioh sense, besides
that it is highly incongruous, tou xit'uux aov
x«/3£(i/ should have gone before <ro/ xpi6^uxi,
and so the words have run thus : To him that
is desirous " to take thy coat," and " then to
go to law with thee for it :" and not prepos
terously, " "To him that is desirous to go to
law with thee, and to take thy coat, to hira
give thy cloak also ;" which is to make the
going to law antecedent to the wrong or in
jury about which meu go to law.
It is more probable therefore, that the sense
of the text is this ; " If any one would un-

416

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Skrm. XLIX.

justiy contend with thee, and forcibly take
away thy cloak, let hira have thy coat also."
According to which sense, the words speak
nothing at all of the suits or trials at law.
And this interpretation, grounded upou the
propriety of the word, and so fully agreeing
both with what goes before, and with what
follows after, if any one will positively insist
upon it, I do verily believe, cannot by any
solid reason be disproved.
2. But because I think such respect is to be
had to the translation, that it is not, but upou
very urgent necessity, to be receded frora ;
therefore, in the second place, I add.
That these words are to be interpreted with
analogy to the 'design carried on by Christ
throughout this whole chapter, which is, to
shew the perverse and sinful practice of the
Jews, in which they were aljetted by the
pharisees ; and withal to declare, of how much
contrary a temper his disciples and followers
ought to be.
Now the custora of the Jews was, upon the
receiving any injury, to pursue that law of
retaliation so fiercely and bitterly, that sorae
tiraes (as I have observed before) one private
mau would execute it upon another ; and
when they could not safely or conveniently
do it theinselves, but were forced to iraplore
the help of the magistrate, and to drag the
injurious person before him ; yet they did it
with so rauch acrimony and gall, and such
designs of personal revenge, that it sufficiently
appeared to any impartial or judicious eye,
that in all their prosecutions of offenders they
did not so much consult either the satisfaction
of justice, or their own necessary reparation,
as indeed seldom needing any at all, as they
did the fruitless gratification of a remorseless,
vindictive humour.
Hereupon Christ reads a contrary lecture of
patience, meekness, and quietness to his
disciples, telling them, that in case they should
have any thing injuriously purloined frora
them, they should rather sit down under the
loss of that, and a much greater thing too,
than vvith so much virulence and exasperation
of mind, as was comraon araongst the Jews,
and uurepreliended, not to say countenanced
by the pharisees, pursue the recovery of their
former right. "These words therefore do not
absolutely prohibit them, being injured, to
endeavour a just reparation ; but conditionally
rather to quit the benefit of justice, than to
follow it in a sinful manner.
They are a sublime precept of patience,
upon a wrong offered to our goods, parallel to
those words, " If any one smite thee on the
right cheek, turn the other also ;" which en
joins the same measure of patience upon a
wrong offered to our persons. And con
sequently, as heretofore, in the exposition of
those, I "shewed from Christ's own practice,
the best comment upou his precepts, that they

were uot to be uuderstood according to the
rigid import of the letter,as if everyman were
bound to covet injuries and to court affronts;
so I affirra also, that this coraraand is not to
be exacted according to the bare surface ofthe
words, but to be enlarged to the allowance
and latitude of a figure, as being indeed just
such another hyperbole. Which is a trope,
that to set forth the greatness of a thing more
eraphatically, words it in expressions greater
than really it is. And thus rauch in answer to
what they argue frora this place of scripture,
(2.) The next . great place, which some
think to speak as fully to their purpose as this,
is that in 1 Cor. vi. 7, " Now there is uttirly
a fault araongst you, because ye go to law one
with another. 'Why do you not rather take
wrong ? why do you not rather suffer your
selves to be defrauded?" Which words cer
tainly araount to a pregnant and full prohibi
tion of all going to law, since they declare it
to be our duty rather to suffer, nay, even to
erabrace any wrong, than by such means to
recover our right.
Bnt to this I answer,
1. That what we render a fault, is in the
Greek not xiixprnptx, but only ?rTii|««, which
signifies properly a " weakness" or " defect;"
and such do not always, or of necessity, carry
sin along with thera. According to which sense,
the apostle does not condemn their goingto
law, as a thing in itself sinful or unjust; biit
as low, aud weak, and not answerable to that
greatuess and generosity of spirit, which
becarae persons owning so excellent a profes
sion. 2. But iu the second place, admitting that
the apostle's design here is to discounten.nnce
this practice, uot only as weak and illaudable,
but also as sinful and disallowable ; yet 1
affirm, that he accounted it not sinful from the
very nature of the action, but only the irregu
larity of the circumstance; that they went to
law upon every slight occasion, before unbe
lievers, in verse 1. And though to go to law be
very allowable, yet for Christians to prosecute
one another before the tribunals of infidels, for,
those injuries which they might fairly com-
proraise by the arbitration and decision of
persons of their own body, was a thing that
reflected a high disgrace, and left a great
scandal upon Christian religion ; and con
sequently as great a guilt upon those who
brought the scandal.
In short, the apostie here either reprehends
thera only for going to law before unbelieveis,
or barely for going to law, as being a thing ;
utterly unjust in itself. If he designs only
the former, as it is clear from the whole chain
of the context from the first verse to the ninth
that he does ; then it concludes nothing
against the latter, but that before a believing
judge, and a Christian court, witii a dne
observance of other circumstances, Christians

ON ROMANS, xii. 18.

417

may right themselves at law. But if it be
said, that the apostle directs the edge of this
reproof against the very action itself ; then let
it be made out, how the apostle cau accord
himself with himself, who suffers Christians
to go to law before the saints, in ver. 1, " Dare
any of you, having a matter against another,
go to law before the unjust, and uot before
the saints ?" Which shews, that what he pro
hibits under one, in the very same breath he
permits under the other. Nay, he proceeds to
give reasons why they should manage the
judgraent of these things theraselves, iu ver.
2, 3, " If the world shall be judged by you,
are ye unworthy to judge the smallest mat
ters? And, know ye not that ye shall judge
angels ? how much more things pertaining to
this life?" And again, in ver. 6 ; "I speak
to your shame. Is it so, that there is not a
wiseraan amongst you ? no, not one that shall
be able to judge between his brethren ?" And
now, is it uot as clear from all these places,
as if they were w-rit with a sunbeam, that the
apostle's iutention is not levelled against their
going to law, but against the persons before
whom they did it? "That they chose to discover
aud rip up the sores of the church, before such
infidels as would deride them, rather than
before Christians, who would endeavour to
conceal and cure thera.
The ouly thing that can be replied here, is,
that in those priraitive tiraes of Christianity,
the Christians had no tribunals or power of
judging, as being under the jurisdiction of
heathen potentates : aud therefore what they
did in order to the deciding of controversies
and suits between m.an and man, they did not
do as judges armed with the civil power, but
as arbitrators chose and consented to araongst
themselves, for the ending and composing of
differences. And therefore, though it might
be lawful to bring one's cause before such
judges, yet it cannot now be lawful to sue a
brother in any ofour courts, properly so called,
as holding a power of jurisdiction from the
magistrate. But to this I answer ; that this is so far
from overthrowing or weakening the thing
which it is brought to disprove, that it is a
notable argument to confirm it : for if the
apostles allowed it as lawful for tiiera to bring
their causes before Christians, that they might
exercise a judicial act iu deciding thera, who
yet were not endued with any legal, judicial
authority from the magistrate ; certainly it
were highly strange and irrational, to prohibit
men to seek for the same judicial acts, from
such as were both Christians, and also em
powered with such a judicial authority frora
the civil governor. In a word, it would
amount to this ; that Christians might try
their causes before Christians, not having any
legal jurisdiction for that purpose, but only
the consent of the contending parties. But
VOL. II.

when the same persons come to have the
stamp of public authority, enabling them so
to do by virtue of their office ; why then, all
trials before them must presently cease to be
lawful, and become only a betraying of the
rights and privileges of believers. I shall say
no more of this wild aud inconsequent deduc
tion, but that it is an argument fit to be fouud
only in the mouth of those, whose custom it
is to dispute against reason, and to fight
against govemraent.
3. The third argument against the allow-
ableness of Christians going to law, is that
strict comraand that lies upou tiiera to forgive
injuries, and consequently not to prosecute
them in courts of judicature, forasmuch as
these two seera utterly inconsistent.
But to this also I reply, that in most injuries
we are to consider and distinguish two things :
first. The right that is lost. Secondly, The
offence done to whom it is lost. And though
it may be my duty to forgive the offence done
me by him that violently takes away my
right ; yet it follows uot that I must therefore
quit my right ; but may, with full allowance
of equity and piety, endeavour the regaining
of that, while I fully remit the other.
And that this is uot a mere verbal distinc
tion without a difference, is evident frora
hence : that supposing that soraebody robs
me of ray goods, and I recover thera all to the
value of the utraost farthing ; yet still after
this recovery it is certain that the man has
done me au injury, and reason and religion
will oblige him to ask rae forgiveness ; wliich
it could uot do, supposing that the wrong did
not continue, even after I was repossessed of
what I had lost.
It is clear therefore, that the prosecution of
one's right at law does yet leave a fair scope
forthe exercise of forgiveness ; and consequeut
ly that they may not exclude or justle out
one another.
I cannot think of any thing else in scripture
that seems to cast any probability of favour
upon this opinion : and therefore looking
upon the proof of it as desperate upon this
account, I proceed to the secoud thing ; which
is to shew what raay be argued for the allow
ableuess of Christiaus prosecuting their rights
in courts of judicature.
But beforehand I shall proraise this : That
the grouud upon which all such prosecutions
proceed is twofold. 1. Restitution ; and, 2.
Punishraent. 'That is, a man is sued either
to restore what he has took from another ; or
brought into court for some offence or raischief
done by hira, for which, since uo restitution j
can be made, he is to sustain some penalty
for the satisfaction of the law. In which two
cases, though it is obvious to see that a mau
may prosecute another for the restitution of
something took from him, withont any
thoughts of bitterness or revenge ; yet since
2 D

418

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Serm. XLIX.

the puuishment of another cannot at all
redound to my advantage or reparation, it
rnay be inquired, what cau warrant a man in
his prosecution of auother, only to bring him
to this, without being chargeable with the
designs of revenge.
To this I answer ; that this obligation and
subjection to the coraraunity, of which he is
a raember, engages him to this. For every
man is bound to endeavour the good and pre
servation of the public, and consequently to
prosecute a thief or a murderer, though per
sonally they have uot injured him, forasmuch
as such persons have made a breach upon so
ciety and comraon justice ; which requires a
reparation : yea, and that so strictly, that if
a man is robbed, though, being master of his
own right, he might choose whether upon that
score he would prosecute him for such rob
bery ; yet since by the same there is an in
jury done to the public, which he cannot
pardou, the law binds hira to prosecute the
robber : and raakes him liable to be prose
cuted himself, in case he should not. I con
clude therefore, that all these prosecutions of
a mau in the courts of law are just and
allowable. And so I pass to the arguments
for the proof of the assertion ; which are
these :
1. To endeavour the execution of justice in
the proper acts of it between man and man,
is allowable before God, and uot repugnant
to religion : but without going to law, there
can be uo such endeavour for the execution of
justice, and consequently it is to be admitted.
That the former is not repugnant to religion
is clear ; fortheu justice and religion would
be contrary, which would be to cast a high
aspersion upon both.
Justice is the noblest dictate issuing from
the principles of iraproved nature, and nature,
which is the law of God written in our hearts,
cannot contradict his law as it is written in
his word. God cannot write the same thing
a duty in one law, and a sin in the other.
Justice came down from heaven, and de
scended upon mankind, as a communication
of a divine perfection flowing from him whose
great attribute is to be the Just One, and the
rewarder of every man according to his
works. As for the assumption of the argument,
that the exercise of this great blessing of the
world, justice, canuot take place, unless it be
lawful to prosecute offenders before courts
and judges ; it is a thing that requires no
laborious proof. For can we expect that
thieves and murderers should come and sur
render their persons to the vengeance of the
law freely, aud of their own accord, as scorn
ing all arrests, aud preventing attachments by
sheriff's, constables, and such other unneces
sary instruments of force ? Will they arraign
themselves, be both jury and evidence, and

stand convict by the generous openness of
their owu confession ?
When and where do we read of any instance
or example of such strange transactions!
When men by frequent villainies have lost
even common honesty, may justice expect
satisfaction from their ingenuity? But these
are unlikelihoods not to be insisted upon;
and we may well venture the issue of the
whole controversy upon this, that when these
things corae to pass, then the prosecution of
causes at law will cease to be allowable,
2. The second arguraent is this ; that if
Christian religion absolutely prohibits and
disallows all pursuit of a man's right at law,
then the strict observance of this religion un
avoidably draws after it the utter dissolution
of all government and society ; a sad conse
quence, but naturally issuing from such an
antecedent. For does not society consist in a due dis
tinction of propriety amongst men, and in
their peaceable and secure enjoying that, of
whicli they are proprietors? Do not all
public bodies bear upon the great basis of
meum and tuum between particular persons,
and upou the provision it makes to protect
those persons in their respective tities to
what they possess ?
And raoreover, is not the foundation of all
just possession a just acquisition ; as by gift,
Labour, or the like, by which the world shares
the coramon benefits of nature, dividing to
each man his portion, and enclosing it to him
from the encroachment and pretences of all
others? These things, I suppose, mustbe
granted to be the very fundamentals and fint
uniting principles of society.
But now, if there be uo coercive power to
call men to account for their actions ; when
the world shall be infested with the riolent
aud the unjust, who will uot labour, but yet
possess ; who are nobody's heirs, and yet will
inherit ; raising a uew claim upon force,
rapine, and oppression : what will becomeof
order, of propriety, and right? all those
hinges upon which the affairs of mankind
and the peace of nations move and depend?
He that has the strongest arm, the sharpest
sword, the boldest front, and the falsest heart,
must possess the world. Whatsoever he
grasps raust be his own ; right and possession
will be terras convertible. Tbe meek and
the injured part of mankind shall retain a
right to nothing, but to patience under the
insultations of the mighty and the unjust,
and shall see that they can be lawfully no
thing else but miserable, when the very plc»
of the law itself is rendered unlawful.
And, what is the greatest misery of all,
these bonds of oppression must be bound upon
men by the ties of religion. Thieves rob ui
of our goods, aud theu this robs us of our
remedies. And men will persuade us, tli»>

ON ROMANS, xiL 18.

419

Jesus Clirist makes it our duty to be poor,
wretched, injured, forlorn, aud destitute, as
often as it shall please the lawless avarice and
insolence of our enemies to make us so.
Had the primitive Christians owned this to
have been the genius and true intent of what
they professed, it would quickly have hissed
Christianity out of the world, as the bane of
governraent, and the destroyer of whatsoever
¦vv-as settled, regular, aud excellent araongst
men. It would have exposed it both to the
scorn and hatred of all governors. And the
setting up the profession of it iu auy kingdom
would have beeu like the bringing of a public
plague into the bowels of a nation : or the
courting of a foreign invasion, to traraple
down all before thera with ruin and confusion.
For surely the removal of all courts of judi
cature would have had uo less raischievous
effects upon a people, thiin either of those
annoyances. But had this been the design of
Christianity, there is nodoubt but all nations
would have stood upon their guard, and kept
it off like a pest ; and courts of judicature
would sooner have suppressed this religion,
than this religion could have beat down
those courts.
I conclude therefore, tbat it is far from the
purpose of Christ's doctrine to forbid injured
persons to take their course at law; under
the gospel, courts are to be as much open as
churches. Aud to plead the cause of the
afflicted, the fatherless, and the widow, is
but part of that great office which God has
honoured, bysometimesassuming it to hiraself.
Christianity carae to invest the world with
new helps and privileges, and uot to abridge
men of their old. This religion has provided
no asylum for thieves or murderers; it neither
secures nor sanctifies wrong or oppression.
And therefore that opinion, which lays this
as a block in their way who would proceed to
a legal recovery of their rights, is to be rejec
ted, as absurd and insufferable.
Yet since men are too prone to stretch their
just allowances beyond their bounds, to abuse
privileges, and to spoil a due action by undue
Circumstances of prosecution ; I shall therefore,
in the third and last place, briefly propose
those conditions that are required to warrant
men iu their law-proceedings and contentions.
And they are three :
1. First, that a man takes not this course
against any one, but upon a very great aud
urgent cause. Every littlewrongand trespass
is not a sufficient warrant for rae to disturb ray
neighbour's peace, and to raake him miserable.
It must be a loud and a clamorous injury,
that has broke in upon a man's reputation or
estate, so that one cannot be entire uor the
other safe without a reparation, which must
give him a lawful call to use so sharp a
remedy. But those uncharitable, unworthy motives.

that usually act men in these prosecutions,
sufficiently declare how much they devi;ite
frora the rules of religion : for what more
usual than such kind of speeches ; " I will
spend five hundred, a thousand pounds, but I
will have my will." So that, it seems, it is
uot so much to have right, as to have their
will, for which some go to law. But let rae
say to such, that God will spend a thousand,
nay, ten thousand curses upon them, but that
he' ¦will fully punish such a wicked and un
merciful disposition.
2. Supposing that the wrong is great, and
calls for reparation, yet, in the next place, it
is required that a man be willing, upon any
tolerable and just terras, to agree with his
adversary, rather than to proceed to a suit :
otherwise he does not sacrifice to justice or to
necessity, but to a litigious humour and an
ill-nature, that loves contention for conten
tion's sake, and descends to it, not as a remedy,
but a recreation : he designs not to advantage
himself, but to afflict and harass his adversary,
and therefore is willing to undergo the trouble
aud misery of following the suit himself, only
for the base pleasure of seeing another mise
rable. For surely it must be a very strange height
of virulence, that shall raake a mau thus pre
fer the continuance of a quarrel before an
amicable coraposure of it! when Providence
is pleased to order the state of things so, that
litigiousness is not only a great, but also a
very troublesome, laborious, and costly sin.
A man cannot be wicked in this respect, but
with the expense of much money, the labour
of long attendances, and the anxiety of much
care. And when a man has wisely raade a
shift to recover one hundred pound with the
expense of three, and for many terms run up
and down, backwards and forwards, sedulously
and industriously to no purpose ; he will find
those words of the apostle to the Corinthians,
ready upon every slight cause to prosecute
one auother at law, " Why do you not rather
take wrong? why do you not suffer yourselves
to be defrauded ?" to have beeu not so rauch
a lesson of piety, as of policy, thrift, and good
husbandry. And surely if we corapare the
charges, vexation, and noise of a suit, with
that pitiful design which for the raost part is
drove at by it : if thus contentiously to go to
law be a sin, as undoubtedly it is ; why then
we need look no farther, nor enjoin such an
one any other penance, hut that he should go
to law again.
3. But thirdly and lastiy, supposing that
both the wrong is in itself very great, and no
satisfaction or conditions of agreeraent are
offered by him tbat did it, but that the injured
person must of necessity commence a suit
against him ; yet then it is required, that he
manage it by the rule of charity, and not with
any purpose to revenge himself upon his ad-

4-20

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Serm. I,,

versary. But certainly it is a ver)- rare thing,
and seldom found, to see a man of so clear a
breast, so sincere a design, as to have waded
through such prosecutions without any inter
posal of vindictive thoughts. The action in
deed (as I have proved) is in itself lawful, but
the person that is to manage it is weak and
sinful, and it is ten to oue but his corruption
strikes in, and bears a share in what he does;
and then the issue of the whole business turns
but to the accounts of sin : and when the suit
is ended here below, there is an action of
revenge brought agaiust him in the court
above. And therefore, though he who thus
chooses to right himself, does lawfully ; yet
(except in cases of extremity) certainly that
man does more safely, who considers that he
is but weak, and so offers not himself to the
temptation. And thus I have finished the resolution of
the last case propounded, and I hope have
stated the controversy with that truth and
equality, that I have not at all derogated from
the law of God, while I asserted the laws of

SERMON L.
PART IV.
"If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with
all men." — Roaians, xii. 18.
When I first entered upon these words, I
laid the prosecution of them in the discussion
of these four particulars :
I. To shew what was included iu this great
duty of living peaceably.
II. What were the measures and propor
tions by which it was to be determined.
III. What were the means by which it was
to be effected.
I'V. What were the raotives and arguments
by which it might be enforced.
The two first of these I have at length
despatched ; and the two last, as containing
nothing of controversy, but being of plain and
practical consideration, I shall finish in this
discourse, aud conclude this subject.
And first, for the meaus conducible to our
performance of this excellent duty, I shall,
amongst those many that possibly each man's
particular experience may better suggest to
him, select and reckon these :
1. A careful suppression of all distasteful,
but however of all aggravating apprehensions
of any ill turn or unkind behaviour from men.
He that will preserve himself in a regular
course of acting, must not onlv attend the last

issues of the performance, but watch the be-
giuniugs, aud secure the fountains of action ;
and he will find it but a vain attempt to
oppose it in its birth, when he should have
encountered it iu its conception. A great sin
or a great virtue is a long time in forraingand
preparing within, aud passing through many
faculties before it is ripe for execution. And
when that chain of preparations is laid, this
perhaps is then necessary aud unavoidable.
As when a man has fixed his thoughts upon
an affront offered him, resented it sharply,
and rolled it in his mind a long time, so that
the rancour of those thoughts begin to reach
and infect the passions, and they begin to rise
and swell, and those also to possess the will,
so that this espouses it into full resolves and
purposes of revenge : it is then too late to
command a man, under these dispositions and
proximities of action, to be peaceable ; he is
possessed and full, aud admits of no advice,
'The malicious design has got head and matu
rity ; and therefore will certainly pass into
act, and rage iu a man's behaviour, to the
degree of railing, or downright blows, or per
haps bloodshed ; or some other instauce of a
great mischief.
But had a mau, by an early wariness and
observance of his teeming thoughts, crushed
those infant sharpnesses, those first disgusts
and grudgings, that began to sour and tor
ment his whole mind, he would have found
the huraour curable aud conquerable ; and
for all these seeds, and little essays of distur
bance, yet, as to the main event of practice,
he must have passed for a peaceable man.
Has a man therefore received an injury, a
disrespect, or soraething at least that he
thinks to be so ; if he would now raaintain
hiraself in a due coraposure of spirit, and stop
the sallyings out of a hasty and indecent
revenge, and all this with success and a cer
tainty of effect; let him first arrest his
thoughts, and divert them to some other ob
ject. Let him but do this easy violence to
hiraself, as to think of something else::
amongst those thousand things in the world
that may be thought on, let him fix upon any
one ; as, his business, his studies, or tlie news
of the time: but amongst other things, let
the thoughts be directed rather to reconciling
objects, such as are apt to leave a pleasure and.
a sweetness upon the mind ; as a man's law
ful and inuoceut recreations, the delights of
a journey, of a cured sickness or an escaped
danger, or the like. But chiefly, let the
thoughts be busied upon such thiiigjs as are
peculiar and proper antidotes against the
grudge conceived. As, let a man remember
whether he never received a courtesy from
that person who ho thinks has provoked him ;
and let him consider, whether that courtesy
did not outweigh the present injury ; and
was not done with greater circumstances of

ON ROlMANS, xii. 18.

421

itindness, than this of disrespect. Now by
such arts and methods of diverting the
thoughts, the quick sense of the injury will
by degrees be eluded, weakened, and baffled
into nothing : and the grudge will strike a
man's apprehensions, but as a gentle breath
of air does his face, with a transient, iudis-
cernible touch, leaving behind it neither sign
uor impression.
For we must know that it is the morose
dwelling of the thoughts upon an injury, a
long and sullen meditation upon a wrong,
that incorporates and rivets it into the mind.
And upon this reason it is ill affronting the
melancholy aud the thinking mau, whose
natural teraper and coraplexion lays what he
has observed before him, by more frequent
remembrances, and more stable and perraa
nent representations ; so that the raind has
opportunity to carry its examination to every
particular circumstance, part, degree, and oc
casion of the affrout, brooding upon it with
such a close and continued iutention, till it
binds the remembrance aud resentment of it
upon the soul with bands of iron and links of
brass, never to be dissolved, or fetched asun
der, by tirae, or kindness, or auy after-at
tempts of reconciliation.
If a man will indulge his thoughts upon a
disrespect offered him, he will find how by
degrees they will raise aud advance, and get
the mastery of him. That which first did
but lightly raove, shall presently warm, theu
heat, afterwards chafe, and at length fire and
inflame him : and now the evil is grown
mighty and invincible ; and swelled into a
strange unlimitedness, so that that which per
haps but a week or two ago was no raore than
a slight displeasnre,and to be srailed, or talked,
or slept away, is now like to go off like a clap
of thunder, to scatter a huge ruin, and de
terraine in soraething disinal and tragical.
We shall fiud that this way of thinking had
the like effect upon David, but upon a better
subject, iu Psalra xxxix. 3, " My heart was
hot within me, while I was musing the fire
burned : then spake I with my tongue." We
see here the gradation by which this holy
man's thoughts led his zeal up to its full
height. In like raanner, when an injury has
passed upon a raan, he begins to muse upon
it, and upon this " his heart grows hot within
him, and at length the fire burns, and theu
he speaks with his tongue ;" perhaps railing
and reviling : and it is well, if in the issue he
does not also strike with his haud. The lion
has not always such a preseut supply of
fierceness as to fit him to fly upou his prey,
till, by the echoes of his own roarings, aud
the frequent striking of himself with his
train, he has called up his drowsy spirits, and
suraraoned his rage to attend his appetite,
and so fully chafed hiraself iuto his natural
fury ; aud then he is a lion indeed, and to

meet him is death, and to behold him a terror
next to it.
This is exactly the case of the angry and
contentious man ; he provokes and works up
himself to a passion by a restless employraent
of thought upon sorae injury done him ; till
from a man he grows into a beast of prey, and
becoraes iraplacable and intolerable. Surely
therefore it concerns the virtuous and the
wary, aud such as kuow how absolutely
necessary it is to conduct every action of piety
by the rules of prudence, to endeavour peace
ableness, by keeping down the first inconsi
derable annoyances and disturbances of it,
which like the raustard seeds in their first
sowing are very sraall and conteraptible, but
being grown up, shoot out into branches and
arms, spread into a vast compass, aud settle
into a firm strength and consistency of body.
Compare a disgust in its beginnings and
after its continuance, iu the first appearance
and the last effects of it ; and we shall find
the disproportions monstrous and unmeasur
able. No man is able to give laws to an over
grown humour, and to grapple with a corrup
tion ripe and arraed with all its advantages.
Who would think, wheu he sees a little
spring-head, and beholds the narrowness of
its circle, its quiet bubblings and sraall emis
sions, that by that tirae this little thing had
crope three or four railes off, it should be
spacious in its breadth, formidable in its
depth, grow insolent in a tempest, rise aud
foara and wrestle with the winds, laugh at
every thing in its way, and bear its conquer
ing streara over daras and locks, andall oppo
sition ? Why thus also it is with the mind
of mau : after he is offended, if he will not be
brought to discharge his thoughts of the
offence, he raay think and think so long, till
he has thought a distasteful apprehension
into an action of murder.
But as in order to a raan's keeping of the
peace, both with himself and others, it highly
lies upon him to give no entertainment to
disgustful thoughts, conceived frora the be
haviour of raen towards him ; so he is much
raore to abandon and take heed of all aggra
vating thoughts. If Ije will not pass over and
forget an offence, at least he is not to heighten
it ; to raake that great, which is but small ;
and numerous, that is but single. If a raan
were to chastise a child for a fault, and pre
sently by au error of fancy should persuade
hiraself, that certainly that child was some
great porter, and should measure out stripes
to him accordingly ; there is no doubt but
the injury would quickly appear in a sad
effect. There are indeed uo venial sins towards
God, but there are between raen ; and there
fore he who shall prosecute a venial offence
with a raortal hatred, and swell a molehill into
a mouutain, beholding every thing under new

422

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Srkm. L.

created heights and additions ; he betrays a
turbulent disposition, and a raind to which
pe<aoe and the spirit of peace is wholly a
stranger. It is not unusual to hear such speeches fall
from some mouths : He did such a thing
purposely to spite me ; h.ad he not known
that I disgusted it, it had never beeu spoke or
done by him. Whereas perhaps the man, in
the word or action for which he is censured,
thought no hurt, much le^s designed any :
but did it by an innocent carelessness, uot
sufficiently al.armed by an experience of the
baseness, the falseness, and the exceptiousness
of men, to set a greater caution or guard upon
his behaviour ; or perhaps, take it at the
worst, it was a word extorted from hira by
the exasperation of his spirit, and before he
was aware, borne upon the wings of passion,
and so quickly out of his reach, and not to
be recalled.
But shall we now play the exactors and
the tyrants, squeezing every supposed irregu
larity till we fetch blood, aud according to
that unworthy course condemned in Isaiah,
xxix. 21, "make a mau an offender for a
word ?" Are we so perfect ourselves as to need
no allowances, no remissions, no favourable
interpretations of what we do or say ? Or are
we so unjust, as when we need these things
ourselves, to deny them to others ?
Would any one be willing to be took upon
an advantage? to have every slip and weak
ness of his discourse critically observed, every
inadvertency in his behaviour m.aliciously
scanned, and at length heightened, and blown
up to a crime, or a great accusation ? Surely
there is no man so privileged from the com
mon lot of humanity or natural affections,
but that he is sometimes more open aud gay,
free and unconcerned, aud so obnoxious to
the unseasonable rigours of a watching, ill-
natured adversary. And, ou the other side,
there is no man but sometimes suffers the
vicissitude of trouble, business, thought, aud
indisposition of mind, that may cast a rough
ness upon his deportment, and for a while
interrupt the complaisance of his converse.
And shall these things be now counted
grounds sufficient to build a dislike upon, that
shtdl vent itself in the disturbance of a man's
peace, the hatred of his person, the under
mining of his interest, aud the extinguishing
his reputation. It is as certain as certainty
itself, that oftentimes they do so : and there
fore I have nothing to say more as to this
particular, but to make use of that prayer of
Saint Paul, (2 Thes. iii. 2,) " God deliver us
from unreasonable men : for the way of peace
such have not known."
And thus much for the first meaus to help
us iu the duty of living peaceably ; namely, a
mature and careful suppression of all dis
tasteful, but especially of all aggravating

apprehensions, eitherof the defective or faulty
instances of men's behaviour towards us.
2. A second sovereign means conducing to
the same great purpose, is the forbearing of
all pragmatical or malicious informations
against those with whom wc converse. It
was a worthy saying of Solomon, well beseem
ing that reputation of wisdom whicli he stands
renowned for in holy writ, that " he that
repeateth a matter separateth very friends,"
The carrying of a tale, and reporting what
such an one said or such an oue did, is the
way to sow such grudges, to kindle such heart
burnings between persons, as oftentimes break
forth and flame to the consumptiou of families,
courts, and perhaps at length of cities and
kiugdoras. The mischief such incendiaries
do is incredible, as being indeed for the most
part inevitable. And a vine or a rose-tree
may as well flourish when there is a secret
worm lurking and gnawing at the root of
them ; as the peace of those societies thrive,
that have such concealed plagues wrapt up
iu their heart and bowels.
For let us consider the case a little : there
is perhaps in some united body, collection,
or society of men, some pick-thank caterpillar
or other, who, either to ingratiate himself with
some great oue, or to mischief some whom he
maligns, or peradventure both, comes and
cringes and whispers, and tells his story, and
possibly with some disserabled expressions of
respect to the person whora he is about to
ruiu : as, that he is heartily sorry that such
an one, whom he had always an esteem for,
should so misbehave and forget himself, as to
be guilty of such things as he found aud heard
him to be ; and indeed was a long time before
he could believe any such matter of him, out
of the great honour he bore him. Neverthe
less thus and thus it is, aud heis troubled that
he should be forced to be the messenger of any
thing to his disadvantage.
Well, the good man has told his story, and
the secret bolt is shot : let us now see into
how many cursed consequences this viperous
piece of villainy is like to spread itself ; and
that, whether we consider the accusation as
true or as false ; as relating to the person
accused, or to him before whom he is accused.
And first, we will take the allegation that such
informers usually make in their own behalf,
that truly they said nothing but what was
truth, aud they conceive truth raay be law
fully spoken. Very good ! Be it therefore
a truth. But yet give me leave to ask such
persons a few questions : as, whether a truth
may not be reported with as malicious a
design as the gi eatest falsity that ever was
hatched in hell ; and whether to tell a truth
with the purposes of malice, be not a sin of
as black a hue in the accounts of Heaven, as
to contrive and tell a downright lie. I would
also ask, whether the person who told tiiis

ON ROMANS, xii. 18.

423

truth would have been as ready to tell it, had
it made for the other's advantage as much as it
does for his prejudice: and whether he would
be willing that every thing should be told and
published which is true of himself. I believe
the answer to these interrogatories would
appear but very lame and imperfect.
But since truth is a thing that seldom dwells
in the mouths and discourses of informers, we
will suppose the accusation to be, as for the
most part it is, really false ; and thjit either
as to the very matter of it, there being abso
lutely no such thing as is reported ; or at least
in respect of some portion and circumstance
of the narration ; some little thing beiug
added, over and above the true state of the
matter, or something being concealed that
should have been mentioned ; either of which
may make such au alteration in the case, that
that which one way is innocent and allowable,
the other way becomes impious, vile, and
criminal. It is iu such reports as it is in
numbers, the addition or detraction but of
one unit makes it presently another number.
But now, if we proceed farther, and direct
the consequences of this degenerous practice
to the persons concerned in it; as first, to him
that is informed against : we shall find that,
whether the information be true or false, his
condition is very miserable. For if it be true,
all opportunities of deprecating his offence and
of reconciling himself to the person offended,
are cut off, aud took out of his hands ; but in
the mean time, the accusation lies festering in
the other's mind to whom it is delivered,
waiting only for an occasion suddenly to
attack or ruin the poor man, who knows not
of the cloud which hangs over him, uor of the
snare that is spread under hira ^ but is snapt
and destroyed before he is aware, withoutany
remedy or escape.
But if the things deposed against him be
false, as frequently they both are and may
very well be, by reason of the accuser's pre
sumption that he shall never be brought to
vouch or prove what he has said ; why then
an innocent person unheard, untried, and
bereaved of all power to clear himself, and to
confute his accuser, is concluded against, and
conderaned ; his sentence is passed, the pur
pose of his ruin sealed, and the raan is blown
up before ever he understands that there is so
much as any crirae, accusation, or accuser of
hira in the world.
And is not this a horrid aud a barbarous
thing, aud a perversion of the very designs of
society ? For to what purpose do raen unite
aud convene into corporations, if the raischiefs
they suffer under them are greater than those
that attend them in a state of dispersion and
open hostility ?
Certainly it is a grievance to nature, and
to that common reason and justice which
presides over mankind, to see a brave, an

upright, and a virtuous person fall by the in
formations and base arts of an atheist, a syco
phant aud an empty dressed fellow ; such au
one, that, if but one third part of mankind
were like him, neither God nor man would
think the world worth preservation. And
yet such are the men that overthrow virtue,
disappoint merit, and render the rewards
of the good and the vicious accidental and
promiscuous ; and in a word, are the pests
and vermin that disturb aud infest society.
But neither is the poor, accused, ruined
person the only one that is abused aud in
jured by the false and malicious informer,
but even he who by such information is
brought to ruin him. For is it not the worst
of injuries, that such a wretch should make a
great person the instrument of his sin, and
the prosecutor of his raalice ; and all this
by abusing his intellectuals with a lie? de
ceiving and cheating hira with false persua
sions, iu order to a gaining hira to a base
or a cruel action ; first blinding his eye, and
theu using his haud, and making hira to do
that upon a false representation of things,
which, had he beeu rightly informed of, he
would not have done for a world. It is like
the making of a man drunk, and then causing
him to sign a deed for the passing away of
his estate. In short, it is a daring encroach
ment, aud an intolerable injury. And if
there were any oue that might lawfully uot
be forgiven, it is this.
But the abuse rests not here : for such syco
phants, by these practices, do not only abuse
men in their understanding, their interest,
and their peace, by first making thera to be
lieve a falsehood, and theu to sacrifice a friend
or an innocent raan to such a belief ; but far
ther, they abuse thera iu that very instance
for which they accuse others. It being very
frequent, nay my own little experience has
observed it, that those who are so officious,
by the traducing of others, to fawn, cog, and
flatter raen to their faces, are as apt to vilify
thera behind their backs as any other what
soever : nay, the raatter of the accusation by
which they secretly stab others, are usually
some unwary expressions slipt from those
persons, while they have been trepanned into
a coraplianee with the informer's discourse,
in his undervaluing, upbraiding, aud detract
ing from the sarae raen, before whora after
wards he is so diligent to accuse thera.
Now iu this case there is nothing so much
to be wished for, as that sorae lucky hand of
Providence would bring the person inforraed
against, and the person to whora he was in
formed against, together ; that they might
compare notes, and confer what the informer
had said on both sides. And the truth is, so
it falls out by a strange connection and trace
of events, that usually such whisperers are
discovered, and that that which passing from

424

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Serm. L.

the raouth is but a whisper, from the echo and
rebound becomes a voice : the effect of which
IS, that a vile person comes to be understood,
and then to be abhorred, and to be pointed
at as he passes by with such kind of elogies as
these ; " There goes a person for whora no one
breathing was ever the better, but many
ruined, blasted, and undone ; the scourge of
society, a spit-poison, a viper, and to be
abandoned and shunned by all companies,
like a mortal infection : and yet withal so
despicable, so detested, and that amidst the
greatest successes of his base projects, that the
conditiou of him who is most ruined by him,
even while he is ruined, is much more eligible,
and desirable ; as of the two, I know no man,
but had rather be spit upon by a toad than be
a toad." I wonder what such persons think, or pro
pose to themselves, wheu they corae to affront
God in his house, praying, hearing sermons,
and receiving sacraraents ; when there is no
sin or corruption incident to the depraved
nature of man, that more peculiarly unfits
them for this diviue and blessed duty, thau
the sin that we have been discoursing of.
And I ara confident, that when such a person
thrusts hiraself upon the ordinance, and re
ceives the consecrated elements ; he yet par
takes no more of the body and blood of Christ,
or the real benefits of them, than the rat that
gnaws the bread, a creature like himself, close,
mischievous, and contemptible.
We have seen here how much such persons
and practices interrupt the peace of societies ;
but yet vve are to know that the burden of
this charge is not so wholly to lie upon the
framers and bringers of such informations,
but that some is to rest upon those also who
are ready to hear them. For as there is a
ptirity of guilt between the thief and the re
ceiver, so there seems to be the like between
the teller and the hearer of a malicious re
jiort ; and that upon very great reason. For
who would knock, where he despaired of en
trance? or what husbandraan would cast his
seed but into au open aud a prepared furrow ?
so it is most certain, that ill tongues would be
idle, if ill ears were not open. And therefore
it was au apposite sayiug of one of the
ancients, that both the teller and hearer of
false stories ought equally to be hanged, but
one by the tongue, the other by the ears :
and were every one ofthem so served, I sup
pose nobody would be so fond of those many
mischiefs brought by such persons upon the
peace of the world, as to be concerned to cut
thera down, unless, perhaps, by cutting off the
forementioned parts, by whicli they hung.
But wheu there is a conspiracy and an
agreement ou both sides, and one ill-nature
tells a tale, and another ill-nature thanks him
for it ; and so encourages liini in the custom,
by shewing how ready he is to hear his words.

and to do the intended mischief; so that tho
ball is kept up, by being tossed from one band
to the other : let not that society or company
of men, who are blessed with such persons
amongst them, expect any such thing as
peace ; they may as well expect that the
winter sun will ripen their sumraer fruits, or
the breath of the north wind preserve their
blossoms. No, they will find, that the blasts
of contention will blow and whistle about
their ears, and a storra arise, which shall en
danger their tranquillity to an utter ship
wreck, without any possibility of being ap
peased, but by throwing such wretches and
renegadoes from God and good-nature over
board. Let this therefore be the second means to
advance us in the duty of living peaceably;
namely, to abominate such practices ourselves,
and to discountenance them in others. It is
a prescription easy and sovereign, and such an
one as will not fail in the experiment : but
according to the proportions of its efficacy, will
raanifest a certain and a happy influence, for
the restoring of peace, and the refreshing of
human converse : for wheu the troublers of
Israel are removed, the trouble of it must
needs cease.
Aud thus much for the second means of
maintaining the duty of peaceableness.
3. The third thatl shall prescribe is, that
men would be willing in sorae cases to wave
the prosecution of their rights, and not too
rigorously to insist upon them. There are
some things which it may be lawful for a
man to do, but falling under cross circura
stances, may be infinitely inexpedient. To
require reparation for a wrong, is a thing good
and lawful ; but sometimes it raay he done
so unseasonably, that peace, which is a much
better thing, is lost by it. That same sto
machics cedere nescitcs fouud iu most, is the
thing that foments quarrels, and keeps men
at such unpeaceable distances. I will not
lose ray right, says one ; and I will suffer no
wrong, says another : and so they enter into
a conflict, both pulling and contesting, till
the quietness of society is torn asunder be
twixt thera. Now it is here apparent, that
unless one of these shall relinquish what he
supposes to be his right, the con tro versy must
of necessity be perpetual. But certainly
peace is an enjoyraent so high, that it de
serves to be bought at the rate of some lesser
abridgments ; and a mau shall find that he
never does himself so much right, as when,
upon such an occasion, he parts with his right.
It may possibly be of sorae difficulty to as
sign all those instances in which peace may
challenge this of us, as to surrender a right for
its preservation ; and though cases of this
nature are as nuraberless and indefinite as
particular actions and tiieir circumstances;
yet, to contribute something to the conduct

ON ROMANS, xii. 18.

425

' ofour practice in so weighty and concerning
'• a matter, I shall presume to set down some.
' (1.) As first, when the recovery of a right,
according to the best judgraent that huiuau
' reason cau pass upon things, seeras irapossible :
} prudence and duty then calls upon a raan to
' surcease the prosecution of that, and rather
' to follow peace. It will perhaps be replied
I here, that this case is superfluous and absurd,
i for no rational man will endeavour after that
' whicli he apprehends irapossible. I answer,
i that this seeras true indeed, did all that were
I rational act rationally. But besides, sup-
I posing this also ; yet unless a man acts virtu-
I ously as well as rationally, ho raay propose
to hiraself the prosecution of a thing iinpos-
1 sible, not indeed with a design to obtain that
I thing, but for sorae other end or purpose, as
i either to gratify a huraour, or to annoy au
eneray, or the like. As for instance, he that
should prosecute a poor widow, not worth above
two mites, for the debt of a thousand talents
due to him from her, yet by reason of this
her great poverty, coutracted by losses aud
misfortunes, utterly unpayable ; that man
prosecutes an impossible thing, aud at the
same time knows it to be so, and accordingly
despairs of the recovery of his debt, yet he
continues the suit, because his disposition may
incline hira to be troublesorae, vexatious,
and unmerciful ; aud where money is not to
be had, to pay hiraself with revenge. He may
be one that tastes the calaraities of a ruined
adversary with a high relish, that finds a
music in the widow's sighs, and a sweetness
in her tears.
But now, in such a case, is it not rational
to conclude, that Christianity calls us to
peace, rather than to a fruitless prosecution
of a desperate right? where Providence, by
taking away all possibility and means of pay
ment, seems to have decided the case for
pardon, and the opportunities of exercising a
Christian grace.
We may be also called to the same duty of
not demanding our right, wheu the power and
villainy of the oppressor put the regaining of
it under an impossibility. But you will re
ply ; This is a very hard saying : for ought
any one's injustice to prejudice me in the
claim of ray right? I answer, no : if that
claim had any likely prospect of a recovery.
Otherwise, what rational effect can follow it ?
for by all a mau's clamours and suits for right,
he is not at all benefited, and yet the i^eace
is disturbed ; nay, it is enough to stamp his
action irrational, that he loses his own peace
without the least recorapense ; all his eudea
vours expiring iuto air, and vanishing with
no eff'ect : for the door of justice is shut, and
his little atterapts caunot force it open.
It is a thing in itself lawful and coramend
able, for a subject to vouch and assert the
title of his prince. But should it so fall out.

that a tyrant aud a usurper steps np into his
throne, and there surrouuds himself with
arraed legions, and a prevailing interest, so
that justice and loyalty are forced to shrink
in their heads, and so all purposes of resist
ance becorae wholly insignificant ; will any
one say, that it is here the duty of any parti
cular person to stand forth and defeud his
prince's claim, in defiance of the usurper, by
which neither his prince's right is in the least
advantaged, nor the oppressor's power at all
weakened or infringed ; but yet the common
peace is interrupted, and a ruin brought upon
his own head, aud the head of his confede
rates. Thus, when a bird comes to be immured
in the cage, being took from its natural range
in the air and the woods, and begins to feel
the injury of a restraint and the closeness of
a prison, it strives aud flutters to recover its
native liberty ; and perhaps with striving
breaks a wing or a leg, and so pines away :
aud after all this unquietness, is yet forced at
last to die in the cage.
It is so with a person overpowered iu his
right, and bereaved of it by those with whom
he cannot grapple. Christianity aud reason
comraand bira not here to labour iu vain, but
to raake a virtue of necessity, and to acquiesce,
expecting the issues of Providence, which
disposes of thiugs by a rule known only to
itself. And by so doing a man is no worse
than he was before ; but the peace is main
tained, and the rewards of patience may be
well expected.
(2.) In the second place, it seems to be a
raan's duty to quit tiie claim of his right,
wheu that right is but trivial, sraall and in
considerable, but the recovery of it trouble
sorae and contentious. 'That which beiug lost
makes a man not much the poorer, nor re
covered, much the richer, caunot authorize
him to enter into the turmoil, the din, and
noise of a suit, or a long contest.
Nothing can warrant a man in thesc courses
but necessity, or a great inconvenience ;
which, iu the supposed instance, is not plead
able. But he proceeds upou the dictates of
humour, the suggestions of revenge, and the
instigations of an unquiet dLsposition : the
consequences of which, in this world, are but
ill ; aud the rewards of them iu the next
much worse.
This whole method is liko the applying of
corrosives, and caustics, and the most tor
menting remedies, to reraove the paiu of a
cut finger, or like the listing of armies to
chase away flies : the raeans and the design
are hugely disproportionable.
(3.) In the third place, it seems to be a
man's duty to recede from his claira of any
particular right, when for the injury done
him he has a recompense offered him, in some
good equivalent, aud perhaps greater, though

426

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Sebm, L.

=j

of another kind. A man has deposited a
jewel iu another's hand ; the jewel coraes to
be Icist or stolen : but the person to whose
keeping it was intrusted is willing to make
him satisfaction, in paying him the full value
of it in mouey, or in giving him another of a
greater price. In which case, should the per
son endamaged utterly refuse all such satisfac
tion, and rigidly insist upon the restitution of
that individual thing, he declares hiraself a
sou of contention, an enemy of peace, and an
unreasonable exactor.
Nay, the equity of this extends eveu to
those losses, for which, perhaps, no recom
pense perfectly equivalent can be made ; yet,
wheu the utmost that the thing is capable of
comes to be tendered, justice, acting by the
rules of charity, will tie up the injured man
frora righting himself by any farther prosecu
tions. As for instance, we will suppose a
man defamed, and injured in his reputation ;
in this case, the word that gave hira the
wound cannot be unsaid again, or revoked,
auy raore than a spent hour be called b.ack,
or yesterday brought again upon the stage
of time ; but it is gone, and past recovery.
Yet the mischief done by this word is per
manent and great ; it has spilt a mau's good
narae upon the ground ; which, like spilt
water, caunot be gathered up again. But
after this, the slanderer comes to be touched
with remorse and sorrow for what he has
done, acknowledges and deprecates his fault
before his slandered brother ; retracts his
words as publicly as they were spoke, offers
him a large sum of money or a great advan
tage : what now is the injured person to do
in this condition? True it is that a good
name is invaluable ; and all the pelf in the
world is not an equal ransom for it. Yet it
is also as true, that no quarrel, how just so
ever, ought to be imraortal ; but ought to be
let fall upou due reparation : and the very
nature of this case adraits of no other or
greater reparation thau what has been offered.
Should it therefore be flung back in the
offerer's face, and the action of slander go on
rigorously and inexorably, I am afraid the
scene would be altered, and that he who pro
secutes his right, ha-ving yet more malice thau
right of his side, would, in the estiraate of the
supreme judge, from the injured person turn
to be the injurious.
The like may be said in the loss of a limb,
or any part of the body, as an eye or an arm.
Certain it is, that he who has struck out my
eye, or cut off my arm, has not the magazines
of nature so in his power, as to be able to give
me another ; nor will all his estate recom
pense the injury of amaimed, deformed body:
yet if he will endeavour to give me the best
recorapense my sad condition will receive, and
raake up the loss of these with supplies of
other advantages, I must be contented, and lie

down patiently under my calamity, no
owning it under the notion of an injury from
the man that did it, but as a sad providenee
from heaven, as an arrow shot frora the bow in
the clouds, to punish my sins and to exercise
my patience. And therefore all suits and ae-
tions andendeavours after a severe retribution,
must be let fall ; I must not vex, worry, and
undo him. The eye that God has leftmemuit
not be evil because mau has robbed me of the
other ; nor the remainingarm stretched out to
revenge the blow that lopped off'its fellow,
And thus 1 have shewn the cases in which
the duty we all owe to peace raay command
us soraetiraes to rerait the rigid prosecutium
of our right : which was the third meant
proposed to give success to our endeavouu
after peaceableness.
4. A fourth is, much to reflect upon tho
great example of Christ, and the strict in
junction lying upou us to follow it. Wesliall
find that his whole life went in a constant
recession from his own rights, in order to the
tr.auquillity and peace of the public : he was
born heir to the kingdom of the Jews, yet
never vouched his title, but quietly saw the
sceptre in a usurper's haud, and lived and
died under the governraent of thoso who had
no right to govern. When tribute was de
manded of hira, he clearly demonstrated the
case to Peter, (Matthew, xvii. 24— 26,) that
they had neither right to deinaud, nor he
obligation to pay any ; yet, in verse 27, we
find that he would be at the expense of little
less than a miracle, rather than, by refusing
to obey an unjust exaction, to disturb the
peace, "Lest we should offend them," says
he to Peter, " go thou to the sea, and cast i
hook, and take up the fish that first conieth
up ; aud thou shalt find a piece of mouey
in his mouth : that take, and give fur me and
thee." But what if they had been offended,
it had beeu but au offence taken, not given:
for where nothing is due, nothing was to be
paid, Uor consequently to be demanded ; )ct
so tender was he of the public peace, that he
waved all these pleas and argumeutatious,
and coraplied with the common practice.
Nay, and what is more, iu the great concern
ment of his life, rather than occasion a tumult,
or any unpeaceable disorder, though amongst
persons then about the greatest villainy that
ever the sun saw : he quitted the grand rightuf
self-preservation : which case, though it was
peculiar and extraordinary, and so obliges not
us to every particular of the action ; yet the
desigu of peaceableness, which induced hipi
to such a behaviour, calls for our iraitation in
general, that we should be willing to brook
many high inconveniences, rather than be the
occasions of any public disturbance. They
sent out an inconsiderable company wi'"
swords and staves to apprehend him ; b"'
what could this pitiful bodv of raen have done

ON ROMANS, x-ii. 18.

427

to prejudice his life, who, with much more
ease than Peter drew his sword, could have
summoned more angels to his assistance, than
there were legions of raen raarching under the
Roman eagles ? But he chose rather to resign
himself silently and unresistingly, like a lamb
to the slaughter, and so to recommend the
excellency of patience to all his disciples, in a
strange instance and a great example.
Now I suppose that it needs not much
labour to evince, that what Christ did, upon
a raoral account, equally engages the practice
of his disciples, according to their proper
degree and proportion. Aud therefore -weare
to study those divine lessons of peace, to
admire, and conform to his behaviour, to
transcribe his copy, and to read a precept iu
every one of his actions. And this is the
fourth means to enable us to quit ourselves in
the great duty of peaceableness.
6. The fifth aud last whicli I shall propose,
which surely, for its efficacy and virtue, will
be inferior to none of the former, is this ; uot
to adhere too pertinaciously and strictly to
our own judgraents of things doubtful iu
themselves, in opposition to thejudgment of
our superiors, or others, who raay be rationally
supposed raore skilful iu those things. If we
pursue raost of those contentions which afflict
the world to their first ijrinciple, we shall
find, that they issue frora pride, aud pride
from self-opinion, and a strange persuasion
that men have of their knowledge of those
thiugs of which they are indeed ignorant. I
am uot for the implicit faith of the papists, or
for any raan to pluck out his own eyes, and
to be guided by another raan's, iu raatters
plain, obvious, and apprehensible ; and of
which coraraon reason, without the assistance
of art aud study, is a competent judge. But
surely, in things difficult and controverted,
the learned, who have made it their business
to wade into those depths, should be consulted,
and trusted to, before the r.ash and illiterate
determinations of any particular mau what
soever. The not doing of which, I am sure, has
ruined the peace of this poor church, and
shook it into such unsettlements, that the
youngest person alive is not like to see it
recovered to its full strength, vigour, and
establishraent. There is not the least retainer
to a conventicle, but thinks he understands
the whole business of religion, as well as the
most studied and profound doctor in the
nation. And for those things that by pious
and mature deliberation, grounded upon the
word of God, and the constant practice of
antiquity, have been ordaiued for the better
aud more decent raanagement of divine wor
ship, there is scarce any preaching, discon
tented ignoramus, any groaning old woman,
or any factious shopkeeper, who, for want of
custom, sits reading the Bible, but will very

pertly, and, as they think, .also very judicious
ly, call them in question. For of those many
thousands who use to read the scripture, there
are few who understand it, and fewer who
think they do not ; whereupon they venture ou
all occasions to affix such bold interpretations
on the most concerning passages, as either
their interest or their ignorance shall suggest.
And having upon such pitiful grounds took
up au opinion, they are as ready to fight for
it, aud to assert it with the last drop of their
blood. Arraies shall be raised, swords drawn,
and the peace of a kingdom sacrificed to a
notion, as absurdly conceived as impudently
defended. Laws must be repealed, or lie un
executed, custoras abrogated, and sovereignty
itself raust be forced to bow before the excep
tions of a teuder conscience, and to give way
to every religious opiniator, who is pleased to
judge his peculiar sentiraents iu sacred mat
ters the great standard of truth, to whicli all
must conform. For though they deny a
conformity to the church in its constitutions,
yet they thiuk it very reasonable, nay, neces
sary, that the church should conform to them ;
whereas it is raost certain from experience,
that such persons seldom persist so steadily iu
any one opinion, as for a year's space to con
form thoroughly to themselves.
I conclude therefore, that there is no such
bane of the coraraon peace, as a confident
singularity of opinion : for men's opinions
shall rule their practices, and when their
practices shall get head and countenance, they
shall overrule the laws. If wheu men shall
refuse to yield obedience to statute and go
vernraent, and for such refusal plead, that
their conscience will not give thera leave to
think such obedience lawful, and for this
assign no other reason, but because they are
resolved to think so, or allege some places of
scripture, which they will be sure to under
stand iu their own sense, though persons
rauch raore nuraerous and knowing than they
understand them in a far different one ; and
theu, after all, shall have this accepted by
governors, as a sufficient reason to exempt
them frora the coraraon obligation that the
law designs to lay upon every subject ; there
is no doubt but that, by this course, the very
foundation of peace and governraent will
quickly be unsettled, and the wbole fabric of
church aud state thrown back into its forraer
confusion. And thus rauch for the third particular
proposed for the handling the words, naraely,
to shew by what meaus we might be enabled
to the great duty of living peaceably. I come
now to the fourth and last, which is to shew,
I'V. What are the motives aud arguraents
by which this duty may be enfored. I sup
pose, raany may be gathered here and there
from what has been already delivered, aud
therefore I shall bo the briefer in this.

428

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.  Sebh.L

1. The first enforcing argument that I shall
propound, shall be taken from the excellency
of the thing itself ; which indeed is so gre.at,
tbat the highest appellations of honour record
ed in scripture are derived from peace. God
himself is pleased to insert it amongst his own
titles, and to be called " the God of peace,"
(Rom. XV. 33.) It is also the honourable narae
of the Messiah, that he was to be " the Prince
of Peace," (Isaiah, ix. 6 ;) and that in the raost
eminent manner that could be : for he designed
the time of his nativity wheu there was a
general peace over the wliole world iu the
reign of Augustus Caesar. And the first mes
sage that was sent from heaven upon his
nativity was amessage of peace ; (Luke, ii. 14,)
" Glory be to God on high, and on earth peace,
good-will towards men." The whole doctrine
that by himself and his apostles he preached
to mankind is called " the gospel of peace,"
and " the word of peace," (Rom. x. 15.) The
last legacy that he bequeathed to his disciples
at his departure out of the world was a legacy
of petice ; (Johu, xiv. 27,) " My peace I leave
with you, my peace I give unto you : not as
the world giveth, give I unto you." And the
works of the Holy Ghost in the hearts of
believers are expressed by the same thing,
(Galat. V, 22,) " The fruit of the Spirit is love,
joy, peace." And in the last place, both the
eff'ects and rewards of piety are set forth by
this, (Rom. xv. 13,) " The God of hope fill you
with all joy and peace in believing." In a
word, there is no one virtue or excellent
quality in the world, from which there be
half so many denominations of honour and
expressions of blessing taken by the penmen
of holy writ, as from peace. It is the very
style and phrase of scripture ; and if I should
endeavotir to mention how often it is thus
used in it, I must not .so much quote particu
lar texts, as transcribe books and chapters.
Now certainly that must needs be a glorious
tiling, that thus gives titles of glory to the
Prince of glory, that thus fills the heraldry of
heaven, and calls gifts, graces, blessings, and
every good thiug, after its owu name. The
heathen custom was to derive their names of
honour frora the triumphs of war, as Numi-
dicus, Asiaticus, Africanus : but Christiau
religion, that carae to unite and cement society,
to compose differences, aud to conquer minds
only, ha-s made up its catalogue of honours
wit'h naraes of peiioe, a virtue of a more benigu
nature, that can adorn one mau without the
disgrace of another.
2. The second motive to peace shall be
taken frora the excellency of the principle
frora which peaceableness of spirit proceeds.
It is from a pious, a generous, and a great
mind. Littie things are querulous ; and the
wasp much more angry and troublesome than
the eagle. He that can slight affronts, despise
revenge, aud rather suffer an inconvenience

than employ his passion to remove it, declara
himself above the injuries of men, and that
though others would disturb him, yet bewill
not be disturbed, he is too strong to be shaken-
and so, has both his quietness and his repiitjl
tion in his own keeping.
Now certainly it is more desirable to be
such a person, than to be a subject and a slate
to every man's distemper and imprudeni*;
for so he is whom every raan is able to emu.
perate and disquiet : he has let go hishappi.
ness, and put it into the power of those who |
regard not their owu ; and therefore is forced
to be raiserable, whensoever any other man
shall think fit to be proud, insolent, and pat,
sionate. I suppose I need no greater argument
to recommend a peaceable temper, than tke
misery of such a condition.
3. The third motive to peace shall betaken
frora the consequent blessing entailed upon it
by a peculiar proraise, (Matth. v. 9,) "Blessed
are the peaceraakers ;" and I raay add, by a
parity of reason, no less blessed are the peace-
preservers. The treasures of heaven are
opened, and the designs of Providence laid, to
serve the interest of the peaceable. All con
tingencies, unusual passages and casualties ol
aft'airs, shall conspire into a happy event, in re
ference to such persons. For when God intends!
a blessing, a blessing with an eraphasis and a
peculiarity, as he does here, he takes a man
into a nearer tuition, espouses his concern!,
directs his actions, and orders his occasions,
I do not doubt but the blessing here pro
nounced to the peaceable is such an one ai
reaches heaven, and runs forth into eternity,
and does not deterraine in these transient
enjoyraents and earthly felicities ; yet since
these also lie in thebow'els of the promise, and
may come in as a fair overplus, or serve as a
comfortable earnest of those greater happi
nesses that as yet are but within our pro
spect ; I shall take notice of two instanw)
of this blessing, that will certainly attend the
peaceable in this world.
(1.) The first is au easy, undisturbed, and
quiet enjoyraent of ourselves. While a man
is careful to keep the peace with others, he
will in the rebound find the influence of it
upon himself. He has no enmities to prose
cute, no revenges to beware of, no suspicions
to discompose his mind. But he that wi"
disturb others, of necessity casts himself under
all those evils. For he that affronts or injures
a man, must be at the trouble to raake that
affront good ; he must also expect that tbe
affronted person waits for an opportunity to
repay him with a shrewd recompense;
whereupon he is to be always upon his guard,
to hearken and look about, and contrive how
he may frustrate the intended blow. All
which is a continual torment and a sad vexa
tion ; and like being upon the watch ewry
night, while others are at their rest.

5 ON ROMANS, xii. 18.

429

' But theu the chiefest raisery of all is this,
that as it is a very restless, so it is a very
;iieedless condition. For what necessity is
'there that I should undertake the trouble of
^troubling another? Why should I take so
much pains to be disturbed and out of order,
(When the charge at which I may purchase ray
town quietness is no greater than only to let
other meu enjoy theirs ? If I should strike
lauy one a great blow on the teeth, it is very
1 probable that I may bruise my own hand as
I well as hurt his face.
j But the peaceable man is composed and
.settled in the most of those disturbances that
^embroil the world round about him. He can
sleep in a storm, because he had no hand iu
jthe raising it. He conjured no evil spirit up,
and so is not put upon the trouble to conjure
jhira down again. He is like a sword resting
in its scabbard, which, by that means, both
hurts nobody and preserves itself.
(2.) The other instauce of the great blessing
attending the peaceable in this world, is that
honour and reputation which such a temper
of mind and course of life fixes upon their
persons. Every one looks upou such a man
as a public blessing, as a gift from heaven, as
a help and remedy to the frailties and raiseries
of mankind. There is none but is forced to
confess that he has been the better for such an
one ; and consequently, to acknowledgo a debt
to Providence, that ever he knew him or
conversed with him.
But ou the contrary, is there any one tbat
prays for or honours a plague, a rat, a serpent,
or, which is worse than all, a false and a
malicious informer ? As amongst all the trees
and plants of the earth the bramble is the
raost troublesome, so it is also the most con
temptible. It is the great and notable curse
of the earth to bear briers aud thorns : and it
is also their doom to be burnt ; and I kuow
nobody that would find a miss ofthem.
For wheu such persons are reraoved, afflicted
society seems to have a little respite and time
of breathing : for while they have scope to act
[ the mischief of their temper, they are like
some flies, that first by their venom make a
sore, and theu set upou it aud afflict it.
But it being the uature of mankind to
fasten an honour there only where they fiud
either soraething like to God, or beneficial to
theraselves ; let not such nuisances think that
any generous mind can either honour or
affect them ; for such can be considerable for
nothing, but because they are able to do
mischief ; and I know nothing so vile or base
in uature, but that sometimes it has power to
do hurt. Is there any thiug more weak and
pitiful than a flea or a gnat? and yet they
have sting and sharpness enough to trouble a
wiae man.
It is therefore the peaceable mind only, the
miud which studies how to compose, and

heal, and bind up the bleeding wounds of
society, that is truly great and honourable.
The name of such is like au ointraent poured
forth, which we kuow is both healing and
fragrant. Honour and respect court them
and pursue them ; and when they have
finished a glorious life here, ennobled by tbe
good offices done by theni, their report sur
vives theni, aud their memory is blessed.
Their narae is glorified upon earth, aud their
souls in heaveu.

SERMON LL
" The wages of sin is death."— Romans, vi. 23.
The two great thiugs which make such a
disturbance in the world, are siu and death ;
the latter both the effect and punishment of
the forraer. Sin, I confess, is an obvious
subject, and the theme almost of every dis
course ; but yet it is not discoursed of so
much, but that it is coraraitted much more :
it being like that ill custom spoken of by
Tacitus iu Rorae, " semper vetabitur, semper
retinebitur." But while the danger continues, we must
not give over the alarm ; nor think a discourse
of sin superfluous, while the commission of it
is continual, and yet the prevention necessary.
In the words, we have a near and a close
conjunction betweeu the greatest object ofthe
worhi's love, which is sin, and the greatest
object of its liatred, which is death. Aud we
see thera presented to us in such a vicinity,
that they are in the very confines of one au
other ; death treading upon the heels of sin,
its hateful, yet its inseparable companion.
And it is wonderful to consider, that men
should so eagerly court the antecedent, and
yet so strangely detest the consequent ; that
they should pour gall into the fountain, and
yet cry out of the bitterness of tbe stream :
and lastly, which is of all things the raost
unreasonable, that a workman should com
plain, that he is paid his wages.
The scope and desigu of the words I shall
draw forth, and prosecute in the discussion of
these three following things :
I. 1 shall shew what sin is, which is here
followed with so severe a penalty as death.
II. I shall shew what is coraprised iu death,
which is here allotted for the sinner's wages.
III. And lastly, I shall shew in what re
spect death is properly called " the wages of
siu." Of each of which in their order. And,
I. For the first of these, what siu is. Aud
according to the raost knowu and received
definition of it, is duofiix, " a breach of the
law ;" a transgression, or leaping over those

430

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Skhk. li_

boundaries which the eternal wisdom of God
has set to a rational nature : a receding from
that exact rule and measure which God has
prescribed to moral actions. This is the
general notion of it ; but as for the particular
difficulties, disputes, and controversies, which
some have started upon this subject, and by
which they have made the law of God alraost
as ambiguous and voluminous as the laws of
meu, I shall wave them all ; and not being
desirous to be either nice or prolix, shall
speak of sin only under that known division
of it, into original and actual.
1. And first, for original sin. It may seem
strange, perhaps, that sin bears date with our
very being ; and indeed, in some respect, pre
vents it : that we were sinners before we were
born ; and seem to have been held in the
womb, not only as infants for the birth, but
as malefactors in a prison. And that, if we
look upon our interest in this world, our for
feit was much earlier than our possession ;
" We are," says the apostle, " by nature chil
dren of wrath," (Ephes. ii. 3.) Not ouly by
depravation, or custom, and ill-contracted
habits, but Ijy nature ; the first principle and
source of action. And nature we know is as
entire, though not as strong, in an infant as
iu a grown man. Indeed the strength of
mau's natural corruption is so great, that
every man is born an adult sinner. Sin is
the only thing in the world which never had
an infancy, that knew no minority. " Tau-
tillus puer, tantus peccator," says Saint Aus
tin. Could we view things in semine, and
look through principles, what a ne.st of impu
rities might we see in the heart of the least
infant! like a knot of little snakes wrapt up
in a dunghill ! What a radical, productive
force of sin might we behold iu all his facul
ties, ready upou occasion, and the maturities
of age, to display itself with a cursed fertility !
There are sorae, I know, who deuy that
which we here call original sin, to be indeed
propei'ly any sin at all ; and will have it at
the most, not to be our fault, but our infe
licity. And their reason is, because nothing
can be truly and properly sin, which is not
voluntary : but original corruption in infants
cannot be voluntary ; since it precedes all
exercise of their rational powers, their under
standing and their will.
But to this I answer, that original corrup
tion in every infant is voluntary, not indeed
in his own person, but iu Adam his represen
tative ; whose actions, while he stood in that
capacity, were virtually, and by way of im
putation, the acts of all his posterity : as
araongst us, when a person serves in parlia
ment, all that he votes in that public capacity
or condition, is truly and politically to be
esteeraed the vote of all those persons for
whom he stands, and serves as representative.
Now inasmuch as Adam's sin was free and

voluntary,and also imputed to all his posterity,
it follows, that their original corruption, t£e
direct and proper effect of this sin, must be
equally voluntary ; and being withal irregular,
must needs be sinful.
Age aud ripeness of j'ears does not gite*
being, but only opportuuity to sin. Thati
principle, which lay dorraant and inacti»e
before, is then drawn forth into sinful scti
and commissions. When a man is grown np,
his corruption does not begin to exist, but to
appear ; and to spend upon that stock, whieh
it hiid long before.
Pelagius indeed tells us, that the sons of
Adam came to be sinners only by imitation,
But then, I would know of him, what those
first inclinations are, whicli dispose ns to such
bad iraitations ? Certainly, that cannot hut
be sinful, which so powerfully, and almost
forcibly inclines us to sin.
We may conclude therefore, that even this
original, native corruption renders the person!
who have it obnoxious and liable to death,
Au evil heart will condemn us, though Provi
dence should prevent its mnning forth into
an evil life. Sin is sin, whether it rests in
the inclinations, or shoots out into the ptas-
tice ; and a toad is full of poison though he
never spits it.
2. The other branch, or rather sort of sin,
is that which we call actual. This is the
highest iraproveraent of the forraer ; the con
stant flux and ebullition of that corrupt foiin-
tain iu the course of a vicious life : that
" abundance of the heart" declared inexpre*-
sions, and made visible in actions. It is that
which Saint John calls " the works of the
devil," (1 John, iii. 8,) and the apostle Paul,
" the deeds of the flesh," (Rom. viii. 13,) and
" a walking and living after the flosh ;" with
other such like descriptions.
Now actual sin may be considered two
ways : —
fl.) According to the subject-matter of it.
(2.) According to the degree.
For the first ; considered according to the
subject-matter of it, it is divided into the sin
of our words, the siu of our actions, and the
sin of our desires ; according to that short, but
full account given of it by the schools, that it
is " dictum, factum, aut concupitum cento
legem Dei," —something said, done, or desired
against the rule of God's law.
(1.) And first, for the sin of our words;
the irregularity of them is, no doubt, sinful,
and imprints a guilt upon the speaker.
We cannot say in that lofty strain of those
in Psalm xii. 4, "Our tongues are ourov»n:
who is lord over us ?" No ; we have both a
lord and a law over us ; and our tongues are
not so much our own, as to privilege tie
greatest princes and the most illustrious drolB
frora being responsible for their extravagance.
A word is quickly spoke, but the guilt of it »

ON ROMANS, xii. 18.

431

abides ; like au arrow, it flies swift, and it
sticks fast. And our Saviour assures us, that
" every idle word" stands upon record to be
oue day accouuted for. And that word is
such, which is either directed to no eud, or
not to a right oue. A defect in either of
which leaves an iramorality behind it. For,
as it is in Matthew, xii. 37, " By thy words
thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou
shalt be condemned." Thy own tongue
shall give in evidence against thee ; and thy
soul shall pass to hell through thy own mouth.
(2.) The second sort of actual sin is the sin
of our external actions ; that is, of such as
are perforraed, not by iraraediate production
or eraanation frora the will, but by coraraand
of the will upon sorae exterior part or raera
ber of the body, as the proper instruraent of
action. Such as are the acts of theft, mur
der, uncleanness, and the like. To prove
which to be sins, no raore is required but ouly
to read over the law of God, aud to acknow
ledge its authority. They being wrote in
such big, broad, and legible characters, that
the times of the gro.isest ignorance were never
ignorant of the guilt and turpitude insepa
rably inherent in them. And where the
written letter of the law came not, there, ac
cording to the apostle's phrase, men, as to
these particulars, " were a law to themselves,"
and by perusing that little book, which every
man carried in his own breast, could quickly
find enough, both to discover and to conderan
those enorraities.
(3.) The third sort of actual sin is the sin
of our desires. Desires are the first issues aud
s.allyings out of the soul to unlawful objects.
They are sin, as it were, iu its first formation.
For as soon as the heart has once conceived
this fatal seed, it first quickens and begins to
stir iu desire : concupiscence is the prirae aud
leading sin, which gives life and influence to
all the rest, so that the ground and principal
prohibition of the law is, "Thou shalt ndt
covet." And in Matthew v. we see how
severely the gospel arraigns the very first
movings of every irregular appetite, making
them equal to the gross perpetration of the
sin. And indeed action is only a consumma
tion of desire ; and could we imagine an out
ward action perforraable without it, it would
be rather the shell and outside of a sin, than
properly a sin itself.
Npw all these three ways, naraely, by word,
action, and desire, does sin actually put forth
itself. And this is the division of it, as con
sidered according to its subject-matter.
The other consideration of actual sin is
according to the degree or measure of it ; aud
so also it is distinguished into several degrees
and proportions, according to which it is either
enhanced or lessened iri its malignity.
(1.) As first, when a man is engaged in a
sinful course by surprise and infirmity, and

the extreme frailty of his corrupt nature ;
when the customs of the world, and the un
ruliness of his affections, all conspiring with
outward circurastances, do, like a torrent, beat
him out of the paths of virtue, and, as it were,
whether he will or no, drive and bear hira
forward in the broad road to perdition : which
I take to be frequently the coudition of the
dangerous, unwary, hardy part of a raan's
life, his youth ; in which generally desire is
high, and reason low ; temptations ready, and
religion afar off. And iu such a case, if a
strict education, and an early infusion of
virtue, does not prepossessandseasonthe heart,
aud thereby prevent the powers of sin in their
first and most furious eruptions ; how is a
desperate wretch drawn forth into opeu rebel
lion against his Maker, iuto a contempt of all
goodness, and a love of those ways that can
tend to and end in nothing but his coufusion ?
And yet this is the most tolerable condition
that sin designs to bring the sinuer iuto. I
call it the most tolerable, because sin, left to
its natural course and tendency, would and
may plunge him into a much worse. Never
theless, if a remedy does not maturely inter
pose, this must certainly prove fatal, and the
end and " wages of it will be death."
(2.) The second degree of actual sin is,
when a mau pursues a course of sin against
the reluctancies of an awakened conscience,
aud the endeavours of his conversion : when
salvation waits aud knocks at the door of his
heart, and he both bolts it out and drives it
away : when he fights with the word, and
struggles with the Spirit ; and, as it were,
resolves to perish in spite of raercy itself, and
of the means of grace. This we raay see
exeraplified by several instances both iu the
Old 'Testament aud the New. Thus God up
braids the honse of Israel, (Isaiah, i. 6,) " Why
should ye be stricken any more? ye will
revolt yet more and raore." And is there any
thing more frequent than complaints of their
backsliding, their playing fast and loose with
God ; and their sinning against all God's
methods of reclairaing sinners? (Isaiah, Ivii.
17,) " I was wroth," says God, " and smote
hira : I hid rayself, aud was wroth, and he
went on frowardly in the way of his own
heart." Here we see God angry, and the sin-
nerunconcerned; God sraiting, aud yet the
sinuer still proceeding.
And the like examples we find of the Jews
sinning in our Saviour's time : they sinned
against clear light and irresistible conviction ;
with a hard heart and a daring hand. " If
ye were blind," says our Saviour, (John, ix.
41,) " ye should not have had sin." No, they
sinned knowingly and resolutely, with an
open eye and a bare face, as if they would even
look conscience itself out of countenance. If
our Saviour did wonders and rairacles before
them, they encountered miracle with miracles.

432

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS. Srrm. U.

and were as miraculous in their obstinacy as he
in his raighty works.
Now this is a more robust, iraproved, and
coufirmed way of sinning, than any sinner,
upou his first entrance into and engageraent
in the service of sin, ever rises to ; and it takes
in raany grains of guilt and malignity which
were not in the former ; it inflames the sinner's
reckoning ; it alters the nature and changes
the colour of his sin, and sets it off with a
deeper stamp and a more crimson dye.
(3.) The third and last degree of actual siu
is, wheu a man sins, uot only in opposition, but
also in defiance to conscience ; so breaking all
bonds, so trampling upon all convictions, that
he becoraes not only unruly and intractable,
but finally obstinate and incorrigible. And
this is the utraost,- the ne pliis ultra oi iuiTpiety,
which shuts the door of mercy, and seals the
decree of damnation.
For this we are to reckon upon, that there
is a certain pitch of sin, a certain degree of
wickedness, though known to God himself
alone, beyond which God never pardons ; (uot
that it is in its uature unpardonable, but th.at
God, according to the wise and unsetirchable
econoray of his dealing with sinners, after such
a height of provocation, withdraws his grace,
and surce.ases the operations of his Spirit, by
which alone the heart can be effectually
changed or wrought upon.) So that these
being thus withdrawn, the sinner never actu.al-
ly repents or returns ; but being left to him
self, and the uncontrolled sway of his own
corruptions, he still goes ou sinning, till he
ends his wretched course iu final impenitence.
And this, no doubt, is the true sense of all
those scriptures that represent God limiting
his grace to "a certain day :" the neglect of
which (like the last and fatal line drawu under
the sinner's accounts) leaves him nothing
more to expect, but a dreadful pajment ; or,
as the apostle calls it, " a fearful looking for
of judgnieut." For as soon as ever the sinner
has filled the cup of God's wrath, the next
infusion makes it run over.
And thus I have shewn the several degrees
of actual sin, the several steps and descents by
vvhich the siuner goes down into the regions
of death and the bottomless pit.
Now this differs from original sin thus, that
that is properly the seed, this the harvest ;
that merits, this actually procures deatli. For
although as soon as ever the seed be cast in,
there is a design to reap ; yet, for the raost
part, God does not actually put in the sickle,
till continuance iu sin has made the sinuer
ripe for destruction.
II. Come we now to the second generiil
thing proposed ; whicli is, to shew what is
included and comprised in death, which is here
allotted for the sinner's wages.
De.'ith is the great enemy of nature, the
devourer of maukind ; that vvhich is con

tinually destroying and making havock ofthe
creation : and we shall see the full latitude of
it, if we consider it as it stands divided into ]
temporal and eternal. . ]
1. And first, for death temporal. We mnit
not take it in that restrained sense, as it im.
ports only the separation of the soul from tbe j
body : for that is rather the consummation of !
death, than death itself: it is properly the end- ]
ing stroke, the last blow given to the falling
tree. j
But we must take it in a larger compass
and comprehension; as it is a summary and
compendious abridgment of all those' evils
which afflict human nature ; of all those cala
mities and disasters, which by degrees weaken,
and at length dissolve the body.
Look upon those harbingers and forerunners
of death, diseases ; they are but some of the
" wages of sin" paid us beforehand. 'What
are pains and aches, and the torments of the
gout aud of the stone, which lie pulling at our ,j
earthly t.abernacle, but so many ministers and
under-agents of death ? What are catarrhs
and ulcers, coughs and dropsies, but so many
mementos of a liastening dissolution, so many
foretastes of the grave ? What is a consump
tion, but a lingering, gradual rotting, before
we are laid uuder ground ? What is a burn
ing fever, but hell in a shorter and a weaker
fire? And to these diseases of the body we may
add the consuming cares and troubles of the
mind ; the toil, and labour, aud racking in
tention of the brain: all made necessary by
the first sin of man ; and which do as really,
though not as sensibly impair and exhaust the
vitals, as the most visible, corporeal diseases
do, or can do ; and let in death to the body,
though by auother door.
Moreover, to these miseries, which reach
us in our persons, we may subjoin those whicli
attend our condition ; those which we are
liable to in our names and estates ; as the
shame aud infamy, which makes men a scorn
to others, and a burden to themselves ; which
takes off the gloss and air of all other enjoy
ments, and damps the quickness, the vigour,
.and vivacity of the spirit. Also the miseries
of poverty aud want, which leave the neces
sities and the conveniencies, that is to say, the
second necessities of nature unsupplied : when
a man shall be forced to make his meals upon
hunger aud expectation ; to be clothed vvitb
rags, and to converse with filth ; ami to live
only upon those alms which the covetousiie*»
or the surfeit of other men can spare.
Now all these things are so mauy breaches
made upon our happiness aud well-beingi
without which life is not life, but a bare, thm,
insipid existence ; and therefore certainly «
cannot deny them to be parts of death, wne^
perhaps from this reason, that upon a true ts"-
mate of thiugs, they are indeed iiiueh worse.

ON ROMANS, vi. 23.

43J

And thus we have seen death in the first
fruits of it ; how by degrees it creeps upon us,
how many engines it plants against us, how
mauy assaults it gives, till at length it ends
its fatal progress in the final divorce whioh it
makes between soul and body, never resting
till it has abased us to our primitive earth,
and to the dishonours of stench, rottenness,
and putrefaction.
2. But, secondly, the grand payment of the
sinner's wages is iu death eternal : in com
parison of which, the other can scarce be
called dJath ; but ouly a transient change, a
short darkness upou nature ; easily borne, or
at least quickly past.
Bnt wheu eternity comes into the balance,
it adds an infinity to the weight, aud sinks
it down to an immense disparity. Etemal
death is not only the sinner's punishment,
but his araazeraent : no thought, uo created
reason can take the length of an endless
duration. But there are also sorae other concoraitant
properties of this death, whieh vastly increase
and aggravate the horror of it, besides the
bare considerations of its eternity.
(1.) As first, that it bereaves a raan of all
the pleasures and comforts which he enjoyed
in this world ; the loss of which, liow poor
and contemptible soever they are in thera
selves, yet surely raust needs be very afflictive
to him who had placed his whole entire happi
ness in them : aud therefore to be stript of all
these, and to be cast naked and forlorn into
utter darkness and desertion, cannot but be
infinitely tormenting, though a man should
meet with no other tormentors in that place.
For to have strong, eager, immense desires,
and a perpetual bar and divorce put between
them and their beloved objects, will of itself
be hell enough, though the " worm should
die," and the "fire should be quenched."
For how will the drunkard, the epicure,
and the wanton, bear the abseuce aud reraoval
of those things that alone used to please their
fancy, and to gratify their lust ! For here
will be neither ball nor masks, plays nor
mistresses, for the gallant to entertain hira
self with ; here will be corapany indeed good
store, but no good-fellowship ; roaring enough,
but no ranting in this place. With what a
killing regret raust the conderaned worldling
look back upou his rich manors and his large
estate, his parks and his pleasant gardens ! to
which there is now no return for him, but
only by thought and remembrance ; which
can serve him for nothing but to heighten his
anguish by a bitter comparison of his past and
present condition. And this is sorae of the
fruit of sin, which, by carrying out the heart
to a vicious, irregular enjoyraent of the things
of this life, which quickly have an end,
treasures up in the same heart materials for
such a sorrow as shall have none.
VOL, II.

(2.) Eternal death bereaves the soul of that
infinite, inexpressible good, the beatific frui
tion of God. The greatest and the quickest
misery of a condemned sinner is the sense of
loss. And if the loss of those puny temporal
enjoyments make so great a part of his
punishment, as I have shewn it does, what
then shall we say of the loss of that, which
was the only thing which gave life and spirit
to all those enjoyments ! which gave them
that substance, and suitableness to onr nature,
as to render them properly felicities I For all
the comfort that God conveys to the creature,
coraes from the sensible, refreshing discoveries
of his presence. " In thy presence," says the
Psalmist, " there is fulness of joy," (Psalm
xvi. 11.) This is the reviving light which
scatters all the darknesses aud disraal blacks
of sorrow ; that wipes off all tears ; the happy
sunshine, which dries up those disconsolate
dews. For as it is the presence of the king
which makes the court, so it is the peculiar
presence of God which makes heaven ; which
is uot so much the name of a place, as of a
state or condition.
But now there is an everlasting cloud drawn
betweeu this and a sinner under daranation.
God hides himself for ever ; so that this is the
sura and height of the sinner's doom, that he
is condemned eternally to feel God's hand,
and never to see his face.
(3.) And lastly, eternal death fills both
body and soul with most intense pain, and
the highest torment and anguish which can
be received within a created, finite capacity.
All the woes, griefs, and terrors whioh hu
raanity can labour under, shall then, as it
were, unite, and really seize upon the soul at
once. " I ara tormented iu this flarae," says
the rich man, (Luke, xvi. 24.) And surely a
bed of flames is but an uneasy thing for a
man to roll hiraself upon to all eternity. The
sufferings which shall attend this estate uo
tongue cau express, no heart cau conceive.
Pain shall possess the body ; horror, agony,
and despair, shall rack tbe mind : so that the
whole raan shall be raade the receptacle and
sceue of raisery, the tragical sceue for ven
geance to act its utraost upon, and to shew
how far a creature is capable of being tor
mented without the loss of its being ; the
continuance of which, under those circum
stances, is but a raiserable privilege, and
would gladly be exchanged for annihilation.
For every lash which God then gives the sin
ner shall be with a scorpion ; every pain
which he inflicts shall be raore eager thau
appetite, raore cruel than revenge ; every
faculty, both of soul and body, shall have its
distinct, proper, aud peculiar torment apislied
to it, and be directiy struck there, where it
has the quickest, the tenderest, and the
sharpest sense of any painful irapression.
God seldom punishes or afflicts iu this
2 E

434

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Ser .li.

world, but it is -with some allay of mercy ;
some mixture of clemency, which eveu in the
midst of misery may yet support hope. But
when sin has lodged the sinuer in hell, the
cup which God then administers shall be all
justice without raercy, all wrath and venom,
all dregs aud yet no bottora ; a cup never to
be drank off, inexhaustibly full, inconceivably
bitter. But I shall use no other argument to evince
the greatness of those torments but ouly this,
that the DevU shall be the instrument of
their execution. And surely a mortal enemy
will be a dreadful executioner ; and the
punishment which an infinite justice inflicts
by the hand of an implacable malice must
needs be intolerable.
And thus I have despatched the second
general thing proposed ; which was to shew,
what is included and coraprised in death,
which is here allotted for the sinner's wages.
I proceed now to the
Third and last ; which is to shew, in what
respect death is properly called " the wages of
sin." I conceive it may be upon these two
following accounts :
1. Because the payraent of wages still pre
supposes service aud labour. And undoubtedly
the service of sin is of all others the most
painful and laborious. It will engross all a
man's industry, drink up all his time ; it is a
drudgery without intermission, a business
without vacation.
We read of " the mystery of iniquity ;"
and certainly the mystery of no trade can be
attained without a long and a constant
sedulity. " Nerao repente fit turpissimus." It
is the business of a life to be a coraplete sinner.
Suoh as are the commands of siu, such must
be also the service. But the commands of sin
are for their number continual, for their
vehemence importunate, and for their burden
tyrannical. Siu is said to conceive and to bring forth ;
and there is no birth without pain and
travail. God conderaned Adam upon his
transgression to the turmoils of sweat and
labour ; but one would have thought, that he
might have spared this malediction, when
labour is not only the consequent, but the
very nature of sin. To dig the earth is mau's
punishment ; but the siu whioh deserves it is
the greater labour.
For is there any work so toilsome, so full of
fatigue and weariness, as to be always at the
call of an unlimited appetite, at the command
of au insatiable corruption ? The Greek is
emphatical, and describes the nature of sin in
its name ; for ¦jrouripix, which siguifies sin or
wickedness, takes its derivation from -n-iuo;,
which signifies labo^ir. So that the readiest
way, it seeras, to fulfil the apostle's precept in
1 Thess. iv. 11, of " studying to be quiet," is
to study to be innocent.

And were there nothing else in sin but the
discomposing and ruffling of that serene, quiet,
and undisturbed frame of spirit, which nahi-
rally attends a true and steady virtue, it were
enough to endear the one, and to discommend
the other. For sin seldom acts, but in the
strength of some passion ; and passion never
moves but with turault aud agitation : there
being scarce any passion but has its contraiy
to thwart and to encounter it ; so that still
the actings of them represent a kind of little
war iu the soul ; and accordingly, as.tiie pro
phet Isaiah says of " every battie of the
warrior," so we raay say of every stirring of a
high passion, that it is " with confused noise."
The " still voice" of reason is drowned, the
sober counsels of religion are stifled, and
not heard. A.nd must uot that man, think
we, needs be very miserable, who has always
such a din and hurry in his breast? His
passions raging, and his vicious appetites
haling and pulling him, sometimes to this
object, sometimes to a contrary! So that
what through the clamour, and what throngh
the convulsion of exorbitant clashing desires,
the soul is in a rent, distracted condition;
like ActsBon amongst his dogs, that first bawl
about his ears, and then tear hira to pieces.
The tmth of this is sufficientiy manifest,
frora the general theory of the thing itself;
but the same will appear yet more evidently
by running over particular instances.
And first, take the voluptuous debauched
epicure. What hour of his life is vacant
from the slavish injunctions of his vice!
Is he not continually spending both his
tirae and his subsistence to gratify his
taste? and, as it were, to draw all the
elements to his table, to make a sacriflce to
the deity of his belly ? And then, how uneasy
are the consequences of his luxurjr I ¦when he
is to grapple with surfeit and indigestion,
with his morning fumes and crudities, and
other low and ignoble disterapers, the effecte
of a brutish eating ; thus having his stomach
always like a kitchen, both for fulness and
for filth.
And next,. for the interaperate drinker; is
not his life a continual toil ? To be sittmg
up when others sleep, and to go to bed when
others rise ; to be exposed to drunken quar
rels and to sordid converse ; to have rednes
of eyes, rheums, and distillations ; a weakened
body, aud a besotted mind ?
And then for the adulterer and unclean
person ; upon what hard employments dofi

his lust put him ! first to contrive, plot.

and
oi'd the ;

compass its satisfaction, and then to avo
furies of au enraged jealousy, and to keep »
the shame of an infamous discovery. ^' ,
find the adulterer, in Job, xxiv. 16, "digging
through houses," till at length, perhaps, n
digs his own grave too ; and by a laborioui .
pursuit comes to an ignominious end. ii

ON ROMANS, vi. 23.

435

Aud lastly, for the covetous, scraping
usurer. It is a question whether he gathers
or keeps his pelf with most anxiety ; he is
restless to get, and fearful to lose ; but always
solicitous, and at work. And perhaps those
who labour in the mines are not so busy as
those who own them. But I need say no
more of such a person but this, that his
business is as vast and endless as his desires ;
aud greater it cannot be.
Aud thus I have shewn the toil of sin, in
several particulars, to which many more
might be added. In short, if idleness were
not a sin, there were scarce any sin but what
is laborious.So that now the retribution of death fol
lowing such hard and painful service, may
properly bear the denomination of " wages ;"
and be reputed rather a payment than a
punishmeut. 2. The other reason why death is called
" the wages of sin," is because wages do
always imply a merit iu the work, requiring
such a compensation. Sin and death are
compared together as sowing and reaping :
aud we all account it a thiug of the highest
reason and equity in the world, that he who
sows should also reap : " He who sows to the
flesh," says the apostle, (Gal. vi. 8,) " shall of
the flesh reap corruption." The evil of sin is
every way comraeusurate to the evil of death ;
retaliation is the very nature aud spirit of
justice ; aud that a raan who does an action
contrary to another's good, should be made to
expiate it by a suffering contrary to his own,
is but proportion.
But to this some make that trite and
popular objection, that since the same is the
measure and extent of things contrary ; and
since our good works canuot raerit eternal
life ; it should follow also, that ueither cau
our sius, our evil works, merit eternal death.
But to this I answer, that the case is very
different iu these two. For to the nature of
raerit, it is required that the action be not
due ; but now every good action being
enjoined and coramanded by the law of God,
is thereby made due, and consequently canuot
merit : whereas, on the contrary, a sinful action
being 9Mi<i«»(^ete«»i, altogether undue; aud uot
at all comraanded, but prohibited, it becomes
properly meritorious ; and, according to the
malignity of its nature, it merits eternal death.
But sorae will yet farther urge ; that in re
gard a sinful action is in itself but of a finite
uature, and withal proceeds from a finite
agent ; there seems to be nothing of propor
tion between that, aud an endless, eternal
punishment. For what is mau but a weak,
mutable creature at the best ? And what is
sin, but a vanishing action, which is per
formed in the compass of a few minutes, and
not to be laid iu the scale with the inexhaus
tible measures of perpetuity ?

But to this also we answer, that the merit
of sin is not to be rated, either by the sub
stance of the act, or by the narrowness and
poorness ofthe agent ; but it is to be measured
by the proportions of its object, and the great
ness of the person against whom it is done.
And therefore being committed against an
iufinite majesty, it greatens, and rises to the
height of an infinite demerit.
Nevertheless, because men are apt to thiuk
that God treats them upou hard terms, aud to
view sin with a more favourable eye, I shall
in a word or two shew what there is in the
nature of sin, whioh renders it so highly pro
voking, as to deserve the greatest evil that
omnipotence itself can inflict upon the crea
ture. And,
1st, Siu is a direct stroke at God's sove
reignty. Hence we read of the " kingdom of
Satan," in contradistinction to the " kingdom
of God :" and in the conversion of a sinuer,
wheu grace is wrought in the heart, " the
kingdom of God " is said to corae into it : and
the whole econoray of the gospel is styled the
" kingdora of heaven." So that sin had trans
lated God's subjects iuto a uew dorainion : as
araongst raen, he who has coraraitted a felony
or a murder, usually flies the territories of his
lawful prince ; and so living in another king
dom, puts himself under the necessity of a new
subjection. Thus sin invades the throne of God, usurps
his royalty, and snatches at his sceptre. But
now there is nothing so tender, and sensibly
jealous of the least encroachment, as preroga
tive : the throne admits of no partner, endures
no corapetitor. Rule and enjoy all Egypt, says
Pharaoh to Joseph, but still with this reserve,
that " iu the throne I will be greater than
thou." No wonder therefore if God punishes siu,
which is indeed treason agaiust the King of
kings, with death ; for it puts the question.
Who shall reign ? It grasps at all, it strikes
high, and is properly a blow given to the
supreraacy. 2dly, Sin strikes at God's very being. In
Psalra xiv. 1, " The fool," that is, the sinner,
" has said in his heart. There is no God ;"
and if this be his belief, it is so, because it
was first his desire. Sin would step not ouly
into God's throne, but also into his roora.
And it matters not, that the infinite perfec
tion of God sets him far above the boldest
reaches of his rebel-creature. For it is enough
to see the attempts of raalice : God takes an
estiraate of the sinner by his will ; he is as
much a serpent now he hisses, as if he stung ;
for whatsoever a man has an heart to wish, if
he had power he would certainly effect.
And now, if all this malignity lies wrapt up
in the bowels of sin, let none wonder how it
coines to deserve death ; but admire rather,
that God has not invented something greater

436

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Serm. LII.

thau death, if possible, to revenge the provo
cation. And thus I have finished the third and last
general thing proposed to be handled from the
words ; from which, and all the foregoing
particulars, what can we so naturally and so
directly infer, aud learn, as the infinite, in
credible folly, which acts and possesses the
heart of man in all its purposes to sin ! still
proposing to the sinner nothing but pleasure
and enjoyment, advantage and emoluraent,
from the coramission of that which will in
fallibly subject him to all the miseries and
killing sorrows that humanity is capable of.
Sin plays the bait before him, the bait of a
little, contemptible, silly pleasure or profit ;
but it hides from his view that fatal hook,
which shall strike through his heart and liver,
and by which that great catcher and devourer
of souls shall hold him fast, and drag him
down to his eternal execution. The conse
quent appendant miseries of sin are studiously
kept from the sinner's notice ; his eye must
not see what his heart will certainly rue ; but
he goes on pleasantly and unconcernedly, and
acts a more cruel, inhuman butchery upon his
own soul, than ever .any self-murderer did
upon his owu body.
I shall close up all with that excellent say
ing of the wisest of raen, (Prov. xiv. 9,) that
" fools make a mock at sin." Fools they are
indeed fordoing so. But is it possible for any
tiling that wears the name of reason, to be so
much a fool, as to make a mock at death too ?
Will a man play with hell, dally with a
scorpion, and sport himself with everlasting
burnings ?
In every sin which a man deliberately com
raits, he takes down a draught of deadly poison.
In every lust which he cherishes, he erabraces
a dagger, and opens his bosom to destruction.
In fine, I have endeavoured to shew what
sin is, and what death is, the certain inevitable
" wages of sin ;" and so, have only this short
advice to add, and to conclude with : he who
likes the wages, let him go about the work.

SERMON LII.
•* Blessed are tlie pure in heart; for they shaU see God."
Matt. v. 8.
It may at first seem something wonderful,
especially since the times of the gospel, that
there should be so few men in the world
happy, when happiness is so freely offered and
proposed by God, and withal so universally
and eagerly desired by men. But the obvi
ousness ot the reason will quickly supersede

the ¦wonder, if we consider the perverse and
preposterous way of men's acting ; who, at
the same time, passionately pursue the end,
and yet overlook the means ; catch at the good
proposed, but abhor the condition of the pro
posal. For all would enjoy the felicity of
" seeing God," but scarce any can brook so
severe a duty as to maintain a " pure heart ;"
all would behold so entertaining and glorious
a sight, but few are willing to crowd for it
iuto the " narrow way." Men would recon
cile their future happiness with their present j
ease, pass to glory without submitting to the I
metliods of grace. So that the grand reason]
that so many go to hell, is because they would.
go to heaven for nothing : the truth is, they
would not go, but be " caught up to heaven ;"
they would (if I may use the expression)
coach it to the other worid, as Elias did ; but :
to live as the same Elias did in this world,
that they cannot bear. In fine, if we could'
peruse the black roll of all those who have
perished eternally, we should find that thi
generality of men are lost, because they can-!
not eat, drink, sleep, and play themselves intol
salvation. But this great sermon of our Saviour teaches j
us much otiier things ; a serraon fraught with
the most refined and elevated doctrine, the
most sublime and absolute raorality thateverN
was vented into the world ; far before all the;
precepts and raost applauded doctrine of the
philosophers ; yea, as far before them in per
fection aud purity, as they were before Chris
tianity in tirae. For they only played upon
the surface and outside of virtue, gilding the
actions, and giving sorae little varnish to the
external behaviour of raen : but Christianity
looks through all this, searches the reius, and
pierces into the inraost recesses of the sonl,
never resting till it stabs sin, and places virtue !.
in the very heart.
An erainent instance of which we liavoio
these words ; which being so very plain and
easy in theraselves, ought not to be encumbered
with auy superfluous explication ; and there
fore I shall pass immediately to the discussion
of them ; which I shall manage under these
four following heads. As,
I. I shall shew what it is to be " pure m
heart." II. What it is to " see God."
III. How this purity of heart fits and
qualifies the soul for the sight or vision ol
God. .
IV. And lastiy, make some brief use and
application of the whole.
I. Aud for the first of these, we mustkno^
that the nature of purity in general cannot oe
better explained, than by its opposition to
these two things, —
1. To mixture. 2. To pollution.
1. And first of all, it excludes mixture ; tM
is to say, all conjunction with any differe"""

ON MATTHEW, v. 8.

437

inferior nature ; purity still infers simplicity:
gold cannot be called pure, though never so
great in bulk, if it has but the least alloy of a
baser metal. Though there be in the heart
seeds of virtue, principles of goodness and
morality ; yet if blended with a greater, or
an equal degree of corruption, that heart cau
not challenge the denomination of pure : for,
as Solomon says, (Eccles. x. 1,) even so small
a thing as " a fly falling into the apothecary's
ointment will give it an offensive savour; and
one grain of folly will taint all the honour of
him who has a reputation for wisdom." In
this sense also is purity ascribed to the word
or law of God, (Psalm cxix. 14Q,) "Thy
word is pure, therefore thy servant loveth it :"
which is an elogy that cannot be truly given
to any other laws in the world, no, not to
those of the most renowned lawgivers, as of
Lycurgus, Solon, or Plato iu his Common
wealth, whose laws, though they enjoined
mauy worthy, virtuous, and noble actions, yet
still were debased by the addition of some
thing vile and filthy, not only allowed, but
soraetiraes also coraraended by them ; still
there was a vein of iraraorality running through
thera, that corrupted and defiled the whole
channel, aud the best of human laws have
still some mixture of imperfection.
But now all mixture or composition is a
kind of coufusion ; atterapting unity, where
nature has raade variety aud distinction. It
raises a certain war or faction in the sarae
corapound ; aud the very cause of death, dis
solution, and putrefaction, in all sublunary
bodies, is frora the contest and clashing of
contrary qualities upon raixture ; which never
takes away the innate enmity of contraries,
though it may compose their present quarrel.
Christ states this raatter fully in Matth. vi.
24, " No man," says he, " can serve two
masters ; for he will love the one, and hate
the other." In like manner, it is impossible,
for two opposite principles so to unite and
raix theraselves in the sarae heart, as equally
to command and share its obedience by such
just proportions, that it should at the same
time seriously intend the service of virtue
and the gratification of a vice. Now to give
things their due and exact appellations, I
conceive, in the sense hitherto spoken of, a
" pure heart " is properly the sarae with that
which is called in Scripture a " single heart."
2. Purity excludes also pollution, that is,
all adherence of filth and outward contagion ;
as a fountain is said to be pure, when there
is no dirt or soil cast into it, that may dis
colour or defile it. If the guilt of auy gross
sinful act cleaves to the conscience, that con
science presently loses its purity and virginity.
Every such sin falls upon it like a blot of ink
upon the finest linen or the cleanest paper.
In this sense Saint Paul enjoins purity to
Timothy; (1 Tim. v. 22,) "Keep thyself

pure," that is, free from the least taint of vice
or scandal. In this sense also Saint Paul
declares himself, in Acts, xx. 26, " pure from
the blood of all raen ;" that is, clear frora the
guilt or charge of the raurderous neglect of
souls. So that a " pure heart" thus taken,
is properly the same with that which David
calls a " clean heart ;" (Psalra li. 10,) " Create
in me, 0 God, a clean heart." For so rauch of
inherent sin, so rauch of filth and foulness.
The very frarae and make of man's heart is
but dust ; but sin degrades it still lower, and
turns it into dirt.
Having thus shewn what purity is in the
general notion of it, I shall now endeavour to
shew whereiu the purity of the heart cousists.
Aud that, —
First, by way of negation. It does not con
sist in the external exercise of religion ; the
heart does not always write itself upon the
outward actions. These may shine and glister,
while that in the meantime raay be noisome
and irapure. In a pool you raay see the
uppermost water clear, but if you cast your
eye to the bottom, you shall see that to be
dirt and mud. To rate a man's internals by
his externals, and what works in his breast
by what appears in his face, is a rule very
fallible. For we often see specious practices
spread over vile and base principles ; as a
rotten, unwholesome body may be clothed
and covered with the finest silks. There is
often a jii,tyx x<xapi,x, many leagues' distance
between a man's behaviour and his heart.
In Isaiah, xxix. 13, we have some " drawing
near to God with their mouth, and honouring
hira with their lips," of whom it is said in the
very next words, " that their heart was far
from hira." Lip-devotion signifies but little.
Judas could afford our Saviour the lip, while
he was actually betraying hira to his raortal
enemies. It is in this case with the sonl as
with the body, the inward vital state of it is
not always knowu by the colour or complexion.
For I suppose we are not now to learn, that
the grand governing principle of the world is
hypocrisy. And while it is so, in judging of
men's words aud actions, it is but too often
necessary to read thera backwards. For though,
naturally indeed, they are signs, and signs of
the thoughts and affections of the raind ; yet
art may, and usually does, raake thera much
otherwise. And it is odds, but he mistakes
seldomest, who judges of men quite contrary
to what they appear : so seldom do tbe in
ward and the outward man correspond with
one another. And if this were not so, the
prerogative of divine knowledge in judging
of a man's internals would not be much
superior to the sagacity of a human inspec
tion. For that can read all that is legible to
the eye, all that can incur iuto the outward
senses. But still we raust observe, that this asser-

438

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Sbrm. LII.

tion of not judging by the outward actions,
is to be understood only of good actions,
not of bad. For although an act materially
and outwardly good may proceed from an
heart which is stark naught ; yet where the
outward actions are bad, it is certain that the
heart cannot be good. For the matter of the
action, which is properly that which comes
into the outward view, may be good, and yet
the action itself, upon other accounts, be
absolutely evil : but if the raatter of the ac
tion be evil, (since evil is from any defect,)
the whole action must be so too. And con
sequently, since a " good tree" cannot " pro
duce evil fruit," it is manifest that the heart
which produces, and presides over those ac
tions, is and must be evil.
But to return to what we were before
about : that the outward piety of a man's
behaviour cannot certainly argue a pious and
a " pure heart," is evident, because there may
be assigned several other principles, short of
real piety, and yet sufficient to produce such
a behaviour. As,
1st, A virtuous and strict education. Many
are born into the world, not only with the
general taint of original sin, but also with
such particular propensions, such predomi
nant inclinations to vice, that they are as
fruitful a soil for the Devil to plant in, and
afford as much fuel for sin to flame out upon,
i as it is possible for the utraost corruption of
huraan uature to supply them with. But
God, who in his most wise providence restrains
many whom he never renews, has many ways
to prevent the outrageous eruption of this
vicious principle. And one great one is this
of a pious education ; which raay lay such
strong fetters, such powerful restrictions upou
the heart, that it shall uot be able to lash out
into those excesses and enorraities, which the
more licentious and debauched part of the
world wallow in : yet still, though by this
j the unclean bird be caged up, the uncleanness
of its uature is uot hereby changed. For as
no raking or harrowing can alter the nature
of a barren grouud, though it may smooth
and level it to the eye ; so neither can those
early disciplines of parents aud tutors extir
pate the innate appetites of the soul, and turn
a bad heart into a good : they may indeed
draw some plausible lines of civility upon the
outward carriage and conversation, but to
conquer a natural inclination is the work of
a higher power. Nevertheless it must be
always looked upon as a high mercy, where
God is pleased to do so much for a man as
this comes to ; and whosoever he is, who iu
his minority has been kept from those ex
travagances which his depraved nature would
otherwise have carried him out to, and so has
grown up under the eye of a careful and
severe tuition, has cause with bended kuees
to acknowledge the mercy of being born of

religious parents, and bred up under virtuons
and discreet governors ; and to bless God,
without any danger of pharisaical arrogance,
that upon this account " he is not as many
other men are." But still, (as I have noted)
all this is but " the sweeping and garnishing
of the house ;" and though education may
sometimes do that, yet it is grace only that
can keep out "the unclean spirit." And
consequently snch a person, notwithstanding
all this outward flourish of behaviour, must
yet know that his heart may be all this while
as really unrenewed and upon that score as
impure, as the heart of those, who, not being
hampered with such early preventions, break
forth into the most open and flagitious prac
tices. 2dly, The circumstances and occasions of a
man's life m;iy be such as shall constrain him
to appear in an outwardly pious dress. As
wheu a man's dependence is upon persons
virtuous and religious, aud the whole scene
of his life cast under those eyes that shall
both observe and hate his irapiety, there it is
not for his interest to uncase aud discover
himself, and to follow the lure and dictates
of a voluptuous humour. While Judas -was
to associate himself with Christ and his dis
ciples, it concerned him, though he was really
a devil, yet to personate and act the saint.
Moreover, wheu Providence has put a man
into a low, a mean, or an afflicted condition,
the supplies and opportunities of many vices
are thereby cut off, and the man is not able
to shew himself, or to draw forth those base
qualities which lie lurking in his breast. He
neither drinks, nor whores, nor goes to plays,
but he may thank his purse, not his heart for
it. Want and poverty bind him to his good
behaviour : and Providence thinks fit, in
kindness to the world, to chain up the fury
and violence of his passions by the straitness
of his fortunes. For such is the boundless
pride and insolence of some natures, that
should they meet with estates equal to the
grasp of their desires, and have the plenties
ofthe world flow in with the full swing and
career of their appetites, they would be in
tolerable. Society would even groan under
them, and neither heaven nor earth would
endure them ; so that there is a necessity, that
penury and scarcity shonld discipline, and as
it were, diet them into sober courses. But still,
amidst all these restraints, the mind of such an
one may be as base, as filthy, and as prone to all
lewdness, as the mind of a thorough-paced
rebel may be to his old game, after an act of
oblivion. For by all this. Providence only
ties his hands, grace does not change his heart.
Sdly, The care and tenderness a man has of
his honour, may engage hira to demean him
self with some show of piety and religion.
For there is scarce any one so vicious (some
few monsters, some years since amongst us,

ON MATTHEW, v. 8.

439

excepted) as to desire or judge it for their
credit, to be thought so. But generally, as
every such person would gladly " die the
death ofthe righteous," so he would willingly
live with the credit and reputation of the
righteous too. The principle of honour (even
with persons not styled honourable) will go
a great way ; and a man will be at the cost of
a few seeraingly virtuous actions to be re
puted a virtuous person. Meu use to go to
church in their best clothes ; and it is for
their credit to put on the fairest appearance
in a religious perforraance. We read how far
this principle carried the pharisees ; aud what
a glorious outside the love of glory put upon
thera. They prayed, they fasted, they gave
alras, and iu short had the very art of raorti
fication : and yet within were full of all fraud,
extortion, and excess, and (in a word) of
theraselves. There were none, whose beha
viour shined brighter in the eyes of meu, nor
whose heart was more loathsorae in the eyes
of God ; for they did all to be seen aud talked
of ; and (as it were) to ride in triuraph upon
the tongues of men; and, iu fine, were the
arrantest puritans in the world, those only of
a later date excepted, who, it is confessed,
have infinitely outdone their original. For
all the religion ofthese pharisees flowed only
from the beholder's eye, and not from their
owu heart. They made "broad their phylac
teries, and enlarged the borders of their gar
ments," taking the measure of both by the
breadth and largeness of their latitudinarian
consciences : which were of such ample and
capacious dimensions, that after they had
breathed theraselves into a storaach by a
long prayer, they could easily swallow a thou
sand widows' estates, lauds, teneraeuts and
all, for the first course, and the revenues of a
crown and church for the second, of which we
can bring a probatum est for a demonstration.
Macbiavel hiraself, though no great friend
to religion, yet affirms, aud very frequently
too, that the appearance and reputation of
religion is advantageous ; and that, we know,
is not to be acquired without raany instances
of practice, which may affect and dazzle the
spectators iuto admiration, and then make
them vent that adrairation in applause. But
what is all this to the purity of the heart, to
the sanctity of the inner raan ? It is all but
the acting of a part, a piece of pageantry, a
mere contrivance of ambition, nothing but
dress and disguise, aud may possibly procure
a man some glory in this world, but none in
the next.
Now in all these raotives to a religious be
haviour, we may observe this of thera, that
they are forced and preternatural, and raise a
motion which they are not able to keep up.
As when we see a stone thrown upwards, it
moves only from the irapression of an out
ward force, and not from the activity of an

inward principle; and therefore it quickly
sinks, and falls to the grouud. In like man
ner, when there is not a stock or habit of
purity in the heart, constantly and uniforraly
to diffuse the same into the outward actions,
the appearance of piety will be found too thin
and weak to support itself long. And let that
man, whosoever he is, who acts in the ways
of piety aud virtue only upon the force and
spring of external inducements, be warily
observed and attended to, and it is a thousand
to one but that some time or other his vice
gives his hypocrisy the slip, and lays him
opeu to the world, and convinces all about
him, that how fair aud specious soever the
structure seemed to be which he had raised,
yet the fouudation of it was laid in the saud,
or, which is worse, in the mud.
From all which I conclude, that purity of
heart neither consists in, nor can certainly be
proved by any external religious performances
whatsoever. In the
Second place, therefore, to shew positively
whereiu it does consist : it consists properly
iu au inward change and renovation of the
heart, by the infusion of such a principle into
it, as naturally suits and complies with what
soever is pure, holy, and commanded by God.
It is not a thing born, or brought iuto the
world with us, nor yet reared upon the stock
of nature by any art, industry, or cultivation
of our own whatsoever. No, it is and must
be the product of a new creation. Nor can
all our sorrows aud tears of theraselves wash
or purify the heart ; but the " Spirit of God"
raust " move upon the face of those waters,"
and form in it the " new creature," or the
heart will continue in its native filth, chaos,
and confusion for ever. Now where such a
principle of purity is, it will be like a strong
bias, continually inclining and carrying out
the soul, and that even in its raost vigorous
appetites, to what is pure. For as we ration
ally gather and learn the nature of a thing
frora the quality of those things which agree
or disagree with it ; so wheu tbe heart kindly
and naturally closes with the purity and
excellency of the divine precepfcs,_ but on the
other side carries a certain aversion to, and
loathing of the sordid, unclean suggestions of
sin, it is an arguraent that it is advanced into
new principles and inclinations, and purified
frora those foul habits which it was originally
polluted with.
Now there are three things more especially
(amongst many others that might be men
tioned) in wbich this purity of the heart does
certainly and infallibly manifest itself. As,
(1.) In the purity and untainted sanctity
of the thoughts. The range of the thoughts is
free, and may defy the inspection of the most
curious and inquisitive raortal beholder: they
walk in such a retirement as is open to no
eye, but to that alone, to which nothing can

440

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Sbrm. LII.

be hid. Now when a man shall carry so
strict an haud over these, as to admit of no
parley with vice, no, not in his thoughts ;
vvhen yet he knows, that if he should be never
so free and familiar with it there, no man
breathing could either observe or reproach
him for it : this surely argues, that he loves
virtue for itself, and that purity, instead of
being his design, is become his nature. For
what Solomon says of the dissembling churl
in Prov. xxiii. 7, " that as he thinketh in his
heart, eveu so is he," the same may be said of
every mau living, in respect of that principle
which sways and governs his mind, be it what
it will.
For since the thoughts are so quick as to
prevent all deliberation, and withal so unruly,
as for the most part to adrait of no control
from reason, when it would either command
or carry them out to, or remand and take
them off from, any olsject ; it follows, that
whatsoever they run out freely and sponta
neously upon, that the mind is full of, taken
up and possessed with, so that it is, as it were,
a mighty spring, incessantly and powerfully
possessing and bending the thoughts that way.
And therefore, let a man's outward actions
seem never so pure, never so unblameable ;
yet if the constant or main stream of his
thoughts runs impure ; if they take a liberty
to rove over and delight in filthy, unclean
objects ; and if, where the practice of villainy
is restrained, it is yet supplied by an active
imagination ; there a mau may be said to be
more cautious and reserved indeed, but not at
all the more holy. For it is an undoubted
argument, that his heart is of the same
temper : since wheresoever ,the main haunt
of the thoughts is, there must the "heart be
also. (2.) The purity of the heart is infallibly
seen in a sanctified regulation of the desires.
The first step and advance of the soul is into
thought, the second into desire. Now the
desires have the same privilege of secrecy and
freedom ¦nith the thoughts; and if you would
collect and argue the nature of the mind frora
either of thera, the arguraent from these is as
evident, aud perhaps raore forcible, thau
from the other. For the will is the great
scene and subject of vice and virtue ; and the
desires are the immediate issues of that. No
outward force or art whatsoever can stop the
vent and passage of desire : but the whole
soul flows forth in its inclinations; and there
fore, wheresoever they may be discerned,
they are the most true, proper, and unfailing
interpreters of the heart. For what else
means the Spirit of God by that noted ex
pression in Prov. xxiii. 26, " My son, give me
thy heart ;" but that a man should give God
the strongest and most forcible operations,
and (as I may so express it) the first-born of
his heart, his desires.

There was nothing from which David ga-
thered the sincerity and goodness of his heart
so much as from the free and natural flow of
his desires. In Psalm cxix. 20, " My soul,"
says he, " breaketh for the longing desire that
it hath to thy judgments at all times." And
in Psalm l.xxiii. 26, " There is none upon
earth that I desire in comparison of thee."
Also, in Isaiah, xxvi. 9, "With my soul have
I desired thee in the night-season," says the
holy prophet. And again, in Psalm xxxviii,
9, David suras up his final appeal to God,
conceruing the integrity of his heart, iu these
words, " Lord, all my desire is before thee."
So that if any man now would certainly
kuow whether his heart be pure, he has here
a compendious and sure way of trial : let him
read over his desires, and strictly observe the
motions of his will and affections. When he
is upon the perforraance of any holy duty, let
hira see whether or no his desires keep him
company in it ; when the allureraent of any
sinful pleasure or profit plays itself before
him, let him see whether his desires do not
reach out after it, though perhaps his hand
dares not. And this will give him faitliful
information, and such as will never deceive
him ; for desire is properly the pulse of the
inner man, and as the heart is affected, so
that beats.
(3.) The third, and that not the leastargil-
meiit of a pure heart, is a fearful and solici
tous avoiding of every thing that may tend
to sully or defile it. It perfectly hates sin,
and therefore dreads the occasions of it : it
raakes a man know no otiier way of "work
ing out his salvation, but with fear and
trembling." And in this great work, the j
trerabling hand is still the steadiest, and the |
fearful heart the most likely to be victorious.
For we must know, that there is nothing
almost which we meet with, nothing which
comes before us, but raay be to us an occasion
of .sin : some things indeed are so directly,
and others are so by accident. And therefore,
¦whosoever he is, who would " be wise unto
salvation," must absolutely fly from thefor
raer, and warily observe himself iu the use of
the latter. For as the apostle says, that "the
wisdom from above is first pure ;" so we
may with equal truth affirm convertibly,
" that the purity which is from above is first
wise :" that is to say, it considers and casts
about for the best methods, how to guard and
secure itself against the assaults and strata
gems of the grand enemy, who would destroy
it. And for this canse, be a thing or practice ;
never so lawful in itself, yet if, either through i
human frailty or the Devil's subtilty, it is like i
to prove a snare to a man, and to engage him
in some course or other which is not lawful; i
a principle of true genuine purity will besure
to keep aloof off from it : and by no meam ^
adrait the eneray into the outworks, where it j

ON MATTHEW, v. 8.

441

is careful to defend the main fort. A man of
a heart so disposed will say within himself,
"I will uot venture iuto such a company, I
will not use such a recreation, I will not go
to this ball nor to that play, for I know not
how my raind may serve me under such cir
curastances; God raay leave me to myself,
and ray strength raay fail me, and my own
heart betray me. If I terapt God, God may
coraraission the Devil to terapt rae, and so the
serpent slide into ray bosom before I am
aware." No, such an one will carefully avoid
those spiritual pest-houses, where scarce any
thing is to be heard or seen, but what tends
to the corruption of good manners ; aud frora
whence not one of a thousand retums, but
infected with the love of vice, or at least with
the hatred of it very rauch abated frora what
it was before. And that, I assure you, is no
inconsiderable poiut gained by the terapter ;
as those who have any experience of their
owu hearts sufficientiy know. He who has
no raind to trade with the Devil, should be so
wise as to keep away frora his shop.
In vain therefore does any one pretend tea
pure heart, whoputs hiraself into the terapter's
walk, into the very road and highway to sin
and debauchery. For can any one really
hate to be defiled, aud yet handle and embrace
pitch? abhor all impurity, and yet plant
himself in the very neighbourhood and con
fines of it ? A pure heart is a tender heart,
and such an one as will smite the breast that
holds it upon " sight of the very garraent that
is spotted with the flesh ;" such an one as
feels the least breath that may blow upon its
innocence, and, in a word, dreads the very
first approaches and remote dangers of that
fatal contagion.
And thus much for the first general thing
proposed ; which was to shew, what this
purity of the heart is, and whereiu it does
consist. I proceed now to the
Second, which is to explain, what it is to
" see God." The enjoyment which blessed
spirits have ofGod iu the other world is, both
iu the language of scripture and of the schools,
generally expressed to us by their " seeing
God ;" as in Matth. xviii. 10, it is said of
the angels, " that they always behold the face
of God in heaveu :" and iu 1 Cor. xiii. 12,
it is said, that hereafter " we shall see God
face to face ;" with several other places to the
sarae .purpose.
Now concerning a man's thus " seeing God,"
the schools raise several disputes, but the
raost considerable of them may come under
these two heads :
1st, In regard every man shall be raised
with a body as well as a soul, they question,
whether this vision shall be wholly mental,
and transacted within the soul ; or whether
the body shall be refined and sublimated to
such a perfection, and nearness to the spiri

tual nature, as to be also made a sharer in itl
And whether it be possible for a corporeal
substance to see au incorporeal ? To which,
those who had rather be wise uuto sobriety,
thau pronounce boldly of such things as their
preseut condition renders them incapable of
judging of certainly, give these answers :
(1.) That the knowledge of this is mere
curiosity, and consequently such as a man
may be without, aud yet know never the less
of what he is really concemed to know. (2.)
That there is no express scripture to decide
it either way ; aud natural philosophy is an
incompetent judge in matters which cau be
known only by revelation. But,
2dly, In the next place, they put the ques
tion, whether the soul shall enjoy God, its
chief good, by an act of the understanding in
its intuition of him, or by an act of the will
in its adhesion to him. And there are those
who fiercely dispute it on both sides.
But to this also it may be answered, that as
the soul shall enjoy a perfect good, so it raust
enjoy it after a perfect raanner, so as to diffuse
the enjoyraent into every faculty that is cap
able of it : that is to say, it raust enjoy it
agreeably to a ratioual nature : which first
receives a good by the apprehensions of the
intellect, and then transmits it to the adhesion
and embraces of the will. For a rational soul
cannot love any good heartily, but it must
first understand it ; nor can it understand an
excellent good thoroughly, but it must also
love it. And consequently, I conclude, that
the soul's fruition of God is neither precisely
by an act of the understanding, nor yet of the
will, but jointly and adequately of both. But
I shall not run out any farther iuto these
controversies, as bearing no such necessary
relation to the matter before us.
Briefly therefore, by our " seeing God" is
meant, and under it comprised, the whole
enjoyraent of the felicities of the other life ;
as by " seeing the sun," is set forth the entire,
total enjoyment of this life ; as in Eccles. vii.
11, " By wisdora," says the preacher, " there is
profit to those who see the sun ;" that is, to
those who.are alive in the world. The Greeks
also use the same phrase, ihlu (pxog m^i'oio beiug
frequentiy used by Homer for the whole en
joyment of this life ; and the Latins have the
like expression, " luce privari — to be de
prived of the light," being with them a usual
phrase for a man's losing his life.
Now our enjoyment of God is expressed to
us by our seeing hira, rather than by any
other way, I conceive, for these reasous :
(1.) Because the sense of seeing represents
the object with greater clearness and evidence,
thau any of tbe other senses. Light, the
great discoverer both of itself and of all things
else, is apprehended only by seeing ; and the
eye-witness, we know, is still the raost
authentic. God will then shew himself to

442

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Sf.rm. LII,

the soul so plainly and manifestly, he will so
open and display his divine perfections to the
understanding, that we shall know him as
fully and clearly, as we do now those things
which we actually see before our eyes ; though
still (as we must all along suppose) after much
another way.
(2.) A second reason is, because the sense
of seeing is of all the other senses the most
univereally exercised and employed. For as
long as a man lives, every moment that he
converses in the world, he is still looking upon
something or other ; except it be when he is
asleep, during whicli time he can scarce be
said to live. And therefore, since our enjoy
ment of God hereafter shall be so continual
aud without interruption, as to leave no
vacant minute which shall not be taken up
and filled with that glorious fruition, it is
upon this account most appositely and pro
perly described to us, by our "seeing him."
For in sight and thought (if iu any thiug)
we have the perpetual motion.
(3.) A third reason of this expression may
be, because the sense of seeing is the sense of
pleasure and delight ; and that upon which
the whole comfort of our life principally de
pends. For, says the wise man, (Eccles. xi.
7,) "the light is sweet, and it is a pleasant
thing for the eyes to behold the sun." And
we know that it is much a greater pleasure
for a man to see his friend, than only to hear
from him. Put out the eyes, shut but those
windows, and the soul will presently be filled
with sadness, and horror, and a dismal Egyp
tian darkness ; which we know is to be
reckoned amongst the greatest ofthe Egyptian
plagues. Since, therefore, the enjoyment of God is
the highest bliss and pleasure, the most sub
lirae and ravishing delight ; for so the scrip
ture speaks of it, in Matt. xxv. 23, " Enter thou
into the joy of thy Lord :" and in Psalm xvi.
11, " In thy presence there is fulness of joy,
and at thy right hand there are pleasures for
everraore." I say, since the nature of this
blessedness carries in it the height of joy and
rational pleasure, by what could it be more
livelily set forth to us than by the perceptions
of that sense and faculty, which conveys the
most quickening and exalting refreshments to
the soul ?
(4.) And lastly; our enjoyment of God is
expressed to us by our " seeing him," because
the sight is of all the other senses the raost
comprehensive and insatiable. In Eccles. i.
8, "The eye," says the wise man, "is uot
satisfied with seeing." That is to say, let it
take in never so much of its object, it never
surfeits. It is neither subject to satiety nor
lassitude. It could presentiy run over and
drink in the beauties of one world, and in the
strength of th.at repast, tr<avel fresh into ano
ther. For still the more it takes in, the

greater is its capacity to take in more. Aud
in a word, it is the only sense to which satis
faction ]irocures an appetite.
In this respect, therefore, it gives ns tho
fittest representation ofour enjoyment of God
in glory : who is a good of that immense lati
tude, that inexhaustible fulness, as to satisfy,
or rather satiate the greediest and most grasp
ing appetites of the soul. It is he only who
can fill the eye, and keep pace with desire ;
and, in a word, answer all those cravings and
eraptinesses of a rational nature, which the
whole creation together could never yet do.
There will then flow in such a torrent of de
light upon all our apprehensive faculties, that
the soul will be even overcome, and lost is
the enjoyraent. As when a vessel is thrown
into a river, the river first fills it, and then
swallows it up. This therefore is the sum of
our happiness in the next world, that we shall
see God, and experiraent that which we never
could in this world ; namely, that we shall so
see, as to be filled with seeing.
And thus I have despatched the second
general head proposed from the words ; which
was, to explain what is meant by our " seeing
God." I come now to the
Third, which is to shew, how this purity of
heart fits and qualifies the soul for the sight or
vision of God. Aud to give you a short state
and account of this, it does it, in a word, by
causing a suitableness between God aud tho
soul, and hy removing whatsoever may debar
or hinder that intiraate coraraunion and in
tercourse, which ought to be between such a
creature aud its Creator : now during the
soul's irapurity, God is utterly unsuitable to
it ; aud that in a double respect.
1. Of the great unlikeness ; and, 2. Of the
contrariety, which is between them.
1. And first, for the unlikeness. It is evi
dent, from the clearest and most acknowledged
principles of reason, that there can be no true
enjoyraent, but where there is acertain agree
ableness or congruity between the object aud
the faculty ; and if so, what pleasure can
it be to a filthy polluted person to converse
with those glories which shall both astonish
and reproach hira? What enjoyment can
dirt have in the embraces of a sunbeam ? God
is infinitely pure, and till the soul has some
degrees of purity too, it is no more fit nor able
to behold him, than the black mire of the
streets to reflect the orient colours of the rain- ^
bow upon the sun which shines upon it. God i
loves not to look upon any spiritual being,
unless he cau see his own image and likenas
in it ; and that cannot be seen, w'here the
mirror is foul that should represent it.
2. The next ground of the unsuiLableness '
between God and the soul, is that great con
trariety which a state of irapurity caiws
between thera. For it is this which makes
the soul look upon God as an enemy, M

ON MATTHEW, v. 8.

443

clothed with terror, and as "a consuming
fire ;" and upon itself as obnoxious, and fit
fuel to be preyed upou and devoured by such
a fire. The divine holiness is indeed in itself
raost araiable, but yet a dreadful and con
founding sight to a guilty and defiled soul ;
as the very light itself, we know, though it
be the glory of the creation, and the joy of
the universe, is yet a frightful and an abhorred
thing to thieves and robbers, and to such
beasts of prey as lie only iu caves and dens,
and converse with nothing but filth and dark
ness under ground.
Heaven is set forth to us as the great mansion
of happiness and pleasure, but it is so only to
the soul which is prepared for it, and by the
renovation of its qualities made congenial to
it. But to a soul possessed with the power
and guilt of sin, it can be no more a delight,
than the openest aud the sweetest air can be
to the fish ; which perishes in the region aud
eleraent which preserves its proper inhabitants,
and dies by that which keeps us alive.
And thus we have seen how want of purity
utterly incapacitates the soul to enjoy God ;
namely, by rendering it both unlike him and
contrary to him. God's infinite holiuess, aud
his transcendent, araazing brightness, raeeting
with an impure nature, both shames and con
sumes it ; as the day uot only discoramends,
but also expels and drives away the night.
" Thou art of purer eyes than to behold ini
quity," says the prophet Habakkuk, i. 13.
In a word, God is too pure either to see it, or
to be seen by it ; and therefore none but " the
pure iu heart can behold hira." Aud so I
pass to the
Fourth aud last thing proposed ; which was
to make some brief use and application of the
foregoing particulars. And what better use
can be raade of them, than to correct our too
great easiness and credulity, in judging of the
spiritual estate either of ourselves or others.
To judge indeed too favourably of others is an
error on the right hand : for charity is tp pass
sentence there, which is a virtue of a benign
nature, and whose office is still to think, as
well as speak, the best of things and persons.
Nevertheless, it is one thing to believe charit
ably, and another to pronounce confidently ;
and more than the former we cannot do, where
the knowledge of the heart is locked up from
us ; as it is of all raen's hearts, besides our
own. And in judging of ourselves, I ara sure
it is charity to suspect the worst, and for every
man to probe and descend into his own heart
hy a strict, accurate, and irapartial exaraina
tion of it. For, " frora the heart are the
issues of life and death," and from the same
must be fetched the evidences of our title to
either. We see many frequent our churches, hear
sermons, and attend upon prayers ; they are
civil in their carriage, upright in their deal

ings, aud there is no great blot or blemish
visible upou their conversation ; and God
forbid, but a due value should be put upou
such excellent preparatives to religion : but
after all, will these qualifications certainly
prove and place us amongst the "pure in
heart?" Will men set up for heaven and
eternity upon this stock? and venture their
Scalvation upon this bottom ? If they do, it
may chance to prove a venture indeed. For
do not our Saviour's owu words convince us,
that the outside of the platter may be cleau,
aud bright too, and yet in the inside reraain
full of all filth and nastiness ? So that while
one entertains the eye, the other raay turn
the storaach.
If we would prevent the judgment of God,
we must imitate it ; and judge of ourselves,
as he will judge of us : that is, by the heart,
and by the principles which rule there. And
for this, let every man be but true to the
resolves of his own conscience, and he will
seldom need any other casuist. As for those
late specious professions of religion amongst
us, aud those high strains of purity above the
rest of the world, together with boastings of
a more intimate converse with God, and ac
quaintance with the mystery of godliness, and
the like ; they are generally nothing else but
terras of art, and tricks used by spiritual
mountebanks, to irapose upon the credulous
and unwary ; aud signify but little to that
all-searching Judge, who judges neither by
fine words nor fair pretences. For let raen
say, or pray, or pretend what they will, he
who has a covetous heart, is in the sight of
God a covetous wretch. And he who has a
proud, a lustful, or a revengeful heart, passes
in the accounts of heaven for a proud, a lust
ful, and a revengeful person. And he who
can harbour schisra or faction, siicrilege or
rebellion, either iu principle or design, though
he prays never so devoutly, never so loud, and
long, with all the postures of a solemn hypo
crisy, as a sad look and a doleful tone ; yet let
him take it from the word of truth itself, that
he has nothing either pure or pious in his
heart : for the main spring, the heart, is out
of order ; and therefore the motion of the
wheels raust needs be so too.
Briefly, and in a word, and with that to
conclude : he who has nothing to entitle him
to this blessedness of seeing God, but a civil,
inoffensive smoothness of behaviour, a demure
face, and a forraal, custoraary attendance upon
a few religious duties, without a thorough
renovation of the great principle within hira,
and a sanctified disposition of heart, raay
indeed hereafter see God, but then he is like
to see hira only as his judge.
To which God be rendered and ascribed, as
is raost due, all praise, might, majesty, and
dominion, both now and for evermore. Amen.

444

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Serm. LIII.

SEEMON LIIL
"And they that are Christ's have cmeified the flesh with the
affections and lusts." — Gal. V. 24.
It is common to all sects and iustitutions
to have some distinguishing badges and char
acteristic naraes, by which they both express
and distinguish their profession. But Christ,
that carae into the world uot to imitate, but
to correct and transcend both that of the Jews
and ofthe philosophers, sequesters his doctrine
from the erapty forraality of names, reducing
it to its inward vigour and spirituality. So
I that even in respect of the most solemn ap
pellation, we find that Christianity was sorae
time in the world before the name of Chris
tian ; perhaps to convince the world, that
religion is not a bare name, and that men
might be Christians before they were called
so ; as daily experience demonstrates that
they are often called so before they are.
And indeed thenarae of Christian, without
the uature, leaves no more impression upon
the soul, than the baptismal water that con
veys it does upon the face. Wherefore Christ
gives another guess badge and mark of Chris
tianity : snch an one as constitutes the very
essence of it ; for still it is the same thing
that gives both nature aud difference to beings.
Now this discrirainating mark is in short
coraprised in the crucifixion of the flesh and
tho lusts thereof.
For the explication of which words, I shall
shew,
I I I. Whatis raeant by "being Christ's."
II. What by "the flesh with the affections
and lusts."
I. For the first of these. " To be Christ's,"
is to accept of and have an interest in Christ,
as he is offered and proposed iu the gospel.
Now Christ is offered and held forth to every
particular person that expects to be saved by
him under three offices; 1. his prophetical,
2. his kingly, and 3. his sacerdotal. In
which account I give you not only the number
of his offices, butalso their order, as they stand
related to us. And this order and economy
of them is founded upon the very nature of
the thing, and the natural order of reli
gious actions. For iu the procedure of nature
there must be, 1. the knowledge of a duty ;
2. the performance of it ; 3. the reward. Cor
respondent to these is the economy of Christ's
offices. For, 1. by Christ's prophetic office, re
vealing his mind to us, wo come to know his
will. 2. Then by his kingly office, ruling and
governing us, we come to yield obedience to
that will. 3. And thirdly, by his sacerdotal
or priestly office, we come to receive the fruit

of that obedience in our justification and sal
vation. Forweniust not think that our obedi
ence is rewarded with eternal life for its own
merit, but it is the merit of Christ's sacrifice
that procures this reward to our obedience.
Some indeed preposterously misplace those,
and make us partake of the benefit of Christ's
priestly office in the forgiveness of our sins,
and our reconcilement to God, before we are
brought under the sceptre of his kingly office
by our obedience. But such raust know that
our interest in Christ as a lord and king to
rule us, does precede, if not also cause, our
interest in him as a priest to save us. For
the gospel perverts uot the order of nature ;
the work must still go before the reward.
And those shall never share in the benefit of
Christ's sacrifice, who have not submitted to
the rule of his sceptre.
Now therefore, to sum this up into a firm
conclusion, he, and he alone, is properly said
to be Christ's, who, upon a sound knowledge
of and a sincere obedience to Christ's will,
stands justified aud reconciled to God by thp
merit of his death and sufferings: and thus he
is perfectly Christ's, who has au interest in
him considered under every one of his offices.
This raay serve to overthrow the wild and
irrational justification of the antinomians,
libertines, and lazy solifidians, who upon this
ground only judge themselves to be Christ's,
because they believe they are: a way of justi
fication, for its easiness, rather to be wished
true thau to be thought so. But easy things
in religion are always suspicious, if not false ;
and such will fiud, that their belief is not the
rule of God's proceeding. I
II. In the next place, we are to see what is
meant by "the flesh," aud "the affections and
lusts." By the first I suppose I need uot tell
you that it cannot be understood of the cor
poreal bulk of man, which together with the j
soul makes up the whole compound; but it is ;
rather a metonymy of the part for the whole,
or perhaps more properly, of the subject for
the adjunct, the flesh for the sin adherent to
the flesh, as shall be made out by aud by. In
the mean time hy flesh we are to understand
the whole entire body of sin and corruption,
that inbred proneness in our nature to all evil,
in one word expressed by concupiscence, usually
called by the schoolmen fomes ; that fuel, or
combustible matter in the soul, that is apt to
be fired by every temptation ; the womb that
conceives and brings fortli all actual irapuri
ties, styled in the next words affections and
lusts. By which -we are not to understand
only the brutish affections of carnal sensu
ality, but indifferently all the actual eruptions
of that accursed principle, all the streams that
issue from that impure fountain ; for as hy the
flesh is denoted the original depraved disposi
tion of the heart, so by the other is signified [
the drawing forth of that propensity or prin- }

ON GALATIANS, v. 24.

445

ciple into the several commissions of sin
through the course of our lives ; flesh is the
fuel, and lust the flame.
Having thus given the explication of the
words, and shewn what is to be understood
by heing Chrisfs, and what by the flesh and
iis affections.
We shall lay the further prosecution of the
text in these two things :
I. To shew why this vitiosity and corrupt
habit of nature comes to have this denomina
tion of flesh.
II. "w hat is imported by the crucifying of it.
For the first of these. The whole deprava
tion of our nature comes to be called flesh for
these reasons :
1. Because of its situation and place, which
is principally in the flesh. Here it is placed,
here it is enthroned. Concupiscence, I shew,
was the radix of all sin ; and all the several
kinds of sin, to whicli men are severally
inelined, are only so many modifications or
different postures of concupiscence ; and con
cupiscence itself follows the crasis aud tem
perature of the body ; as we know the liquor
for the present receives the figure of the
vessel into which it is infused. If you
would know why one man is proud, another
cruel, another interaperate or luxurious, you
are not to repair so much to Aristotle's
Ethics, or the writings of other moralists,
as to those of Galen, or of some anatomists, to
find the reason of these different tempers ;
for doubtless they arise from the different
quality of the blood and the motion of the
spirits in those several persons ; which things
thenaselves depend upou the cliraate, diet, and
air, in which raen are born and bred. Hence
we see that those of the sarae cliraate are
usually disposed to the same sin. Whereupon
some have presuraed to set down the standing
characters of several nations ; as that the
Grecians are false ; the Spaniards formal,
grave, and proud ; the French wordy, fickle,
and fantastic ; the Italians lustful ; aud the
English mutinous and insolent to governors.
And these characters, if true, seem to agree
to these several nations, not only for one age,
but successively in all generations : as waters
of a river running in the same channel always
retain the same colour, taste, and breed the
same sorts of fish. Aud it is not to be ques
tioned, but that it was the same humour that
raised the barons' ¦wars, and since acted
higher in the late rebellion. I do not believe
a transmigration of souls, but surely there is
something to be observed that looks very like
a transmigration of terapers and manners ;
so constantiy does posterity succeed into the
humours, appetites, and ways of their pro
genitors. But let not any one gather from what has
been said, that I place sin in the body only,
uot in the soul also : for in the body I place

only the first seeds and occasions of it, whicli
imraediately, upon the sociation of the soul
with the body, coraraunicates and transfuses
the contagion to that likewise ; as we see in
stills and alerabics, though the fire put under,
and the materials put within thera, lie in tho
lower part, yet they send up a steam and ex
halation, which settles into drops in the upper
part : so all the perturbations of bodily aff'ec
tions, though they are seated in the body,
which is the lower part, yet they continually
exhale and breathe forth sinful vapours, that
leave a guilt and an irapurity upou the soul ;
yea, even upon the top and commanding
faculties, the understanding aud the will :
though, to pursue that similitude a little
farther, as that which rises frora the bottom
of the still is but a vapour, and becomes not
a drop till it settles upon the upper part of it,
so that which coraes from the body is but a
bare disturbance, and coraes not to the proper
form and nature of a sin, till consented to and
owned by the soul. From what has been
laid down, Aristotle observes, that interaper
ance and luxury about things that affect the
body and grosser senses leaves a kind of stu
pidity and sottishness upon the miud also ;
as the upperraost part of the chimney is
blacked by the fire that burns below.
How the bod)' should affect the soul, that
which is material work upon that whioh is
immaterial, is, I confess, a problem hardly
resolved in philosophy ; but experience shews
the truth of tho thing by its apparent and
undeniable effects : and reason itself will not
prove that we ought to reject the thing, be
cause we are ignorant of the manner, unless
reason would prove also, that we might know
every thing. But where philosophy seems to
contradict a divine truth, thgre it is to be re
puted vain, and we are to fetch the decision
of the case from faith.
Divines, in the matter of original sin, which
upou good grounds we believe, though I sup
pose few can explain the way of its propaga
tion ; they (I say) acknowledge that the soul,
which is by iraraediate creation infused by
God into the body, comes pure, unspotted,
and untainted with the least sin ; but upon
the union and conjunction of it with the
body, it contracts a pollution, and so the
whole man becomes presently sinful ; as the
purest water issuing from the fountain, when
it slides into a dirty and a muddy kennel, it
immediately loses its clearness and virginity,
and becomes as filthy as the place iu which it
runs. This discovers that it is the body that
first sullies and besmears the soul : here is the
" malura propter vicinura malum," this is the
unhappy neighbourhood ; for no sooner are
they joined, uo sooner are the body and the
soul made brothers, but they are brethren in
iniquity. Conformable to what has. been said isthe

446

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERiMONS.

Srrm. LIII.

verdict of the holy Scripture. Hear the
exclamation of Saint Paul, (Rom. vii. 24,)
" Oh wretched man that I am ! who shall
deliver me from this body of death ?" It was
his body that wounded, that, as it were, stifled
his soul : hence it cries out, as one sinking in
a bog or quagmire, for immediate deliverance.
This sociable evil, this treacherous companion,
is the enticer and betrayer to all sin. Hence
again Paul lays the stress and load of all upon
this in the eighteenth verse of the same chap
ter, " In me, that is, my flesh," (says he,)
" there dwelleth no good thing." He carried
his prison about him, nay, his bane, his
poison, had he not had an antidote from
grace : it was a magazine for the weapons of
unrighteousness, a full, endless, inexhaustible
storehouse of all filth and corruption.
This truth, that sin has its first situation
and place in the flesh, and that from hence it
borrows its name in coramon dialect of Scrip
ture, is yet farther clear from this ; that the
most mortified and sanctified persons in the
world cannot by auy means wholly discharge
theraselves from the relics of siu aud concu
piscence while they are yet iu the body ; as
having soaked and insinuated itself iuto the
very vital constitution of it ; but immediately
after they die, and the soul comes to be
delivered from the body, we hold that the
sanctification of it is then perfect aud con
summate ; so that it sins no more, the very
being, as well as the guilt of sin, is then
destroyed ; the soul is then sprightly, pure,
and vigorous, like the spirit or quintessence
of a liquor extracted from the dregs and the
captivity of matter ; or like a pleasant bird
that is released from a nasty cage ; the soul
then finds its activity restored with its purity,
and so mounts Hp to heaven, where it enjoys
its Maker by a'roight and a clear intuition,
aud converses with him for ever ; and this is
an evident demonstration that the vitiosity of
our nature is first situate and fixed iu the flesh.
The papists indeed hold that the souls of
the saints, at least of the plebeian and ordi
nary saints, are not imraediately, upon the
dissolution of the body, freed wholly from the
being and inherency of sin, but are sent into
a place called purgatory, where the fire is to
calcine and purge off the dross of sin from the
soul, before it can be fitted for the society of
the lilessed. Bnt this is a fabulous and a gross
conceit, and, were it not gainful, unworthy
the patronage of auy learned popish writer.
For how can the fire burn the soul ? and then
how can it bum off sin ? Do we think that
sin sticks upou the soul like rust npon a piece
of iron ? But these things are so ridiculous
and absurd, that to repeat them is to confute
them. 2. The vitiosity of our nature is called
"flesh," because of its close, inseparable near
ness to the soul. There is an intimate con

junction and union between the soul and sin ;
and the intimacy of their cbherence is the
cause ofthe intimacy of their friendship. Sin
is fixed in the heart, .and therefore it lies in
the bosom. Hence, to shew the individual
estate and the indissoluble tie of matrimony,
the Spirit takes a similitude from this, (Matt.
xix. 6,)and says, "They two shall beoneflesh."
The soul, while it is embodied, can no more
be divided from siu, than the body itself can
be considered without flesh. The nearness
between these two, our soul and our corrup
tion, is so great, that it arises to a kind of
identity : hence to deny and conquer our sin
is, iu Scripture language, " to deny ourselves,"
implying that sin adheres so close to us, that
it is a kind of second self.
I do not say that the substance of the soul
is evil, or that the being and nature of it is
sinful ; but that the stain of sin contracted by
it clings so fast to it, that it is scarce to be
fetched off. Blackness is not the substance of
the ink, yet it is inseparable from it.
See the nearness of sin to the soul, by
observing the ways aud means by which God
endeavours to part them, and without which
they cannot be divided. No less than the
blood of the Son of God to wash off the stain
of sin ; no less thau the Spirit of God to sub
due the power ; nothing but an infinite price,
joined with an infinite power, can work the
division. Hence the effectual sin-conquering
force of the word is expressed by this dividing
quality, (Heb. iv. 12,) "It is quick aud
powerful, and sharper than any two-edged
sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder
of soul and spirit, of the joints and marrow."
Is there any thing more closely united than
the joint and the marrow ? than the soul aud
the spirit ? Yes, the soul and sin. Hereupon,
the word being to disenthral the soul from
it, must have the sarae effect upon it that the
sword has upon the body, which is by pene
tration aud dividing the continuity of the
parts ; for every wound is properly division,
au opening or loosening the corapactuess and
closeness of the thing upon which the impres
sion is made. Wherefore, if the great business
of the word is to wound and divide the soul
from sin, it follows, that they were once
intimately and closely cemented together ;
the connection between these two is a Gor
dian knot, that cannot be dissolved but by
this spiritual sword.
We misapply the command of loving our
neighbour, and misplace our affection ; for sin
is our nearest neighbour, and we love that
most ; it cleaves, it adheres, it sticks to us ;
but it is as the viper did to Paul's hand.
And we may say of it as Christ did of Judas,
" He that betrays me is with me ;" sin is, as
it were, engrafted into the soul, and thereby
made connatural to it, and consequeutly as a
stock upon which another scion is engrafted ;

ON GALATIANS, v. 24.

447

the soul does not bring forth its own natural
fruit, but the fruit of sin.
They are mutually knit and entwined one
within the other. Hence the power of
remitting sins is in the gospel termed, (Matt.
xvi. 19,) " the power of loosing," as the con
trary is " of binding." Sin has bound itself
as close upon the soul as the bonds or fetters
that pinion and hold fast an imprisoned
malefactor. The same union is yet farther evident from
the state of every unsanctified, unregenerate
person in his death ; at which great change,
though he leaves his body, he retains his sin ;
that still keeps close to his side, and follows
him into another world. A man's corruption,
if dying in his sin, is to him like a bad ser
vant or an unfaithful soldier ; though it lives
with him, yet it will be sure not to die with
him. And this may be the second reason of
this denomination.
3. A third reason why the vitiosity of our
nature is called " flesh," is because of its
dearness to us. And this founded upou the
former, for vicinity is oue cause of love.
Now, there is nothing that we prosecute with
a more affectionate tenderness than our flesh ;
for as the apostle says, (Eph. v. 29,) "No
man ever yet hated his own flesh, but
nourisheth and cherisheth it." How does the
soul sympathize with it, either in its suffer
ings or its comforts I one would think that
reason was even swallowed up in sense : how
does every change of weather affect the mind !
how sensible is it of every winter's blast,
every summer's heat, of the sweetness of ease
and the tortures of paiu, as if, by conversing
¦with the body, it even grew corporeal. If
any the least member is hurt, what a general
auxiliary, what a concurrent help is there
from all the rest ! the eye bewails, the tongue
bemoans, and the hand plasters and foments
it ; and all this to rescue a base carcase from
that which will one day certainly attach it,
death and dissolution.
But in the mean time the conscience may be
¦wounded, the soul bruised and broke with the
fatal blows of sin and temptation, and lie even
gasping at the brink of eternal death, and yet
we feel no pain there, neither seek for a
remedy: it may faint and bleed, and we
never ask whether there is any balm in
Gilead, any spiritual surgeon to pour oil into
our wounds. For see whether it is not the
usual custom of men not to think of their
souls till their body is given over ; nor to
send for the divine, till they are left by tho
physician ; so dear is this flesh to us : for if it
¦were not so, could we think the drunkard
would ruin his soul to please his palate ;
Would the unclean person pawn etemity for
the gratification of a base appetite ?
Nay, take a survey of all the arts, the
I, and the most prized inventions in the

world, an4 you will find ten to four found out
and employed either to please or adorn the
flesh : it is for this that the artificer labours,
and the merchant ventures ; and we compass
sea and land ten tiraes oftener to make a gal
lant, than to make a proselyte. Justly, there
fore, upon this account also does the Spirit
express our siu by the name of " flesh," for
this has au equal share in our love.
Sin is our darling, our Delilah, the queen
regent ofour affections ; it fills all our thoughts,
engrosses our desires, and challenges the ser
vice of all our actions. Can there be any
greater love than the love of a raother to her
child ? And we kuow the Scripture tells us,
that siu " is conceived and brought forth" by
the soul, (Jaraes, i. 15.) Doubt not, there
fore, but it shall be cherished and beloved as
a child ; it is the firstborn of the soul, " the
beginning of its strength ;" but it is such a
firstborn to it as Reuben was to Jacob ; such
an one as he had for ever cause to curse.
I shall not stand to shew the excessive love
that the miserable, bewitched soul of man
bears to sin, much less, shall I stand to prove
it. Let it suffice us to observe, from the con
stant, incessant practices of the world, that
there is no cost, study, travail, aud labour,
either to preserve health, to defend life, or to
endear friends, which is not with an abun
daut overplus of charge and expense freely
and greedily laid out upon the satisfaction of
sin, aud that iu its most tyrannical aud un
reasonable demands. What that man, in
Micah, vi. 7, proffers for the expiation, mauy
hundreds would give for the preservation of
their sin ; " thousands of rams, and ten thou
sands of rivers of oil, yea, the fruit of his body
for the sin of his soul :" so dear does sin
usually cost raen in this world, though much
dearer in auother.
This is their paramour, they court it, they
" go a-whoring" after it, as the usual scrip
ture expression is : they will not, though you
fling the vengeance of God and the fire of hell
in their faces, be plucked away, but maugre
all curses or proraises, terrors or entreaties,
they will even die in the fatal erabraces of
their dear but killing corruption : and as sorae
will rather rot aud perish, .and be eat through
with a gangrene or an ulcer, thau undergo the
painful cutting and lancing of their flesh, be
cause they are delicate and tender of it ; so
the soul will, through the sarae tenderness to
a cruel lust, see itself overgrown, infected,
poisoned, and at length ruined by it rather
than remedy and remove it, by the healing
severity of a thorough raortification. Let this
therefore be the third and last reason why the
Spirit has here set forth the pravity and cor
ruption of our nature by the name oi flesh.
Now what has been hitherto discoursed of
may, by way of inference, suggest these things
to our consideration.

448

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SER.MONS.

Skrm. LIII.

1. The deplorable estate of fallen man ;
whose condition is now such, that he carries
his plague about him, and wears it something
nearer to him than his shirt ; that he encloses
a viper in his bowels, feeds and maintains,
and is passionately fond of his mortal enemy ;
aud, what is the greatest misery of all, has it
not in his power to be otherwise ; he has a
body that is not so much the instruraent, or
servant as the dungeon of his soul : and sin
holds him by such bonds of pleasure, so strong,
so suitable to his perverted and diseased in
clinations, that his ruin is presented to him
as his interest, and nothing gratifies, delights,
or wins upon him, but that which dishonours
his Maker, and certainly destroys himself.
2. The next thing offered from hence to
our thoughts is, the great difficulty of the
duty of mortification : this is a greater work
than men are aware of : it is indeed the kill
ing of an eneray, but of such an enemy as a
mau thinks his friend, and loves as a child ;
and how hard it is to put the knife to the
throat of an Isaac is easily imaginable. What!
part with that that came into the world with
me, and has ever since lived and conversed
with rae, that continually lies down and rises
up with rae, that has eveu incorporated itself
into my nature, seized all my appetites, and
possessed all ray faculties, so that it is the
centre and principle of all ray pleasures, and
that which gives a relish and a quickness to
every object ! This is a hard saying, and a
harder undertaking. He must be a good
orator that should persuade a man to stick
daggers and needles in his flesh, to strip his
bones, and in a raanner to tear his nature
over his ears ; yet to raortify a sin is some
thing like it : but, alas! it would go near to
nonplus the most artificial persuader, to bring
a raan to part with the covering of his body ;
but how much more with the vestment of his
soul !
Surely there is no love to God less than
that which will induce a man to lay down
his life for God, that can enforce him to raor
tify a corruption for hira ; aud this, one would
think, should awaken those who sacrifice to
their ovvn drearas, who spread theraselves paths
of roses to a fool's paradise, and desigu heaven
upon those terras of easiness that the gospel
knows not of : but it is an atterapt that
will cost many a sraart blow, many a bitter
rencounter, and many a passage through
the fiery fumace, before the innate filth of our
nature can be severed from us. And whatso
ever measures a man may propose to himself,
he will find, that to mortify a lust, and to be
a Christian, is a harder work than now aud
theu to lift up his eyes, to cry. Lord ! Lord !
or to hear an absolution, which perhaps does
not at all belong to him.
3. In the third and last place, this declares
to us the mean and sordid employment of

every sinner : he serves the flesh, that is, ho
is a drudge and a scavenger to the most in
ferior part of his nature. It is a low and an
unmanly thing for any person to be laborious,
and solicitous, and to spend much time in
dressing and adorning his body ; it shews him
to be a fop, a trifle, and a mere picture : but
then how much more ignoble must it be to
attend upon his body, in the dishonourable
provisions for the lusts and corruptions ofit!
If it be a preferment to handle sores and
ulcers, to converse with diseases, and all
the filth of a distempered body, then may it
pass for a generous employment, to be sedu
lous in obeying the dictates of sin and the
commands of the flesh : but as the service of
God is perfect freedom, so the service of the
flesh is perfect, entire, complete slavery.
II. I proceed now to the second general
thing proposed for the handling of the words,
and that is, to shew what is imported by the
crucifixion of the flesh ; under which I shall
do these things :
1. I shall shew what is the reason of the use
of it in this place.
2. What is the full force, sense, and signi
ficance of it.
3. Prescribe some means for enabling us to
the duty signified by it.
4. Make some useful corollaries and deduc
tions from the whole.
1. For the first of these : this word is here
used by way of allusion to Christ, of whose
behaviour and sufferings every Christian is
to be a living copy aud representation. Christ
will have his death an example to excite, as
well as a sacrifice to save : and there is no
passage in his life and death but is intended
for our instruction, as well as our salvation.
Upon this score we are bid to " put on Christ,
as a garment," (Rom. xiii. 14.) For as in a
garment there is an apposite fitness and com
mensuration of each part of that to every part
of the body ; so there is nothing in the whole
series of Christ's life aud death, but ought in
some measure to be answered and transcribed
by every believer ; as affording to us for every
action not only a pattern, but a motive.
We read of Christ's nativity : here every
Christian is to turn a history into a precept,
aud read iu himself the necessity of a new
birth. We find the passion and the crucifixion
of Christ for sin : now what can this better
suggest to us, than the crucifying sin, the cause
of his crucifixion ? We read aud adraire his
resurrection from the dead : certainly this
might infer in us a spiritual resurrection from
the death of sin aud the grave, and steuch of
corruption. Nay, if we have that Christian dexterity
and skill of a proper application of these pas
sages, we shall find a correspondent, homo
geneous quality derived from each. 'We shall
die with him, aud we shall rise with hira : we

ON GALATIANS, v. 24.

449

shall find something in his cross that shall
kill our sins ; something in his resurrection
that shall revive our graces ; for if we transfer
and place it even upon a natural cause, what
is it else, but for the body to sympathize with
the head ?
The Socinians, indeed, place the whole busi
ness of our rederaption upon a bare iraitation ;
and the truth is, to say no more, (if you will
admit the expression,) they do indeed raake
Christ an example, aud that in a much more
ignominious way than the Jews did. But now
though they place the whole rederaption
wrought by Christ in a bare following and
expressing his example, let not us there
fore transgress into the other extrerae, and
totally excludethis iraitation ; for undoubtedly
Christ in all his sufferings left us a pattern, as
well as paid a price.
There is none that seems to have so evan
gelical and raised a notion of this, as the
apostie Paul, (Gal. ii. 20,) " I am crucified
with Christ, nevertheless I live." Paul seems
to be recovered to his spiritual life, as the
youth upon whom Elisha stretched himself.
The prophet put his face to the other's face,
his eyes, his mouth, his hands, to the eyes,
mouth, and hands of the other ; and so, by an
adequate application of his body to each part,
he brought hira at length to enjoy the same
life with himself.
Thus Paul as it were stretched himself upon
the same cross with Christ, and by exactly
conforming to his sufferings and death, was
advanced to the similitude of his life. Hence
it is said, (2 Tira. ii. 12,) " If we suffer with
him, we shall also reign with hira." And
Paul, in that excellent discourse, (Phil. iii.
10,) vents a heavenly passionate desire, " that
he might know the power of Christ's resur
rection and the fellowship of his sufferings,
being made conformable to his death." And
thus to endeavour to be like Christ is a laud
able, nay, a dutiful ambition ; it is our sin to
worship, but our duty to be, his picture : for
doubtless every Christian is obliged not only
to obey, but also to represent his Saviour.
Certainly Paul, in Gal. vi. 14, where he
says, that « he is crucified to the world," and
tells the believing Romans, (Rom. vi. 6,)
" that their old man is crucified with Christ,"
could have expressed the same thing by other
words sufficientiy significant, as, that he was
mortified, and his worldly desires extinguished,
and that their corruptions were abated,
weakened, and subdued ; but he rather says,
'cmcified." The other, indeed, would have
expressed his purity, but this, by a peculiar
significance, imports his Christianity, as not
only declaring an excellent life, but also the
example that caused it. It is like fair writing,
J^'th the copy prefixed and set above it. The
pusiness of a Christian is not invention, but
"nitation : and because he is too ignorant to
TOI. II,

prescribe to himself, all his perfection is to
follow, and Christ gives every Christian this
comprehensive, summary corapeudium of his
duty, " Lot him take up his cross and follow
me." And if he would abridge all religion
into this short dichotomy, the sum of our
belief is Christ, and of our obedience con
formity. Having thus shewn the reason of the use of
the word here, I proceed now to the second
thing, which is, —
2. To shew the full force and significance
of it.
Cmcifying therefore, as it is here applied
to the corruption aud depraved siuful dispo
sition of our nature, imports these four
things : —
(1.) The death of it. The cross is the in
struraent of death, and to crucify is to kill. A
few interrupted assaults and combats with a
man's corruption will uot suffice ; he may
give it some blows, and wounds, and bruises,
but after all these it may recover ; and wo
know the seed of the woraan was not ouly to
" bruise," but to " break the serpent's head."
He that will crucify his siu must pursue it
to the very death. Many, after they have
been something hurabled for their sin, and
for a while have used the raeans of mortifica
tion, so as to terrify it frora a present acting,
and have took off soraething of the edge of its
fury, conclude that the day is won, and tho
eneray routed, when, by sad experience, they
fiud at length that it is but a retreat, and the
return is more furious and dangerous than
ever. Au enemy is never overcorae till he is
killed ; aud those only act like wise men who
think so.
We are to crucify our corruptions, as the
Jews did Christ ; the whippings, scourgings,
aud buffetings were but the forerunners and
beginnings of the grand suffering that was in
tended. It was his life and his blood that
they thirsted after. Now it is but for a raan
to change the scene, and act the same upou
his own corruption. Sin stands as a malefac
tor condemned to death by the law of God ;
and God has intrusted every man with the
execution of his own sin ; and God will re
quire life for life ; so that if a man lets his sin
escape alive, the life of his soul must be its
ransom. There is nothing that betrays and ruins
men, as to the great concerns of their etemal
happiness, so much as half aud imperfect
mortifications of their sin, but supposed to be
perfect and complete ; for they give sin rather
a respite than a ruin ; atime of breathing and
of recollecting its strength, aud a more pre
vailing insinuation upon the heart, upon the
vicissitude and the return : so that a man is
strangely baffled and set backwards iu the
main work of repentance, while he sees all
his endeavours unravelled, and his sin grow
2f

4.50

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Serm- LIII.

upou hira afresh, like weeds only cropt and
cut, whereas they should have been rooted up.
If a man thinks that he has given a shrewd
blow to his lust, let him know that this is an
argument for him to pursue his advantage,
and to redouble his strokes upon it, to a per
fect conquest, rather than to acquiesce, as if
he had achieved something sufficient to acquit
himself in the combat. The utmost cruelty
to an inveterate enemy is always successful,
if sufficiently powerful ; but if a man shall
content hiraself to have given such an adver
sary a scratch on the hand, when he might
and should have stabbed him to the heart,
let him thank himself, if in the issue he fall
by a recovered fury, and dies by that strength
that he spared to his own ruin.
Wherefore, when we are thus commanded
to " crucify the flesh," let every one under
stand the full latitude of this precept ; and
remeraber that he is charged to kill his cor
ruption. God's hatred is directed to the life
and being of sin ; aud for a mau to spare
that, is to be absurdly cruel to his own soul.
To strike it, to war against it, without design
ing its death, is but hypocrisy. A Saul may
captivate and imprison an Agag, but a pious
Samuel will slay him.
(2.) As it iraplies de.ath, so it farther im
ports a violent death. Sin never dies of age.
It is as -when a young man dies in the full
fire and strength of his youth by some vehe
ment distemper ; it as it were tears and forces
and fires his soul out of his body. He that
will come and fight it out with his corruption
to the last, shall find, that it will sell its life
at a dear rate ; it will strive aud fight for it,
and many a doubtful conflict will pass between
that and the soul. It may give a raan mauy
a wound, many a foil, and many a dishearten
ing blow : for, believe it, the strong man will
fight for his possession.
Never think to dispossess him by a bare
summons, or imagine that a man can recover
the raastery of his heart and his affections by
a few prayers aud broken hurailiations. No,
such a mortifying course must be taken, and
such constant violences and severities used,
as shall try and shake every power of the
soul, before a cormption can be despatched.
The conquest had need be glorious, for it will
be fonnd, by sharp experience, that the com
bat will be dangerous.
The soul is engaged with such an enemy as
will require both the onsets of force and the
stratagems of art. Siu will never quit its hold
quietly ; but, like the Devil, who if we hear
is conjured down, it is always in a storm.
That man that allows himself in his siu, and
humours his corruption, let hira consider, that
if God ever intend to save hira from it, what
it will cost hira to conquer it ; kill it he raust,
but theu it will not be killed like a larab,
which resists uot the knife, but like a wolf or

a wild boar ; he raust run it down and con
quer it, before he cau kill it ; and though God
do give him the grace to conquer it in the
issue, yet he must go the hazard and the
dubious adventure of being conquered himself.
When a raan is put to effect any thing with
violence, it is troublesome to him that does, as
well as grievous to him that suffers it. This
therefore is the second thing implied in the cru
cifixion of sin, to despatch it by a violent death.
(3.) To crucify the flesh with the affections
of it, imports a painful, bitter, and vexatious
death. Let us but reflect upon our Saviour :
he -was nailed to the tree, and that through
those parts which were most apprehensive of
paiu, the hands and the feet ; which members,
by reason of the concurrence of the nerves
and sinews there, must needs be of quickest
sense : thus he hung, in the extremity of tor
ture, till, through the insupportable pressures
of pain, he at length gave up the ghost.
Now we are still to take the former obser
vation along with us, that the occasion of the
use of this expression here is an allusion to
Christ's crucifixion: so that the crucifying
the flesh, must express the pain also, or the
resemblance would not be perfect. This
supposed, it would be well that such as are
quick and forward to profess the name and
undertake the rigour of a Christian course,
would fisrt sit down and calculate and ponder
the difficulties, the hard, grating, and afflicting
contrariety that it bears to the flesh. They
are to live as upou the rack ; to hear the cries
of a tormented, dying corruption, without re
lenting ; when our greatest desires thirst and
beg for satisfaction, they are to be answered
only with renewed exercises of mortifica
tion ; when we have got them upon the cross,
we are to treat them as the Jews did Christ ;
wheu they thirst aud call out for their former
pleasures, to give them the vinegar and the
gall of sharper and sharper severities. The
cravings of our dearest aud most beloved
affections are to be denied ; and what a tor
ment is it when desire is upon the career, to
separate between the enjoyment aud the ap
petite ! It is like rending the skin from the
flesh, or the flesh from the bone : yet this is
to be done ; nor are we to be surprised with
wonder at it ; for certainly no man was ever
crucified without paiu.
The puuishment of the cross is of all others
the quickest and the most acute ; it is the
universal stretching of all the limbs from the
joints, so universal, that there is not the least
part, sinew, or fibre in the body, but it is
distended. So the mortification of sin is to be
so general and diffused, as not only to fix
upou the bulk aud body of sin, but to stretch
the inquisition to every the least desire, the
most lurking aud secret affection ; for as
suredly there is something more thau ordinary
implied in this expression of" crucifyingsin :"

ON GALATIANS, v. 24.

451

it cannot but import the raost rugged, cruel,
and remorseless dealing with it that is imagi
nable. And however men are nice and
favourable to their corruption, yet did they
consider what endless pains, what unspeak
able torments, their corrupt affections and
lusts prepare for them, even self-love could
not but be religion enough to make them
prevent sueh miseries, by first inflicting them
upon the author.
Every man should remember, that for all
his indulgence to sin, sin will not spare him ;
even that corruption that lies in his bosom
wUl prosecute him, aud cry out for justice
against him at " the judgment of the great
day." Besides, why should we grudge at the
painfulness of this duty, when it is confessed,
that every wound given to sin cannot but
pain the sinner ; but then if we consider
withal, that God has decreed to pardon and
save none, without giving them some taste of
the smart and bitter fmit of sin, we have
fwae to adore his mercy in this, that the pain
we take in mortifying sin, will be the only
pain that we shall ever endure for it.
(4.) In the fourth and last place, cruci
fixion denotes a shameful and a cursed death ;
it is such an one as was marked out and sig
nalized with a peculiar malediction, eveu of
old, by God hiraself, (Deut. xxi. 23,) " He
that is hanged on a tree is accursed of God ;"
and for the shame of it, it is so great amongst
all nations, that the infamy were a sufficient
punishment without the pain : so that the
Romans used it to slaves only, and the vilest
malefactors. Hence, in Heb. vi. 6, such
apostates as are said by their unworthy beha
viour to " cmcify Christ," are said also " to
put him to an open shame."
Thus therefore must the corruption and
vitiosity of our nature be dealt with. God
has doomed it to death, without the benefit
of so much as dying honourably. If there be
any scom, loathing, and detestation due to a
dying offender, certainly it is rauclvmore due
to the sin that made him so. Hereiipon God
has provided one great instrument for the
mortifying of sin, which is the irksome shame
of confession : I do not mean the auricular,
{lickpocket confession of the papists, but pub
ic confession, such an one as David exercised,
when he confessed his sins before the whole
congregation ; and such an one as the primi
tive Christian church required of scandalous
excommunicate persons, before they were re
admitted into its communion. And indeed if
we consider the temper of man's mind, con
fession is of all other penalties the most
shameful ; shameful I mean to sin, though
glorious to the confessing sinner.
Hence also humiliation for sin is expressed
'>y "taking shame to ourselves." And cer
tainly if shame is uot judicially awarded as
the punishment, it will naturally follow as

the fmit and effect of sin. See all the cursed
deaths, the confusion and consternation that
attends raalefactors : it is all to be ascribed to
this cursed cause, that they would not sharae
their sin, and therefore their sin has now
shamed aud confounded them. Considering
therefore how sin has stained the beauty of
our nature, and covered it with the shames
and dishonours of corruption, whatsoever we
do or cau inflict upon it of this kind, it is not
so much a punishraent from the law of God,
as a proper retaliation frora ourselves.
Having thus shewn what is iraported by the
crucifying of sin, I proceed now to the third
thing proposed.
3. 'Which is, to prescribe some means for
the enabling of us to the performance of this
duty. Two therefore I shall mention as con
ducible to this crucifixion of the flesh, with its
affections and lusts.
(1.) The first is a constant and pertinacious
denying them in all their cravings for satis
faction. A man by fasting too long may
come to lose his stomach ; so an affection
abridged and tied up from its proper gratifi
cation comes by degrees to be chastised and
even wearied into sobriety ; for frequent dis-
appointraeuts in a thing eagerly desired will
at length leave a kind of indifference in the
desires as to that thiug. As, on the contrary,
every gratification of a corrupt appetite exas
perates, calls forth, and enlarges it to new,
and greater, aud more restless expectations.
Let a man therefore begin the crucifixion
of his flesh in these negative mortifications ;
that is, when his voluptuous humour is clam
orous for pleasure, let hira not answer any of
those calls : if he would not raaintain it, let
hira not feed it : he will find that so rauch as
it wants of food, it will lose of its fierceness.
This is the course taken for the taming of
wild beasts, to reduce and order them by the
disciplines of hunger, by long and frequeut
frustrations of their ravenous appetites.
And the reason of this course is founded in
a natural cause. For though the design of
every appetite is to purvey for nature, and to
derive strength to that by receiving such and
such objects ; yet by the sarae raeans it first
feeds and strengthens itself. It being like
sorae collectors of public raoneys, who indeed
are employed and intended to serve the ex
chequer, but yet in the mean time use to be
very kind to themselves. In a word, the de
fraudation of the appetites of siu weakens the
whole body of sin and themselves also ; as on
the other side all satisfaction corroborates
and inflames them.
And he that takes up a resolution to cruci
fy his intemperance, luxury, or uncleanness,
yet when they call for their usual refection,
and a fair occasion knocks at his door, or his
corapanions call upon him, has no power to
deny either the entreaty of his appetite with-

' 4.5'2

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SEiRMONS.

Serm. LIII.

in, or to slight the invitation of tempting
objects from without, he may as well expect
to tame a wolf by feeding him, or to extin
guish a flame by heaping fuel upon it, as to
mortify a sin upon these terms. His attempt
is absurd, his success desperate, and his lust
must and will prevail.
2. The other means to cmcify a corrupt
affection, is to encounter it hy actions of the
opposite virtue. This differs from the former
thus : that that was only the denying of fuel
to a fire, but this a pouring water upon it,
aud so vanquishing it by the prevalence of a
contrary eleraent. He that is profane, let
him subdue his profaneness by the exercise of
prayer and raeditation. He that is covetous, let
hira dispossess his mind of that vice by ac
tions of charity and liberality : for as vicious
actions frequently repeated produce a vicious
habit, that infects and ferments the whole
soul ; so the like frequent repetition of virtu
ous actions does by degrees loosen, and at
length totally unfix and drive out that habit
of vice. Now this is both the nobler and the
speedier way of conquest : as it is more
glorious to break open than to starve a city,
and to take it by force than by surrender.
Both indeed are equally conquests, but the
latter is the greater triumph.
And thus much for the raeans by which we
raay be enabled to " crucify the flesh with the
affections and lusts."
4. Corae we now to the fourth and last
thing, naraely. To see what raay be drawn
by way of consequence and deduction frora
what has hitherto been delivered.
1. First of all then we collect the high con
cemraent and the absolute necessity of every
raan's crucifying his camal, worldly affections.
I know no work so difficult and unpleasing,
but its necessity is an abundaut arguraent to
enforce it. And I suppose every one will
grant, that it is necessary for hira to be a
Christian : yet unless he has crucified the flesh
he cannot be so, and his assuraing that title is
only a nullity aud an usurpation.
Upon this sraall hinge therefore turns the
grand deterraination of our eterual estate,
whether as to happiness or misery. The
whole round of raan's happiness, from the
first dawnings of it iu the revelations of grace,
to the last consummation of it in glory, runs
solely and entirely upon this. Without this,
not so much as the blessing of word and sac
raments, but it is poisoned with a curse. For
first, he that coraes to Christ's table who is
not Christ's, is in God's esteera only as a
" dog catching at the children's bread." He
that prays to Christ, and yet is not Christ's,
is but as a rebel presenting a petition ; if he
intrudes into the participation of ordinances,
aud the society of the saints, he is a guest
withont either invitation or wedding garment,
where his best entertainraent will be the im

prisonment of a malefactor, instead of the
welcome of a guest. On the other hand,
take all the solid happiness of this life, and
the hopes of a better, the privileges of the
sanctified, and the eternal fruitions of the
glorified, and they are all compendiously
but fully couched in this one word, " to be
Christ's." (2.) In the next place, we gather a stand
ing and infallible criterion, by which to dis
tinguish those that are not Christ's from those
that are, and consequeutly to couvince us how
few Christians there are iu the world ; or, to
speak more closely, how few Christians there
are in Christendom ; and that the common
use and acceptation of this word is much
larger than its real signification. Much the
greater number and proportion of men lie
wallowing in all the filth and the pollutions
of the flesh. But I suppose the precedent
discourse has been a sufficient demonstration,
that he and he alone has a right to this glo
rious appellative of a Christian, and to the
privileges that attend it, who has mastered
his depraved nature, cashiered his corrupt in
clinations, and offered violence to his dearest,
when sinful affections ; so that he overcomes
and triumphs, and sees his sin bleeding at his
feet. In sum, he ouly is Christ's who has
executed the utraost of that pious cruelty
upon his sin, that we have seen hitherto im
ported by crucifixion.
But it will be replied, that this is a hard
and a discouraging assertion, that none should
be reputed Christ's, unless he has fully cru
cified and destrayod his sin.
But to this I answer, that we must here
distinguish of a twofold destruction of sin.
1. In respect of a total abolition ; thus, ever^
one that is Christ's must have destroyed his
sin in design and purpose ; this he must in
tend, whatsoever God enables him to effect ;
this raust be aimed at, whatsoever is reached.
2. In respect of a sincere, though imperfect
inchoation : and thus every oue must actu
ally destroy his sin ; that is, he raust actu
ally begin and be about the work. Where
we may observe, that this is properly, nay,
with an emphatical significance, iraplied by
crucifixion ; for a raan is not dead as soon as
crucified. We know our Saviour an4 the two
thieves hung sorae hours upon the cross be
fore they breathed their last : so sin, though
it is not iramediately dead, yet it is tmly
crucified if it is a-dying. It may struggle for
life, indeed, yet for all that it may be under
the pangs and power of death.
But to shew what is the least degree of the
cmcifixion of sin indispensably required to
entitle a man to this transcendent privilege
of being Christ's, I shall lay down this posi
tion, namely, that he in a true evangelical
sense is to be reputed Christ's, who has cruci
fied his sin, as to an active resolution against

ON GALATIANS, v. 24.

463

it ; I say active resolution ; where this term
acJiw does not illustrate, but imply the nature
of it. There is a kind of identity in these
terms "active resolution," as when ¦we say,
" a rational manj" where the predicate does
not describe, but include the subject.
Which, by the way, is a sure, unfailing
rule for men to try the sincerity of their reso
lutions by. Many are prone to think, that
they are resolved against sin, when indeed
they only deceive and abuse themselves, and
are not so : for that is no resolution that is
not seconded with vigorous, suitable endea
vours : if it is not active, it is not so much as
resolution. ' But he that pursues, aud backs,
and follows home purpose with endeavour,
resolution with action, he has given his cor
ruption its death-blow ; he has crucified it ;
and if he does not intermit this course, he
shall see his victory completed in the death of
his adversary. A[nd thus I affirm, that the
crucifixion of sin realized iu a sincere though
prtial mortification of it, makes a ra.an a
believer, instates hira in grace, entities him
to glory, and, in a word, renders him truly
Christ's. And indeed, if this does not, we may con
clude, according to that of our Saviour, though
in a different sense, " when the Son of man
comes will he fiud faith upon the earth?"
For if this be rejected as no sufficient condi
tion to iu terest a mau in the merits of Chrisfs
death, and the redemption he has purchased,
as God indeed has limited the number of saints
to very few, so I am afraid that upon these
terms we shall reduce it almost to none, and
make the passage to heaven yet narrower
than ' ever God made it ; who, even in the
midst of a sinner's condemnation, is the God
that delights to s.ave, aud not to condemn.
To which God be rendered and ascribed, as
is most due, all praise, might, majesty, and
dominion, both now and for evermore. Amen,

SERMON LIV.
" Wo to him Oiat buildeth a town with blood. " — Hab. ii. 12.
Tms short prophecy, out of which I have
selected this portion of scripture to discourse
of upon this sad and solemn occasion, was
uttered (as interpreters do conjecture, for
know it certainly they cannot) about the latter
end of the reign of king Josiah, or at least in
the following reign of his sou, but however
some time before the Babylonish captivity,
fliat being the great event which it foretells,
and the chief subject of which it treats.
The whole prophecy contains in it tbe^e
two parts : 1st, A double complaint made b\-

the prophet : 2dly, A double answer returned
to it by God.
1. And first for the complaint. The pro
phet cries out of the horrid impiety, the great
perfidiousness, and general corruption of the
Jewish natiou, then grown to that height,
that he was forced to invoke the justice of
heaveii against thera, as being too strong for
all humau control, too big for reproof, .and fit
only to upbraid the meaus of grace by their
incorrigible impenitence uuder them.
This loud and grievous coraplaint of his
prophet, God answers with the denunciation
of a severe judgment against the persons com
plained of, by bringing in upou them an army
of the Chaldeans, " that hasty .and bitter
nation," as they are styled iu the sixth verse
of the first chapter, persons that should act all
the insolences upon them, that victory in
conjunction with ill-nature could prompt
them to : men whose hearts were flint, and
their bowels brass ; who kuew not what it
was to pity or relent, but were utter strangers
to humanity, aud iucap.able of shewing com
passion : but upon all these accounts so much
the fitter to be instrumental to the divine
vengeance, now inflamed agaiust them, aud
to surpass, if possible, the severity of the
sentence by the fierceness of the execution.
Which dreadful answer of^God is so far
from satisfying the prophet's complaint, that
it only exasperates his grief, and provokes
him to auother, in which he expostulates
with God the method of this his judgraent,
that he should punish the wickedness of his
people by persons so much viler aud wickeder
than themselves; that vice should be employed
to punish sin, aud th.at his church should be
chastised, and, ifyou will, reformed by persons
notable for nothing but blood and rapine,
luxury and idolatry.
To this compLaint also God is pleased to
rejoin, aud to clear the justice, equity, and
reason of his proceeding, by shewing that it
-was not to be rated by the qu.alificatiou of the
instruments made use of iu it ; which instru
ments he would be sure to account with wheu
they had done his work ; and that, as he
designed his people for the rod, so he designed
the rod itself for the fire. He assures his
prophet, and with him all pious and humble
persons, who could lift their faith aboye their
sense, that .as Nebuchadnezzar and his army
were not for any wortii or piety in themselves
suffered to captivate and trample upou God's
people, and to make havock of and veut their
rage against the church ; so that they them
selves should infallibly have their turns in the
course aud circulatiouof divine justice, and be
strictly reckoned with for their intolerable
pride,' their insatiable avarice, and their iu-
hunian and reraorseless cruelty, shewn iu the \
spoil and waste they had made upon all j
nations round about them for the propagation i

454

SOUTH^S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Sbrm. LIV.

of their empire, which they were still enlarg
ing as their desires, and their desires as hell,
as It is expressed in the fifth verse of the
second chapter : for all this, I say, the prophet
IS assured that these victorious sons of Belial
should pay severely, when God should think
fit to rebuild Jerusalem upon the ruius of
Babylon ; and to convince the proud and the
cruel, that he neither loves nor values his
scourge, though he is sometiraes constrained
to use it.
The words of the text contain in them
a wo or curse, denounced personally and
directly against the great head of the Chaldean
erapire Nebuchadnezzar, but by consequence
against the whole erapire itself. The curse
is both for the ground, object, and mea
sures of it considerable : and therefore I shall
cast the prosecution of the words into these
five particulars :
I. I shall shew the ground or cause of this
curse, which the text declares to be, that
justly abhorred sin of blood-guiltiness.
^ II. I shall shew the condition of the person
against whom this curse was denounced. He
was such an one as had actually set up and
established a government by blood.
III. I shall shew the latitude and extent of
the curse, and what is comprehended in it.
I'V. I shall shew the reasous why a curse or
wo is so peculiarly denounced against this siu.
V. And lastly, I shall apply all briefly to
the present sad occasion.
I. And first, for the ground and cause of
the curse here denounced, which was the cry
ing, crimson sin of bloodshed ; a sin, in the
hatred and detestation of which heaven and
earth seera to strive for the mastery. The
first great disturbance in the world after the
fall of man was by a murderer ; whom the
vengeance of God pursued to that degree, that
he professed that "his punishment was greater
than he could bear," though he himself could
not say, that it was greater than he had
deserved. Accordingly in all succeeding gene
rations it has still been the care of Providence
both by civil and religious means, to extin
guish all principles of savageness in the minds
of men, and to make friendship and tender
ness over men's lives a great part of religion.
But by nothing has this been so highly endea
voured, as by the rules and constitution of
Christianity, the last and noblest revelation
that God has made of his mind and will to
the sons of men. In which all acts of fierce
ness, violence, and barbarity, are so strictly
provided agaiust, that there are few injuries
in which patience and sufferance are not re
commended instead of the most just and
reasonable pretensions to revenge : nay, and
so very tender is it of men's lives, that it
secures them against the very first approaches
and preparations to murder, by dashing even
angry thoughts, and denouncing damnation

to vilifying, provoking words : so that we
have both law and gospel equally rising up
against this monstrous sin : aud the sentence
of both confirmed by the eternal voice of rea
son speaking in the law of nations : and so
all passing this concurrent judgnient, that
whosoever sheds man's blood, ought by man
to have his blood shed. A judgment made up
of all the justice and equity that it is possible
for reason and religion to infuse iuto a law.
But now the execution of this law being
upon no grounds of reason to be committed
to every private hand, God has found it neces
sary to deposit it only in the hands of his
vicegerents, whom he intrusts and deputes as
his lieutenants in the governraent and protec
tion of the several societies of mankind ; and
so both to ennoble and guard their sceptres,
by appropriating to the same hands the use
of the sword of justice too. From which it
follows, that the law has not the same aspect
upon sovereign princes, that it has upon the
rest of men ; nor that the sword can, by any
raortal power, be authorized against the life
of him to whom the sole use of it is by divine
right ascribed. Upon which account, if it so
fall out that a prince invades either the estate
or life of a subject, that law, that draws the
sword of justice upon the life of any private
person doing the same things, has no power
or efficacy at all to do the same execution upon
the supreme magistrate, whose supreraacy,
allowing him neither equal nor superior,
renders all legal acts of punishraent or coercion
upon hira (the nature of which is still to
descend) utterly impossible.
But what ! does God then approve, or at
least connive at those wicked actions in
princes, that he so severely takes revenge of
in others ? No, certainly, the guilt is the same
in both, and under au equal abhorrence with
God, and shall equally be accounted for ; but
the difference is this, that while God punishes
inferior malefactors by the hands of princes,
he takes the punishment of princes wholly
into his own : and surely no guilty person is
like to speed at all the better for having his
cause brought before him who has an infinite I
wisdom to search into, and an infinite power
to revenge his guilt. It is God's prerogative
to be the sole judge of princes, and heaven :
only is that high court of justice, where kings j
can be legally arraigned, tried, and condemned.
God has woes enough in store to humble the '
highest and the proudest tyrant, without
needing the assistance of any of his rebel
subjects ; and therefore such courses for the
curbing or pulling down of princes is neither
the cause of God nor the defence of religion,
but the doctrine of devils, and the dictates of
that which iu the judgment of God himself is
worse thau witchcraft. For be a king never
so savage, bloody, or unjust, he is, uuder all
these respects, to be looked upon as a plague

ON H.-VBAKKUK, ii. 12.

45.5

or apunishment sent by God upon the people,
whose duty I am sure is to submit, be the
punishment what it will. And however, that
nation is like to find but a strange recovery,
be its disteraper what it will, if its cure must
be a rebellion.
II, The second thing to be considered is,
the condition of the person against whom this
wo or curse is denounced. He was such an
one as had actually established a government
and built a city with blood. We know that
as soon as Cain had murdered his brother, he
presently betook himself to the building of a
city. And so indeed it falls out, that bloodi
ness has usually a connection with building,
aud that upon some ground of reason ; foras
much as men, by shedding of blood, are
enabled to build cities, aud set up govern
ments ; and then because such cities being
ence built, and governments set up, do secure
the shedders of blood from the vengeance due
to their sin. The person here spoken of I am
sure eminently served his turn by his cruelty
and bloodiness in both these respects, as
having thereby reared, or at least hugely
augmented the most magnificent city that
ever was ; even Babylon, the stupendous
metropolis of the eastern monarchy, then the
governess of the world : a city so strong and
great, that it might well promise its builder
sufficient defence against any mortal power,
that should presume to call him to account
for any of those slaughters and depredations,
by which he had been enabled thus to build
it So that it is not for nothing, that the
prophet here expresses the whole Chaldean
monarchy by this city, which was of such
incredible strength, glory, and vast dimen
sions, that it might well pass for one of the
wonders of the world, and render it alraost
doubtful whether Babylon should be accounted
in the Chaldean empire, or the Chaldean
empire be said to be in;Babylon. The account
the world has had of the Assyrian monarchy,
the first and greatest of all the four, is indeed
but small and imperfect ; but so far as the
scattered fragments of antiquity have been
able to inform us, we may guess at the un
paralleled greatuess of the structure by the
iiiagnificence of its remains. For if we con
sider the spaciousness of this city of Babylon,
it is reported to have been about four hundred
and fifty-eight of our English miles in circuit :
yea, so exceeding wide and ample was it, that
three days after it was taken, one part of the
city knew nothing of what had befallen the
other. The wall that encompassed it was
two hundred cubits high, aud so thick withal,
that two coaches might meet upon the breadth
of it. It opened itself at an huudred gates,
and those all of brass ; which whole wall was
the work of Nebuchadnezzar, though falsely
ascribed to Semiramis. Add to all this, the
^ortj pemiles, art's miraculous emulation of

nature, that is, vast gardens and woods planted
upon the battlements of towers, aud bearing
trees fifty foot in height : such prodigious
instances of the grandeur of this city have the
most authentic historians, both Greek and
Latin, transmitted to us. So that Nebuchad
nezzar might well vaunt hiraself upon the
survey of such a mighty structure, as, iu Daniel
iv. 29, 30, we find that he does to some pur
pose ; where we have him walking in the
palace of his kingdora, and thus braving it to
hiraself : " Is not this great Babylon, that I
have built for the house of ray kingdom, and
by the might of my power ?" Words that
sufficiently declare the speaker ofthem to have
little regarded either God or raan . And surely
while he uttered thera, he thought himself in
a conditiou rather to rival and defy heaven,
thau to fear it, and far above the reach of all
woes or curses.
But when God shall send a curse, it shall
go with a vengeance, and make its way into
the very heart of Babylon, climb its high
walls, and break through its brass gates, and
drive the tyrant with these very words in
his mouth frora his throne and all his im
perial glories, to herd it with the beasts of
the field, till a better mind should fit him for
a better condition. For it is worth our ob
serving, that God takes a peculiar delight to
surprise and seize upou a great guilt in the
height of its pride and bravery, and iu the
very midst of all its strengths and presumed
securities. He delights to coraraission his
curse to arrest a bloody Ahab, just as he is
going to take possession of the price of blood,
and to dash out the brains of a raurderous
Abiraelech in the very head of his array.
These are the triumphs of judgraent, aud the
glorious trophies of blood-revenging justice.
III. The third thing proposed was, to shew
the latitude and extent of this wo or curse,
and what is coraprehended in it. Concerning
which, there is no doubt but it includes the
miseries of both worlds, present and future.
And if we go no farther than the present, it
is grievous enough, and made up of these fol
lowing ingredients :
1. That it fastens a general hatred and
detestation upon such men's persons. For
cmelty and bloodiness, arraed with power, is
the proper raotive and the dreadful object of
men's fears ; and fear and hatred usually
keep corapany; it being very hard, if not
irapossible, to assign that person, who has not
the sarae share and proportion in men's
hatred, that he has in vheir fears. Every man
flies frora such an oue, as frora a public ruin
or a walking calamity, who, which way soever
he turns himself, both looks aud brings certam
desolation. He converses amongst the living
as an enemy to men's lives ; as a sword or a
dagger, which the nearer it comes, the more
dangerous it is.

456

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Serm. LIV.

Cruelty alarms and calls up all the passions
of human nature, and puts them into a pos
ture of hostility and defiance. Every heart
swells against a tyrant, as against a coramon
eneray of raankind, and blood rises at the
sight of blood ; aud certainly it is none of the
least of miseries for a raan to be justly hated ;
for though it be tied up and restrained
from its utraost effects, yet tlie very breathings
of it are raalignant, the silent grudgings and
glances of it orainous and fatal. A great
part of the happiness of this life is, to enjoy a
free aud araicable converse with such as live
about us ; and therefore an ingenuous nature
cannot but account it a real plague, to see a
cloud iu every countenance he beholds ; to
observe the black and lowering aspects of a
reserved raalice, and, as it -were, to read his
doora in every face, and to gather his fortune
from another's forehead.
Who so hated as Cain, Nebuchadnezzar,
Saul, Herod, aud such other bloodsuckers ?
All the glory of their power and magnificence
was smothered in the hatred of their cruelty,
deriving a just hatred upou their persons : for
it is the concernment of mankind, and of
humanity itself, to abhor such destroyers.
He that shews the power he has over men's
lives only by taking them away, must not
think to command or reign over their affec
tions. Neither is this hatred without an equal
scorn ; for the same temper that is cruel is
also sordid and degenerous, and consequently
as fit an object for contempt. What so cruel,
and withal so base, as a wolf? But ou the
other side, true worth and fortitude is never
bloody. Gold, the noblest of metals, is heal
ing aud restorative ; aud it is only iron, the
vilest, with which we wound and destroy.
Let this therefore be the first ingredient
of the wo discharged against the tyrant aud
bloody person, to be universally hated and
scorned ; to go no whither, but with a retinue
of curses at his heels ; to be murdered iu the
wishes, and assassinated in the very looks of
his subjects. He who is a monster, and an
exception from human nature, may perhaps
count this nothing, and say with Lucius Sylla,
the murdering, proscribing dictator of Rome,
Oderint dum met'uant ; but he that is sensible
that man was born for society, that is, to love
and to be loved, must in this case look upon
himself as an outlaw and au exile from the
converse, and consequently from the felicity
aud proper enjoyments of mankind.
2. The second ingredient of the wo here
denounced against bloody persons is, the
torraent of continual jealousy and suspicion.
He that is injurious, is naturally suspicious ;
and he that knows that he deserves enemies,
will always suppose that he has them, and
perhaps at length by suspecting come to make
them so.

But now, is it not the height of misery thus
like a wild beast still to fear and to be feared?
for the mind to be perpetually struggling
with its own surmises, and first to create
torments, and then to feel them ? The breast
of a tyrant is like a sea, it swallows up and
devours others, and is still restless, troubled,
and unquiet in itself. Could Herod the Great
be more poorly and basely^ unhappy, than to
be afraid of poor sucking infants, and not to
think himself safe in the throne, unless he
stormed nurseries and invaded cradles? A
kingdom can be desirable upon no other ac
count, but because it seems to comraand more
of the materials of happiness, and to afford
greater opportunities of satisfaction to the
desires of a rational nature, than can possibly
be had in any inferior condition. But now
what real happiness can that prince or great
man find, that has his mind depraved into
such a jealous, suspicious temper ? What
can all the enjoyments of a court or kingdora
profit, when the tormentor within shall im
bitter thera all, and the paleness of fear and
death sit perpetually upon his heart ? What
pleasure can it afford to cast roses into that
bosom, that feels the gnawiugs of the wolf?
Aud therefore if the tyrant is brought to
this pass, as to feel the reflections of his
tyranny over others in that which his own
jealousy exercises upon himself, and if his
own thoughts plot and conspire against him,
his very diadem is but a splendid mockery,
his throne a rack, and all his royalty nothing
else but a great and magnificent misery.
3. The third ingredient denounced against
him that endeavours to raise and settle a
governmeut with blood is, the shortness and
certain dissolution of the government that he
endeavours so to establish. There is no way
by which God so usually punishes villainous
designs, as the disappointment of them, by
those very methods and instruraents by which
they were to have been accomplished. It is,
as I raay so say, the great sport of Providence,
to ruin unjust titles and usurped governraent
by their very supports. But of all the means
employed by tyrants for this purpose, there
is none so frequently made use of, though
none so often proves fatal to the user, as this
of savageness and cruelty ; innocent blood
always proving but a bad cement to build
the walls of a city with. For how do such
governraents pass the world like so raany
furious blasts of wind, violent and short !
as it were out of breath aud expiring with
their own violence. How do tyrants, having
by rauch blood and rapine advanced them
selves to the sovereign power of a kingdom,
like so many fatal comets, shine and blaze,
and fright the worid below them, in those
upper regions for a. while, but still portend
their owu downfall and destruction ? For
was it not thus with those traitorous captains

ON HABAKKUK, ii. 12.

4.o7

of Israel, who kinged themselves by slaying
their masters and reigning in their stead?
How quickly was their usurped government
at an eud ! How soon did they meet with
others who did the like for them ! " Had
Zimri peace, who slew his master?" Such
governments quickly fall and moulder away,
like clods dissolved with blood.
Was it not thus also with Cinna and
Marius, and afterwards with Sylla hiraself,
who had nothing of Dictator Perpetuus but
the name ?
How soon was the faraily of bloody Saul
extinct ! And for Herod the Great, did not
the same cruelty, for which he deserved to be
childless, almost make him so ? Archelaus,
the only son he left, succeeding but to part of
his kingdora, and tbat too but for a short
time. And when afterwards Herod Antipas
the tetrarch was routed, and lost all his army
in a war with Aretas, king of Arabia, aud
when by the subtilty of Agrippa he was out
witted and outed of all, and also banished,
Josephus himself says, that even the Jews
ascribed all this to a divine vengeance upon
him for the barbarous and unjust murder of
John the Baptist.
And for the Jews themselves, does not
Christ, in the very same place in which he
foretells the min and destruction of Jerusalera,
upbraid that bloody city with her "killing
Grod's prophets, and stoning those that were
sent nnto her ?"
And lastly, whereas the high priest coun
selled the putting of Christ to death, lest
otherwise the Roraans should corae upon
them, and destroy both their nation and go
vernment ; is it not evident to any one not
obstinately blind, that the very guilt of his
bloodbrought that destruction upon thera frora
the Romans, who not long after sacked their
city, bumt the temple, killed, crucified, sold,
and dispersed the inhabitauts ; that is, used
them as they had used Christ, till at length
they took away both their place and nation ?
"'Wo to the bloody city," says the prophet,
(Ezek. xxiv. 6.)
The siu of blood is a destroying, wasting.
Murdering sin ; murdering others, besides
those whom it kills ; it breaks the back of
governments, sinks families, destroys for the
future, reaches into successions, and cuts off
posterities. 4. The fourth ingredient of the wo here
denounced against the bloody builders of go
vernments, is the sad and disraal end that
usually attends such persons. He that de
lights to swira in blood, is for the most part
at length drowned iu it ; and there is a kind
of fatal circulation by which blood frequently
wheels about and returns upon the shedder of
it. How did Cyrus the Persian verify this by
a peeuliar significancy of death, having his
head cut off, and thrown into a tub of blood !

How did the fratricide Romulus die, being
tom in pieces by the senate ! How did
Sylla expire in a murdering fit, causing one
to be strangled before hira in his charaber,
and with that passiou so disturbing hiraself,
and enraging his distemper, that within a
few hours he breathed out his own bloody
soul !
And, to corae to the sacred story, how did
Sarauel treat Agag ? " As thy sword has
made raany childless, so shall thy raother be
childless amongst womeu." Aud then for
Herod the Great, who so barbarously raur
dered those poor innocents ; he died indeed in
his bed, as well as our late grand regicide ;
but with so rauch horror and disaster, that
for some days before he died, he snatched at
a knife to have murdered, or rather to have
killed himself ; and so to have done that,
which only wanted another aud a higher
hand to have made it a just execution. But
upon none did the revenging hand of divine
justice appear more signally thau upon Herod
Agrippa, mentioned in the twelfth of the
Acts ; who, to please the Jews, aud thereby
to confirm himself in his kingdom, having
slain James, the brother of John, with the
sword, proceeded to take Peter also. But we
read in what terrible strange manner, even in
the height of his pride and glory, he was
smote by God, infested with worms, and
made a living carcass ; thus anticipating the
effects of death, and suffering the curse of the
grave before he descended into the ground.
Should I endeavour to give a full rehearsal
of all such like instances, I must transcribe
the stories of all times, which are scarce fuller
of pages, than of examples of this kind. Blood
seldora escapes revenge, since it is so easily
followed and found out by its own traces.
And thus much for the third thing proposed ;
which was, to shew the latitude and extent
of the curse or wo here denounced agaiust
bloody persons, aud the several plagues com
prehended in it. I come now to the fourth
particular, which is,
IV. To shew the reasons why a curse or
wo is so peculiarly denounced against this sin.
Many raay be assigned, but I shall produce
ouly these :
1. The first is, because the sin of bloodshed
makes the most direct breach upon human
society, of which the provideuce of God owns
the peculiar care and protection.
Conceming which we must observe, that
every man has naturally a right to enjoy such
things as are suitable to and required by the
rational appetites of his nature ; iu tiie due
and lawful satisfaction of which properiy
consists his well-being in this worid, which
is every man's birthright by an irrevocable
charter from God and nature. For whosoever
is bom, has a right to live ; and whosoever
has a right to live, has a right also to live

4.58

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Srrm. LIV.

well. Now that men might the better se
cure both their lives or being, and withal
corapass such lawful satisfactions to them
selves, as should be requisite to their well-
being, they first entered into society, and
then, to preserve society, put theraselves
under governraent. So that the end of society
is a man's enjoyment of himself, and the end
of government is society. For in the first
and raost natural intention of it, no governor,
merely as such, is made absolute lord of the
lives or proprietor of the estates of those
whom he governs, but only a trustee by God
to secure thera in the free possession and en
joyment of both. And therefore that gover
nor that wrings away a man's estate, or
destroys his life, not yet forfeited to the com
munity he lives in by any crime, is in God's
account a thief and a raurderer, and so shall
hereafter be dealt with by hira as such ;
though iu the meau time (as I said before)
neither reason nor religion can authorize the
subjects to revenge these injuries upon their
governor. From whence we learn the reason why God
so rauch concerns hiraself to punish the unjust
shedder of blood ; first, because he is the great
trespasser upon human society, by being de
stmctive to the lives of men ; and next,
because if he who is so chances to be a sove
reign prince, there is no provision iu the ordi
nary course of huraan justice to call such a
destroyer to account.
As for the life of man, it is an enjoyment
in comparison of which nature scarce values
all others ; this is the very apple of his eye,
sensible of the least touch, and irrecoverable
after the first loss. For if a man loses his
estate, he may get another ; and if he loses
his reputation, he may perhaps recover it ; or
if he cannot, he may live without it, not very
happily indeed, but yet he may live. But if
the tyrant takes away his life, there is uo re
trieving of that ; this sweeps away being and
well-being at one blow ; the dying man parts
with all at one breath, and is but one remove
from annihilation ; uot so much as his very
thoughts remaining, but they also perish,
(Psalra cxlvi. 4.)
Aud now when a tyrant by shedding blood
has provoked civil justice, and by shedding so
much has put himself beyond the reach of
it, does not the matter itself seem to appeal
to a superior providence, to invoke the justice
of Heaven to make bare its arra in the behalf
of injured and oppressed right ?
Blood certainly shall not go unrevenged,
though it be the greatest Herod that sheds it,
and the meanest infant that loses it ; though
whole parliaments and armies shall conspire
against the life of the innocent and the help
less. Briefly, it belongs to God, as the supreme
governor of the world, to revenge such grand
and unnatural violations of the societies of

mankind, committed to the tuition of hia
providence. 2. The second reason why God so peculiarly
denounces a wo against the sin of bloodiness,
is not only for the malignity of the sin itself,
but also for the malignity of those sins that
almost always go in conjunction with it, par
ticularly for the abhorred sins of fraud, de
ceitfulness, and hypocrisy. The two great
things that make such a breach upon the
peace and settlement of the world are force
and fraud. For all men that are miserable
become so either by being driven or cheated
out of their enjoyments. Hence the Spirit
of God, in Psalm Iv. 25, joins the bloody
and deceitful man together. And does not
Christ himself call Herod, that murdered
John the ^aTpist, fox; a beast notable for his
craft, as well as for sucking of blood ?
If we look into history, we shall scarce find
any one remarkably cruel, who was not also
noted for his dissimulation. But we need
not much trouble histories ; for has not all
the bloodshed amongst us, from the blood of
the prince to that of the peasant, issued frora
the most devout pretences of reformation ?
Has not the nation been massacred by sancti
fied murderers, who came into the field masked
with covenants and protestations, quoting
scripture while they cut throats, and singing
psalras while they plundered towns ; destroy
ing their prince's arraies and shooting at his
person, while in the meantime they swore
that they fought for him ?
But this way and method of proceeding is
but natural. For meu must be first deceived
out of their guards and defences, before they
can be exposed to the utmost violences. The
bird must be caught in the snare, aud the fish
beguiled with the bait, before they can be
killed. But now there is scarce any thing that God
hates more thoroughly, and punishes more
severely, than deceit aud falseness ; for it is
most properly a defiance of God ; who is
alvvays either solemnly invoked, or at least
tacitljr supposed, for the great witness of the
sincerity of men's dealings ; and if men use
not truth in these, the great bond of converse
is dissolved.No wonder, therefore, if bloodiness draw
after it such a wo, having alwaya such a sin
in its company, and if the curse falls heavy,
being procured by two of the greatest sins in
the closest conjunction.
And thus much for the fourth particular,
which was to shew the several ingredients con
tained within the compass or latitude of the
curseor wo here denounced. I desceadnow to,
V. The fifth and last, which is, to apply
all to this present occasion.
I shew at the beginning, that ever since the
creation of mankind, God has all along mani
fested such a solicitous care for the lives of

ON HABAKKUK, ii. Pi.

469

men, the noblest of all his creatures, that he
has not secured them only by severe laws
established against murder, hut also by mak
ing kindness, mercy, and benevolence a great
part of religion : and of all other religions,
has he chiefly wove these excellent and benign
qualities into the very heart and vital consti
tution of Christianity. By how much the
more detestable, and for ever accursed, must
those miscreants appear, who have slurred
and bespattered the best, the purest, and most
peaceable of all religions, by entitling it to all
'the rapines they have acted, and all the blood
they have imbrued their hands in, as shed by
the immediate impulse of God's Spirit, and
for the defence and preservation of religion !
How much this nation has been concerned in
this black charge, we need no other argument
thau this fatal day, to convince us ; on which
was acted the most disloyal, barbarous, and
inhuman piece of villainy, and that with all
the solemn disguises of piety and religion,
that mortal men were ever yet guilty of, since
there was such a thing as sovereignty acknow
ledged, or such a thing as religion professed
upou the face of the earth.
Bnt to shew farther how close and home
the subject-matter of the text comes to the
business of this annual soleranity, we will
survey the correspondence that is between
them, as to the three main thiugs con
tained in the words. The first was a charge
of unjust efRision of blood. The second was
the end or design for which it was shed,
namely, the setting up of a government. And
the third and last was a wo or curse de
nounced against the person that endeavours
to establish himself by such a course.
As for the first, we must know, that all
unjust bloodshed is twofold. 1. Either pub
lic, and acted hy and upon a coraraunity,
as in a war. Or, 2. Personal, in the assassi
nation of any particular man.
1. As for that which is public ; it is as
certain, that he who takes away a mau's life
in a war, commenced upon an unjust cause,
and without just authority, is as truly a mur
derer, as he that enters his neighbour's house,
and there stabs him within his own walls.
And as for the late war, upon the account of
all laws, both of God and man, whether we
respect the cause for which it was raised,
which was, the removal of grievances, where
there were none, or the persons that carried
It on, who were subjects armed against their
prince, it was in all the parts and circumstan
ces of it a perfect, opeu, and most barefaced
rebellion. For not all the Calvins, Bezas,
Knoxes, Buchanans, or Parseus's in Christen
dom, with all their principles of anarchy and
democracy, so studiously maintained in their
respective writings, can by any solid reason
•flake out the lawfulness of subjects taking
arms against their prince. For if government

be the effect and product of reason, it is im
possible for disobedience to found itself upon
reason : and therefore our rebels found it
necessary to balk aud decry this, and to fetch
a warrant for all their villainies from ecstasy
and inspiration. But besides, if we translate
the whole matter from the merit of the cause
to that of the person, no people under heaven
had less ground to complain of, much less to
fight against their prince, than the English
then had, who at that time swimmed in a
full enjoyment of all things but a thankful
mind ; no prince's reign having ever put sub
jects into a condition so like that of princes,
as the peaceable part of the reign of King
Charles the First ; which indeed was the true
cause that made them kick at those breasts
that fed them, aud strike at that royal oak
uuder whose shadow they enjoyed so much
ease, plenty, and prosperity.
2. The other sort of unjust bloodshed is
the assassination of particular persons : and
had not our bloodsuckers their slaughter
houses and courts of mock justice, as well as
the high places of the field, to act their butch
eries upon ? Strafford and Canterbury lead the
way, 'both as forerunners of, and introduc
tions to the shedding of a more sacred blood,
the stain of which will dye the English calen
dar for ever, and the cry of which sober per
sons much fear continues still, and rings aloud
in heaven, whatsoever arts have been used,
and still are, to silence it here on earth. For
it was the blood of one, who had those two
things erainently in conjunction, either of
which alone should be a sufficient safeguard
to the life of him that has thera, to wit, inno
cence and sovereignty. For innocence ought
to protect the life of the meanest subject, and
sovereignty to secure the person of the highest
criminal. But we scorn that word when we
speak of this blessed martyr, whose virtues
were larger than his dominions, aud will
make his enemies more infamous than their
own vices.
Blood, therefore, we see has been shed
amongst us to soraff purpose, the first thing
in which the text is answered by the business
of this day.
The second was, the end or design for which
the blood here spoken of was shed, naraely,
the erecting or setting up of a govemraent.
And was not the very same thing drove at by
all our pious murderers ? For out of the mins
of a glorious church aud monarchy, and all
those slaughtered heaps of men sacrificed to
the cause of loyalty on one side, and of re
bellion on the other, did there not at length
rise up a misshapen, monstrous beast with
many heads, called a comraonwealth ; a pack
of insolent, beggariy tyrants, who lorded it as
long as they were able, till at length they
were forced to surrender and pass over all
their usurped power into the hands of their

460

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Sf.rm. LV.

great Beelzebub, the prime rebel and regicide,
by whom they had done all their mighty
works ? And so their commonwealth wheeled
about again into a monarchy. All those
rivulets of tyranny, as it were, emptying and
discharging themselves into that great gulf or
dead sea of all baseness, cruelty, and hypo
crisy : a fellow that had torn and trampled
upon all those obligations, either civil or
sacred, by which humau society does subsist ;
who, by abusing religion, breaking oaths,
mocking of God, and murdering his prince, at
length grasped the sovereign power of these
three kingdoms, and then called himself their
protector, with the same tmth and propriety
that a wolf or a bear may be said to protect
the flocks they worry and tear in pieces.
So then, the parallel we see holds good
thus far ; that our villains reared themselves
a government by the blood they shed, as well
as those mentioned by the prophet in the
text. And now, in the third and last place, have
they not, think we, also as full a right and
title to the wo and curse there denounced in
the same words ? Yes, assuredly ; there being
no persons under heaven that more deserved
to drink off the very dregs of God's vengeance,
and to empty all his quivers, than these mon
sters did.
As for the curse that befell these bloody
builders of government, I shew, that it mani
fested itself erainently in two respects :
1. In the shortness of the government so
set up. And was it long that these murderers
of their prince possessed the government they
so usurped ? Within five years their infant
coraraonwealth expired ; and in five years
more Cromwell's mushroom monarchy was at
an end, iu spite of all the prophecies of those
impostors, that would lengthen out his life
and government out of Daniel aud the Reve
lation, telling hira, that there was thirty
years raore generation-work (as they canted
it) cut out for him ; and that it was con
trary to the methods of Providence, having
raised up such au extraordinary instmment,
to lay him aside, till he had finished his work.
But God, who understood his own counsels
better than such saucy interpreters, knew
that this wretch had disturbed the world too
long already ; and so in his good time sent
him to his own place.
2. Another part of the curse attending the
bloody raisers of governraent, was the gene
ral hatred that always follows such persons.
And of this I think our usurpers had as large
a portion as ever light upon the heads of
mortal men. For in the most flourishing
estate of all their greatness they were encom
passed with curses as well as armies ; men
being scarce able to keep down the inward
boilings of revenge, and to restrain their
tongues and hands from ministering to that

fulness of hatred that swelled within their
hearts. Men hated them even in the behalf
of human nature, and for the vindication of
coraraon humanity. And still so much and
so justly abhorred are they, that all the par
dons and indulgences, all the good words, all
the great offices and preferraents tbat can
be bestowed upon thera, will never be able
to sweeten their memory, nor rescue them
from the detestation of all sober persons
aud true lovers of their country. And tho
truth is, to speak the severest words of
these vipers is not (as some call it) a sacri
ficing to any personal heat or private revenge ;
but a real serving of the public interest of so
ciety, aud the doing an act of mere charity
to the innocent and to posterity, who, by
hearing with what abhorrence such mis
creants are mentioned, will dread the imita
tion of those villainies, that have derived snch
an odium and infaray upon the actors ofthem.
Nor can I think that any one can concern
hiraself against the ripping np of the base
ness of the king's murderers, even in the
harshest, that is, the most proper terms, but
such as have been either the relations, officers,
or servants of that grand regicide, and conse
quently whose unlimited puritan consciences
will equally serve them to act and thrive
under any government whatsoever.
But it is well that there is a punishment
for villains in the general hatred of mankind ;
and this is the lot, thisthe punishment of our
rebels: but as for any other penalties that
use to descend upon traitors aud murderers
from the hand of human vengeance, these
they have for the most part escaped, as having
rebelled under a lucky star, which has pros
pered their villainies and secured their per
sons iu this worid, till the great judge of all
things shall recognize the cause of abused
majesty and religion in another, and there
award such a sentence upon the violators of
them, as shall demonstrate to raen and angels, I
that verily God is righteous ; " doubtless there
is a God that judgeth the worid." j
To whora be rendered and ascribed, as is
most due, all praise, might, majesty, and
dominion, both now and for evermore.
Amen.

SERMON LV.
" For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might
destroy the works of the Devil."— 1 John, Ul. 8.
There is nothing that contributes so much
to the right understanding of the nature of
any thing or action, as a true notion of the
proper end and design of it ; the ignorance of

ON 1 JOHN, iii. 8.

461

which bereaves raankind of many of the
blessings of heaven ; because oftentimes, while
they enjoy the thing, they yet mistake its
use ; and so pervert the intentions of mercy,
snd become miserable amidst the very means
of happiness.Certainly therefore it concerns men in
finitely, not to entertain an error about the
greatest of God's favours, and the ver)'
masterpiece of his goodness, the sending of
his Son into the world. The meaning of
which providence should we misconstrue, we
should fmstrate our grand and last remedy,
and perish, not for want, but for misapplica
tion of the meaus of life. Wherefore this
divine apostle, who had beeu honoured with
so near an admittance into his master's raind,
and lain so familiarly in the bosom of truth,
endeavours to give the world a right informa
tion about this so great and concerning affair
in this chapter, and particularly iu these
words, in which we have these two parts :
I. An account of Christ's coming into the
world, in this expression ; " The Son of God
¦was manifested."
II. The end and desigu of his coming ;
which was, to "destroy the works of the
Devfl." I. As for the first of these, the manifesta
tion of the Son of God, though it principally
relates to the actual coming of Christ into
the world, according to my application of it
to the present purpose, yet it is a term of a
larger comprehension ; aud so ought to carry
our notice both to passages before and after
his nativity. For as in the coming of a prince,
or great person, to any place, the porap of
harbingers and messengers is as it were sorae
appearance of him before he is seen ; so
Christ declared himself at vast distances of
time, by many semblances and iutimatious,
enough to raise, though not to satisfy, the
world's expectation.
We shall find him first exhibited in pro
mises, and those as early as the first need of a
Saviour, even immediately after the fall ; by
such a hasty provision of mercy, that there
might be no dark interval between man's
misery and his hope of recovery ; (Gen. iii.
16,) " The seed of the woman shall break the
serpent's head." He was afterwards farther
shadowed out in types and sacrifices, aud such
other emblems and arts of signification ; still
with this method of proceeding, that the
manifestation brightened and grew greater
and greater, according to the nearer and nearer
approach of the full discovery.
He that at first was known only as the seed
of the woman, was in process of time known
to be the seed of Abraham, (Geu. xxii. 18.)
And after that, the seed of David, (Isaiah, xi.
1.) And from thence proceeding to greater
particularities relating to the manner of his
waning, he was known to be bom of a virgin.

(Isaiah, vii. 14.) And for the place where ;
to be born at Bethlera, (Micah, v. 2.) And for
his person and condition, that he should be
" a man of sorrows," (Isaiah, liii. 3.) And
that he should suffer and die for siu, (ver. 8.)
That he should rise again, (Psalm xvi. 10.)
That he should ascend into heaven, and lead
captivity captive, &c. (Psalm Ixviii. 18.)
That he should reign till he had subdued his
enemies, and saw the world brought under
him, (Psalm ex. 1.) Thus by a continual
gradation the promise advanced itself with
farther steps and increases, " shining more and
more unto a perfect day ;" displaying fresh and
fuller discoveries through the several ages of
the world ; every new degree of manifesta
tion being a mercy great enough to oblige an
age. But wheu at length prophecy ripened into
event, and shadows gave way upou the actual
appearance of the substance, in the birth of
Christ, yet then, though the Son of God could
be but once boru, he ceased not to be fre
quently manifested : there was a choir of
angels to proolaira his nativity, and a new
star to be his herald ; the wise raen of the east
came to worship a uew sun, where they saw
and acknowledged the first miracle of his
birth, a star appearing when the sun was up.
When he disputed with the doctors, every
argument was a demonstration of his deity ;
and during the whole course of his ministry,
all the mighty works he did were farther
manifestations of a di^vine nature wrapped up
in the flesh : eveu his death proved, that there
was something iu hira that could not die ;
aud the very effects of raortality, by a strange
antiperistasis, declared him to be imraortal ;
(1 Pet. iii. 18,) "Put to death iu the flesh,
hut quickened by the Spirit." Aud lastly, i
after all this, the perfection and height of j
evidence shone forth in the stupendous pas
sage of his resurrection ; in which, according
to the apostie Paul's phrase, (Rora. i. 4,) he
was " declared to be the Son of God with
power." God raade it his business to shew i
hira publicly, to hold hira up to be seen, ad- I
mired, and believed in. Every thing that [
concerned hira was writ in capital letters, and t
such as raight not only entertain, but help the |
sight. . i
Now upon the strength of this considera- \
tion it is, that we pronounce the Jews inex- >
cusable for persisting in their unbelief. Con
ceming which as we are to observe, that in
order to the convincing of men's belief, it is
not only required that the proposition, pro
posed to be believed, be in itself tme, but
that it also appear such ; so Christ, to comply
with the strictest raethods of huraan reason,
asserted his being the Son of God with such
invincible arguments, that he was manifested
to be so : yea, and to that degree, that the
Jews' rejection of him is not stated npon igno-

462

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Skrm. LV.

ranee, or the cause of it, want of evidence
in the thing that they were to know ; but
upon the malice and depravation of their wills
acting counter to their knowledge, in John,
XV. 24 ; " If I had not done amongst them
the works which no other man did, they had
not had sin : but now they have both seen
and hated both me and my Father." It was
not a blind hatred : they saw well enough
what they did : they had an open as well as
an evil eye ; a resolved obstinacy to outlook
the sun and outstare the light.
For so was Christ, he was the light of the
world ; and nothing is more manifest or vi si
ble than that which manifests both itself and
all things else ; and needs uo invitation to the
eye, but will certainly enter, unless it be
forcibly kept out.
But they were purposed not to believe their
eyes ; to question whether it was day when
the sun shined ; to doubt whether he that did
the works of God was sent by God ; whether
miracles could prove any thing, or signs could
signify ; and lastly, whether he that fulfilled
all prophecies was intended by them. It is
clear therefore, that the Jews rejected the Son
of God, not because he was not raanifested,
but because they delighted to be ignorant, and
to be sceptics aud unbelievers even in spite of
evidence. Aud thus rauch for the first thing, the mani
festation of the Son of God : pass we now to
the next, which is, the eud of his manifesta
tion, " that he might destroy the works ofthe
Devil." In the prosecution of which I shall first
shew, 1st, What were those works of the
Devil that the Son of God destroyed : 2d, And
secondly, the means and ways by which he
destroyed them.
1st, For the first of these. I reduce the
works of the Devil, destroyed by the mani
festation of the Son of God, to these three :
1. Delusion : 2. Sin : 3, Death.
There is a natural coherence aud concatena
tion between these : for sin being a voluntary
action, and so the issue of the will, presup
poses a default in the understanding, which
was to conduct the will iu its choices : aud
then when the delusion and inadvertency of
the understanding has betrayed the will to
sin, the consequent and effect of sin is death.
Christ therefore, that came to repair the
breaches and to cure the miseries of human
nature, and to redeem it from that frenzy
iuto which it had cast itself, designs the
removal and conquest of all these three.
1. And first for delusion. The Devil, as
his masterpiece and first art of ruining man
kind, was busy to sow the seeds of error and
fallacy iu the guide of action, their under
standing. And surely he has not gained
higher trophies over any faculty of man's
nature than this. For where, upon a survey

of the world lying under gentilism, can we
find truth even in principles of speculation,
but much less in those of practice?
As for the first fundaraental thing, the
original of nature aud the beginning of the
world ; what dissonant and various opinions
may we find, and consonant in nothing but
their absurdity ! Some will not allow it to
have had any beginning : others refer it to
accident. And those who acknowledge it to
have been efficiently framed and produced by
au infinite eternal mind, yet assert the matter
and rude chaos, out of which he framed it, to
have been as old, or rather as etemal as the
artificer. Thus ridiculously making two
eternals, and one of them infinitely imperfect ;
whereas the very notion of eternity and self'-
existence, pursued into its due consequences,
must of necessity infer an infinite perfection
in all other respects whatsoever. For all
imperfection and finiteness proceeds from the
restraint of a superior cause : and what cause
could limit that which had no cause ; and
keep that which had its being from itself, from
having all the perfections of being?
And for the principles of practice, they
were equally ridiculous and uncertain. Some
fixed the chief good of raan in pleasure, some
in contemplation, and some thrust the means
into the place ofthe end, and made the chief
good of man to act virtuously ; whereas indeed
the chief good was to enjoy God, aud the way
to attain it was to act virtuously. And then
if you would know what they understood by
acting virtuously, you would find tiiera stat
ing the rates of virtue so, that many actions
were taken into that number, which we ac
count vicious and unwarrantable. Ambition
was an excellent thing amongst them, and an
insatiable desire of honour a current virtue.
Lust, if it did not proceed to adultery, that is,
to a downright act of injustice, was accounted
a very innocent and allowable recreation. In
a word, they were at au infinite loss where to
state the ground and reason of men's actions ;
and all their practical maxims were deficient
at least, if not unjust.
And for those that acknowledged God for
the end of all that they were to do, yet did
they pursue the enjoyment of that end by
means any ways suitable or proportionable to
it ? Did they worship him as God ? No, we
know, " that they waxed vain in their imagi
nations, aud their foolish heart was darkened :"
they changed the glory of the eternal, all-wise,
incorruptible God, iuto the iraages of silly,
siuful, mortal men ; nay, aud what is yet
more incredible and intolerable, into the
similitude of beasts, and fowls, and creeping
things. All this titne worshipping the works
of their own hands or at least using them as
instruments of worship and proper convey
ances qf divine adoration to God himself, held
forth to them_by such ways of representation ;

ON 1 JOHN, iii. 8.

463

which wasagreat absurdity in reason, a great
impiety in religion, and a horrible injury
and afiront to the Deity : for could any thing
be more injurious, than that men should take
their notions of God from such resemblances ;
and then depress their religious worship of
him to the proportion of those notions ?
Now all this was done by the wisest of the
heathens, by the philosophers, the sages, the
govemors and teachers ofthe rest of the world;;
and if these could so degenerate and ride
down their reason to such a strange weakness
and deception, what can we think of the rout
and the vulgar, who could not salve their
idolatry with art and distinction ? They cer-
tdnly were in " outer darkness," in such thick
"darkness as might be felt." Their priests'
images were their realities ; and what they
saw with their eyes they worshipped with
their hearts, thinking of no other deity but
what shined upon them in the golden statue
or the curious picture ; stUl raising their
devotion as the skill of the graver had advan
ced the object.
But then, since the exercise of virtue is not
to be hound upon men's consciences, (at least
respecting the generality of men,) but by
hopes and fears grounded upon the proposal
of fiiture reward^ and punishments ; if we
look farther, and consider how they acquitted
themselves in giving an account of these to the
world, we need require no farther account of
the error and delusion under which the Devil
had s^ed them. All the reward they pro
posed to virtue, even in its greatest austerities,
self-denials, and forbearances, was to live for
ever in the Elysian fields. A goodly reward
mdeed ; a man must forego many of his
pleasnres, defy his clamorous appetites, and
sabmit to many inconveniences in pursuing
the rigidumhonestum, the harshnesses of virtue :
and afterwards, for all this, we shall be grati
fied with taking a tum now and then in a fair
meadow. And then the punishments they designed for
DI lives were no ways inferior in point of
nnhkelihood and absurdity : as the filling of
tubs full of holes, which let out the water as
fest as it was poured in. The rolling of a
great stone up a steep mountain, which per
petually retumed back upou the person that
forced it upwards. The being whipt with
snakes by three faries. The being bound
hand and foot upon a rock, and having one's
liver gnawed by a vulture ; still growing and
renewing itself according as it was devoured.
These and snch like old wives' or old poets'
&bles they amused the world withal ; which
could keep nobody that was witty from being
wicked : aU awe and dread vanishing upon
the discovery of such ill-contrived cheats, such
thin and transparent fallacies.
Yet this was the economy of the religion
of the gentiles before the coming of the Mes

siah. And for that little handful of men, that
God chose from the rest of the world, to
impart his law to them, the church of the
Jews ; even this, sometimes, before the birth
of Christ, was like an enclosed garden overrun
with weeds, the very influences it lived under
being noxious and pestilential. Their foun
tains were poisoned : their teachers were only
so many authentic perverters of the law ; so
many doctors of heresy aud immorality ;
abusing the authority of Moses while they
sat in his chair. So that there was a kind of
universal error and delusion, and that in
matters of the greatest importance, spread
over all nations, by that diligent, indefatigable
enemy of truth aud mankind the Devil. This
being his groundwork, to delude men's appre
hensions, that so he might command their
services : and so blind were their eyes, that
he might lead them whither he would.
2. 'The secoud great work of the De'vil to
be destroyed by the manifestation of the Sou
of God, was- siu. It were a sad story to give
a full account of this. For the tmth is, the
Devil deceived men ouly for this cause, to
make them sinful. And such was his cursed
success in this attempt, and the very fertility
of this ill thing brought by him into the world,
that it conveyed a general infection into all
the faculties of man : so that at length " the
thoughts of his heart were evil, and only evil,
and that continually," (Gen. vi. 6.) It had
so corrupted aud fouled the world, that it put
God to attempt the cleansing of it by a deluge.
But neither so was the work effected,; for after
so many sinners were cashiered, yet sin still
survived, aud grew and multiplied, like a plant
rather watered only than drowned ; thriving
and increasing as fast as those that peopled
the world hy a commission and commaud
from heaven.
It would be a fearful sight to see those sins
that have stained raan's nature ranked into
their several kinds and degrees, and displayed
in their filthy colours : to see one nation
branded with one vice ; another nation noto
rious for another ; and each in sorae degree
tainted with all. Saint John tells us, that
" the whole world lies in wickedness," (1 John,
V. 19.) And Saint Paul gives us a large ac
count of the vices of the gentile world, in
Bom. i. from the 26th verse to the eud of the
chapter. They were possessed with "vile affec
tions," acted by unnatural lusts, delivered
over to a reprobate mind, being " filled with
all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness,
covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy
murder, debate, deceit, malignity," &c. And
for a concluding epiphonema, it is said of
them in the last verse, " that knowing the
judgment of God, that they which commit
such things are worthy of death, not only do
the same, but have pleasure in those that do
them." And certainly for men to take plea

464

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Srrm. LV.

sure not only in their own sins, but also in
the sins of other men, is the very height and
perfection of an overgrown impiety : yet thus
far were they arrived. Every oue delighted
to see the siu of his own temper and practice
exeraplified, and so in a manner counte
nanced by another raan's behaviour ; to see
hiraself transcribed, and his vice propagated
into the manners of those that were about
him. And to proceed farther, their vice did not
only reigu iu their ordinary converse, but also
got into their divine worship : and as before
I shew that they worshipped their gods ido-
latrously and foolishly ; so their histories tell
us that they worshipped them also viciously :
revels, drunkenness, and lasciviousness, were
the peculiar homage aud religious service that
they performed to them. 'What were their
bacchanalia, but soleran debauches iu honour
of a drunken deity? And the rites of their
bona dea, in whicli Publius Clodius was de-
prehended under the habit of a woraan, were
transacted with so much filth and villainous
impurity, that they are scarce to bo thought
of without a trespass upon raodesty. Now
certainly, if these courses could propitiate or
please their deities, there could be no such
dishonour or defiance to thera, as the practices
of virtue and sobriety.
We see here to what a maturity sin was
grown amongst the heathens : and araongst
the Jews it was not much shortened iu its
progress. For what aro all the writings of
the prophets, but so raany loud declarations
of the prevailing sway that sin had araongst
thera ? How does Isaiah coraplain, that " the
faithful city was become an harlot !" (Isaiah,
i. 21.) How does Jeremy bemoan hiraself,
that he was constrained to dwell and converse
with so much irapiety, in chap. ix. 2 ; " Oh
that I had in the wilderness a lodging place
of -wayfaring raen ; that I might leave my
people, and go frora them ! for they be all
adulterers, an asserably of treacherous men."
And again, iu verse 4, " Take ye heed every
one of his neighbour, and trust ye not in any
brother : for every brother will utterly sup
plant." It seems there was scarce truth and
sincerity enough araongst thera to serve the
coramon intercourses of society and humau
life. The truthis, he that fully enlarges him
self upon this theme raust be endless and in
finite, and declaira to eternity. But now
when such an enormous corruption of man
ners had seized upon the church, to whom
was committed the law of God, and the
living oracles, and all the raeans of instruc
tion to piety and virtue, and whatsoever was
excellent ; what was to be expected, but
that God should either destroy or reform the
world ?
And therefore having pitched upon the
latter, it was now full time for him to send

his Son, to cleanse this Augean stable, to
purge away the dross of the world ; for this
was the design of his coming, (Mal. iii. 2, 3,)
" to be like a refiner's fire, and like fuller's
soap, to purify the sons of Levi, and to purge
them as gold and silver ;" and if it were pos
sible, to recover the world to its forraer in
nocence, or at least tb such a degree of it,
as to break the sceptre and kingdom of the
wicked one, who triumphed in the posses
sion that he had got of men's hearts, hy
the sin that dwelt there, and raged in their
lives. Would we know the great purpose that
brought Christ out of his Father's bosora, and
clothed him with the infirmities and mean
nesses of our nature, aud made him submit
to all the indignities that an obscure birth, an
indigent life, and au ignominious death could
bring upou him ? "Why it was uot through
these miseries to acquire a crown, and to
advance his glory ; for this he had by an
eternal birthright, beyond any increase or
addition ; and his glorification did not so much
invest him with any new honour, as restore
to hira his old.
But all this long .and rairaculous scene of
transactions was to redeem poor raortal meu
frora the beloved bonds aud shackles of their
sins, to disenslave them from the tyranny of
ruling corruptions ; to dispossess the usurper,
and to introduce the kingdom of God, hy
setting it up first in men's minds ; to recover
all their faculties to the liberty of innocence
and purity ; and so, in a word, to restore men
both to God and to themselves.
Now if this were the grand design of
Christ's coming into the world, to conquer
and destroy sin ; certainly it concerns us not
to celebrate the memory of that coming by
any thing that may contradict the design of
it. To be vain, and dissolute, and interaperate,
are strange commemorations of his nativity,
who was born into the world to make men
otherwise. It is indeed such a solemnity as
is the proper and deserved object of our joy ;
but then it is to be such a joy as is iu heaven,
of which divine love is the principle, and
purity the chief ingredient. Aud thus much
for the second grand work of the Devil, which
Christ was manifested to destroy, namely
sin. 3. The third and last is death, the insepar
able concomitant of the former. This is the
Devil's triumphing work, by which he vaunts
and shews forth the spoils of our conquered
nature, the marks and trophies of his un
happy victory. For since the first entrance
of sin into the world, death has dwelt amongst
us, and continued, and with a perpetual, irre
sistible success prevailed over us. (Rom. v.
12,) " Sin entered into the world, and death
by sin ; and so death passed upon all men,
for that all have sinned." Sin, as it were,

ON 1 JOHN, iii. 8.

466

opened the sluice, and death immediatelj', like
a mighty torrent, rushed in, and overwhelmed
the world. Or like a coraraanding enemy, it
invaded maukind with a mining, destructive
army following it. Plagues, fevers, catarrhs,
consumptions, shame, poverty, and iufinite
accidental disasters ; aud the rear of all
brought np with death eternal.
Bnt now Christ, intending to be a perfect
Saviour, came to destroy this eneray also ;
for the apostle tells u.s, (1 Cor. xv. 26,) that
"the last enemy that shall be destroyed is
death." Where yet it is not to be understood,
that this benefit of Christ is to extend to all
men ; but to those only who should believe,
and be renewed by the Spirit, and become
" the sons of God ;" these are the persons
over whom "the second death shall have no
power." For since this deliverance proceeds
npon the conditions of faith and obedience,
those who reach not these conditions are not
at all concerned iu it ; but remaining in siu,
are consigned over to death. But some will
say. Do not saints and believers die as well as
the wicked and unbelievers ? I answer, that
though they do, yet the sting of death is taken
away; so that from a curse, it is made a
means to translate them to a better life ; aud
that sickness, misery, or temporal death, that
has nothing of curse or punishment in it, but,
on the contrary, ends in that that gives au
end to all misery, according to the estimate
of God, comes not into the accounts of death.
And this is sufficient to render Christ truly
and properly a conqueror of death ; that he
actually conquers and destroys it in some, and
has it in his power to do it in all others, would
they but corae up to those terms upon which
only he is pleased to do it.
2dly, And thus I have shewn what those
works of the Devil are, for the destruction of
which the Sou of God was manifested. I come
now to the last thiug proposed, which is to
shew, what are the ways and means by which
he destroys them. Where we must observe,
that as those works of the Devil were three,
so Christ encounters them by those three dis
tinct offices belonging to him as mediator.
1. As a prophet, he destroys and removes
that delusion that had possessed the world,
by those divine and saving discoveries of truth
exhibited in the doctrine and religion pro
mulged hy him. The apostle tells the Athen
ians, that before the coming of Christ God
winked at the ignorance and idolatry that had
blinded the gentiles ; but after his coming,
"commanded all men every where to repent,"
.(Acts, xvii. 30.) And in chap. xiv. 15, he
tells the men of Lystra, that the design of his
preaching was, "that they should turn from
.those, vanities unto the living God." Aud still
We find, that according as the gospel fouud
reception and success, men began to be unde-
Mived, and to shake off the yoke of their
TOI,. u.

former delusions. In Acts, xix. 19, we find,
that upon the preaching of the gospel, those
that were addicted to magic and conjuration,
brought their books, though of never so
great value, and burnt thera publicly as a sac
rifice to the honour of Christ, and a solemn
owning of the efficacy of that religion. And
again, (2 Tim. i. 10,) the apostle tells us, that
it " was Christ that brought life and iraraor
tality to light." The heathens' notion about
the future estate of souls was absurd and fan
tastic ; and that which the Jews had was but
dim and obscure : but Christ cleared it up
to mankind, under evidence and demonstra
tion ; " he uttered things kept secret frora the
foundation of the world ;" he unlocked and
opened the cabinet of God's hidden counsels,
and has afforded means to enlarge men's
knowledge in proportion to their concern
ment. In a word, the doctrine of Christ gives the
best account of the nature of God and of the
nature of man ; of the first entrance of sin
info the world, aud of its cure and remedy :
of those terras upon which God will transact
with raankind, and upon which raen must
approach to God iu point of worship, and de
pend upon him in reference to rewards. And
this is the circle of knowledge necessary aud
sufficient to make mankind what they so
much desire to be, happy. Which if it be
sought for auy where but in the discoveries
of Christianity, it is like seeking for " the
living amongst the dead ;" or the expectation
of a vintage from a field of thistles. All that
the philosophers teach about these things is
either falsity or conjecture ; and so tends
either to make men siuful, or at the best un
satisfied. But Christ was to be " a light to the gen
tiles ;" and there is no cozenage in the light,
no fallacy in the day : wheresoever he shines
mists presently vanish, and delusions dis
appear. 2. As for the second work of the Devil, sin,
this the Sou of God destroyed as a priest, by
that satisfaction that he paid down for it;
and by that supply of grace that he purchased,
for the conquering aud rooting it out of the
hearts of believers. By the former he destroys
the guilt of sin, by the latter tbe power.
Christ when he was iu his lowest condition,
suffering upon the cross as a raalefactor, even
then he broke the chief support of the Devil's
kingdora, and triumphed over his strongest
principality, in cashiering the guilt and loos
ing the bands of sin by a full expiation.
Sin, that has so much venora in it as to
poison a whole creation, to kindle an eternal
fire aud au insupportable wrath, to shut up
the bowels of an infinite mercy to poor per
ishing creatures, and, in a word, to overturn
and confound the whole universe ; yet being
once satisfied for, it is a weak and harmless
2 G

-!fi6

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Skrm. LVI.

thing ; it is a lion without teeth, or a snake
without a sting.
But none could make it so but the Son of
God, the eternal high priest of souls, who ex
hausted the guilt and full measure of its ma
lignity, by a superabundant ransom given for
sinners to the offended justice of his Father.
3. As for the third and last work of the
Devil, which is death ; this Christ, as he is a
king, destroys by his power : for it is he that
" has the keys of life aud death, opening
where noue shuts, and shutting where none
opens :" this even amongst meu is the pecu
liar prerogative of princes. At the command
of Christ the " sea shall give up its dead," the
graves shall open, and deliver up their trust ;
and all the devourers of uature shall make a
faithful restitution.
And surely this is that which should com
fort every Christiau when he is upon hisdeath-
bed, and about to lay his head upon a pillow
of dust, and to take his long sleep ; that he
has the greatest grouud iu the world to expect
that he shall rise agaiu, if an omnipotence
can awaken him, if the eternal Son of God
can snap asunder the bonds of death, and if
the word of the King of kings can give him
assurance of all this.
Christ has fully finished the work for which
he was manifested ; he has vanquished the
Devil, beat down all his forts, frustrated his
stratagems ; and so having delivered his elect,
in spite of delusion, sin, and death, and all
other destructive contrivances for the ruin of
souls, as a king and a conqueror he is set
down at the right hand of the Most High, re
ceiving the homage of praises and hallelujahs
frora saints and angels, who are continually
saying, " Blessing, honour, glory, aud power,
be unto hira that sitteth upou the throne, and
unto the Larab, for ever and ever."
To whora, with the Father, and the Holy
Ghost, do we also render and ascribe, as is
most due, all praise, might, raajesty, and do
minion, both now and for ever. Araen.

SERMON LVL
*' And when Herod the king heard these things, he waa
troubled, and aU Jerusalem with him. " — Matt. ii. 3.
Though all the works of God, even the most
common, and such as every day meet our
senses in the ordinary course of nature, carry
iu them a grandeur and raagnificence great
enough to entertain the observation of the
most curious, and to raise the admiration of
the raost knowing ; yet it has still been the
raethod of divine Providence to point out ex
traordinary events and passages with sorae

peculiar characters of remark ; such as may
alarm the minds and engage the eyes of the
world, in a more exact observance of, and at
tention to, the hand of God, in such great
changes. And very observable it is, that the
alteration of states and kingdoms, the rise and
dissolution of governments, the birth and
death of persons eminent in their generations,
have for the most part been signalized with
some unusual phenomena in nature ; some
tiraes in the earth, sometimes in the sea, and
sometimes in the heavens themselves : God
thereby shewing that the great affairs of the
world proceed not without his own particular
notice ; aud therefore certainly ought much
more to challenge ours. And of this method
of Providence, as the reason on God's part
cannot but be most wise, so on man's (the
more is our just shame) it is no less than ne
cessary : for that natural proneness in most
men to irreligion seems to gather strength
from nothing more than from an observation
of the constant uninterrupted course of nature,
from which some are but too ready to think,
whatsoever they speak, that uature is its own
god, because they never see it controlled :
that things always were, and always will be,
as now they are ; and in a word, that the
world is unchangeable, when they do not see
it changed. God therefore is sometimes pleased
to interpose with a high hand, and to vary the
usual course of nature, thereby to convince
mankind, that this great fabric is not an
automaton, so as to move itself; nor yet un
accountable, so as to acknowledge no superior
law : but that it acts, or is rather acted by
that eternal Spirit, and governed by that al
mighty and all-wise Artificer, that can order,
govern, transpose, and, if occasion requires,
take asunder the parts of it, as in his infinite
wisdom he shall judge fit.
But of all the strange passages and prodigies
by which God introduced great persons into
the world, none were so notable as those that
ushered in the nativity of this glorious first
born of the creation, our blessed Saviour.
And indeed great reason it was, that he that
was Lord of Heaven should have his descend
ing into the flesh graced and owned with the
testimonies of stars and angels, one shining
and the other singing at so great a blessing
coraing upon mankind. Accordingly, the
evangelist in this chapter makes it his design
and business to recount some of those notable
circurastances that attended our Saviour's
birth, which we may reduce to these two
heads :
I. The solemn address and homage made to
him by the wise men of the east.
II. Herod's behaviour thereupon.
For the first of these, there are in this
general passage these particulars considerable :
1. Who and what those wise men were.
2. From whence they came.

ON MATTHEW, ii. 3.

467

3. About what time they came to Jeru
salem. 4. What that star was that appeared to
them. 5. How they could collect our Saviour's
birth by that star.
Of each of which in their order.
1. And first, for the first of these. The
persons here rendered " wise men," (and that
certainly with great truth and judgment,) are
in the Greek termed ftxyoi, and in the Latin
mojra. The origination of which word some
take from the Hebrew radix, signifying in the
participle benoni in hiphil, one that meditates
or mutters. Some from a Syro- Arabic word,
signifying explorare or scrutari. Others from
a Persian word, but what that word is none
pretends to know : though since it is probable
that these magi did first exist amongst the
Persians, it is also not improbable but that
both name and thing might have their origiual
m the same place.
As for the use of the word, it is different.
At first it was taken, doubtless, not only in an
honest, but also in an honourable sense : and
the magia of the ancients was nothing else but
a profound insight into all truth, natural,
political, and divine. So that Suidas gives
this account of the word, fixyoi ¦jrxpa, llipaxi;
01 ^AoVoipo/, they were the Persian philosophers.
And that they were divines also is clear ; for
Xenophon in his eighth book, ¦irepl 'Kvpov
vaiiilas, commends the piety of Cyrus and his
care of religion, for his appointing magi to
preside in their sacred choirs, and to manage
the offering of sacrifices, tots ¦jrpoToii xxnarx-
tnatui oi ftayoi ifivfiu tovs Qsovg, &c. And that
this also was a name given to such as were
skilled in politic matters is no less evident ;
for the great counsellors of the Persian kings
were called magi; and Cicero affirms, in his
third boofc De natura Deorum, that none was
ever admitted to the Persian throne, but such
as had been thoroughly instructed and trained
up by these magi. For, as Plato says in his
Alcibiades, it was their work ^xaihixx %iixaxiiu,
to teach and instil into them the arts of
govemment. Now this discourse is only to shew, that the
Mception of the word amongst the Greeks and
Latins, and other modern languages that speak
after them, by which magus siguifies no better
than a wizard or conjurer, is through abuse
and degeneration : the ill practices of some
who wore this name, having by little and
little disgraced the name itself into a bad
sense. As for the acception of it here by our evan-
Selist, I doubt not but it is in a good sense,
and that the persons here spoken of were
great scholars, men well studied iu the works
of nattire, and probably most seen in the
mysteries of astrology, the chief and principal
part of the eastern learning. For the proof

of which, this observation is very considerable,
that the word pcxyoi applied to the Latins,
Greeks, or Egyptians theraselves, is for tho
most part used iu a bad sense ; but the same
authors applying it to the Chaldeans and
Persians intend it in a good ; and that these
men mentioned by the evangelist were Per
sians, shall presently be made at least very
probable. As for the condition and quality of these
magi, or wise men, some contend, though I
think more eagerly than conclusively, that
they were kings ; and for the proof of it allege
several places of Scripture ; as first, that of
Psalm Ixxii. 10, " The kings of Tarshish and
of the isles shall bring presents ; the kings of
Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts." But what is
this to those who came not from Tarshish nor
from Sheba, but frora Persia, as shall be raade
appear hereafter ? Besides that those words
are literally spoke of Solomou, iu whom they
were eminently fulfilled ; for we kuow what
commerce he had with those parts, and we
have also a full rehearsal of the great visit
aud present made him by the queen of Sheba.
They allege also that place in Isaiah, Ix. 3,
" The gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings
to the glory of thy rising :" with other such
texts, which they call proofs ; though so in
conclusive and impertinent to tne matter in
haud, that they prove nothing but the folly'
and absurdity of those that allege them.
To the whole matter, therefore, I answer,
that it is most improbable that these men
were kings ; and that the behaviour of Herod
.and the Jews toward thera seeras clearly to
evince so much. For there was no mention
of any porapous, kingly reception, but, on the
contrary, he treats them as imperiously as he
would have done his servants or his footmen,
in ver. 8, " And he sent them to Bethlehem,
and said. Go, search diligently for the young
child ; and when ye have found him, bring
me word again." Which surely sounds not
like language fit to bespeak princes in. Those,
indeed, whose chief religion is to rebel against
princes, might possibly talk to thera also at
this rate ; but it is uot to be iraagined that
the rest of the world were yet arrived to this
perfection. It is evident therefore that Herod received
thera not as kings, no, nor with that respect
that is due to the arabassadors of kings ; but
rather as any of our inferior raagistrates would
nowadays receive some Polonian or Hun
garian, that should corae to him about a brief,
or for a licence to shew some strange, out
landish feats upon a stage.
But lastiy, this is an undeniable argument
that they were not kings, that the evangelist
is thus silent of it. For since it is manifest
that his design was to set forth Christ's birth,
and to render it as notable and conspicuous as
he could from those passages that did attend

468

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Serm. LVI.

it ; it is not iraaginable that he would have
omitted this, that would have added so much
of lustre and credit to it in the eyes of the
world. The omission of it is indeed so hugely
iraprobable, that, all things considered, it raay
almost pass for irapossible.
2. The second thing here proposed to our
cousideratran was the place from whence
these wise men came. The evangelist de
scribes it ouly by a general term, x-tt xuxtoT^Zu,
from the east. But the east is of a large com
pass, and therefore we may well direct our
inquiries to something that is more parti
cular. Some therefore are of opinion, that these
wise men came from Arabia, and that part of
it that is called Arabia Felix, which lay east
ward to Jerusalera ; especially since their pre
sents consistediof gold, myrrh, and frankin
cense, the proper commodities of those places :
for Arabia afforded gold, and the adjoining
Sabea afforded plenty of all manner of spices
and perfumes.
Others there are that affirm these wise men
to have come from Chaldea or Assyria.
I shall not trouble myself to produce or
confute the several reasons upon which either
of these opinions are built ; but briefly give
my reasons why neither of them can be ad
mitted. For the first. They could not come from
Arabia, because there never was in Arabia
any sort or sect of men known or distinguished
by the name of magi; and therefore to bring
these raen frora Arabia, were altogether as
absurd, as if in story we should bring the
Brachraius, or Indian philosophers, from the
Orcades, or the Druids from America.
And as for that reason, that the materials
of their presents were the native commodities
of those regions, it proves nothing ; since
other countries afforded them besides, and
however might have them otherwise by im
portation. And when men make presents,
they do not always pitch upou such things as
grow in their own countries, but upon the
best and richest that they have in their pos
session. In the next place, for Assyria or Chaldea :
they could not come from thence neither, for
asmuch as they lay northwards to Jerusalem :
so that frequently in the prophets, wheu God
threatens tbe Jews with an invasion frora the
Assyrians, they are still called " a nation or
array coming from the north." But the evan
gelist expressly says,that these men came ax
auxTo'hau from the east, to which words this
opinion is utterly irreconcileable.
Having thus removed these two opinions, I
judge it most probable that they came from
Persia ; which as it is confirmed by the con
current testimonies of the most eminent di
vines, both ancient and modern, so therewants
not also solid reasons to persuade the same.

(1.) The first of which shall be taken from
this ; that this sort of men most flourished in
Persia : they were most famous there. And I
believe there may be better arguments brought
to prove that the magi had their first rise there,
than any can be brought to the contrary.
(2.) 'The secoud reason shall be taken from
the situation of the place, Persia being situate
eastward to Judea ; so that it exactly answers
the words of the evangelist.
(3.) The third and last shall be taken from
the manner of their doing homage to Christ,
which was that used by the Persians in ex
pressing their homage to kings, namely, by
gifts and presents.
These reasons seem probably to evince that
these magi, or wise men, came from Persia ;
and we must know, that in matters of this
nature, where demonstrations are not to be
had, probable conjectures, burdened with no
inconvenient consequences, are the best argu
ments and such as any rational mind may
well acquiesce in. And thus much for the
place from whence these wise men carae.
3. The third thing proposed was, the time
when they came to Jerusalem ; for some affirm
them not to have come to Jerusalem till two
years after the birth of Christ, grounding this
their assertion upon what is said in ver. 16,
that " Herod sent and slew all the children
in and about Bethlehem, from two years old
and under, according to the time which he
had diligently inquired of the wise men."
Whence they infer Christ to have been two
years old at the time of the wise men's arrival
at Jerusalem. But the words of the text im
port the time to have been but very small
between the birth of oue and the coming of
the other ; for it is said iu ver. 1, " that when
Jesus was born, behold the wise men came ;"
which word ihov, behold, according to the
phrase of scripture, is equivalent with forth
with, or presently, as might be made out by
sundry parallel places. Besides that the
wise men at their coming found Christ in
Bethlehem, where yet it is certain that
Joseph and Mary tarried not above forty days,
the time appointed by the law for her purifica
tion ; from whence it follows, that the coming
of the wise men must needs have been within
the compass of those forty days. As for that
argument grounded upon Herod's killing the
children of two years old and under, accord
ing to the time of his inquiring of the wise
men, the solution of it is very easy, if we
reckon those two years before the tirae of his
inquiry, and not those two years that imme
diately followed it. The reason of which is
manifest, forasmuch as the wise men spoke
not of Christ as yet to be born, but of him as
actually born ; though the precise tirae wben,
they declared not, nor perhaps know. And
therefore Herod, whose design was to secure
himself frora a rival king, whom he heard

ON MATTHEW, iL 3.

469

*as already born, killed all the children that
were born within the space of two years before
the coming of the wise men, and his inquiring
of them. From whence it follows, that the
time of the wise men's coming to Jerusalem
was some few days after the birth of Christ,
probably nine or ten, and that they wor
shipped him at Bethlehem about the twelfth,
the day still observed by the church for its
eommemoration. And now, as we have here removed the
opinion of those that state the time of the
wise men's coming to Jerusalem two years
after the birth of Christ ; so another opinion,
that makes the star to have appeared two
years before Christ's birth, is no less to be
rejected, since they gave it the appellation of
" his star" upon this account, that it then
declared him to have beeu born. And where
as some, in defence of this opinion, allege the
improbability of their coming from Persia in
so few days, I answer, that if they be allowed
to have corae from those parts of it that lay
nearest to Jerusalem, (as well they may,) it
is not improbable at all ; since a very learned
commentator upon this place says, that some
parts of Persia were not distant from Jeru
salem uUra ducentas leucas, which, reckoning
five hundred paces to a leuca, as some do,
amount to an hundred of our miles. If fifteen
huudred, as Ammianus Marcellinus does, then
they make three hundred of our miles. The
former of which they might go in that time
very easily, and the latter with no such extra
ordinary great difficulty ; considering that
camels, the beasts of travel in those countries,
are said even with great burdens to despatch
forty of those leucas, that is, according to the
latter and greater computation, threescore of
our miles in a day. And thus much for the
third thing, namely, the time of these wise
men's coming to Jerusalem.
_ 4. The fourth thing proposed to be con
sidered was, what this star was. Where
though some have affirmed it to have beeu of
the same nature with those that have their
proper place and motion in the celestial orbs,
and though that omnipotent God, that raade
the sun stand still at one time, and go back
at another, cannot be denied to have beeu able
to have commanded any of the stars upon
sueh a message and employment, yet that he
actually did so is not necessary for us here to
assert, there being otherwise sufficient reasons
to persuade us that this was not a real star
of the same kind with those heavenly bodies,
put only a bright meteor formed by the
unmediate power of God into the resemblance
and similitude of a star, aud so by a singular
set of his providence used and directed to this
great purpose. For had it beeu indeed a real
star, there can hardly any reason be assigned
why it should uot have appeared to the in-
flabltants of Jerusalem, as well as to those

wise men in their journey from thence to
Bethlehem ; which yet it is clear that it did
not, frem the evangelist's being wholly silent
of it ; who otherwise would undoudtedly have
recorded it as a passage, than which none
could be more efficacious, to upbraid the Jews
with the unreasonableness of their unbelief.
Nor does its being called a star' prove it to
have been really so : it being so usual, both
in scripture aud coramon speech, to call the
resemblances of things by the naraes of those
things themselves, comets and falling stars
still obtaining this appellation, which yet
have nothing of stars in them but the name.
6. The fifth and last thing proposed to be
discussed was, how these wise men could col
lect or come to know our Saviour's birth by
their seeing this star. Evident it is from the
words that they had a full and clear know
ledge of it : for they spake of it as of a thing
granted ; and therefore they ask not whether
or no he was boru, but where he was born.
Aud they call it eraphatically his star ; " We
have seen his star in the east ;" implying that
it pointed him out by a certain and peculiar
designation. To this I answer ; that all knowledge must
commence upon principles either natural or
supematural. If they draw it from the former, it must
have been either,
1. From the principles of astrology ; and
here, for the confutation of this, would the
time and measure of this exercise permit, the
vanity of this science might easily be shewn,
from the weakness of its principles ; the con
fessions of such as have been raost reputed for
their skill in it ; and, what is stronger thau
their confessions, from their frequent mistakes
and deceptions in their most confident predic
tions ; which sufficiently prove the greatest
pretenders to it to be indeed but mere plane-
taries ; that is, as we may well iuterpret it
from the force of the word, such as use to err
and to be deceived, and consequently, that
nothing certain cau be concluded from their
principles. 2. Or secondly, if these men's knowledge
of Christ's birth by the star were natural, the
former way being reraoved, it must needs
have been from tradition. And as to this,
some affirra that they gathered it frora that
prophecy of Balaara continued down to them
by report from his time, which prophecy is
recorded in Numb. xxiv. 17, "that a star
should rise out of Jacob ;" and also that they
might learn it from several prophecies of the
sibyls, one of which sibyls prophesied in
Persia. But how much soever these prophecies
of the sibyls raay have obtained iu the world,
yet raost of them relating to Christ are proved
by the learned Casaubon to be spurious and
supposititious, and by all wise men believed to
be such.

470

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Sbrm. LVI.

Others affirm, that this might have been
first learned from the Jews, in the time of
their dispersion ; but especially from some
remaining traditions of Daniel. Aud certain
ly, when we consider how much this prophet
writes of the kingdom and coming of the
Messiah, it is no ways iraprobable but that
he might otherwise, both by writing and
word of mouth, leave many things behind
him conceruing the sarae. All which,
through the greatness of the place he held
in the Persian court, aud the vast repute
that he had for his knowledge and learning,
might easily find both a general and a lasting
reception. It cannot therefore be rationally denied,
but that these wise men might be much
directed by such helps as these. But yet I
affirm that these were not sufficient ; so that
we must be forced to derive their knowledge
of Christ by this star from a supernatural
cause ; that is, from the immediate revelation
of God : how, or in what manner, that revela
tion was effected, it is not necessary for us to
know ; but that they were such persons, to
whom God upon other occasions did vouchsafe
extraordinary revelations, is clear from the
twelfth verse, where it is said, that they were
admonished by God iu a dreara not to return
to Herod. Now it is very probable that the
same God who warned them of their danger,
first suggested to thera this great discovery ;
especially since it was not so difficult to escape
the one, as to find out the other. We must
conclude therefore, that it was neither their
own skill, nor yet the light of that star, that
taught thera the meaning of that star. But
Leo states the matter rightly in his fourth
sermon upou the Epiphany ; " Praetor illam
stellsB speeiem quae corporeum incitavit obtu-
tum, fulgentior veritatis radius eorura corda
perdocuit." Star-light is but a dim light to
read the small characters of such mysteries by.
He ouly that made the stars could discover
it ; even that God who rules their influences,
and knows their significations.
And thus much for the first notable circum
stance of our Saviour's nativity, namely, the
soleran address of the wise men to him from
the east, upon the appearance of a star. I
come now to the
Second, which was, Herod's behaviour
thereupon ; who being a person so largely
spoken of in the Jewish story, so particularly
noted by the evangelist, and made yet more
notable by having the birth of the great
Saviour of the world fall in his reign, he may
well deserve our particular consideration :
accordingly we will consider him iu these
three respects :
1. In respect of his condition and teraper
in reference to his governmeut of Judea.
2. Of his behaviour and deportment upon
this particular accident.

3. Of the influence this his behaviour had
upon those under his government.
And first forthe first of these ; we will take
an account of his coudition and temper in
reference to the government held by him, by
these three things recorded of him, both in
sacred and profane story:
1st, His usurpation: 2dly, His cruelty:
and Sdly, His magnificence.
1. And first for his usurpation. When the
government of Judea was took from the
Asmoneans, the last of which that reigned
was Antigonus, this Herod, the youngest son
of Antipater, an Idumean, (who had grown
up under Hyrcanus, being by him employed
in the chief management of the affairs of hia
kingdom,) through the favour of Marcus
Antonius, was by the Boman senate declared
king of the Jews ; in which dignity, to the
wonder of many, he was also confirmed after
wards by Augustus himself. But Herod had
a good purse, and having also well experienced
Jugurtha's observation of Bome, that it was
urbs venalis, knew how to open it for his
advantage as well as any man living : whieh,
together with his great courage and resolution,
lifted him up to, and settled him in a royal
throne, so much above the pitch of any thing
that by his birth he could pretend to. But
let meu be usurpers, and as false and wicked
as they will, yet God is still righteous, and
will serve and bring about his righteous pur
poses, even by their wickedness. And I ques
tion not but the success of Herod's projects
was chiefly from the special providence of
God, while the villainy of them was wholly
frora himself : for by this strange and unex
pected translation of the Jewish government,
in setting the crown of it upon a stranger's
head, was exactly fulfilled that eminent and
most remarkable prophecy of the Messias, in
Gen. xlix. 10, "That the sceptre should not
depart frora Judah, nor a lawgiver from
between his feet, until Shiloh come." _ j
2. The second thing observable of him -was
his cruelty. We have already seen him
seated in the Jewish throne, though an
usurper and an intruder, and one who had no
other title to that sovereignty, but the gift of
those who had uo right to give it. However,
being thus possessed of it, he must have re
course to the common method of usurpers,
aud maintain by blood what he had got by
injustice. Accordingly he assassinates all
such as he could but suspect might be his
competitors. Aristobulus, the last of the
Asmoneau race, and preferred by him at the
instigation of his wife Mariamne to the high
priesthood, because the affections of the people
were towards him, was by his appointment
treacherously drowned. Nor spares he Hyr
canus himself, his predecessor, though now
in the extremity of old age, and the person
who had raised his father Antipater to tha^

ON MATTHEW, ii. 3.

471

pitch as to give him, his son, the possibilities
of a kingdom, and consequently of doing all
this mischief. Nay, and his beloved wife
Mariamne also, and his own sons Alexander
aud Aristobulus, aud, at length too, his base
son Antipater ; and, which was the most un
paralleled piece of barbarity that ever was
acted, last of all, those poor infants also,
(which we shall presently speak of,) they
must all fall a sacrifice to his remorseless
cmelty : so that neither the innocence of
infancy, the venerableness and impotence of
old age, the sacred obligations of gratitude,
the love of a wife, uor, lastly, the endearing
relation of a sou, could prevail any thing
against the inhuman resolves of his base and
cruel disposition ; which gave occasion to that
sarcastical speech of Csesar Augustus concern
ing him, " That it was better to be Herod's
hog, than his son." For as a proselyted
Jew, he would not meddle with the former ;
but as worse than a Jew, he barbarously pro
cured the murder of the latter.
- 3. The third thing observable in the tem
per of this Herod was his magnificence.
There was none that reigned over the
Jews, Solomon only excepted, that left such
glorious monuments of building behind them
as did Herod. The temple, the arx Antonia,
and his own houses, sufficiently declared his
vast and boundless spirit : any one of which
had been enough to have ennobled the reign
ofany one prince : but this was all for which
he was laudable : God sometimes thinking it
fit to give a man some one good quality to
season his many bad ones ; aud so to keep
him sweet above-ground. Herod did raany
things of public advantage, and yet he scarce
deserved the reputation of a public spirit,
when the end and design drove at by him
in all he did was his own private glory, and
the gratification of his ambition. The con
sideration of which may teach us how great
a riddle the actions of most raen are, even in
their most specious and public undertakings.
The action may be sometimes of a national
emolument, and yet the spring and design
that moves it be but personal. Few men
know what disguises are worn upon the pub
lic face of things, and how much the world is
beholden to some men's pride and vain-glory,
which often supply the office of charity in
those worthy benefactions they pass upon the
public ; while, in the mean time, the good of
those that are benefited by such works is the
least thing in the thoughts of those that did
them. So far from impossible or improper
was that supposition made by the apostle
Paul in 1 Cor. xiii. 3, " of a mau's bestowing
all his goods upon the poor, and yet not hav
ing charity." For it is not the bulk or outside
of the action, but the mind and spirit direct
ing it, that stamps it charitable. Men may
give large sums, and do generous actions,

upon as great designs of selfishness as ever the
vilest miser or usurer entertained, when he
amassed heaps upon heaps within his greedy
coffers ; only with this difference indeed, that
one in all this feeds his pride, the other his
covetousness. But surely pride is as much a
vice as covetousness, though not always of so
ill effect to those that are about it. It is not
what a man does, but how, and why, that
denominates his action good or evil before
God. Herod may be Herod still, for all his
building of a temple.
And thus much for the three qualifications
observable in Herod's person.
2. The secoud thing to be considered of him
was, his behaviour upou this particular occa
sion of the wise men's coming to Jerusalem
from the east, to inquire after hira that was
born king of the Jews, at the nativity of our
blessed Saviour ; which behaviour of his shews
itself in these two things :
1. In that trouble and anxiety of mind
that he conceived upou this news. He was
full of suspicious, misgiving, and perplexing
thoughts, what the issue of things might be,
aud how he should be able to maintain hira
self in the throne, against the claim of the
right owner, which he knew he held by no
other title but that of injury and usurpation.
2. His behaviour shews itself in that
wretched course he took to secure himself
against his supposed competitor ; which was
by slaying all the children born in and near
to Bethlehem, frora two years old and under;
the tirae within which he had learnt frora the
wise raen that Christ must have beeu born.
It must be confessed here (which yet cer
tainly is very strange) that Josephus, who is
so particular in recording most things relating
to Herod's reigu, yet speaks not a word either
of the birth of Christ, or of the appearance of
the star, or of the wise men's coming to
Herod thereupon ; nor, lastly, of the massacre
of these children. All of which (one would
thiuk) were too great and too considerable
passages to be passed over in silence by such
an historian as Josephus,
However, this ought not to shake our faith
of these things at all ; since, if the evangelists
had falsified in these narratives, it is infinitely
improbable that the enemies of the Christiau
religion, who could so easily have convinced
them of such falsification, should not sorae
tirae or other have objected it against the
truth of our religion, which yet they never
did: but, on the other hand, it is hugely
probable, that Josephus, a great zealot in the
Jewish religion, and consequentiy a mortal
hater of ours, might, out of his hatred of it,
omit the relation of these passages which
were likely to give it so much reputation in
the world. But as for the passage of his mur
dering the infants, Ludovicus Capellus is of
opinion, that in that place where Josephus

47-2

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Serm. LVI.

says, that Herod, drawing near his death,
summoned the noblest of the Jews by a
menacing edict frora all parts of Judea, and
shutting them up, gave order to his sister
Salome, and her husband Alexas, to see thera
all put to the sword after his death ; it was
Josephus's intent, by this device, to slubber
over the massacre of these innocents : thus
not wholly omitting it, and yet by so ob
scure a narrative not clearly aud plainly dis
covering it. But whether this observation
' have auy weight in it or no, I hope the testi
mony of those whose writings have been
'• opposed, but never yet confuted, or convinced
] of falsity, will have more authority and credit
with us, than the ambiguity and shuffling of
a partial historian.
I 3. The third thiug proposed to be considered
by us was, the influence that this behaviour
of Herod had upon those under his govern
ment. For the text tells us, that not only
he was troubled himself, but that "all Jeru
salem was also troubled with hira ;" yet not
for any love they bore hira, we may be sure.
But they were troubled and disturbed with
the fears they had of what the rage and
jealousy of such a tyrant might produce : for
seldom does a tyrant confine his troubles
within his own breast, but that those about
him also go sharers in the smart of them.
And what the prophet said of Ahab may be
as truly said of Herod, and all such usurpers,
"that they are those that trouble Israel."
For usually such persons neither rise nor fall,
but at the cost of the people's blood, and the
, expense of many innocent lives. 'When ty-
lants and victorious rebels invade the regal
power of any nation, the people must not
expect to rest quiet either in peace or war :
nor were the Jews here deceived in their ill-
boding presages of what raischief would ensue
upon Herod's discontents. Such a cloud could
not gather over their heads for nothing. And
' long it was not before it broke out in that
: bloody shower that has been made mention
of. From all which we may learn how much
I it concerns the tranquillity and happiness of a
j kingdom to stop the first pretences and en-
j croaches of usurpers ; and as much as iu thera
lies to keep all Herods and Crorawells frora
i getting into the supreraacy. For as soon as
their own guilt and suspicion shall alarra
' thera with auy fears of the right owner's
I regaining his inheritance, then presently the
whole nation is iu danger of being forced to
a war, to defend aud fight for those whora
they have more heart to fight against. Or in
case Provideuce shall favour them so far as to
enable them to turn their swords against such
domestic pests, yet they must still purchase
their delivery by a war ; that is, rid them
selves of one calamity by another. So that
we see, when Herods and usurpers once ravish
the governraent into their hands, whether

they stand or whether they fall, "all Jerusa
lem is like to be troubled with thein."
And thus I have finished what I proposed
from the text, namely, the two grand circum
stances of our Saviour's nativity. I shall
now close up all with a resolution of this
short question, 'Why that Jesus Christ, being
born the right aud lawful king of the Jew.s,
yet gave way to this bloody usurper, and did
not, either in his or his successor's time,
assurae the government himself?
In answer to which, though I think it a
solid and satisfactory reason of all God's ac
tions to state them upon his mere will and
pleasure ; yet there are not wanting other
reasons assignable for this.
I shall pitch upon two :
1. Christ balked the kingly government of
the Jews, because his assuming it would have
crossed the very design of that religion that
he was theu about to establish ; which was,
to unite both Jew and Gentile into one church
or body. But this union could not possibly
be effected till the politic economy of that
nation, so interwoven with the ceremonial
and religious, like the great partition-wall,
was broken down. Upon good reason there
fore did Christ refuse to undertake the kingly
government, and therein the support of that
nation, the politic constitution of which,
through the special providence of God, in
order to the propagation of the Christian
religion, was now shortly to expire and to be
done away.
2. Christ voluntarily waved the Jewish
crown, that he might hereby declare to the
world the nature of his proper kingdom ;
which was to be wholly without the grandeur
of human sovereignty and the splendour of
earthly courts. In Luke, xvii. 20, it is said,
" that the kingdom of God cometh not with
observation." So we read it. But the Greflc
is XXTX (pxuTxaiav, that is, with porap and
gaiety of outward appearance. For so the
word signifies. Whereupon, in Acts, xxv.
23, wheu Agrippa aud Bernice came in rauch
splendour and raagnificence to visit Festus,
it is said that they came fitTx ^roXTi^f (pxi-
Txaix;, which is there well rendered, vnth
much pomp.
This being so, men may save theraselves
the labour of entering into covenants, raising
arraies, and cutting of throats, to advance the
sceptre and kingdom of Jesus Christ : for
Christ has uo need of their forces : he came
to cast out such legions, and uot to employ
them. Here iu this world he owns uo sword
but that of his Spirit, uo sceptre but his word,
uo kingdom but the heart. This is his prero
gative royal, to govern our wills, to command
our inclinations, and to reign and lord it over
our raost inward affections.
Which kingdom, God of his mercy daily
propagate and increase within us.

ON MATTHEW, x. 37.

473

To which God be rendered and ascribed,
as is most due, all praise, raight, majesty, aud
domiuion, both now and for ever. Amen.

SERMON LVIL

" He that loves father or mother better than me is not worthy
of me." — Matt. z. 37.

Our Saviour, in these words, presents him
self and the world together as corapetitors for
our best affections ; which, because we never
fasten upou any thiug but for sorae precedent
.apprehension of worth in it, he therefore
treats with us uot upon terms of courtesy but
reason, challenging a transcendent affection
on our parts, because of a transcendent wor
thiness on his. He would have it before the
world, for this cause only, that he deserves it
above the world.
Now because men might be apt to flatter
themselves into a false persuasion of their
love to Christ, the heart being no less the
seat aud shop of deceit, than it is of love ;
lest, I say, they might baffle and irapose upou
themselves, (as sad experience shews, that
most men do in this particular,) our Saviour,
with great art, selects aud singles out those
enjoyments that are most apt to seize and
engross our affections, aud particularly states
the sincerity of our love to him, in the supe
riority of it over our love to those. An ordi
nary affection relating to an extraordinary
object is no affection. When Christ is the
thing that we are to love, between the highest
degree of love and a total negation ofit, there
is no medium ; as it is said of Jacob, that he
loved Rachel, but he hated Leah ; because he
loved Leah the less of the two. So if a mau
loves the world in a greater degree, and Christ
in a less, when God shall come to take an
estimate of that love, he will make no allow
ance for the comparison, but account that
man absolutely to love the world aud to hate
Christ. For uot to value him more than all,
is really to undervalue hira.
For the exposition of the words we must
here observe, that these terms father and
iMhsr are not to be understood in a literal,
restrained sense, only as they signify such
relations ; but they are to be taken more
largely, as they comprise whatsoever enjoy
ments are dear unto us : it being usual in
scripture to express all that is dear to us by
some one thing that is raost dear. As it is a
frequent synecdoche, to express the whole by
some one principal part. (Prov. xxiii. 26,)
"My son, give rae thy heart." God here re
quires the service of the whole man ; but the

heart is only expressed, as being the prime
ruling part.
Now the affection we bear to our parents
is the greatest that we are to bear to any
worldly thing, and that deservedly. For if,
under God, they gave us our beings, we raay
well return them our affections. So that
Christ by demanding a love greater than that
which upon a natural account is the greatest,
and by preferring himself before that enjoy
meut which is the dearest, he does by conse
quence prefer himself before all the rest. For
he that is above a prince, is consequentially
above all his subjects.
As for the next expression, "he is not
worthy of me ;" it raay seem from hence to be
inferred, that he who should love Christ above
father or mother, or auy other woridly enjoy
ment, would thereby become worthy of Christ.
But yet to affirm that any mau may so qua
lify hiraself, or do that ¦which may render
him worthy of Christ, would be apparently
to introduce and assert the doctrine of raerit ;
a thiug of the highest absurdity, both in rea
son and religion.
In answer to this therefore we raay observe,
that there is a twofold worthiness :
1. A worthiness strictly and properly so
called, which is according to the real inherent
value of the thing ; aud so no raan by the
choicest of his endeavours can be said to be
worthy of Christ. He can no more merit
grace than he can merit glory, and both are
included in Christ. Obtain them indeed we
may, but we cau never deserve thera. Worthi
ness is a thing that raan can never plead
before God ; but after we have done all, we
are still unprofitable, and therefore still un
worthy. 2. There is a worthiness according to the
gracious acceptance of God, which is a worthi
ness improperly so called : when a thing is
worthy, uot for any value in itself, but because
God freely accepts it for such. This worth
raay be rather termed a fitness or a meetness,
not consisting in merit, but in due conditional
qualifications. And so he that loves father
or raother less than Christ is iu this sense
worthy of hira ; that is, fitiy prepared and
qualified to receive hira ; as having that which
God is pleased to raake the only coudition
upon which he bestows Christ.
These things being premised by way of
exposition, I shall draw forth and prosecute
the sense of the words in these three parti
culars : — ..,,,.
I. I shall shew what is included and com
prehended in that love to Christ that is here
mentioned in the text.
II. I shall shew what are the reasons and
motives that may induce us to it.
III. What are the signs, marks, and charac
ters whereby we raay discern it.
I. As for the first of these, what is included

474

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Serm. LVII.

in the love here spoken of, I conceive it may
include these five things :
1. An esteera and valuation of Christ above
all worldly enjoyraents whatsoever. The first
foundation stoue of this love must be laid
in admiration, aud a high persuasion of that
worth that we are to love. We must first
believe Christ excellent, before we can ac
count him dear. Those that profess and avow
a love to Christ, and yet, by the secret verdict
of their worldly minds, place a greater esteem
npon a pleasure, upon honour, upon an estate,
do indeed speak contradictions, and delude
themselves, and may as well believe their life
may remain when their soul is departed, as
imagine that their love may go oue way, and
their esteem another. Upon which account
it is clear, that Christ must be first raised above
the world in our judgments ; he must first
rule there ; he must lord it in our thoughts,
and command our apprehensions.
If we trace David through all his Psalms,
he is continually breathing out an ardent love
to God ; they run all along in a strain of the
highest affection. And this love we shall
find to have been founded upon a proportion
able esteem of God, which esteem does emi
nently appear in several expressions. How
often does he repeat and insist upou this one,
" Lord, who is like unto thee ?" (Psalm xxxv.
10, and Ixxi. 19.) His thoughts were even
transported into a ravishing adrairation of
God's surpassing excellencies, before his heart
could be drawn forth in love and affection to
hira ; he suffered au ecstasy in his thoughts
before he did in his desires. And again,
(Psalm xviii. 3,) "Thou art worthy to be
praised." God's worth, presented to the soul
i by thoughts of esteem, is that which so
\ strongly, and, as I may say, invincibly draws
i its affections. It is indeed the price ofyour
desires, and really buys them before it' has
them. Some are of opinion that the dictates of the
understanding have such a determining, con-
I trolling influence upon the will and affections,
j that they cannot but desire whatsoever the
understanding shall sufficiently offer and pro-
' pose to them as desirable. But whether or
' no the judgment does certainly and infallibly
command and draw after it the acts of the
will, (which is a controversy too big to be
discussed in a sermon,) yet this is certain, that
it does of necessity precede them, and uo man
can fix his love upon any thing, till his judg
ment reports it to the will as amiable. This
must be the only gate and portal through
which we must introduce loving thoughts of
Christ into the heart ; he must be first valued
before he cau be embraced. For this is un
doubtedly certain, that nothing can have a
greater share of our affections, than it has of
our esteera.
2. This love to Christ implies a choosing I

him before all other enjoyments. For a man
to pretend affection to Christ, by extolling his
person, admiring what he has done for us, by
praising the ways of God, commending the
practice aud the practisers of godliness ; and
yet in the meantirae to act and labour for the
world, to live in sin, and upon all occasions
to submit to a temptation, rather than to
a precept : notwithstanding this strange op
position and clashing between his profession
and his course, I suppose every rational man
would read his judgment, not in his words,
but in his choice. " Laudant ilia, sed ista
legunt ;" he that commends such books, bnt
reads others, only shews that he praises one
thing but values another, and that tbe best
interpreter of his mind is not what he says,
but what he chooses.
By this Moses undeniably proved hoth the
strength and sincerity of his love to God and
to the people of God, that he chose rather to
suffer afflictions with them, than to enjoy all
the pleasures of Pharaoh's court. For to have
solicited their cause with Pharaoh, to have
procured them a mitigation of their bondage,
to have won them favour and a good opinion
from the Egyptians, had indeed been signs
and effects of love ; but this was love itself.
His affection was in his choice ; forbad he still
chose Pharaoh's court, all other things that
he could have done for his brethren had
amounted rather to a good wish, than to a
true affection.
Thus, on the contrary, wicked men are said
to " love death :" but can auy mau make his
greatest evil the object of his best desire, which
is love? No, assuredly, while he considers it
as such, he cannot ; but because it is ratioual
from men's choice to infer and argue their
love, they may be said therefore truly and
properly to love death, because they choose it.
And by the sarae reason, on the other side, a
believer, though he may be sometimes en
snared in sin, and so brought to comrait it,
yet he cannot be said indeed to love it, be
cause it is seldom his choice, but his sur
prise ; he makes it not his end and his design.
It is rather a sudden invasion raade upon his
affections, than the resolved purpose of his
will. Thus therefore we see how tho spirit and
force of our love exerts itself in choice ; for
the design of love is to appropriate as well as
to approximate its object to the soul : and to
choose a thing is the first access to a propriety
in it. For choice, as I may so say, is posses
sion begun, and possession itself is nothing
else but choice perfected. Barely to esteem
Christ (if we raay suppose a division of those
things which indeed are not to be divided) is
as much inferior to a choosing him as a good
look is below a good tum.
3. Love to Christ iraplies service aud obe
dience to him ; the same love that when it is

ON M.\TTHEW, x. 37.

475

between equals is friendship, when it is from
an inferior to a superior is obedience. Love,
of all the affections, is the most active ; hence
by those who express the uature of things by
hieroglyphics, we have it compared to fire,
certainly for nothing more thau its activity.
The sarae arms that embrace a friend, will
be as ready to act for him. This is the natu
ral progress of tme love, from the heart to
the hand : where there is .an inward spring,
there will quickly be an external visible mo
tion. When we have once placed our affection
upon any person, the next inquiry naturally
will be, what shall we do for him ? And if
this be the property of love when it lays itself
out npon natural objects, we may be sure it
will be heightened when it pitches upon
supernatural. It is indeed changed, but withal
advanced ; the object altered, but the measure
of the act increased. Divine and heavenly
things do indeed refine and lop off the extra
vagancy, but they abate nothing of the vigour
ofour affections.
Christ has determined the case in short,
(John, xiv. 15,) " If ye love me, keep ray com
mandments." There is more real love to God
shewn in the least sincere act of obedience,
than in the greatest and the most pompous
sacrifice. Many may please themselves in
their fair professions, their orthodox opinions,
and their judgment about the ways of Christ,
but God knows there may be much of all this,
and yet but little love. It is the comraand
that must try that ; aud believe it, the grand
inquiry hereafter will be, not what we have
thought or what we have said, but what we
have done for Christ.
Christ all along in Scripture proposes himself
to us as our Lord and Master ; and a servant's
love to his raaster is his service. It was the
idle servant that God dealt with as his enemy.
How does a wicked man's love to sin appear,
but by his continual, indefatigable acting
and working for it, obeying its commands,
and fttlfilliug even its vilest lusts and most
unreasonable desires ! Now Christ requires
that every believer should manifest his love
to him in that height and measure, that a
wicked person manifests his love to sin. So
tbat whien he required a testimonial of Peter's
aSectioD, he did not ask him what he thought
of him, or what he was ready to profess con
cerning him : for we know he thought him to
"he the Son of God," (Matth. xvi. 16 ;) and
he professed, " that if all others forsook hira,
yet he would not," (Matth. xvi. 33 ;) yet for
all this he afterwards both denied and fore
swore him. Christ therefore exacts a demon
stration of his love in service and obedience.
"Peter, lovest thou me? Feed my sheep,"
(John, xxi. 17.) He kuew he that would
obey and serve him, and execute his com
mands, loved him beyond all possibility of

dissimulation. A man usually speaks, but
he seldom does one thiug and thinks another.
It is natural for love, where it is hoth sin
cere and predominant, to subdue the party
possessed with it to undertake the most servile,
laborious, and otherwise uncomfortable offices
iu the behalf of him whora he loves. If you
will admit the paradox, it makes a man do
more than he can do. Will is instead of
power, and love supplies the room of ability.
Had the love of Christ but once thoroughly
seated itself in our hearts, we should find that,
according to that most expressive phrase of
the apostle, it would " constrain us." It were
but Christ's saying. Go, and we should go ;
Do this, aud we should do it. We should
fiud a double commaud, oue from Christ aud
one from our owu affection. Love without
works is a greater absurdity thau faith with
out works ; faith works by love, and love by
obedience. Let none therefore ever think to
divide himself between God aud mararaon ;
to afford his love to Christ, but his service to
the world. If a man may honour his parents
but not obey them, keep loyalty to his gover
nor but rebel agaiust hira, then may also his
love stand sincere to Christ while unseconded
with obedience.
It is the masterpiece of Satan and our own
corruptions, to bring us under this persuasion,
that we may love Christ without serving him :
but believe it, it is a destmctive, aud a dani-
nable delusion ; equal iu the absurdity and in
the danger ; and I believe, if we could divide
these two, and give the Devil his choice, he
would accept of oue instead of both : give but
the Devil your service, and he would give
Christ your love. We are apt to place all
upon persuasion ; but how shall we be disap
pointed when God comes to reckon with us
for performance !
4. Love to Christ iraplies an acting for him
in opposition to all other things ; and this is
the undeceiving infallible test of a true affec
tion. We may uot ouly value and coraraend,
but think also that we serve Christ by reason
of the undiscernible mixture of his and our
interests sometiraes wrapt together ; so as to
be persuaded that we serve and carry on his
interest, while indeed we only serve our own
in another dress. I believe that Jehu did uot
only persuade others, but himself also, that
he served the cause of God in destroying the
posterity of Ahab and the worshippers of Baal ;
when, in truth, God's honour and his own
safety, the interest of religion and of his
crown, at that time so particularly met and
combined together, that he mistook his own
meaning, aud thought he was all the time
honouring of God, while he was only en
deavouring to establish hiraself and pursu
ing the designs of policy uuder the mask of
But when two distinct interests are dra'wn

476

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Serm. LVfl.

forth in an open, avowed opposition, and
visibly confront one another ; when those that
erabrace one are apparently discrirainated
from the other, and none can embrace both,
but a man must either testify a real affection
on one side, or an odious indifference and
neutrality, then love will appear to be love ;
dissimulation will be rendered impossible, and
a man will be judged to love there only where
he shall dare to appear.
When Christ and the world, Christ and
our honour, Christ and our profit, shall make
two opposite parties, then is the time to try
our aff'ections. If one servant should follow
two several persons, it were hard to discern
whose servant he was, while they both walked
quietly together ; but should they ouce quar
rel and come to strokes, we should quickly see
by his assistance where he had engaged his
service. The truth is, it is but one and the
same league, that is, defensive in respect of
our friends, and offensive to their enemies.
Neither is there any defending of Christ's
interest, withont an active opposing that of
Satan and the flesh, when the preservation of
one lies in the destruction of the other. If
Christ caunot increase, unless John decrease,
the Baptist himself must not be spared.
Because Peter would shew that he loved Christ
above the rest, he drew his sword for him.
He that fights for another pawns his life that
he loves him : competition is the touchstone
of reality.
It is not to make invectives against sin and
the courses of the world, or to speak satires
against the Devil, that infallibly concludes us
to be Christ's disciples. Those may chide
very sharply, who are yet hearty and real
frientls. But shew me the person who can
act with as keen a vigour as he speaks ; who
can put his foot upon the neck of his lust ;
who cau be restless and active in circumvent
ing, underraining, and defeating his corrup
tion ; and all this ouly for its implacable
enmity to Christ ; such an one indeed declares
to the world, by a demonstration of the highest
evidence, that Christ bears the rule and pre
eminence in his affections.
Had king Josiah spoke great and glorious
words of his love to God's church, and of his
hatred to idolatry, this indeed might have
beeu a fair commendation of his zeal to the
world, which is often deceived, and almost
always governed by words : but it could not
have at all commended his zeal to God, who
weighs all such expressions in the balance of
truth and reality, aud finds them wanting.
But see how this royal person's love to
God manifested itself : as soon as he succeeded
his father, and found the church generally
cormpted, and idolatry like an usurper reign
ing in his kingdom, he presently throws down
the altars, breaks the images, dismantles the
high places ; and all this in opposition to a

potent, prevailing interest in his kingdora.
A friend at court signified but little, when he
was to speak for idolatry, where the king
hiraself looked upou the church as his crown,
and the purity of religion as his prerogative.
And this was to love God and religion indeed,
thus to assert them actively, by engaging
against their fiercest opponents, and building
np the divine worship upon the ruin of its
adversaries. And surely between the most
glittering professions, the most enlarged vows,
and highest verbal engagements for God, and
betweeu this way of taking up and owning
his quarrel, there is as much difference, as
there is between wearing God's colours and
fighting his battles.
6. To assign the greatest and the sublimest
instauce in the last place. Love to Christ
imports a full acquiescence in him alone, even
in the absence aud want of all other felicities :
men can embrace Christ with riches, Christ
with honour, Christ with interest, and abun
dantly satisfy themselves in so doing : though
perhaps all the time they put but a cheat upon
themselves, thinking that they follow Christ,
while indeed they run only after the loaves.
What Solomon says of wisdom, that they
thiuk of religion, that it is " good with an
inheritance." The Devil granted it to be an easy matter
for Job to serve God in the midst of that great
affluence, while God set an hedge round about
all that he had : but, says he to God, " Put
forth thine hand, and touch him," strip him
of all his greatuess, his wealth, and honour,
" and he will curse thee to thy face;" and if
Job's heart had not been made of better raetal
than the heart of the most specious hypocrite
in the world, the Devil had not been at all
out in his advice, but would have certainly
seen his prediction verified in Job's behaviour.
Many love Christ as they love their tem
poral king ; while he flourishes, and has the
opportunity of obliging his dependents, they
will be sure to stick close by his side : but
would they follow him into banishment, and
pay allegiance to majesty poor, and bare, and
forlorn? And if Providence should debase
him to so low a pitch, could they honour hira
in rags, as much as they do in purple ? and
give hira the same homage wandering in the
land of strangers, that they shew him riding
in the head of his own armies ?
No ; the case comes to be altered here.
When indeed duty and emolument con
spire, one may easily be performed, because
in the very same action the other may be
intended : but when they part, and virtue is
to set off itself merely upou the stock of its
own worth, there men generally look upon it
as upon a fair woraan without a portion ; all
will coramend, but none will marry her.
But this was the great and infallible demon
stration that all the ancient heroes in the

ON MATTHEW, x. 37.

477

faith gave of their love to God, that they took
him alone for an inheritance and a patrimony,
and embraced religion separate from all tem-
Soral accessions, as the utmost limit of their
esires, the just measures of their designs, and
the sole and ample object of their satisfaction.
Abraham left his country, his family, his
estate, following God upon his bare word and
command. The disciples left all, and followed
Christ ; the primitive Christians and raartyrs
rehnquished every worldly enjoyment, even
to hfe itself, and embarked all their hopes, all
their fortunes and felicities, both present and
future, iu this oue bottom, looking for all
these, and that which was much better and
greater than all, entirely in their religion.
But because human nature has great argu
ments and reluctancies against such an heroic
act of piety, God, that he might cast all our
duties within the rules and measures of reason,
which is the proper " drawing us with the
cords of a man," has provided greater argu
ments to induce us to such an undertaking,
than flesh and blood cau produce agaiust it.
For when he called Abraham from the very
bosom of his friends aud fortunes, he did not
divert his will from one desirable object with
out proposing to it another : but he both
answers his desires and obviates his fears, iu
that infinitely full and encouraging promise,
(Genesis, xv. 1), " Fear uot, Abraham : I am
thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward."
A promise that might reach the very utmost
of his thoughts, confute his doubts, and make
good the reason of his obedience in all circum
stances whatsoever. Aud Christ makes the
same promise to all his, (Matth. xix. 29,)
" that there is none who should leave father,
or mother, or lands, for his sake and the
gospel's, but shonld receive an hundredfold iu
this world, and in the world to corae everlast
ing life." That is, they should receive that
high satisfaction, pleasure, aud peace of mind,
that should be an hundredfold greater than
any that is conveyed to the heart of man from
the vastest abundance of worldly treasures
I and enjoyraents. So that in all these high
j instances of religion, God is pleased to con-
j vince as well as to coramand us to obedieuce,
still interweaving argument with precept, and
i so making our love to him as rational as it
can be religious.
And therefore let men frame to themselves
what measures of religion they please, yet if
they cannot love and acquiesce in it, wheu
Provideuce shall leave them nothing in the
world else to bestow their love upon, but
dispossess them of all the former delights of
their eyes and joys of their hearts, (of which
we have but too frequent and pregnant ex
amples in many, whose fortunes have beeu
ground to nothing by some sad calamities,)
such must assure themselves that all their love
to Christ is trifling and superficial, and far

from that sincerity that makes it genuine,
saving, aud victorious over the world.
And God knows how soon he may bring all
our pretences to so severe a trial ; and what
need the weak heart of man will then have
of such a principle to support it, when it shall
find itself beat off from all its former holds,
bereft of its supplies, and every thing ou this
side heaven frowning and looking sternly
upon it. It will be then fouud that religion
is not a chimera or a fancy, and that the pious
man has something or other within him that
makes hira hold up his head, while others in
the same calamity droop and despond.
Where the love of Christ has ouce possessed
itself of the heart, though a man lives in the
world, yet he lives not upon it. Aud there
fore, when nothing is imported from without,
he can say to the world, as Christ did once to
his disciples, " I have meat that ye kuow not
of." "A good mau," says Solomon, " is satisfied
from hiraself ;" he carries his store, his plenty,
his friends, and his preferraents about hira.
Nothing could more excellently and divinely
express this condition than those words of
our Saviour, (Johu, vii. 38,) " He that believes
on me, as the scripture saith, out of his belly
shall flow rivers of living water." Cisterns
may be broke, and we removed from them, or
they frora us ; but he that has a fountain
within him cau nevei" be athirst.
Having thus despatched the fiirst particular,
aud shewn those five things included iu the
love to Christ spoken of in the text, I proceed
now to the
Second ; which is, to shew what are the
reasons aud motives that may induce us to
this love.
And for this I might insist upon that
mighty and commanding cause of love, the
amiableness and high perfection of Christ's
person ; which contains in it the " very ful
ness of the Godhead bodily ;" all the glories
of the Deity are wrapt up aud included in it ;
they reach as wide as infinity, and as far as
eternity. His vast, unliraited knowledge and
wisdom, his uncontrollable power and his
boundless gooduess, are all objects to excite
such an esteem and admiration of him as must
naturally pass into love.
Every thing that is but good attracts love,
but that which is excellent commands it ; and
then how amiable must that nature needs be
of which the sun, the gloriousest creature in
the world, is but a glirapse, the light itself a
shadow, and the -n'hole universe, that is, the
united glories of heaven and earth, but a ^
broken copy and an imperfect transcript, j
" Thou art fairer than the children of raen,"
says the prophet Da-vid, (Psalm xlv. 2 ;) and
beauty, all confess, is the grand, celebrated
motive of afl'ection. The whole song of
Solomou is but a description of those raptures
of love into which the church had been raised

478

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Skrm. LVII.

by a contemplation of the unparalleled beau
ties of Christ. All the perfections we behold
and admire in the world, either in men or
women, are but weak traces aud faint iraita
tions of the divine beauty, which is the origi
nal ; and which would infinitely more captivate
our desires, could we see things with an
intellectual eye, as clearly as we do with a
corporeal. But I shall not dwell upon these
motives of love drawn from the perfection of
Christ considered in himself, but as relating
to us aud to our concernments, and so I.'shall
assign these two motives of our love fo him.
1. That he is best able to reward our love.
2. That he has shewn the greatest love to us.
1. And first, for the first of these, that he is
best able to reward our love. I confess, that
j to love merely for reward, is not so properly
! to love as to traffic, and flows not from affec-
j tion but design. But, on the other side, to love
a worthless thing, to embrace a cloud, or for a
vine to cling about a bramble, is not to bestow,
but throw away affection. The " recompense
of reward" is a thing always to be respected,
though not to be solely intended. Ajid the
very pleasure and satisfaction that the mind
finds in loving a worthy and a noble object,
is a considerable reward of that very love.
'Virtue and religion composes the thoughts,
answers the desires, and satisfies the conscience
of him that loves it. The absolving clearness
of which is a gratuity much greater than any
that either the pleasure of the sin or of the
world can bestow. The sensual epicure
catches at the delights of sense, aud lets out
the whole stream of his desires upon them.
But what answer and return do they make
him? Does he uot find them like the apples
of Sodom, rotten as well as alluring, fair to
the sight, but crumbled into ashes by the
touch ? How do they vanish iuto smoke and
air and nothing, and lose all their credit upon
experience ! Trial puts a period to thera, as
it must do to all erapty, fantastic enjoy
ments, that owe their value ouly to distance
and expectation.
Those that have been the most insatiable
lovers of pleasure, profit, and honour, aud
such other worldly incentives of love ; aud
have had all their desires pursued and plied
with constant surfeiting fruitions of them ;
let them at last ruu over all with a severe and
a reflecting thought, and see whether they
have not been rather wearied than satisfied,
their love still determining in loathing, or at
least in indifference. How have they been paid
for all their love ? Why, some have been paid
with the wages of poverty, some of diseases,
some of shame, but all with dissatisfaction.
" What fmit have we of those things ?" says
the apostle most emphatically : which words
are not so much the voice of a man, as of
mankind, upou a survey of all temporal frui
tions. 'There is an emptiness during the

enjoyment of them, and a sting in the re
membrance : present they deceive, and being
past they disturb. And now must yani^ and
vexation be took for a valuable price of that
affection that Christ would purchase with the
pleasures of virtue and the glories of heaven,
with present satisfaclion aud future salvation?
Go over the regions of hell and mansions of
the damned, and there you will see how sin
and the world have rewarded men for all the
love they have shewn them. They have
made most men miserable, even in this life ;
but did they ever make any one happy in the
other ? iu which alone happiness and misery
are considerable, as being there alone un
changeable. Consider a man making his
addresses to his beloved sin, as Samson did to
his Delilah ; he courts and caresses it, sacrifices
his strength and unbosoms his very soul to it :
he breaks through bars, and gates, and walls,
to visit it ; is impatient of wanting the
delights of its company : and now how is he
recompensed for all these heights of love?
Why, he is answered with tricks aud arts, with
traps and treacheries ; he is dissembled with,
and betrayed to hig mortal enemies ; those
eyes are put out by the person upon whom
they doted, and the lap he slept in delivers
him into perpetual imprisonraent, misery,
and intolerable disgrace. It is impossible for
a man to shew more love than he does to sin,
and it is not possible for his bitterest enemy
to pay him with more fatal returns. The
truth is, a man in all his converse with sin
courts a serpent, and hugs a scorpion, which
willbe sure to strike and sting him to death
for all his kindness.
But because there are other things besides
sin that are apt to bid fair for our love, as the
possessions and honours of the world, let us
see what kind of requital they make for that
great love that they find from their most pas
sionate suitors and pursuers. A man perhaps
loves riches with that vehemence of desire,
that he thinks gold cannot be bought too
dear, though the price of it be his natural rest,
his health, his reputation, his soul, and every
thing. But now after all this, what does he
find in it to recompeuse such an unwearied,
unconquerable love? Can it ease his con
science, when the injustice by which he gained
it shall torment hira ? Cau it reconcile him
to Heaven ? or afford him one drop of cold
water in hell to cool his tongue when it has
brought him thither ?
Aud why then should a man fling away the
very spirit and quintessence of his soul, his
love, upon such an ungrateful object as can
make him no return ? Would he bestow half
of his watchings, his labours, and painful at
tendances, in the matters of religion, in stat
ing businesses between God and his soul, he
might raise himself such an interest, as should
scorn the batteries of fortune, the injuries of

ON MATTHEW, x. 37.

479

time, and the very powers of hell ; such an one
as should stand victorious aud eternal, trample
upon the world, conquer death, and even out
live time itself. Let that thing or person
therefore have onr love that will give most
for it : and this shall be the first motive or
argument for our placing it upon Christ.
2. The second shall be taken from this con
sideration, that Christ has shewn the greatest
love to us. Love is the most natural, proper,
and stated price of love. It is a debt that is
not to be paid but in kind ; it scorns all other
return or retaliation : and Christ is so much
beforehand with us in this respect, that should
we shew him the utmost love that humanity
is capable of exerting, yet our love could not
come under the notion of kindness, but of
gratitude : for we cannot prevent him in the
first acts ; but only answer him iu the subse
quent returns of it. It is not a giving, but a
paying him our affection.
The united voice of all the world heretofore
proclaimed the baseness of ingratitude, and
you needed not have amplified upon the topic
of several vices, to have represented a man
rile ; for that charge alone of being ungrate
ful was a compendious account of all ill quali
ties, and left a greater brand upon a man,
than whole volumes of satires and loud de
clamations ^[ainst him.
For the truth is, it is a vice that has iu it a
peculiar malignity, tending to dissolve and
fret asunder the bands of society, and ami
cable converse hetween men ; forasmuch as
society subsists by a mutual intercourse of good
offices ; and if there were no correspondence
and exchange of one friendly action for an
other, company could not be desirable : aud a
man might commaud the same enjoyment in
the solitudes of a desert and a howling wil
demess that he could in a populous city, well
inhabited, and wisely governed.
Every ungrateful person, that receives much
kindness, but repays none, only acts another
kind of robbery, for he really withholds a due,
and is indeed a thief within the protection of
the law. Ingratitude is as great a sin in the
sight of God, as any that is punishable by the
laws of men ; and has as little to plead for
itself npon the stock of human infirraity as
any sin whatsoever. For nature prompts and
even urges a man to acknowledge a benefit
conferred on him ; aud that so far, that an
obligation no ways answered lies like a load
and a burden npon an ingenuous mind : and
a man must have debauched and worn out the
natural impressions of ingenuity to a very
great degree, before he can be unconcerned
where he has been much obliged.
Now Christ has obliged us with two of the
highest instances of his love to us imagin
able: 1st, That he died for us. The love of life is
naturally the greatest, and therefore that love

th.at so far masters this, as to induce a m.an to
lay it down, must needs be transcendent and
supernatural. For life is the first thing that
nature desires, and the last that it is willing
to part with. But how poor aud low, and in
what a pitiful shallow channel does the love
of the world commonly run ! Let us come
aud desire such an one to speak a favourable
word or two for us to a potent friend, and
how much of coyness and excuse and shyness
shall we find ! the man is unwilling to spend
his breath iu speaking, much less in dying for
his friend. Come to another, aud ask him
upou the stock of a long acquaintance and a
professed kindness, to borrow but a little
money of him, and how quickly does he fly
to his shifts, pleading poverty, debts, and
great occasions, and auy thing, rather than
open his own bowels to refresh those of his
poor neighbour ! The man will uot bleed in
his purse, much less otherwise, to rescue his
friend from prison, from disgrace, and perhaps
a great disaster.
But now how incomparably full and strong
must the love of Christ needs have been, that
could make him sacrifice even life itself for
the good of maukind, and not only die, but
die with all the heightening circumstances of
pain and ignominy ; that is, in such a man
ner, that death was the least part of the suf
fering ! Let us but fix our thoughts upon
Christ, hanging bleeding, and at length dying
upon the cross, aud we shall read his love to
mau there, in larger and raore visible charac
ters than the superscription that the Jews put
over his head in so many languages. All
which, and many raore, were not sufficient to
have fully expressed and set forth so incredi
bly great an affection. Every thorn was a
pencil to represent, and every groan a trura
pet to proolaira, how great a love he was then
shewing to mankind.
And now surely our love must needs be
very cold, if all the blood that ran in our
Saviour's veins cannot warm it ; for all that
was shed for us, and shed for that very pur
pose, that it might prevent the shedding of
ours. Our obnoxiousness to the curse of the
law for sin had exposed us to all the extre
mity of misery, and made death as due to us,
as wages to the workraan. And the divine
justice (we may be sure) would never have
been behindhand to pay us our due. The
dreadful retribution was certain and unavoid
able ; and therefore, since Christ could not
prevent, he was pleased at least to divert the
blow ; and to turn it upon himself ; to take
the cup of God's fury out of our hands, and to
drink off the very dregs of it. The greatest
love that meu usually bear one another is
but show and ceremony, compliment, and a
mere appearance, in comparison of this. 'This
was such a love as, Soloraon says, is " strong
as death ;" and to express it yet higher, such

480

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SEHAIONS.

Skrm. LVII.

an one as was stronger tlian the very desires
of life.
2dly, The other transcendent instance of
Christ's love to raankind was, that he did not
only die for us, but that he died for us while
we were eneraies, and (in the phrase of Scrip
ture) enraity itself against hini. It is possible
indeed that sorae natures, of a nobler mould
and make than the generality of the world,
may arise to such an heroic degree of love, as
to induce one friend to die for another. For
the apostle says, that " for a good man one
would even dare to die." And we may read
ill heathen story of the noble contention of
two friends, which of them should have the
pleasure and honour of dying in the other's
ste.ad, and writing the inward love of his
heart in the dearest blood that did enliven
it. Yet still the love of Christ to mankind runs
in another and a higher strain : for adrait
that one raan had died for another, yet still it
has been for his friend, that is, for something,
if not of equal, yet at least of next esteem to
life itself, in the common judgment of all.
Huraan love will indeed sometiraes act highly
aud generously, but still it is upon a suitable
object, upon soraething that is araiable ; and
if there be either no fuel, or that whicli is
unsuitable, the fltirae will certainly go out.
But the love of Christ does not find, but
make us lovely. It " saw us in our blood,"
(as the prophet speaks,) wallowing in all tho
filth and irapurities of our natural corruption,
:ind then it said unto us. Live. Christ then
laid down his life for us, when wc had for
feited our own to hira. "Which strange action
was, as if a prince should give hiraself a ran
sora for that traitor that would have mur
dered him ; and sovereignty itself lie down
upon the block to rescue the neck of a rebel
frora the stroke of justice. 'This was the
method aud way that Christ took in what
he suffered for us ; a method that reason
might at first persuade us to be against na
ture, and that religion assures us to be above
it. But such an one that both reason and reli
gion cannot but convince us to bo the highest
and the most unanswerable argunitint for a
surpassing love to Christ on our parts, that
(be it spoke with reverence) God hirasolf
could aff'ord us. An arguraent that must ren
der every sin of so black and dismal a hue
under the economy of the gospel, that there
is no monster coraparable to the sinner, to
him that can hate after so rauch love, and by
his ingratitude rend open those wounds
afresh that were made only to bleed for his
off'ences. Having thus shewn the reasons and argu
ments to enforce our lovo to Christ, I descend
now to the
Third and last thing, which is to shew the

signs and characters whereby wo may discern
this love. Love is a tiling th.at is more easily
extinguished than concealed. It needs no
herald to proclaim it, but wheresoever it is,
it will be sure to shew itself. Fire shines
as well as burns, and needs nothing but its
own light to make it visible and conspicuous.
But yet to make a clearer discovery of the
sincerity of our love to Christ, I shall give
those three signs of it, —
1. A frequent and indeed a continual thinks
ing of him. " Whore your treasure is," (says
our Saviour,) " thero will your heart bo also."
That is, whatsoever you love and value, that
will be sure to take up your thoughts. Love
desires the presence of the object loved,
and there is uo way to make distant things
present but by thought. 'Thought ^ives a
man the picture of his friend, by continually
representing him to his iraagination. "0
how love I thy law !" says David ; " it is my
meditation day and night." It kept him
waking upon his bed, and was a greater re
freshraent to hira than his natural repose-
Let every man reflect upon his own expe
rience, and consult the working of his own
breast, and he will find how unnblo ho is to
shut the door upon his thoughts, and to keep
them from running out after that thing
(whatsoever it is) that has seized his affections.
Whatsoever work he is about, whatsoever place
ho is in, still his thoughts aro sure to be
there. And can that m.an then pretend a love to
religion who seldom makes it the busiuess of
his thoughts and meditations ? He that thinks
of God but now and then, and by chance, or
upou the weekly returns of a serraon, when
the preacher interrupts his other thoughts,
shews that God and religion are strangers to
his heart and his most inward affections.
David makes this tho proper mark and the
very characteristic of a wicked and a profane
person, that " God is uot in all his thoughts;" ,i
tho very bent aud stream of his soul is another }
way. Love is the bias of the thoughts, and ;
continually comraauds and governs tho motion
of thera. 'And therefore if a man would have
au infallible account of hisown heart, let him
irapartially ask hiraself, what hours he sets
aside to meditate upon the matters of religiou,
tho stato of his soul, the conditions upon which
he must be saved, .and what evidences he has of |
his repentance, and his interest iu the second
covenant ; as also to consider with himself
the quality of his sins, and the measures j
of his sorrow ; and whether after all he gets
ground of his sin, or his siu of hiin. Let
every man, I say, inquire of his own heart
what tirae ho allots for these thoughts, and
vvhether he is not delighted when he can re
tire for this purpose ; and on the contrary,
grieved and displeased when by some cross
accident or other he is diverted and took off

ON MATTHEW, x. 37.

481

from thus retreating into himself. If he finds
nothing of this in the course of his life, (as it
is to be feared very few do,) let him rest as
sured that he is not in earnest when he calls
himself a Christian. For Christianity is not
his business, his design, and consequently not
his religion : but applied to him is only a
name, and nothing else.
2dly, The second sign of a sincere love to
Christ is a willingness to leave the world,
whensoever God shall think fit to send his
messenger of death to summon us to a nearer
converse with Christ. " I desire to be dis
solved, and to be with Christ," says the blessed
apostie. For is it possible for any to love a
friend, and not to desire to be with him ?
Upon which account I have often marvelled
how some people are able to reconcile the sin
cerity of their love to Christ, with such an ex
cessive, immoderate dread of death. For do
they fear to be iu Abraham's bosom, and in
the arms of their Saviour ? Are they unwill
ing to be corapletely happy, to be saved and
glorified, and to have their hopes perfected
into possession, aud actually to enjoy what
they profess theraselves earnestly to expect ?
Those who have a spiritual sight of these
things, and a ratioual persuasion of their title
to them, surely cannot look upon that, through
which they must pass to them, with so much
horror and consternation. The first effect that
a true and a lively faith has upon the soul is
to conquer the fear of death : for if Christ
has done any thing for us, he has disarmed
that, and took away the grimness, the sting,
and terror of that grand adversary.
But some raen have so set their heart and
soul upon the things of this world, that it
is death to thera to think of dying : they do
not so much depart, as are torn out of the
world : and the separation between this and
them is harder than that between their soul
and their body. How intolerable is it to
them, to think of parting with a fair estate, a
flourishing family, and great honour ! How
hardly are they brought to exchange their
heaven here below for one above ! This is
the mind of raost raen, and it shews itself
through all their glorious pretences ; but let
those who are so minded, whatsoever love
they may profess to Christ, rest assured of the
truth of this, that they love that most which
thay are willing to relinquish last.
Sdly, A third, and indeed the principal sign
of a sincere love to Christ, is a zeal for his
honour, and an impatience to hear or see any
indignity offered him. A person truly pious
will mourn for other men's sins as well as for
his own. " Mine eyes run down with tears,"
says David, "because men keep not thy com
mandments." He is grieved that God is dis-
nbnonred, whosoever the person be that does
It, He weeps over the vicious lives of those
that are round about him, though they cau-
VOL. II.

not wound his conscience, yet because of the
wound and blow that the scandal of thera
gives to religiou. For it is the honour and
reputation of that, that he espouses as his own
concernment ; forasmuch as every man eveu
in teraporal things looks upon his very per
sonal interest as wrapt up iu the credit of his
profession. And therefore where such an one
hears the name of God profaned, religion
scoffed at and abused, his blood boils, and his
heart grows hot within hira, and he cannot
but vindicate the honour of his Maker, iu re
proving the blaspheraer to his teeth.
Some indeed will not discourse filthily or
atheistically themselves, but can quietly and
contentedly enough hear others do so : but
let such know, that they go sharers in the
blasphemy that they do not reprehend ; and
have as little love to Christ, as that son to his
father, who should patiently hear him reviled
and traduced in company, and acquit himself
upon this account, that he did not revile him
himself : or that subject to his prince, who
could read a libel of him with pleasure, and
make good his loyalty to him upou this
ground, that he was uot the author of it :
though iu all base and unworthy actions, the
difference between theauthor aud the approver
ofthem, by the judgraent of all knowing per
sons, is not great.
Never did our Saviour hiraself express so
keen and fierce an indignation,as when he saw
raen profaning the temple, and turning his
Father's house into a den of thieves : he then
added compulsion to complaiut, force to his
words, and drove out those hucksters in the
face of danger, and in spite of resistance,
fearing neither the authority of the rulers
nor the insolence of the rabble. Thus did
Christ manifest his love to his Father, which
love he has left as the pattern and standard by
which we should measure our love to hira.
And thus I have given you some survey
of the love that Christ exacts frora all those
who aspire to the narae and privilege of Chris
tians. You have seen the several parts and
ingredients of it, the arguraents for it, and,
lastly, the marks and signs declaring it :
which surely will be of some use and moraent
to every man to conduct him in that grand
inquiry about his spiritual state and condition.
If the love of Christ is not iu him, the raerits
of Christ's death belong not to hira ; but he
is a meraber of Satan, and a vessel of reproba
tion. Certainly had men a deep and a lively
sense of that eternal misery that Christ has
declared the portion of those who relate not
to him, they would give their eyes no sleep,
nor their thoughts any rest, till they had satis
fied themselves of that sincerity that alone
raust stand between thera aud eternal wrath ;
and withal entitle thera to those numerous
and great blessings that lie wrapt up in the
womb of that one comprehensive promise,
2h

482

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Serm. LVIII.

" that all things shall work together for the
good of those that love God."
To whicli God be rendered and ascribed, as
is most due, all praise, might, majesty, and
dominion, both now and for evermore.
Araen.

SERMON LVIII.
PART 1.

1 " In whom wc have boldness and access with confidence by
the faith of him." — £pu£S. Ui. 12.

Theee is no duty or action of religion, in
which it concerns a man to proceed with so
much caution and exactness, as iu prayer ; it
being the greatest and most solemn intercourse
that earth can have with heaven ; the nearest
access to him who dwells in that light that is
indeed inaccessible : aud iu a word, the most
sovereign and sanctified means to derive bless
ing, happiness, glory, and all that heaveii can
give or heart desire, upou the creature.
But sinee the distance between God and
us is so great by nature, and yet greater by
sin, it concerns us to see upon what terras of
security we raake our address to hira : for it
cannot be safe for a traitor to venture him
self as a petitioner into the presence of his
prince, whatsoever his wants or necessities
raay be. And that sin puts us in the very
same capacity in reference to God is most
sure ; so that if there be no accoraraodation
aud reconcileraent first found out, for any
sinner to come to God, is but for him to cast
himself into the arras of a consuming fire,
to provoke an imminent wrath, to beg a curse,
and to solicit his own damnation.
But Christ has sraoothed a way for us,
and turned the tribunal of justice iuto a throne
of grace ; so that we are coraraanded to change
our fears into faith ; to lift up our heads, as
well as our hands, and to come with af good
heart, not only iu respect of innocence, but
also in respect of confidence.
For the prosecution of the words I shall
endeavour tlie discussion of these four things :
I. That there is a certain boldness and
confidence very well consisting with and be
coming of our hurablest addresses to God.
II. That the foundation of this confidence
is laid in the mediation of Jesus Christ.
III. I shall shew the reasons why the
mediation of Christ ought to minister such
confidence to us in our access to God.
IVthly, and lastly, I shall shew whether
or no there be any other ground, that may
rationally imbolden us in these our approaches
to hira.

I. And first, for the first of these, that there
is a certain boldness and confidence very well
consisting with and becoming of our humblest
addresses to God. This is evident ; for it is
the very language of prayer to treat God with
the appellation of father ; aud surely every son
may own a decent confidence before his father,
without any intrenchment either upon pater
nal authority or filial reverence. For when
God by the spirit of adoption has put us into
the relation of sons, he does not expect from u^
the behaviour of sliives, and allow of no other
expresses of our honour to him but distance
and amazement, silence aud astonishment.
As for the nature of this confidence, it is not
so easily set forth by any positive description,
as by the opposition that it bears to its ex
tremes ; which are of two sorts, —
1. In defect. 2. In excess.
And first, for those of the first sort, that
consist in defect.
• 1. This confidence is, in the first place, op
posed to desperation and horror of conscience.
A temper that speaks aloud in those despond-
ingejaculationsof the Psalmist, (Psalm Ixxvii.
7 — 9,) " "Will the Lord cast off' for ever ? and
will he be favourable no more ? Is his mercy
clean gone for ever? and doth his promise
fail for evermore ? Hath God forgotten to be
gracious ? hath he in anger shut up his tender
mercies ?" Every word seems to be the voice
of a soul supposing itself iu the very brink of
hell, and even already singed with the ever
lasting burnings. Nor does despair here ouly
put it to the question, as the Psalmist does ;
but takes it for a granted, concluded truth, aud
verily believes that matters stand thus between
God and the despairing person ; who looks
upon God as his implacable adversary, aud
himself as uuder a condemning sentence that
is both final aud irreversible. Nothing can
be imagined more black and dismal than
those thoughts and representations, that such
a mind fraraes to itself of God's power and
justice. For it thinks that this latter is inex
orable, and that the former is wholly em
ployed about the execution of its severe
decrees. These grim attributes constantly
exercise and take up the meditations ; which
considered with relation to the state of a sin
uer, absolutely iu themselves, and without
any qualification or allays from mercy, must
needs drive a man iuto all the agonies and
terrors of mind that can be. For what cau
a sinuer hope for, from power and justice
without mercy ? "What can he expect but the
extremity of wrath and revenge ? a separation
from God, aud a consignation over to eterual
miseries ?
But besides, if despair does soraetiraes
think and reflect upon raercy, yet it expects
no share in it ; but supposes the bowels shut
up, the resentiugs past, and the day of grace
spent and gone. Now so long as it thus mis-

ON EPHESIANS. iii. 12.

483

lenresents .ind libels God to the conscience in
ail his attributes, how is it possible for a raan
to have the confidence to pray to him ? De
spair stupifies and coufounds, aud stops not
only the mouth, but the very breath, and, as
it were, keeps and confines a mau within
himself It is natural for every thing to fly from au
enemy, and while a man apprehends God to
be so, he would if it were possible convey
himself out of his very sight. He that pre
sumes to ask a thing of auother, is prompted
to the doing so, by au opinion of the prone-
nes of such an oue to hear aud relieve him in
all h'ls straits and necessities ; but no man
puis a petition into the hands of his tormentor,
or asks any other favour of his executioner
bnt to despatch him quickly. No man can
j piay where he cannot hope.
I That eonfidence therefore that must qualify
: ns for and attend us iu prayer, is opposed to
all kind of desperation, wluch, by making a
man account God his enemy, and thereby
forbear praying to him, makes him indeed
his own.
2. This confidence is opposed also to doubt
ings and gronndles scrupulosities. (1 Tim.
ii.8,)''I wiU," says Paul, "that men pray
j every where, lifting up holy hands, without
' wrath and doubting." "Why ? Suppose they
should doubt and -waver in presenting their
prayers to God, " Lei not such an one," says
Sunt James, (i. 7.) " think that he shall re-
oave any thing of the Lord." And the reason
is plain ; for no mau is to pray for auy thing,
but what God both allows and commands
him to pray for. In which case, if he doubts
ofthe isue and success of his prayer, is it not
clear that his suspicion upbraids either God's
power, that he cannot, or his tmth, that he
win not make good the effiects of Lis promise
And would any great man favour a petitioner
that should enteriain such thoughts of him ?
"Would he not rather thiuk himself aflfrouted
than honoured by such an address ? " Qui
timide rogat, docet negare." No mau counts
himself any longer obhged to do a kindness,
after he comes once to be suspected : for to
aispect a man is to asperse his clearness and
'! ingramity, and plainly declares that we judge
hm not really to be what he pretends and
ippears ; thau which there cannot be a greater
and a more injurious reflection npon the
divine goodnes.
God does not love a misgiving, half-per-
M»ded petitioner, that comes in suspense,
and tremblingi sometimes hopes, sometimes
Actuates, and, in a word, cannot be so pro-
I«rfy said to come as a petitioner, as an adveu-
twer to the throne of mercy. God loves to
maintain worthy apprehensions of himself
•nd of all his doings, in the minds of sueh
^ serve him ; and it is but reason that tiiose
j' apprehensions shonld shine forth in the free

dom of their deportraent, and in their frank
reliance upon his readiness to give or do
whatsoever shall befit for them to ask.
But it will perhaps be pleaded in defence
and excuse of such doubling, that it arises
uot from auy unbecoming thoughts of God,
but from the seuse of the unworthiness of
him that prays ; which makes him question
the success of his petition, notwithstanding
all the divine raercy and liberality. And this
seems to be so far frora a fault, that it ought
rather to be cherished and commended as an
effect of the grace of humility.
Bnt to this I answer, th.it by the plea of
unworthiness is meant either an unworthi
ness in poiut of merit ; and so the argument
would keep a man from praying for ever, for
asmuch as none can ever pretend a claim of
merit to the thiug he prays for, as shall be
more fully observed heretifter.
Or, idly, it is meant of an unworthiness in
point of fitness to receive the thing prayed
for ; which fituess consists in that evangelical
sincerity, that makes a man walk with that
uprightness, as uot to allow himself iu any
sin. But for a man to plead himself unworthy
upon this account, is to plead himself unfit to
pray : for w hatsoever makes hira fit to pray,
makes him fit also to expect the thing asked
for in prayer. This therefore concerns not
the matter in debate; for the question is. whe
ther he that is duly qualified for such an
address to God, tan without sin doubt of the
issue of that address ? ^*hich we deny :
otherwise it is most certainly true according
to that of Solomou, " that the prayer of the
wicked is an aboraination to God ;" and that
such an one may uot only lawfully donbt
whether he shall be heard or no, but ought to
conclude, that -svithout all doubt he shall not
be heard.
But it may be urged farther. Does not
experience shew, that persons that are thus
qualified in poiut of sincerity aud uprightness
before God, do not always obtain the things
they sue for, but are sometimes answered
with a repuli^.' ? For did not David eamestiy
pray for the life of his child, and yet was
denied ic? And the like instances might be
produced of several other saints. Now where
a mau is sure that the prayers of the right
eous are not always granted, may uot he very
well donbt of the 'success of his own ?
To this I answer : that in that respect that
a raan ought to pray for auy thing from God,
the praver of no righteous person was eyer
denied.' For every man i^ to pray for athing
with submission t'o the diviue will, and so far
as God shall think fit to graut it. Aud iu
thi^ re-pect uo man is to entertain the least
doubt in praver, but steadfastly to believe
that God will vouchsafe him tbe thing he
petitions for, so far as the ends of God's glory
aud his own good shall make the granting of

4H4

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Perm. LVIII.

that thing necessary. Otherwise for a man
to expect absolutely aud infallibly the event
of whatsoever he prays for, only because he
thought fit to pray for it, is a great folly
and a bold presumption ; it is to determine
and give measures to the divine bounty and
wisdom ; to tell it what it ought to do ; to
send instructions to heaven, and in a word, it
is not so properly to pray as to prescribe to
God. Having thus shewn the two extremes to
which the confidence spoken of in the text
is opposed in point of defect, I corae now to
treat of those to which it is opposed in point
of excess, and to shew, that as it excludes
despair and doubting on the one hand, so it
banishes all rashness and irreverence ou the
other. It is indeed hard for the weak and
unsteady hearts of men to carry themselves
in such an equal poise between both, as not
to make the shunning of one inconvenience
the falling into another ; but the greater the
danger is, the greater must be our attention
to the rule.
1. First of all then, confidence iu point of
excess is opposed to rashness and precipitation.
Rashness is properly a raan's sudden under
taking of any action, without a due examina
tion of the grounds or motives that may
encourage him to it, and of the reasons that
may on the other side dehort and deter him
from it: an oraission of either of which makes
it rash and unreasonable. And prayer surely,
of all other duties and actions, ought to be a
reasonable service. It calls upon him that
undertakes it to consider before he resolves,
again and again to consider, into what pre
sence he is going, what the thing is that he is
about to do, what preparedness and fitness he
finds in hiraself for it, what the advantages of
a right, and what the sad consequences of an
undue perforraance of it are like to be.
I have read that it has been reported of a
holy person, that he used to bestow a whole
hour at least in raeditation before he kneeled
down to that prayer which perhaps he uttered
in three minutes. He that goes about to
pray, must know that he goes about one of
the weightiest and the grandest actions of his
whole life. And therefore let him tum his
thoughts to all the ingredients and circum
stances relating to it ; let him meditate before
what a pure and a piercing eye he presents
hiraself ; such an one as shoots iuto all the
comers and recesses of his heart like a sun-
beara, as ransacks all his most concealed
thoughts, views all the little indirect designs,
the excursions and wanderings of his spirit,
and spies out the first early buddings and in
clinations of his corruption. And as it sees
them, so it cannot but ahhor and detest them,
unless their guilt be washed off by repentance,
and covered under the imputed righteousness
of a Saviour.

Let him consider, how it were like to fare
with him, if this should happen to be hii
last prayer, and God should stop his breath
in the -yery midst of it, and interrupt him
with a summons into another world ; whether,
iu such a case, he should be found in a fit
posture to own an appearance at that fearful
tribunal, without blushing and confusion of
face. No man is fit to pray, that is not fit tb
die. Let him consider also, whether there are
not the scores of old sins yet uncancelled
lying upon his hand. 'Whether he is not in
arrears to God in poiut of gratitude for past
mercies, while he is begging new ; and
whether he has not abused that bounty that
he is now imploring, and made the liberality
of heaven the instrument of his vanity and
the very proveditor for his lust ; even in a
literal sense turning " the grace of God into
wantonness." These things should be recol
lected and canvassed with a deep, close, and
intent reflection, and all reckonings (as much
as possible) set even between God and tho
soul, David would first wash his hands in inno
cency, before he would presurae to compass
God's altar, (Psalm xxvi. 6.) But how few
are there, that think preparation any part of
this duty ! They bolt immediately into the
presence of God, though perhaps they come
but newly from doing that, that they would
uot own in the presence of men. They come
with the guilt of fresh sins warm upon their
consciences, lifting up those hands in prayer
that were lately busied in all kind of rapine
and violence, and joining in it with those
tongues that were not long before the instru
ments of railing, filth, aud obscenity. As
David washed his hands, so such persons
should do well to wash their mouths also,
before they approached the place of divine
worship, especially when they were to bear a
part in it. "With what awe and veneration
did Jacob look and think upou the place
where GOd had appeared to him ! (Gen.
xxviii. 16, 17,) " Surely," says he, " the
Lord is in this place ; aud I knew it not.
And he was afraid, and said. How dreadful is
this place ! it is none other but the house of
God." But sad experience shews, that men
now-a-days resort to that, that they both call
and think the house of God ; but yet behave
themselves iu it, as if it were neither holy nor
dreadful : though if God were not more
merciful than meu are sinful, they would
feel by a severe instance that it was both.
There is some boldness that is the effect of
blindness ; and surely it is tliis, that brings
men to so sacred and so concerning an action
as prayer is, with such trivial spirits, such
rambling unrecollected thoughts, and such
offensive profane behaviours. But such per
sons mnst know, that this is far from the

ON EPHESIANS, iii. 1-2.

485

bbldness mentioned in the text : and that
though God both allows and enjoins a due
confidence in our accesses to him, yet still
they are to remember that confidence does
not exclude caution.
2. The confidence spoke of in the text, in
point of excess is opposed to impudence or
irreverence ; which, the truth is, is but the
natural, effect and consequent of the former :
for he that considers not the sacredness of a
thing or action, cannot easily pay it that
devotion and reverence that the dignity of it
requires. There are many ways by which
this irreverence may shew itself in prayer,
imt I shall more especially mention and
insist upon two.
(1.) The using of saucy, familiar expres-
aons to God. A practice that some heretofore
delighted in to that degree of extravagauce,
that he that should have stood without the
church, and not seen what was doing within
it, would have verily thought that somebody
was talking to his equal aud companion. Now
the ground of this must needs have been from
gross, low, and absurd conceptions of God, and
withal very fond and high opinions of them
selves, by which they thought themselves such
absolute masters of his favour, and bound so
close to him by election, that they were to
bespeak him at a different rate of fellowship
and peremptoriness from all other mortals.
And accordingly, they would utter themselves
tohim as if they were perfectly acquainted
with all his counsels, knew his mind, and read
over his decrees : and if need were, could ad
vise him in many matters relating to the
government of the world.
And therefore their usual dialect was ; We
know. Lord, that this and this is thy way of
dealing with thy saints ; and that thou canst
not be angry with those whose heart is right
with thee, though they may sometimes out of
infirmity trip into a perjury, a murder, or an
adultery. Nay, and they would tell God to
his face, that he had revealed such a thing to
them ; when perhaps within two or three
days the event proved clean contrary. 'When
their armies were in the field, they would
usually at home besiege God with such ex
pressions ; Lord, if thou shouldest forsake us,
thy peculiar inheritance, who are called by
thy name, where wouldest thou find such an
other praying people? And again; Lord,
thou mayest, out of anger to the natiou, de
liver thy chosen ones into the hands of their
enemies, but consider what thou doest. It
¦would be endless, and indeed unsavoury, to
draw forth all the flowers of their profane
"rhetoric with which they so liberally stuffed
their Impudent harangues, which they were
Jileased to call prayers.
And the rude familiarity of their expres
sions was attended with ao equal rudeness of
gesture and motion, throwing forth their arms.

sweating, and carrying their whole bodies so
as if their prayer was indeed a "wrestling
with God," without a metaphor. But it is
strange that any should be able to persuade
themselves that this should be zeal, and the
proper fervour of devotion, when common
seuse aud good manners generally prompt
men to a greater wariness and restraint upou
theraselves iu their appearance before an
earthly superior. For uo man shakes his
prince by the hand, or accosts him with an
hail fellow well met. And if the laws and
customs of nations will by no means endure
such boldness to sovereign princes, for fear
of debasing raajesty, and so by degrees dimi
nishing the coraraanding force of government,
surely there ought to be more care used in
managing our deportment toward God ; since
the impressions we have of things not seen by
us are more easily worn off, than those that
are continually renewed upon the miud by a
converse with visible objects. And that
which will bring us into a contempt of our
earthly prince whom we see, is rauch raore
likely to bring us iuto a light esteem of our
heavenly King whom we have uot seen. "We
are to use such words as may not only raani
fest, but also increase our reverence ; we are
(as I raay so say) to keep our distance frora
God, in our very approaches to him. But
such undue farailiarity, as it does for the most
part arise from conterapt, so it always ends
in it.
(2.) This irreverence in prayer shews itself
in a raan's venting his crude, sudden, extera
porary conceptions before God. Why God
should be pleased with that which intelligent
men laugh at, I cannot understand. And
there is nothing raore loathsome aud offensive
to discreet ears, than the loose, indigested,
incoherent babble of some bold, self-opiuioned
persons, who in their talk are senseless and
endless. Sorae indeed sanctify their unpre
meditated way of speaking to God, by calling
it " praying by the Spirit ;" and so entitling
the Holy Ghost to all their irapertinencies,
which is to excuse or defend boldness with
blaspheray. But surely folly is no such dif
ficult thing, that any man should need to
fetch it from a supernatural cause, and owe
his absurdities to immediate inspirations.
For if this be " to pray by the Spirit," a raan
needs ouly to forget himself, to balk the use
of his reason, and to let his words fly at ran
dom without care or observation, and he shall
find very plentiful assistances of this uature.
But to vindicate the Spirit of God from
these unworthy imputations, aud withal to
dashsuch impudent pretences, we are to know,
that the Spirit measures out his assistance to
men in the use of the means proper for the
effecting or accomplishing of any work ; but
suspends and denies that assistance, where the
use of those means is neglected ; for he co-ope-

486

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Serm. LIX.

rates with men according to the established
course of working proper to their natures :
and no mau prays and preaches more by the
Spirit, than he that bestows tirae and study
in the orderly disposing of what he is to say ;
and so employs and exerts those faculties of
mind, which the Spirit of God endowed him
with, for the better and more exact manage
ment of those holy services that he stands
engaged in.
Were a raan to petition his prince, or to
plead at the bar for his life, I believe none
could persuade him to venture the issue of so
great au action upon his extempore gift.
But admit that a man be never so well fur
nished with an ability of speaking suddenly
and without premeditation ; yet certainly
premeditation and care would improve and
heighten that ability, and give it a greater
force aud lustre in all perforraances. And if
so, we are to remember that God calls for our
best and our utmost ; we are to bring the
fairest and the choicest of our flock for au
offering, and not to sacrifice a lame, uncon-
cocted, wandering discourse to God, when our
time and our parts are able to furnish us with
one much more accurate and exact. "When a
Roman gentleraan invited Augustus Caesar to
supper, audprovidedhirabutamean entertain
ment, Caesar very properly took hira up with
an " Unde raihi tecum tanta familiaritas ?
Friend, pray how come you and I to be so
familiar ?" Great persons thiuk theraselves
entertained with respect, when they are en
tertained with splendour ; and they think
wisely and rightly. In like manner, God
will reject such sons of presumption and
irapertinence with disdain ; and though they
took no tirae for the making of their prayers,
yet he will take time enough before he will
grant thera.
But besides, to dismiss this supposition, it
is indeed scarce possible, but much speaking
without care or study must needs put the
speaker upou unseemly repetitions aud tauto
logies, which Christ raost peculiarly cautious
his disciples against as an heathenish thing,
in Matth. vi. where he prescribes thera that
excellent form of prayer, composed with so
much fulness, strictness, and significancy of
sense, that it is impossible for any thing that
is extempore to resemble it. He that does
not consider and weigh every word of his
prayer, will find it very unfit to be weighed
more severely by God hiraselfin '' the balance
of the sanctuary ;" who will account no man
to speak piously, who does not also speak
properly in his devotions. And therefore I
shall conclude this particular with that most
divine and excellent direction given by
Solomon concerning this matter, (Ecclesiast.
V. 2, " Be not rash with thy mouth, and let
not thine heart be hasty to utter any thing
before God : for God is in heaven and thou

upon earth : therefore let thy words be few."
When we speak to a superior, to use words
few and expressive is the proper dialect of
respect. And thus I have finished the first thing
proposed for the handling of the words, which
was to shew that there was a certain con
fidence well becoming our humblest addresses
to God, and withal to demonstrate what this
confidence was ; which I have done, by shew
ing that it is such an one as stands opposed
both to despair aud doubting ou the one hand,
and to rashness and irreverence on the
other. II. I come now to the second particular,
which is to shew that the foundation of this
confidence is laid in the mediation of Christ.
Where there is a breach of amity between
two persons, of which the offended person is
much the superior, upou which account his
dignity will not permit him to seek or offer
a reconcilement ; as on the other side, the
inferior condition of him that is the offender
will not let him dare to attempt one ; it is
manifest, that unless there be some third
person to interpose between both, the breach
must needs be perpetual and incurable. It
was thus between God aud mau, upon his
apostasy from God : God was too great, too
glorious immediately by hiraself to court his
rebel creature, and the creature too vile and
obnoxious to treat with his injured sovereign :
whereupon they must have both prepared for
mutual acts of hostility, had not Christ, God
and man, undertook to mediate and com
promise the difference on both sides ; so that
every siuner has cause to speak to Christ as
the Israelites did to Moses, au eminent type
of him ; Speak thou unto us and for us too,
and we will hear ; but let uot God the Father
speak to us, or we to him, lest we die. A
guilty person is but a bad advocate.

SERMON LIX.
PART II.
•* In whom we have boldness and access witli confidence by the
faith of him." — Ephes. iii. 12.
The discussion of these words I shall man
age in these two particulars :
I. I shall shew that the confidence becom
ing a Christian, in his access to God by prayer,
is founded upon the mediation ofChrist.
II. I shall inquire whether there be any
other ground upon which this confidence may
rationally found itself.

ON EPHESIANS, iii. 12.

487

And first, for the first of these, that the con
fidence becoming a Christian, in his access to
God by prayer, is founded upon the mediation
of Christ.
But now this dependence of our spiritual
affairs upon Christ's mediation will be yet
more evidently set forth in the discussion of
the third particular :
III. Which is, to shew the reason why
Christ's mediation ought to minister such con
fidence to us in our access to God.
He that is confident in any action grounds
his confidence upon the great probability of
the happy issue and success of that action,
and that probability of success is grounded
npon the fitness of the person intrusted with
the management of it. In one word, there
fore, the reason of grounding our confidence
upon Christ's mediation is the incomparable,
singular fitness of Christ for the perform
ance of that work ; which fitness will appear
by considering him under a threefold relation
or respect :
1. In respect of God, the person with whom
he is to mediate.
2. In respect of men, the persons for whom
he mediates.
3. In respect of himself, who discharges
this office.
1. And first, we will consider him in rela
tion to God, with whom he is to mediate ;
who also in this business may sustain a double
capacity in relation to Christ :
(1.) Of a Father. (2.) Of a Judge.
(1.) And first, if we consider him as his
Father, there cannot be a more promising
ground of success in all his pleas for us. For
who should he heard and prevail, if not a son
pleading before his father ? where the very
nearness of the relation is a more command
ing rhetoric than words and speeches can
bestow upon a cause. Nature itself takes
the cause in hand, and declaims it with more
power and insinuation than the highest
and the most persuasive oratory. To have
the judge's ear is a great matter, but his
son has his heart also. To be sure of an
audience is a privilege that every advocate
cannot attain to ; but he may wait and wait,
and at length go away unheard ; and if per
haps he does obtain a hearing, yet he is not
sure to carry it on without rubs and super
cilious checks, that shall dishearten both his
client and himself : he brings no advantage to
the cause by his own person ; so that if it
succeeds, it must be npon the account of au
invincible, prevailing evidence of merit. It
must in a manner be its own pleader. It must
argue and set off itself, and, without auy as
sistances of favour, prevail entirely by the
absolute victoriousness of truth.
But a good cause managed by an acceptable
and a favoured person, it is like a sharp
weapon wielded by a mighty arm, that enters

deeper and farther, beiug drove home by a
double cause, its own keenness and tho other's
strength. It is irapossible indeed for the un
changeable rectitude of the divine nature to
warp or deviate in the least manner from truth
or justice, out of favour to persons. Yet where
favour is consistent with justice, as ofteutimes
it may undoubtedly be, there the sonship of
the advocate must needs facilitate and promote
the cause. But however, admitting that favour
can have no place in matters pf this nature,
yet it is a solid argument of corafort aud en
couragement to sinners, that their cause is in
such hands as can reflect uo prejudice or dis
advantage upon it. Their advocate is not
disgusted or obnoxious, aud in need to plead
for hiraself, before he can be in a capacity to
be heard for his client. It is enough, that if
there be any possibility of favour, they are
sure of it ; that they have an interest on their
side, an interest founded upon the nearest and
the dearest relation. They speak to a father
by the mouth of his son, and, what is more,
of " his ouly sou ;" so that they may hope
with the highest reason and argument : and,
to put an impossible supposition, though their
cause should fall, yet their confidence is founded
upou a rock.
(2.) We will consider God relating to Christ
as a Judge. And here we will first represent
to ourselves all that the office and severity of
a judge can engage him to. We will consider
him with all the rigours of justice, void of
favour, inflexible, immovable, and exacting
all by a strict rule, a rule that he will not in
the least recede from ; a rule admitting of no
mitigation or dispensation ; but awarding to
all actions a recorapense according to the raost
rigid and nice proportions of equality and
merit. We will consider hira as clothing
hiraself with all the terrors of raount Sinai,
uttering a fiery law that speaks nothing but
death and a curse to the disobedient, and re
quires the forfeit of a soul for every transgres
sion. "Yet notwithstanding all this, we may
with confidence rest ourselves upon the medi
ation of Christ with God for these two rea
sons :
1st, Because he appears for us not only as
an advocate, but as a surety, paying down to
God on our behalf the very utraost that his
justice can exact. He suffered, he bled, he
died for those for whora he intercedes ; so that
he brings satisfaction in one hand, while he
presents a petition with auother. He under
takes and pays the debt, and thereby cancels
the bond ; so that the law and justice itself
have lost their hold of the sinner, and he is
become a discharged and a justified person.
And surely such au one may pray with con
fidence and hope for all the blessings of divine
mercy, when his surety has cleared off all scores
with his justice. He raay take up the apostle's
demand, " Who shall lay any thing to the

488

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Serm. LIX.

charge of God's elect ? It is God that justi
fies ;" and he may .add farther. It is Christ
that intercedes ; Christ, that brings a price for
¦what he asks, that can plead a right, and, if
need be, even appeal to God's justice.
But secondly, we have yet another ground
of building our confidence upon Christ's medi
ation with God, though considered as a Judge ;
because he himself has appointed hira to this
work : " It was he that laid help upon one
that is mighty," as the Psalraist says, (Psalra
Ixxxix. 19,) and " that made the man of his
right hand, the Son of man, strong for himself,"
(Psalra Ixxx. 17.) He prepared and endowed
him with qualifications fit for so great an
employment; upon whicli account he is called
the Christ, that is, the anointed of God : for
with the Jews, kings, priests, and prophets,
that is, persons designed to the highest offices
and charges, were initiated into them by the
cereraony of anointing : whereupon Christ,
who was to sustain all these offices, is said to
have been " anointed with the oil of gladness
above his fellows."
But now, if God thus constitutes Christ a
mediator between hiraself and sinners, cer
tainly it is an evident deraonstration that he
will hear and accept him in the raanagement
of that very work that he called him to and
put him upon. No judge coraraands an advo
cate to speak, and when he speaks presently
shuts his ears. This would be to contradict
himself, and to raock the other ; which God's
truth and goodness will not suffer him to do.
What Christ does in this matter he does upon
the very account of obedience, and has a call
and a comraand to vouch for the success of his
appearance, and therefore cannot be rejected
or kept off as au intruder. He that bids an
other ask a thing of him, tells him in effect
that he is resolved to grant it. He that in
vites, promises an admittance.
And thus I have shewn Christ's fitness for
the work of mediation in respect of God, aud
that, considered either as a Father or as a
Judge. 2. In the next place, we are to consider
his fitness for this work in reference to men,
for whom he mediates ; which will appear
from that fourfold relation that he bears to
them :
1. Of a friend. 2. Of a brother. 3. Of a
surety. 4. Of a lord and master.
1. And first, let us look upon him as a
friend ; that is, as one that we may trust with
our nearest concernments as freely as ourselves.
And Christ has solemnly owned this relation
to all believers ; so that we may with the
greatest cheerfulness and assurance commit
the presenting of our petitions to him, whose
care and solicitousness for the success of them
will be the sarae with ours. Friendship is an
active aud a venturous thing, and, where it is
real, it will make a man bolder and more

importunate for his frond than for himself.
Now Christ has all the perfections of human
friendship without the flaws and weaknesses
of it : and surely he will bestow a prayer for
those for whom he would spend a life. "Though
the presence of God is terrible to behold, and
his anger much more terrible to feel, yet Christ
has declined neither of them, but made his
way to the former by a resolute undergoing of
the latter.
Many men will indeed profess themselves
to be friends, and expect to be accounted so :
but if at any time they are desired to speak a
good word to a great person in the behalf of
one to whom they have raade all these profes
sions, they will be desired to be excused ;
they must not spend and lavish away an in
terest upon other people's advantages, bnt
reserve it fresh and entire for themselves.
Sad were the condition of sinners, shonld
the friendship of Christ shew itself at this
rate. A friend in the court of heaveu would
do them but little good, that would not so
much as befriend them with a word. But
Christ is interceding for us night and day,
presenting our prayers to the Father, and
making them effectual by his own.
2. Let us consider Christ as a brother, and
so we have a farther cause to repose a confi
dence in him, in point of his mediation for
us. For although it does not always fall out
that the nearest relations are the best friends,
yet it is a fault that they are not so ; and
therefore we may be sure that Christ, who
cannot comrait a fatilt, caunot but equal the
nearness of the relation he bears to us with a
proportionable measure of affection. He is
the Sou of God by nature, and because we
cannot be so too, he has made us so by adop
tion ; (John i. 12,) " To as many as received
him, he gave power to become the sons of
God." So that he has even united us into
one family with himself: (Ephes. iii. 15,)
" By whom the whole family in heaven and
earth is named." Nay, and to advance the
relation yet nearer, because it was impossible
for dust and ashes to aspire to a participation
of the divine nature, he was pleased to descend
to the assumption of ours, and to become the
Son of man not by adoption only, but really
and naturally : to be " bone of our bone, and
flesh of our flesh ;" to own the same human
affections, and, in a word, not to decline our
very infirraities.
Which being so, we may very well own all
that confidence of succeeding through the
mediation of Christ, that the fidelity of a
friend and the dearness of a brother raay ad
minister to us. For should a brother prevari
cate and prove false, nature itself would seem
to fly in his face, and upbraid his inhuman
perfidiousness. Society would mark him out
as a comraon eneray to mankind, and unfit
for converse.

ON EPHESIANS, iii. 1-2.

489

Brotherhood unites persons by a certain tie
that is not only forcible, but sacred ; aud to
riolate it by any falseness or treachery of be
haviour is to injure not ouly a man, but even
humanity itself. And therefore whatsoever
business any one puts into his brother's hands,
he counts as secure as if it were in his owu.
And we may be sure that Christ will be as
much more concerned for our affairs than au
earthly brother, as such a brother would be
more than an ordinary acquaintance.
3. Let us consider Christ as our surety ; and
so we shall find the same, if not a greater
cause of being confident of him as our media
tor. It is not every friend nor every brother
that will be a surety, since the love that must
raise one to undertake this even amongst raen,
must be a love greater than he bears to him
self: for he that ventures to be a surety for
another, ventures au undoing for his sake ;
and there is not any thing less to be wondered
at in comraon life, than to see such persons
undone : so that nothing is raore certain in
human affairs, than that assertion of Soloraon,
that " he that hateth suretyship is sure."
But the debt that Christ was our surety for,
was as much greater than the greatest that
befalls men in worldly matters, as eternity is
greater than time, as heaveu is above earth,
and the executions of an infinite wrath above
the slight, weak revenges of a mortal power.
"He bore our iniquities," (Isaiah, liii.) and
placed himself before the justice of his Father,
as responsible for all that the law could charge
us with : and being made thus obnoxious by
his own free choice, " wrath carae upou him
to the uttermost :" he drank off the cup of
God's fury, and squeezed out the very dregs.
All tills he did in our stead, in our room, in
our persons, whom he represented iu all that
great action.
And now, after such an experiment of his
love to us, can we doubt that he will stick at
the lesser and lower instances of kindness?
that he will refuse to manage and enforce our
petitions at the throne of grace, who did not
refuse to make himself au offering to justice?
We may rest assured that he will uot be
wanting to the prosecution of our interest,
who, by the very ofiice that he has undertook,
has made our interest his own.
4thly and lastly. For the farther confirma
tion of our confidence, in our addresses to God,
we will consider Christ under a very different
relation from all the former, and that is, as
he is our lord aud master. Majestas et amor,
sovereignty and love, (as the poet observes,)
do but ill cohabit in the same breast; and the
truth is, love prompts to service, and sove
reignty imports dominion, and so proceed in
a very contrary strain. Yet Christ has
united them both in himself : for as he is the
most absolute of lords, so he is the best and
the most faithful of friends, the kindest

brother, and the ablest surety. Nay, and he
has founded our friendship and our subjection
to him, things very different, upou the same
bottom, which is, obedience to his laws ;
(John, XV. 14,) " "Ye are my friends, if ye do
whatsoever I command you." Aud elsewhere
he tells us of the homage we owe him, iu
John, xiii. 13, " Ye call me Lord and Master :
aud ye do well ; for so I ara." But this rela
tion, though it speaks superiority and distance,
yet it imports also kindness and protection.
For what master is there, of a worthy and
a generous spirit, that does not espouse the
interest and good of his servant, and esteem
hiraself answerable for it as for a trust, which
all the principles of religion, huraanity, and
good-nature will call him to au account for?
Christ shews sufficiently how far he owns
hiraself concerned for his servants, where he
declares, that he looks upon every courtesy or
injury done to the least of them as done to
himself, in Matt. xxv. 45. And as he owns
thera before raen, so he is not asharaed to
acknowledge thera before his Father in
heaven ; to farther their prayers, to endear
their persons, to recommend their services,
and, in a word, to be their constant, indefa
tigable intercessor.
Now, under this relation of lord, I suppose
we may consider that also by which Christ
owns hiraself for our head; than which there
cannot be one more peculiarily fitted to en
courage us in the business of prayer. For
wheu auy of the merabers are aggrieved, or
ill at ease, it is the head that must coraplain
and cry out for relief. Nor needs it auy in
telligence frora the afflicted part; but it feels it
by a quick syrapathy, and utters what it feels
by a kind of necessity. And it is as irapossible
for an arm or a leg to be broke, and the head
to be unconcerned, as for auy member of the
raystical body of Christ to be under a press
ing calaraity, aud for Christ, the head, not to
be sensible of that misery, and to vent his
sense of it by a vigorous intercession with his
Father for its removal.
And thus I have shewn those four relations
that Christ bears to believers ; every one of
which is a pregnant and a forcible argument
for us to depend upon his mediation for the
success of our prayers and the acceptance of
our persons, in all our addresses to the
Father. 3. I come now, in the third and last place,
to demonstrate the fitness of Christ to be a
mediator for us, by considering him iu respect
of himself, aud those qualifications inherent
in him, which so particularly qualify and
dispose hira for Ihis work : of which I shall
mention and insist upon three :
1. That he is perfectly acquainted with all
our wants aud necessities.
2. That he is heartily sensible of and con
cerned about them.

490

SOUTH"? pr 5THUMOU5 5ER3ION;

JER*. LIX.

3. That he is best able to express and set
them ferth to the Father.
1. And first, for the first of these, his ae-
qnaintaDce with onreonditioiu We need r-j-.
q»end mneh time or Iabo>ar to inform onr
advocate of our case : for his omniseienee ii
beforehand with ns: he knows all oorafiiui's,
and, what li more, onr hearts, better than we
onrselves. And iz is onr happiness that he
does so ; for by thii m=ar;i he is able to sap-
ply "he .iifz-czs of oir prayeri, and to 'i-eg
thwe thinp for us that o^lt ieEorsrce was tor
aware of. And what is ret a greater advan
tage, he ii upon thii aeeoimt able also to cor
rect onr piayeis. For sneh is the shorrress
of otu nndeistanding and the weakness of oi^r
^feetions, that we pray somerlme; for th>i«
t:.:ng3 that vroild prove onr bane and oor
destmction : we 'oe-g heartilT for a mischief
and import-: re G<j-i to be » faTooiable as to
rc:n iii at ot.r desire. In whidi ease snrelT
it concerns ui to have =.'.,me!»ly to coonter-
f*t:tion TLi, and to ask a fi^ while we are
I'^gging for a serpent ; and to be so kind to
tii as to keep oor prayers bom 't.eir.2 grsttei.
A man p-rrhst-; is visited with iickLess, acl
j"s.=i:r;g hii iiys ia pain and iaiigt;iihir.z, rtts
up luaLy a hearty prayer to G'>1 to re-it-i^re
hnn to health aiti ease ; btt all thii time he
ii igr.or^zt of the end artd ¦iei-~Li of this
isitattoc : for f'.'isih !y the 'iiiteiapei «rf his
boly is eve.'-y .iav micistering to the cure of
his z'-ji], to the mortidcation ofhis pride, hii
l^it, acd w-.rliiy-mirie-iiLeii : atd po-hape
Gi-^i, who foresees all a.iirlieLti, and knows
np<Hi what littie whee!i and 'LiiZ^es the events
of thrrri move, tmdeistanii aiiurej-- that

ms =.cii.eii rent;vei him out of :
•Hid seenres him ftom -,:. :~.i re-ftii:

of sin, that, 'c.;i:i;

¦>?:3s:oi:i
eJ and healthr'tLi, he
would inevita-hv fail into, and pethapg .i~
fUmiAj fill "cy! B-t cow Christ hai a fnil
eompseh^isioa of aD these posabilities, and
knovs -B-hat wo-Jd jrtmote and what wottld
annoT every ri:.:! in hi sf.;ritt:al estate : !«¦
knows whfli 5;ekreis will set a rear r.esj-e*
to heairen than health ean do : whai joverrr,
caEiihicect, and aSeti'txu i^h-ierve the f^'r-
f'Mes of grait, and the great -li:tereT--i <#
ettmitj, l-rtter than all ibe affineuce ot fcr-
tttce, the highest prefennerts, azi-i the ciost
tr:'ti5tTtr'c.e*i proif^rity.
As :t is a iiapjh:esi tor seme niet: not to
he left to their o"=r3 choice, tet to resijit
tcs^ielves tip to the gtJiaLS at: i cist •teal oi
one of greater exT^rientc : s-o it is tJie safest
coarse fat many nit to be p«FTTr.ir:.=.i to star i
''-I 2-i »".-.riirz to t'reir own piayas. F;r
it ii cot always tiety or cJs^^KOoa that :r-
¦-:tes theui, brt an iirfatieiKg cf i-otre rre-
=*^t STtevarK:. or a ri.iii>rate ¦ie'iire cf ^:~e
'^=.^.t—y er ; '. TTneiii, azfe^rtiors tha: in manr
et:?torr5:sTiees Ivrier too rear npon an : and
tiierer'ire tre trsyen that proceed mim than

are never granted by God bnt in anger, and |
with an intent to pnnidi and to blast tbe per- I
son that makes them. I
Sueh prayers are r.ever seeordfl or haiiMi |
"cy Cttriifs intereesion, unless for the begging I
of their pardon^ and exensing their folly aod J
their nidfitness ; and then God may be said *
most gracioiLiiy to hear them, wh«i for the ;
mediation of Christ he pardoi:3 and denies '
than : whieh rre.iation of his takes its mea-
irre of actirj. cot cy orr desires, bot oar
^^rti : of whio-h he is the moet eompetcnt |
jndge, as being more privy to them than ocr
v«y eonsdenees ; for Ihey may be deeeired |
acd deluded, bet he eancot. And thus modi
for the trsz thirg trat qtialifies Christ to be
otLT mediator, that he knovs every thicg be
longing to ottr ; J iritnsl estate e»tainir and '^
infeUIbly. 2. The second is, that be is heartily sen-
able o^ and eoneemed abont whatsoever eoo-
eems us. "n^tthout which his knowlo^^ ]
wonld avail ns bnt little. For the bue '
kiio«"irg of a thirg erza^ses no man to aet in f
. it. And therefore Christ is represented to j
i ri as one that ii touched with the sei^e of oar :
, infirmities, as sharing orr giiek, and beazing ':
a part in otr ~.r:;vr;; which very thing J
I rendos him a me.-rifrl high priest, and nady |
j to irter-ie-ie for ri with tfae same vebemaiee
I and importrnity, that hr a personal endrr-
' aree of thoEe miseries he icigbt be prompted t* I
; for himself. He that w.-jjii.dijeik earnestly and 1
] forcibly vf ary thing, emit work it into in j
!' heart by a bveiy aria ke^rr: iense rf it,
well ss into hii head by a el^r knowledlgB
and apprehei^on. For where tbe h£ait ~
ergage:, all the a-rtiors follow : no part or
' tower of i.'.e iool can be inactive when tliat
1 ii it:."e: ; ar-i "telrg once moved itself »*
r iro "ei aii the reit.
I 3koi5- it ii the heart of Christ that eresy
[ t^'.i-TiT has an intereit ;r : and we kiK/v
I that he eanies that in hii 'Lres.rt that inter-
f ce-ies for r= with him, as well as he witk tbe
Father. He i.ei rot «ily hrar oir si^B,
; ott also feieli the carse of them : ind if we
ir5=r by the direct iirjteiaoiii of pain, be
I a-i> ittreri by the Eio-^gi and yearnings rf
rti fj-irx. eompasaoEi : so that :r a manner oar
relief L5 his own eaat; ar-i that dejiveiaaee
trat ciicrrieri orr ri.:r..is, ¦i>ei also by ean-
ie<^reroe discharge ':.i^,
¦ft'heii he wss to lecve tfae worid, we read
how iersitie te •s^as of the dkeonsoiate eob-
ditior of his dtse: pie's ; ard that he irimBBd
to i«td the stirlt t: tietr f.r ro cacse mofe

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taw thl^g

ON KPHESIAN8, iii. 12.

491

that greatly fits him for the office of a medi
ator. 3. The third and last is, his trausceudent
and more than human ability to express and
set forth every thing that may be pleaded in
our behalf to the best advantage ; which is the
peculiar qualification of a good advocate, and
that which makes the two former consider
able. For admit that he both knows his
client's cause, and is heartily and warmly
concerned for it, yet if his tongue and his elo
quence doth not serve him to draw forth those
thoughts and those affections in a suitable de
fence of it, he is rather a good man and a good
friend, thau a good advocate or mediator.
But now is there auy one that may com
pare with Christ in respect of this faculty ?
to whom God has given " the tongue of the
wise ;" a tongue speaking with authority,
commanding men, and persuading God : nay,
and who himself is able to give his disciples
such a tongue, as all their adversaries, though
never so learned and eloquent, were not able to
resist. That prayer that perhaps is by rauch
ado sighed and sobbed out by the penitent, his
grief interrupting his words, yet as it arrives
to the throne of God from the moutii of our
Mediator, it comes with a grace aud a force
superior to all human rhetoric ; it enters the
presence aud pierces the ears of the Al
mighty; and, in a word, prevails in that
manner, as if it were almighty itself.
. And here I cannot but observe, how the
qualities of Christ as our mediator pleading
for nsdo particularly mate and confront those
of the Devil, our grand adversary, pleading
against us. For as Christ is most know
ing of our spiritual estate, and every thing
relating to it ; so is the Devil most indus
trious and inquisitive to give himself an exact
information of the same. As Christ is most
tenderly concerned for us, so is the Devil most
maliciously and inveterately set against us.
And lastly, as Christ has all the strengths
and treasures of elocution to employ in our
defence, so is the Devil restless and artificial
in drawing up our charge and accusation with
all the heightening, aggravating language, that
agreat wit and a redundant malice can afford.
But in all this he is outdone ; eveu as much
as the Creator can outdo a creature : so that
we need not use any farther elogy of Christ's
mediatorship than this, that he is a greater
and a more potent advocate, than the Devil
himself can be an accuser.
And thus I have at length demonstrated
the eminent fitness of Christ for the ofiice of
mediator, upon a treble account or respect :
namely, in respect of God, of us, and of him
self : and so have finished the third particular,
proposed for the handling of the words ;
¦which was, to shew the reason why Christ's
mediation ought to minister such confidence
to us in our access to God.

SERMON LX.
PART III.
*' In whom we have boldness and access with confidence by the
faith of him." — Ephes. iii. 12.
The prosecution of these words was first
cast into the discussion of these four parti
culars :
I. That there is a certain boldness or con
fidence very well consisting with and be
coming of our hurablest addresses to God.
II. That the foundation of this confidence is
laid in the mediation of Christ.
III. To shew the reason why the mediation
of Christ ought to minister such confidence to
us in our access to God.
IVthly aud lastly. To shew, whether there
were any other ground that might rationally
imbolden us in these our addresses to him.
Having finished the three first of these, I
proceed now to the fourth. What reason we
have to raise a confidence about the success of
our prayers, upon the mediation of Christ,
has been already declared ; but since we can
not have too many pillars for so great a super
structure to lean upon, it will not be amiss to
see whether there be any other raeans to give
efficacy and success to thera.
If there is, it must be either, 1. Something
within, or 2dly, Something without us.
As for any thing within us, that may thus
prevail with God, it must be presumed to be
the merit of our good actions, which by their
intrinsic worth and value may lay claim to
his acceptance. It cannot, I confess, be the
direct business of this discourse to treat of the
merit of good works. But for our direction,
so far as may concern the present subject and
occasion, I affirm, that it is irapossible, not
only for sinful men, but for any mere creature,
though of never so excellent and exalted a
nature, properly to merit any thing from God,
and that briefly for these two reasons :
1. Because none can merit of another but by
doing something of hiraself and absolutely by
his owu power, for the advantage of him from
whom he merits, without that person's help
or assistance. But what can any thing that
the creature can do, advantage God ? What
can all the meu and angels contribute or add to
the divine happiness or perfection? And if
we should suppose that auy action of theirs
might, yet it could not be meritorious, foras
much as they do every thing by a power and
an ability conveyed to tbera by God ; so that in
their most refined and holiest performances,
they offer God but what is his own, the effect
and product ofhis grace working within thera.

492

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Serm. LX.

aud raising them to do what they do. The
talent they trade with was given them, nay,
and what is more, the very power of trading
with it was given them too : so that both in
their being and operations they are another's,
and stand accountable for all to a superior
bounty ; and restitution surely is not merit.
2dly, To merit is to do something over and
above what is due, no two things in the
world being more directly contrary than debt
and merit. But now it is impossible for auy
created agent to do any thing above its duty,
forasrauch as its duty obliges it to do the
utraost that it can. It is clear, therefore,
that for auy one, even the brightest angel in
heaven, to think of meriting, is but a dream
aud a chiraera ; but theu for us, who are ob
noxious upou the account of several sins and
breaches of the law, to entertain the least
thought of it, is much more absurd aud intole
rable, and consequeutly, if we build any con
fidence in our addresses to God upon our
merits, we build upon the sand ; and what
the issue of such a building is like to be, we
may easily conclude.
It reraains, therefore, that if there be any
other ground of this confidence, it must be
soraething without us. And if so, it must be
the help and intercession either, 1. Of angels,
or, 2. Ofthe saints.
1. And first, for the angels, that they can
not be presuraed to mediate for us, aud pre
sent our prayers before God, I suppose may
be raade evident by these reasons :
1. Because it is impossible for the angels
to kuow aud perfectly discern the thoughts,
that being the incommunicable property of
God ; (2 Chron. vi. 30,) " Tbou only, 0 Lord,
knowest the hearts of the children of men ;"
and in Jerem. xvii. 10, " I the Lord search the
heart." But now many prayers are wholly
transacted within the mind and the heart,
and pass not iuto auy outward expression.
And even in those prayers that are orally
delivered, that which is the chief part, and
indeed the soul of prayer, is the inward dis
position of the heart ; which falls under the
cognizance of no created understanding, it
being the-peculiar royalty and prerogative of
omniscience. 2. The second reason is, that it also exceeds
the measure of angelical knowledge, for any
angel by himself and his owu natural power
of knowing, to know at once all the prayers
that are even uttered in words here and
there throughont the world ; aud that because
it is impossible for him to be actually present
in all places. For though the knowledge of
angels is not limited just to the things of that
place where they are present, yet it is certain
that it canuot extend much farther ; since a
limited nature must needs also have a limited
way of knowing. Upon which account God's
omniscience is not ill founded by some upon

his essential omnipresence, as the ground and
reason of it. For he that is intiraately pre
sent to all things, raust needs have a know
ledge of those things, which persons that are
not thus present to them, for the sarae cause,
are not capable of.
But for all this, some concern themselves to
hold a contrary opinion about the knowledge
of angels, aud they pretend to ground it, 1.
partly upon scripture ; 2. partly upon reason.
And first, as to what they produce from
scripture, passing by most of their frivolous
and impertinent quotations, I shall raore
especially single out aud insist upon two, as
being the most likely to speak to their pur
pose. 1. The first of them is that in Luke, xv.
10, " There is joy in the presence of the angels
of God over one siuner that repenteth."
From whence they argue, that repentance
being a thing chiefly situate iu the heart, if
the angels cau kuow this, they must needs
know the heart also.
But to this I answer, that repentance is
not only iramediately knowable in itself, but
also raediately, by the outward effects of it
shewing themselves in the life of the peni
tent ; such as in Matt. iii. are called " fruits
meet for repentance ;" which, whether they
be sincere and genuine or no, though we per
haps canuot always discern, yet the angels,
whose discernment is much greater, may well
be thought able to understand and distinguish.
But it will be urged, in the second place,
that though it follows not from hence that
the angels can discern the heart, or the repen
tauce of a sinner as it lies included there, yet
by granting that they kuow and observe
the outward effects of repentance, it will fol
low, that by the sarae reason they must also
kuow all those prayers that men utter and
express outwardly by word of raouth. And
therefore that as to these at least we may
presume, that they will be our mediators to
preseut them for us to God.
For reply to this I answer, —
1. That it was sufficiently proved by the
forraer arguraent, that the angelical know
ledge cannot at the same tirae naturally reach
itself to all things that actually happen in the
world ; and that for the reason then given,
that an angel, being of a liraited nature, can
uot be actually present every where. But
you will ask theu, how come the angels to
know the repentance of every converted
sinner ? Why, it must be supposed that
they know it by report of those angels that
God has employed as "ministering spirits"
about that repenting person ; and conse
quently it is not necessary that we affirm it
to be universally known to all the angels in
heaveu, but to those only, who by converse
with these come to have such a report con
veyed to them ; for the text speaks only of

ON EPHESIANS, iii. 1'2.

493

the angels indefinitely, but not of all univer
sally. But upon this it raay be replied farther,
that upon the sarae ground we may infer
also, that the angels raay know all the prayers
orally put up by raen throughout the whole
world ; forasrauch as they may be signified to
them, by the like reports from those angels
that have the respective care and governance
of each person.
To this I answer, that it is indeed possible
that they may; but that they also do, we
have no ground to conclude. For although
God has told us, that so eminent aud remark
able a passage as the conversion of a sinner is
known to the angels in heaven, whether by
particular revelation from himself, or by re
port from other angels, it raatters not ; yet
that therefore every action done by, or occur
rence relating to such au one, must also be
reported and raade known to the angels too,
no reason or arguraent cau demonstrate. And
unless we know that these things certainly
are so, as well as that possibly they may,
they can administer no sure grouud to our
confidence, as shall be made appear in its due
place. Bnt after all this discourse, what if we
should now affirra, that there is no necessity
of our holding, that the angels know the re
pentance of every siuner here on earth, either
by themselves or by the reports of others.
For wheu it is said, " that there is j oy amongst
the angels in heaven over one sinner that
repenteth," is it said, that this joy happens
just about the tirae of that repentance, or at
any tirae of the sinner's abode in this world?
No ; we find no mention of the time ; and
therefore what hinders but that it may be
understood of the time wheu the penitent
enters into heaveu : that then there is joy
amongst the angels, who rejoice that he re
pented and is recovered, which repentance
they then come clearly to see and know, iu
the visible consequent of it, his salvation.
This I ara sure may be the sense of the text
without auy force done to it at all ; and if it
may, there is no necessity of the former inter
pretation, upon a removal of which, there
cannot be so much as any colour or show of
.irgument frora hence to evince the angel's
knowledge of every particular raan's actions
and aflairs here upou earth. And thus much
in answer to their first scripture.
2. The other is that place in Rev. viii. 3,
" And another angel came and stood at the
altar, having a golden censer : and there was
given unto him much incense, that he should
offer it with the prayers of all saints, upon
the golden altar that was before the throne."
From whence they say it is evident, that the
angels are employed in presenting our prayers
to God, nay, so invincibly evident in the
judgment of some, that they wonder that any

should be able to stand out against the pre
vailing force of it.
But to this I answer, that angel is a narae
not only of nature, but also of office ; and
signifies one peculiarly sent and employed by
God about any work : upon which account
Christ is several times iu scripture called the
" Angel of the Lord," the " Angel ofthe Cove
nant :" and simply, without any addition, the
" Angel," as in Zech. i. Accordingly iu this
sense is the w'ord angel to be taken here,
namely, for Christ ; to whom also the other
words most appositely agree ; the incense here
mentioned very fitly representing the merits
of his death aud sufferings, by which he offered
himself as a sacrifice for the sins of the world,
by virtue of which sacrifice he is continually
giving au efficacy to our prayers before the
throne of grace. If, therefore, the angel here
spoke of be Christ, and Christ be God as well
as man, nothing for the mediation of any
created angel can be concluded from this text.
And thus having answered what they allege
frora scripture for the angel's knowledge of
and concemraent about raen's particular ac
tions here upon earth, and especially their
prayers, I shall now corae to exaraine what
they allege for tho sarae frora reason.
2. They argue therefore that the angels see
and know our prayers, and every thing else
belonging to us, because they behold the face
of God, the diviue essence ; which essence
containing in itself the exact ideas and repre
sentations of all things, by beholding that,
they must by consequence behold and view
all things else.
This is frequently urged and insisted upon ;
and yet there cannot be a more false and
absurd reasoning. For if this were true, then
it would follow that whosoever saw God i
would be also oraniscient, and know as much
as God hiraself knows, since he knows all !
things by the survey of his own essence. It
would follow also that there could be no pos
sibility of God's revealing any thing to the
angels : for how can any thing be said to be j
revealed that was known before? But yet '¦¦
Christ tells us, that the angels are ignoriint !
of the day of judgraent, (Matth. xxiv. 36,)
and Saint Peter tells us concerning the mys
teries of Christ's incarnation and man's
redemption, that " the angels desire to look
iuto thera," (1 Pet. i. 12,) and the word
¦zxpxxv-i^xi in the original is raost eraph.atical,
as signifying, a stooping down to look into a
thing, which is a searching, inquisirive pos
ture : and therefore surely tbe angels are
capable of a farther knowledge of these things,
by a revelation of them frora God, aud con
sequently cannot see all thiugs in the diviue
essence. But that we may answer and remove the
very ground of this reasoning, we are to con
sider, that the divine essence discovers itself,

494

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Sf.bm. LX.

and what is in it, to those that behold it, not
by any natural necessity, as a sensible object
lays itself open to tbe eye, but voluntarily
and freely, as the mind of one man discovers
itself to another, and as we may presume one
angel declares his thoughts to another. Add
to this also, that the other supposition of the
ideas and images of all things existing iu the
essence of God, seems but a mere fiction,
framed only according to our gross way of
apprehending things, and so by no means
strictly and literally agreeable to the most
spiritual, simple, uncompounded nature of
God. Frora both which it follows, that that
device of speculum Trinitatis, — the glass of
the Trinity, in which they say that saints and
angels behold all things, is a most senseless
and ridiculous conceit : and I wonder that
any persons of reason and learning should be
ever brought to lay any weight upon it. For
if this be a good argument, that he that sees
him who sees all things, must hiraself also
see all things ; theu by unavoidable conse
quence this will be as good, tbat ho that sees
him who sees nothing, must also himself see
nothing. And then any angel raay be orani
scient and blind in a minute ; for let him
look upon God who sees all things, and theu
he is oraniscient, and sees all things himself ;
but let him immediately after look upon a
blind man, nnd then by a wonderful trans
mutation presently he sees nothing. But the
truth is, such ways of discoursing are fitter to
be drolled upou, than to be refuted by any
serious answer.
And thus I have shewn, that we have uo
ground to repose any confidence in the media
tion of angels, for the proraoting of our peti
tions before God. I corae now to see whether
we have any greater grouud of confidence
frora any thing that the saints are like to do
for us in this particular.
Concerning which we must observe, that
tbe foregoing arguments brought against the
angels interceding for us, by reason of their
unacquaintauce with our spiritu.il affairs,
proceed much more forcibly against the inter
cession of the saints, who are of rauch more
limited and restrained faculties thau the
angels, and know fewer things, and even
those that they do know in a rauch lesser
degree of clearness than the angelical kuow
ledge rises to.
But yet for the farther proof of the saint's
unacquaintedness with what *is done here
below, these reasons may be added over and
above. 1. As first, it is clear that God sometimes
takes his saints out of the world for this very
cause, that they may not see aud know what
happens in the world. For so says God to
King Josiah, (2 Chron. xxxiv. 28,) " Behold,
1 will gather thee to thy fathers, aud tliou

shalt be gathered to thy grave in peace, nei
ther shall thine eyes see all tho evil that I
will bring upon this place, and the inhabi
tants thereof." Which di.scourse would have
been hugely absurd and inconsequent, if so be
the saints' separation from the body gave
them a fuller and a clearer prospect into all
the particular affairs aud occurrences that
happen here upon earth. But if they are
ignorant of these, as this scripture sufficiently
proves, then can there no reason be assigned,
why we should not also judge thera ignoraut
of our prayers.
Sorae, indeed, are not ashamed to say, that
God reveals the prayers of raen here below
to the saints above, that they may present
those prayers to him ; which assertion, as it
is utterly groundless, so it is also apparently
absurd. For to what purpose should God
reveal a prayer made to him, to any of the
saints, that he might pray it over to him
again ? Can he make the matter plainer and
more evident to God than it was before? Or
can he add merit and value to it, when it is
impossible for any creature to merit from
God ? Or lastly, can ho prevail with God
more thau God's own mercy and Christ's
intercession ? Thus, when men first take up
an opinion, and then afterwards seek for rea
sons for it, they must be contented with such
as the absurdity of it will afford.
2. But, 2dly, we have yet farther an express
declaration of the saints' ignorance of the
state of things here below in those words in
Isaiah, Ixiii. 16, where the church thus utters
itself to God, " Doubtless thou art our father,
though Abraham be ignorant of us, and Israel
acknowledge us not." Abraham and Jacob
surely were saints, and those too none of the
lowest rank ; yet it seems they knew nothing
of the conditiou of their posterity, understood
none of their wants and necessities. And if
so, how they should pray and be concerned
for those of whom they had no knowledge, is
hard to comprehend.
But notwithstanding these places, the sons
of the Romish coraraunion are taught to be
lieve otherwise ; and accordingly allege seve
ral things, which they are pleased to think,
or at least to cull, arguments to the contrary :
the foundation of most of which being over
thrown by what has been disputed about the
.angels, I shall only mention two more, the
first from scripture, the second, as they pre
tend, from reason.
1. As for Scripture, they allege, Luke, xvi.
where Abraham, a beatified saint in heaven,
could yet know tho estate and hear the words
of the rich man iu htll ; as also what befell
him aud Lazarus in their lifetime, as that
" one received good things, aud the other evil
things ;" from whence they say it is clear,
that the saints iu heaven know the condition
of those that live here, and consequeutly

ON EPHESIANS, iii. l->.

49.5

may be thought particularly to intercede for
them. But to this I answer, — 1. That supposing
this to be a real history, and literally to be
understood, yet this proves no more, than
that Abraham might corae to kuow from
Lazarus, after his assumption into heaven,
what the condition of that rich man was, as
also what miseries he himself lay uuder, during
his life : but that is no argument that Abra
ham knew any thing of this, while Lazarus
and the rich man were yet living upou earth.
2. But, in the second place, we are to know,
that this whole relation is but a parable, and
so cannot be argumentative for the proof of
any thing.
2. Their next argument, which is drawn
from reason, proceeds thus : — That if the
saints here upon earth pray for one another,
then certainly those in heaven, whose charity
is more perfect and consummate, must be
thought much more to pray for those here
below. But the former is evident from seve
ral examples, aud there is also an express
command for it in Jaraes, v. 16.
To this I answer, first, that the charity of
the saints who live in this world putting them
to pray for one another, does not infer, that
the saints in heaven (whose charity is greater)
must do so too, unless it were proved that
the charity of a glorified person must needs
have the very same way of acting and exert
ing itself in heaven, that it had in the same
person while he was a member of the church
militant here on earth.
2. But in the secoud place, not to deny
¦Vfholly that the charity of the blessed souls
prompts them to pray for those that live yet
in the body, we may distinguish of a twofold
intercessiou of the saints, 1. General, 2. Parti
cular. The general is that by which the
saints pray for the good aud happiness of the
whole body of the church, which they well
know upon a general account, during its war--
fare in this world, to be surrounded with
temptations, aud so in need of the continual
assistance of divine grace ; whereupon their
charity may well engage them thus to pray
for it. But as for auy particular intercession,
by which any saint intercedes in the behalf
ofany particular person here below, recora
mending his personal case to God, this follows
not from the forraer ; for it has been proved
that they kn»w not these particularities, aud
if so, though they be in never so high a degree
charitable, yet their charity is not to outrun
their knowledge.
Now in order to any man's establishing a
rational confidence upon the intercession of
the saints for us, these three things are
required: 1. That they be able thus to intercede for
us. 2. That they accordingly will.

3. And lastly, that a man certainly know
so much.
A failure in any of which conditions renders
all such hope and reliance upon them most
absurd aud unreasonable. For what fouuda
tion of hope can there be where there is no
power to help? And what help can he afford
me, who knows not whether I need help or
no? But suppose that he does fully know
my condition, yet kuowledge is not the irarae
diate principle of action, but will ; aud no
man goes about the doing of any thiug because
he knows it may be done, but because iu his
mind he has resolved to do it. And then as
for the saints' will to pray for us, since the
measure of their will is the will of God calling
and coraraanding them to undertake such or
such a work, where there is no such call or
coramand to the thing we are speaking of, we
are to presume also, that neither have they
any will to it. But lastly, admitting that
there is in them really both a knowledge, and
an actual will fitting the saints for this office
of interceding, yet unless we are sure of it by
certain infallible arguments, we cannot build
our practice upon it, which is itself to be built
upon faith, that is, a firm persuasion of both
the reasonableness aud the fitness of the thing
that we are to do. But now what arguments
have we to ascertain us of the saints' ability
and proneness to intercede for us ? We have
weighed what has been brought from scripture
and from reason, and found it wanting ; so
that we have nothing solid to bottom ourselves
upon in this matter. But God requires that
our boldness should commence upon know
ledge ; for he neither approves the sacrifice
nor the confidence of fools.
And now, in the last place, if we view this
doctrine in the consequence of it, we shall
find that it speaks aloud against the folly and
impiety of a practice so much used by some,
namely, the invocation of saints, and praying
to the souls of holy men departed this life.
It is possible indeed that men may believe
that the saints in heaven particularly inter
cede for raen here below, and yet uot hold
that they are to be prayed to : but it is cer
tain, that none hold that the saints ought to
be prayed to, who deny tbeir particular inter
cessiou with God for us. All the arguraents
therefore that have been hitherto produced
for the disproving of this, do by consequence
utterly destroy the invocation of the saints.
But before I examine auy of their argu
ments for it, it will not be amiss to consider
the original grounds of this practice ; of which,
I think, I may reckon these three for the
principal :
1. The solemn raeetings used by the prirai
tive Christiaus at tbe places of the saints'
sepulchres, and there celebrating the raemory
of their martyrdom. In which panegyrical
speeches there were used frequeut apostrophes

496

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Skkm. LX.

and figurative addresses to the souls of the
saints, as if they were actually present, and
heard what was spoke : and these expressions
the vulgar, not being able to distinguish
between things spoke figuratively and proper
ly, easily drank in, according to the literal
meaning of the words ; though indeed they
no more proved that the saints heard them,
or that those that so spoke thought they did,
than those exclamations, " Hear, O heaven !
and hearken, O earth !" prove that the heaven
and earth can hear what is thus spoke to
thera. 2. The second thing that induced this belief
were those seeds of the Platonic philosophy,
that so rauch leavened raany of the primitive
Christians : whicli philosophy teaches, that
the souls of good and virtuous men after the
decease of the body are turned into angels or
good demons, and fly about the world helping
men, and defending them from evils and
mishaps : whereupon it was easy with a little
change to transfer and apply these things to
the souls of the saints.
For the confirmation of which, it is remark
able that Origen, a person excessively addicted
to the philosophy of Plato, was the first ofthe
Christians that brought this opinion into the
church : though it was long after his time
that the invocation of the saints came to be
practised ; the practice beginning first amongst
the Greek Eremites, who transfused it to
Nyssen, Basil, and Nazianzen, their great
admirers and disciples ; who afterwards raade
a shift to insinuate it into tho minds of the
credulous vulgar.
3. The third cause of this was the people's
being bred in idolatry : whereupon what
worship they gave to devils, and to their
heroes before, they verj^ readily applied, upon
tbeir conversion to Christianity, to good
angels, and to the souls ofthe martyrs ; which
also the uuwariness and facility of mauy of
their teachers and bishops was willing enough
to humour them in, as being desirous upon
any terras to gain thera from heathenism to
the profession of Christian religion ; aud
being also in those times otherwise took up
and busied with disputes against such heretics
as more directly struck at the foundations of
Christianity. But nothing can be more evident thau that
the priraitive fathers of the church held uo
such thing as the invocation of the saints, and
that from this one consideration, that they
still used this as au argument against the
Arians for the proof of the deity of Christ,
that he was to be invoked and prayed unto.
Which worship, might it have been corarau
nicated to the saints, or any besides God, had
been no proof of the thing for which they
brought it at all.
Aud raoreover, the weak grounds that the
patrons of this opinion have found for it in

scripture, have been the cause, that even those
thatholdand practise it cannot yetunanimous-
ly agree about the terms upon which they are
to hold it. For some will have invocation of
the saints necessary, some pious and profitable,
and others only lawful or allowable. And
the council of Trent, that pretended to deter
mine the case, has been so wise as to put the
world off with an ambiguity that might indif
ferently serve the defenders of either opinion
by denouncing an anathema against those
" qui negaut sanctos invocandos esse," who
deny that the saints were to be prayed to.
Which expression is very ambiguous : for to
deuy th.at the saints are to be prayed to, may
signify either to deny that it is necessary to
pray to them, or that it is lawful to pray to
thera. But the truth is, it is their best course
to state it upon this, that it is useful and pro
fitable. Profitiible, I say, not to those that
practise, but to those that teach and assert it.
But since the practice has now prevailed
araongst those of the Roraish coraraunion, let
us see what reason they allege for it. Why,
they argue, —
From the custom used in the courts of
princes, where petitioners presume not to peti
tion their prince immediately by theraselves,
but by the intercession of such as attend about
him. But to this pretence, which, <is Saint Am
brose affirms in his comment upon the 1st of
the Romans, and Saint Austin in his Sth book
De Givitate Dei, was the very sarae that the
heathens alleged for their worshipping of good
demons and their heroes ; that is, famous raen
departed this life, and supposed by them to
have attained a state or condition of being
and power next to their gods.
To this, I say, this is a full answer ; that
God is not man, nor are we in all things to
argue the manner of our behaviour to God
from what we use to men. God will himself
determine the way by which he will be wor
shipped ; and, consequeutly, the only rule of
the worship we tender him must be his own
prescription and comraand.
But besides, let the coraparison be put
equally, and so even upon these terras their
arguraent will uot proceed. For should even
an earthly prince constitute aud appoint one
certain person to receive all petitions, and
bring thera to hira, surely it would he au
arrogance to presurae to petition him by the
mediation of any other. Now God has actu
ally constituted Christ our mediator, and our
sole mediator, which appears from that one
text, which the patrons of praying to the
saints will never solidly answer, (1 Tim. ii.
6,) "There is one God, and one Mediator
between God and raen, the mau Christ
Jesus." Upon which account, for us to put
our prayers into any other bands, is to affront
God iu his command, and Christ in his offic*.

ON EHESIANS, iii. Vi.

407

If it be here farther alleged, that our sins
render us very unworthy to come immediately
even to Christ himself ; whereupon it is but
a due humility for us to make our way to him
by the mediation of his friends, such as the
blessed saints are :
To this also I answer ; that Christ, who
knew better than we ourselves, whether we
were fit to come to him or no, has expressly
commanded us to come : in which case we
are to learn, that the bfest and most refined
humility is obedience : and when Christ com
mands us tocome.to him, and withthe jealousy
almost of a rival forbids us all address to
others, if we repair to any but himself, it " is
the sacrifice of fools," seasoned with igno
rance and wilfulness ; and not so much a
veneration of his majesty, as a despisal of his
mercy. For should any noble or great person
command me personally to represent my wants
immediately to himself, surely it would be
but little modesty or civility iu me to preseut
my petitions to him by the intercession of his
porter. As for those that judge or practise other
wise, there is this only to be alleged for the
reasonableness of what they do : that having
so much injured Christ the great mediator, it
is not to be wondered, (should we respect
their behaviour, and not his mercy,) if they
stand in need of a mediator to Christ himself.
But as gold upon gold is absurd in heraldry ;
so I am sure, a mediator to a Mediator is a
greater absurdity in Christianity.
I conclude therefore, that Christ is the only
person through whose mediation we may
with confidence make our access to God : and
that to share this work of mediation with
any, either saints or angels, is an injurious
and sacrilegious encroachment upon that office,
that neither admits of equal nor companion.
It is also a senseless invention, grounded upon
that which ia not ; namely, their particular
knowledge of our afiEairs here below : and if it
were not so, yet is the practice hugely useless
and superfluous ; for there cannot be imagined
any kindness or concernment in the saints
for us, that is not infinitely greater aud more
abundant in Christ. And therefore let men
please themselves as they will in their ima
ginary fantastic by-ways of address, yet Christ
is the only true way, the way that has light
to direct, and life to reward those that walk
in it ; and consequeutly there is " no coraing
to the Father but by hira."
To whom be rendered and ascribed, as is
most due, all praise, might, majesty, and do
minion, both now and for evermore. Amen.

TOt u.

SERMON LXI.

"And the Lord said, My Spirit shall not always strive with
man."— Genesis, vi. 3.

In this cb.ipter we have God taking a sur
vey of the state of the sons of men before the
flood ; and withal we have the judgraent or
verdict that he delivers in upon that survey,
namely, that they were exceeding wicked ; as
in verse 6, " Aud God saw that the wicked
ness of man was great in the earth." We
have hira in the first chapter looking over all
created being, and thereupon pronouncing his
approbation of thera, that " behold they were
good," and hear no farther of thera,: in the
six;th chapter, we have raan, that of all those
good things should have in reason proved the
best, totally corrupt and depraved ; as appears
from the same verse, " Every iraagination of
the thoughts of his heart was evil, and only
evil, and that continually." So that we see
his sins were as nuraerous as his thoughts,
and withal so great, that it even " repented
the Lord that he had made man upon the
earth ;" as we read in verse 6. Siu is of so
vile and provoking a nature, that it is able to
extort a certain kind of repentance from God
himself, who has elsewhere said, that he can
not repent : so that here we see God himself
repenting, by reason of the sius of meu : but
of the sinner's repentance we read not aword.
Now when sins are arrived to their highest
pitch, both in respect of number aud great
ness ; and withal attended with an absolute
impenitence ; what in reason can remain but
a certain sad expectation of judgment against
the sinner ? And such an one we have here.
After the overflowing of sin upon the -whole
earth, God in his justice seconds it with a
deluge of waters ; and so proportions his
punisbment to the rate of the offence ; a
general destruction to a general sin. But be
fore the execution of this judgraent, and amidst
those aboundings of sin and wickedness, yet
God left not himself without a witness in the
hearts of men ; but continued his Spirit in
the ordinary operations thereof, secretly deal
ing with and entreating raen to be reconciled
to God. Notwithstanding their obstinate
progress iu sin, their continual pursuit of the
lusts aud desires of their evil mind, they had
many a gripe of conscience, mauy sad re
morses, mauy checks and calls frora the Holy
Spirit, which, by their resolution to persist in
sin, thev did at length totally extinguish.
Upon their rejection of the Spirit, God in
tends to ruin and reject thera, and to that
intent withdraws the Spirit, and strivings of
it And presently after we read of the flood
2i

408

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Serm. LXI.

breaking in upon them, to their utter ruin
and perdition.
The words will afford several observ.ations ;
as first, from the method God took in this
judgment, first withdrawing his Spirit, aud
then introducing the flood, we may observe,
1. D. That God's taking away his Spirit
frora any soul, is the certain forerunner of
the ruin and destruction of that soul.
This is clearly evinced from the words ; for
although the flood did immediately terminate
in the destruction of the body ouly, yet because
it snatched these men away in a state of
impenitence, it was consequentially the de
struction of the soul.
2. From that expression of the " Spirit's
striving with man," which does always imply
a resistance from the party with whom we
strive, we may observe,
2. D. That there is in the heart of man a
natural enmity and opposition to the motions
of God's holy Spirit : outward contention, it
is the proper issue and product of inward
i hatred ; striving in action, it is an undoubted
sign of enmity in the heart : " The flesh
lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against
tbe flesh," (Gal. v. 17.) Here we see there is
a sharp combat between these two : and the
apostle subjoins the reason of it ; " for these
two are contrary." Things contrary will vent
tbeir contrariety in mutual strife.
8. From the same expression of striving
we may observe,
3. D. That the Spirit in its dealings with
the heart is very earnest and vehement.
To strive, it imports a vigorous putting forth
of the power ; it is such a posture as denotes
an active desire. There is none that strives
with another, but conquest it is the thing both
in his desire and in his endeavour.
4. The fourth observation is drawn from
the definitive sentence that God here passes,
that " his Spirit should uot always strive with
mau," and it is this ;
4. D. That there is a set and punctual time,
after which the convincing operations of God's
Spirit upon the heart of raan, in order to his
conversion, beiug resisted, will cease, and for
ever leave hira.
Thia seeming to take in the chief, if not the
only drift and scope of the Spirit iu these
words, waving the consideration of the rest, I
shall only prosecute this.
In the prosecution of it, I shall do these
things, —
I. I shall endeavour to prove and demon
strate the truth of this assertion from Scrip
ture. II. I shall shew how many ways the Spirit
may be resisted.
III. I shall shew whence and why it is
that upon some resistance the Spirit finally
withdraws. I"V. Make application.

I. Concerning the first, I shall present you
with the proof of this doctrine frora several
scriptures, that give us pregnant exaraples,
that this is the way of God's dealings, still to
withdraw his Spirit after some notorious re-
sisttincG 1. The first is that dreadful place in which
is set down God's dispensation towards the
children of Israel, in Psalm xcv. 10, 11;
" Forty years long was I grieved with this
geueration, and said. It is a people that do err
in their heart, and they have not known my
ways : unto whom I sware iu my wrath that
they should not enter into my rest." We have
here these things observable : —
1. Their resistance of God's Spirit, specified
iu these words ; " I was grieved with this
generation." 2. We have the set and limited time of that
resistance ; it was " forty years."
3. God's judicial withdrawing his Spirit
thereupon, and delivering them up to a state
of everlasting spiritual desertion, held forth
in these words ; " I sware in my wrath that
they should not enter into my rest." From
whence we see that the departure of the Spirit
was as infallibly sure, as the truth of God,
conflrmed with the obligation of an oath, could
raake it.
A second place, that yet farther proves that
there is such a critical, fixed tirae of the
Spirit's working, is iu Heb. iv. 7, " He limiteth
a certain day, sayiug. To-day if ye will hear
his voice, harden not your heart." This ex
pression seeras to hold forth two things :
1. The fixed deterraination of the tirae of
the Spirit's speaking to us ; " To-day." _ Now
as in a day, after such a set hour it is un
avoidably and certainly night ; so after such
a season of the Spirit's strivings, there inevit
ably follows a final desertion. While it is day
the Spirit works ; but this night cometh, and
it will not work.
2. This expression shews the shortness of
this tirae. The day of grace, it is but a day.
It is the sun of righteousness shining iu our
faces for sorae few hours. Which, by the way,
speaks severe reproof totheunreasonabledelays
of some, in their closing and complying with
God. The Spirit calls them to-day, and they
promise obedience to-morrow. Procrastina
tion in temporals is always dangerous, but in
spirituals it is often damnable.
The third place that may be alleged for the
proof of this truth is that, Luke, xix. 42, " If
thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this
thy day, the things which belong unto thy
peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes."
In these words also we may observe three
things :
1. Their enjoyment of a se.ison, in which
the Spirit dealt with them concerning the
things of their peace ; they had their day.
2. Their neglect and misimprovement of

ON GENESIS, vi. 3.

499

that season, implied in Christ's wish that they
had known and iraproved it.
3. God's dealing with thera upon that mis-
improvement ; " the things of their peace were
hid from their eyes." When the day of grace
is past, and darkness upon the soul, no wonder
if it is unable to discern the things of its peace.
To these places we may add that in Gen. xv.
16, where God says, " that the sin of the
Amorites was not yet full:" implying, that
there was a certain pitch of sin, under which
he would not destroy, and after which he
would not spare them. Till such tirae as a
vessel is filled, we may still pour in more and
more ; but when it comes to its fulness, then
it has its nepl^us ultra, there is no capacity to
receive any more. So during the time of
God's permission, we may go on in a way of
opposition to hira, to multiply acts of resist
ance agaiust the Spirit ; but after this set
time is expired, there must be no farther re
sistance made : we must either yield, or die
eternally : God will not let us perpetuate our
rebellious against him ; he will either take
away our opposition, or the Spirit which
we so oppose.
And thus much for the proof of the point
by scriptures, which leave it undoubted, that
the Spirit has its set tirae of striving with the
heart, after which it will cease. And now I
could observe also, by way of allusion and
illustration, how that the creatures also have
their set and stinted tiraes allotted thera, be
yond which they can do nothing with success.
It is notable iu the dealings of men, when
they make contracts and bargains, there is
some good hour, some advantageous nick of
time, which if overslipt and let go, either the
price fails or the thing fails. And it is farther
observable, that there are some lucky seasons
and offers of preferment iu every man's life,
which if uot laid hold upon, a man is for ever
after degraded in his worldly advancements.
Nay even those creatures that are only acted
by a principle of sense do observe their set
times, in which they will do the works of their
nature, aud after which they will not. The
bird has its summer to build iu, aud the bee to
gather honey iu ; and if they should chance to
be hindered from doing these works at that
time, they are never seen to do them in the
winter. In Jeremiah, viii. 7, "we have this
very consideration applied to this present
purpose; "Yea, the stork in the heaven
knoweth her appointed times ; aud the turtle
and the crane and the swallow observe the
time of their coraing ; but my people know
not the judgment of the Lord." I do not
mention these things as arguments to prove
any thing, but only as observations to illus
trate what has been already proved. For since
some presume to say, that tho visible carnal
^orld is an iraage or adurabration of the in-
risible and spiritual ; methinks God, that has

tied all the operations of the creature within
such a strict observance of their respective
seasons, he himself should be much more regu
lar and exact in the observance of his own.
I shall conclude this first head with thatplao!
iu Ecclesiastes, iii. 1, " To every thing there
is a season, and a time to every purpose under
heaveu." Aud without question we shall
find, that not man only, but even the Spirit
of God also, as he has his time to work, so he
has a time also to leave off working ; a time
to solicit aud persuade, and a time to depart.
But here, before I enter upou the second
thing, to prevent misapprehensions, you must
here observe, when I say there is a set time
of the Spirit's working, after which it ceases,
it is not to be understood of a general set time,
which is the sarae in every man, and beyond
which these workings never pass ; as for ex
ample, because forty years was the set time
of the Spirit's striving with Israel, we are uot
thence to conclude, that it will continue its
workings just so long with all the world be
sides : but it is to be meant of a set and stinted
time in respect of every particular man's life,
in which there is some limited period, whereiu
the workings of the Spirit will for ever stop.
For as it merely depends upon the sovereignty
of God's good pleasure, whether or uo there
should be any such workings at all ; so it is
likewise absolutely at his disposal to prolong
or shorten their continuance. Only this we
may rationally collect ; where the means of
grace are more plentiful, there the Spirit, up
on resistance, sooner departs. Now these
being more fully, clearly, and convincingly
dealt forth under the dispensations of the
gospel, than those of the law, we may con
clude this also, that the Spirit in such times
is quicker in his despatches, and shorter in his
stay. Thus God forebore the fig-tree but
three years, and the children of Israel forty.
And no wonder ; that was in a fruitful soil,
these in the wilderness. And God will bear
with that unfruitfulness in a wilderness, that
he will not in his vineyard.
II. Having thus proved the point by scrip
ture, and witlial given you sorae caution for
the understanding of it ; I proceed in the next
place to shew, how the Spirit may be resisted
in its workings upon the heart. Herein, as
for those controversies, whether the workings
of the Spirit, by which a man is not actually
couverted, were yet notwithstanding sufficient
for his conversion ; or, when one resists the
Spirit, and another does not, whether this
proceeds from the different operations of the
Spirit, or the different dispositions of the
hearts wrought upon ; I shall not undertake
here to determine. But this I shall pre
sume to affirra, that what God never intended
should convert a man, was never able to con
vert him : and moreover, what never actually
does convert him, was never fully intended for

oOO

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Sehm. LXI.

his conversion : otherwise, if it was, we must
make his intentions frustrate ; which, I think,
cannot be affirmed, without a blasphemous
derogation from his power and his wisdora.
But to the point in hand, uaraely, to shew how
many ways the Spirit may be resisted.
Where we must first lay down, what it is in
general to resist the Spirit. And this I con
ceive is, iu brief, to disobey the Spirit com
manding and persuading the soul to the per
formance of duty and the avoidance of sin.
Now the Spirit commands and persuades
two ways :
1. Externally, by the letter of the word,
either written or preached.
2. By its iraraediate internal workings upon
the soul, which I shall reduce to two :
(I.) The illuraination ofthe understanding.
(2.) The conviction of the will.
Now suitable to all these ways of the
Spirit's dealing with us, there are so many
different acts of resistance, by which these
dealings are opposed.
Of all which in their order.
1. Conceming tbe resistance of the Spirit
in disobeying the letter of the word. The
reason that disobedience to the word is to be
accouuted an opposing of the Spirit, is be
cause the word was dictated and inspired by
the Spirit itself. As we have it in 2 Pet. i.
ult. " Prophecy came not in old time by the
will of man : but holy men of God spake as
they were moved by the Spirit." Therefore
to disobey what was writ and delivered by
them, was, iu effect, to disobey the Spirit that
did inspire them. I may truly say of this
word, that it is " the voice of God, and not of
a man :" and what God is the author of, that
he will certainly own, both by his encourage
ments of those that obey it, and his judgments
upou those that reject it. It may indeed be
delivered by a poor, inconsiderable, obscure
man, but even so it is starapt with the ap
pointraent of God, and will do thorough exe
cution : be the cloud never so obscure and
dark, yet lightning may break from it, to the
terror and shaking of all beholders. This
word that is so slighted by sinful man, is no
less than the power of the alraighty God to
salvation ; that instrument which the Divine
Oranipotence uses to convert souls. Look
but into the law ; and if thou hast a spiritu.il
ear open to hear it, it will speak with a voice
that will raake thee trerable. Read the gos
pel ; and if ever God do thee good by it, thou
wilt feel it like a two-edged sword, dividing
between thee aud thy dearest lusts. It will
be a fiery, a searching word ; it will pierce
into thy very heart, and unbosora all thy re
tired corruptions : it will discover to thee
those two great mysteries, the mystery of god
liness and of iniquity : it will mightily con
vince of sin, righteousness, and judgment : it
will display how cursed and bitter a thing it

is to s'ln against an almighty God : how ex
cellent and amiable it is to follow him in the
traces of a pure conversation. It will also
lay before thee the certainty, the horror, and
dreadfulness of the day of judgment to all
the irapenitent. This is the power, this isthe
energy aud theforceof theword; andifitnever
had this effect upon thy heart, it was because
thou hast resisted the Spirit speaking in it.
It may here be deraanded, how the Spirit
may be resisted speaking in the word.
I answer, two ways.
1. By a negligent hearing and a careless
attendance upon it.
2. By acting in a clear and open contrariety
to it.
1. Conceruing the first, the resistance of the
Spirit speaking in the word by a superficial
attendance upon it. As for those that seldom
or never hear it at all ; that keep out of the
Spirit's reach : that are such fools as not only
to put the " evil day," but also the good day
" far from them ;" that do not so much resist,
as wholly reject the Spirit ; their condition,
no doubt, is very sad and desperate. Cer
tainly Sodom and Goraorrah will be able to
commence a plea for theraselves at the day of
judgraent that these cannot : for the joyful
sound never rung in their ears, the gospel was
never brought to their doors ; but these have
had the raeans even offered to them, and re
fused thera. But if the word has been a bur
den, aud sabbaths have been a trouble, what
a weight will there be in damnation ! A man
shall one day be accountable, not only forthe
sermons that he has heard, but for those also
that he might have heard. But to pass over
those who scarce merit the name of professors,
there is another sort, that indeed hear the
word, yet with that supine negligence, that
they caunot quit themselves frora being ranked
amongst the contemners of the Spirit. Some
indeed hear the sound of the word as of the
wind, but for want of attention, scarce know
from " whence it comes, nor whither it goes."
Sorae suffer wandering thoughts, like the
fowls of the air, to intercept the seed, before
it falls upon their hearts. Sorae by reason of
their own idle discourses cannot hear the voice
of the Spirit. Some sleep, and shut their
eyes against that light that might otherwise
shine into their souls. And is not this to des
pise the Spirit? Believe it, as it is the
greatest affront that we can offer to any con
sidering mau, when he is seriously speaking
to us, and that about the things of our own
concemraent, to be thinking of soraething
else, and not to regard him ; so in these ad
dresses of the Spirit to us about the things of
our own eternal peace, not to attend or observe
him, is so much greater a contempt, by how
much the Spirit of God is greater than the
greatest of men.
2. The second way of resisting the Spirit

ON GENESIS, vi. 3.

501

speaking in the word is by acting contrary to
that word. The most considerable thing in
man is his actions. Every action it is defined,
fiuxusvirium agentis; it is the drawing forth
the very spirit aud vigour of the agent upon
some object : thoughts, like shadows in the
mind, quickly vanish ; words are transient,
and pass away ; but deeds and actions will
abide. Accordingly, God lays all the stress of
religion upon these : the law runs thus ; " Do
this, and thou shalt live :" the gospel says,
"Not every oue that cries Lord, Lord, but he
that does the will of my Father, shall enter
into heaven." Both agree in this, that they
put not men upon bare words and wishes, but
upon doing. Nay, let me farther say, if it
were possible that we could do the will ofGod
without hearing of it, it was no matter whether
we heard it orno ; for hearing is not intended
for itself but in order to doing. We read of
one in the gospel that was commanded by his
father to go work in the vineyard, but he
denied, and said he would not go ; yet not
withstanding was excused, because at length
he did go : and so expiated the evil of his
words by the goodness of his deeds. There
fore it is the obedience or disobedience of our
actions that the Spirit of God chiefly regards.
Yon may hear the word, and, what is more,
you may hear it with attention ; yet if by
your practice you contradict the things that
yon have heard, this is to resist the Spirit.
To hear or read the precepts of God, and yet
do things contrary to those precepts ; to hear
the thunder of his curses, and yet not to be
wrought npon, so as to avoid the cursed thing ;
this is notoriously to resist the Spirit. He
that shall hear God commanding him not to
take his name in -vain, and yet pollute it with
hideous blasphemous oaths ; that shall hear
Christ forbidding -wantonness, even in the
glance of an eye, and yet roll himself in folly
and uncleanness : he that shall hear that
dreadful voice of God, " Cursed be he that
does the work of the Lord negligently," and
yet come unprepared to duties, and, being
come, slightly perform them ; surely such a
person is to be reckoned amongst the highest
opposers of the Spirit. If every idle word
renders a man obnoxions to judgment, shall
not a do-wnright breach of the law by action
sink a man under a much more heavy con
demnation ? He that will uot hear, or, hear
ing, takes no notice of the laws of his prince,
is a disobedient subject ; but he that acts in
opposition to them is an open rebel. Now the
reasons that this kind of resisting the Spirit
in our actions is so great, may be these two :
1. Because action is the very perfection aud
consummation of sin. Siu may indeed make
a foul progress in our thoughts and desires,
and step a little farther in our words ; but
when it comes to be acted, then it attains its
Ml pitch, and beeo mes -perfect.

2. Because sin in the actions argues an
overflowing and a redundancy of sin in the
heart. A siuful action, it is only the boiling
over of sin as it lies there : for the heart it is
yet in the worab ; for, as the apostle says,
there it is conceived : but in the actual com
mission of it, it is then bronght forth : so that
if (according to our Saviour's word) through
the abundance of the heart a man speaks,
then certainly from the exceeding superabun
dance of it does he proceed to action.
Having thus shewn how the Spirit is resist
ed iu its external speaking iu the word, I shall
next shew how it is resisted iu its immediate
internal workings upon the soul.
Here we must reflect upon ourselves, and
know that, upon the unhappy fall of raan,
siu and the wretched effects of sin, iraraediately
entered upou, and took full possession of all
his faculties : his understanding, that before
shined clear like the larap of God, was by siu
overspread with darkness : his will, that bore
a perfect conforraity to the diviue will, was
rendered totally averse from and contrary to
the things of God. When man was first
created, there was such an exact syrametry
and harraony of all the faculties, such au
absolute composure of the whole, that he was
not only the workmanship, but also the
image of his Maker. But sin shattered all, it
took the whole fabric asunder. And thus the
soul, being broke and ruined, (as God threat
ened to Babylon, in Isaiah, xiii. 21,) became
desolate, aud a place of doleful creatures; that
is, black aud disraal apprehensions of God's
wrath, and gross ignorance of his will, lodging
in the understanding : and a place for satyrs
to dance in ; that is, of brutish lusts, and
irapure desires, acting, moving, and taking
their pastime in the will. Now God the
Father, through the admirable contrivance of
his wisdom, aud the propensity of his raercy,
intending man's recovery, and the Son as
mediator undertaking it, it was requisite th.it
in order to it, he should take away and
cure all these disterapers both of man's under
standing and his will. Hereupon, by virtue
of the power committed to him as mediator,
he issues forth the Spirit as the purchase of
his death, for the accomplishment of these
gracious ends, in renewing and recruiting the
decayed uature of mau. And this he does by
the two forementioned works, to wit, illumina
tion aud convictiou ; iu both of which the
Spirit mav be resisted.
1st, Concerning our resistance of it in illu
mination, or its enlightening work. Where
note by way of caution, that by the works of
the Spirit I understand not the extraordinary
efficacious works thereof iu true conversion ;
for these are uot resistible, inasmuch as they
take away our resistance : they depend not
upon the «ourtesy of our wills as to their suc
cess, but upon the sole power of God forcing

.502

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Serm. LXI.

his way through the heart in spite of all
opposition. But I speak of its comraon works,
such as a man may frustrate, such as he may
be partaker of, and )'et perish. And these
enlightenings both may be and often are
resisted by the soul. Illumination in general
may be described, the Spirit's infusing a cer
tain light into the mind, whereby it is in
some measure enabled to discern and judge
of the things of God. Now this light is three
fold: 1. That universal light which we usually
term the light of nature, yet so as it may
also be rightly termed the light of the Spirit ;
but in a different respect. It is called the
light of nature, because of its general inher
ence iu all meu ; because it is commensurate
and of equal extent with nature, so that
wheresoever the nature of raan is to be found,
there this light is to be found. " It enlightens
every man that coraes into the world." But
on the other hand, it is called the light of the
Spirit, in respect of the Spirit's efficiency, in
that it is the producing cause of it, as it is of
every good and perfect gift. This light it is
the first breathing of God upou our nature,
the very first draught and linearaents of the
new creature ; it is, as it were, the first dawn
ing of tbe Spirit upon the soul, iu those con
nate principles born with us iuto the world,
and discovering, though very imperfectly,
sorae general truths ; as that there is a God,
and that this God is to be worshipped, and
the like. Yet this is but a glimmering, ira
perfect light, and such an one as carries with
it a greater mixture of darkness ; like the
break of day, which has in it more of night, it
is but one remove from darkness. The Spirit
of God shining barely in nature, it is like the
sun shining through a cloud, but with a faint,
weak brigbtnefs, made rather to refresh thau
satisfy. Yet this was all the heathens had, iu
whom especially the iraperfection of it ap
peared, as not being able to rescue thera from
idolatry, from villainous and unnatural lusts,
both of whicb are the blush of nature as well
as of religion. Yet by this light they shall be
judged, and by this condemned. Wherefore
of all sins th.at resist the Spirit, loathe and
detest those that resist it speaking iu nature,
¦which are so gross and horrid, as not to be
named, much less to be committed. Certain
ly these stains are not the stains aud spots of
God's children : nature itself is corrupted, yet
it will testify aloud against suoh hideous cor
ruptions. Conscience is corrupted, yet like
the unjust judge, through the iraportunity
and cry of such, it will judge righteously. To
be unnatural is something more than to be
irreligious ; for a man to offer violence to the
principlei, wh.it is it but a spiritual self-
murder ? To cease to be a mau, is something
M'orse than not to be a saint. 0 reverence
therefore this light, set up by God himself in

our nature. As we are not to rely upon it
as our only guide, so are we upon no hand
to sin against it : walking according to its
directions is not sufficient to save us, but
going contrary to them will certainly con
demn us.
2. The second kind of light may be called
a notional scripture light ; that is, a bare
knowledge of or assent to scripture ti-uths.
This light is begot in the raind of all professors
by the mere hearing or reading the word : it
is tbe bare perception of evangelical truths
placed in the intellect, resting in the brain,
treasured up there by a naked apprehension
and speculation. So that the resisting this,
being almost the same with our resistance of
the Spirit speaking in the word, ouly with
this difference, that in the former we resist
the word as considered in the letter, in this
we resist it as it lies transcribed iu the concep
tions of the understanding : I say, since this
almost coincides with the former, which I
have discussed already, I shall proceed no
farther in it, only leave this to your considera
tion, that if the poor heathens fell under the
wrath and curse of God, only for resisting the
Spirit in the dim light of nature ; then how
will it be possible for us to escape, if we resist
it now shining openly (like tbe sun in his
might) in the clear discovery of the law and
gospel ? As the light which we resist is
greater or less, so is the proportion of our sin
either diminished or advanced. Therefore if
we disobey the Spirit, what can follow, but
that as our light, so our sin also, raust be far
greater than theirs, aud our punishment
answerable ? For assuredly, the just God,
who takes tho exact and true diraeusions of
sin, will heat the furnace of his wrath seven
times hotter for gospel reprobates, than for
ignorant heathens.
3. The third kind of light may be called a
special convincing light, which is a higher
degree of the enlightening work of the Spirit,
and not comraon to all professors, yet such a
one as may be resisted, yea and totally extin
guished. This is the highest attainraeut of
the soul on this side saving grace ; it is like
the clear shining of the moon and stars, which
is the greatest light that is consistent with a
state of darkness. Yea it is such a light as
does not only make a discovery of tbe things
of God, but also engenders in the soul a cer
tain relish and taste of tliem. It is a light,
not only of knowledge, but of joy ; and this
it was that enlightened the stony ground in
Matt. xiii. 20, which did not only hear and
apprehend the word, but also with joy received j
it : yet we see in the next verse, that it was 'i
not able to withstand tribulations and perse- 1
cntions, but wheu the storms arose, and the j
wind beat upon it, it quickly went out ; like
a torch before a tempest, after a very short
and weak contest, it was soon extinguished.

ON GENESIS, vi. 3.

50,3

However, we must know, that this light is the
ultimus conatus, the last and greatest endeavour
ofthe Spirit upon a reprobate soul, wbich once
finally resisted for ever departs, and leaves the
soul under an everlasting night, without any
after returns of day. To be thus enlightened,
is called in scripture " to taste of the heavenly
gift, to be partaker of the Holy Ghost, and
of the powers of the world to come," as it is
expressed iu Heb. vi. 4, 5 ; and of the despe
rate, deplorable condition of those that mis
carry under these illuminations, we have an
account in the next verse ; " If they fall
away, it is irapossible to renew them again to
repentance." " The wicked," says God, " shall
fall, and never rise."
He that shall hear what report the gospel
makes of the nature of siu, and be so far
affected with a lively sense and feeling of it,
as to resolve against it, to hate it, even to a
relinquishment of it, aud continue for a long
time so to do, yet notwithstanding at length
disentangle himself from those thoughts and
apprehensions of sin, so far as to relapse into
the fearful coraraission and love of it, that
mau's case is grievous, aud his wound not
easily curable. For God intends these illumi
nations as singular special means, both to
allure the soul to duty by the discovery of the
love of Christ, aud to awe it from sin by the
terrors of hell. Now when a man desires to
sleep securely in the free enjoyment of bis
sin, aud shall therefore seek to put out this
light, we have no ground to conclude that the
Spirit will ever restore it. He that frowardly
and foolishly puts out his caudle, is not sure
to blow it in again. As for those common
shinings of it that beam forth-in the notion
of the word, they indeed may be renewed
every serraon, they are such beams as we
read of, " occidere et redire possunt." But
when this special light is extinct, when this
sets in darkness, the soul that is thus be
nighted is left to sleep a perpetual sleep of sin
and death.
And thus much concerning the first inward
work of tbe Spirit, to wit, illumination of the
understandiug. 2d, We come now to the second, which is
the conviction of the will, whicb conviction
may be described in general, A work of the
Spirit of God upon the will and affections, pro
ducing in thera some imperfect liking of the
ways of God, and dislike to the ways of sin.
There is a clear and open passage between
the understanding and the will. Light iu
the one naturally begets heat in the other,
and the conviction of the affections is never
greater than the illumination of the judg
ment.' So that when the work of the Spirit
miscarries about the understanding, it never
thoroughly succeeds in the will ; for it strikes
the will aud the affections through tbe under
standing; and if it cannot pierce this, it is

not to be imagined how the blow can reach
the other.
Now the convincing works of the Spirit
upou the will may be reduced to these three, —
1. A begetting in it sorae good desires,
wishes, and inclinations.
2. Au enabling it to perform some iraper
fect obedience.
3. An enabling it to leave some sins.
In all these works the Spirit may be resisted
aud opposed.
1. And first, it may be resisted in the good
desires and inclinations that it suggests to the
will. That these good desires issue from the
Spirit, I suppose none will deny, who acknow
ledges that of ourselves we are not so much as
able "to think a good thought." He that
affirms holy duties may proceed from an un
holy, corrupt heart, may as well expect
" grapes from thorns, and figs from thistles."
As there are some desires so exceeding black
and hellish, that it easily appears they came
into the mind from their father the Devil ; so
on tbe contrary there are some so pure and
holy, that tbey raay be quickly discerned to
be tbe offspring of the Spirit, as bearing his
image and likeness. Good inclinations, they
are the firstborn of holiness in the soul, the
very first endeavours and throes of the new
birth. And as they are the first, so in reason
they may be thought to be most imperfect,
and consequently most easy to be rejected : a
good desire stepping forth amongst raging and
unmortified lusts, it is like righteous but weak
Lot, endeavouring to appease the turault of
the Sodomites. Oh ! how easily is it forced
to retire ! how quickly is it repulsed ! It is
like a drop of water falling into a furnace,
that presently exhales, and does not at all
allay tbe fury of its heat. How often has
the Spirit whispered to us, " This is the way,
walk in it," and our perverse hearts have
hurried us another way ! How often has
mauy a soul thoughts of relinquishing its sin,
aud returning to God, and yet by the allure
ment of new pleasures has been inveigled and
recalled back ! How often do some think of
repairing to Christ, and yet are held fast by
the fetters of prevailing lust ! And all this
befalls men, because tbey improve not these
blessed inclinations. Oh ! were we but true
to our own souls, to cherish these tender,
new-born, infant desires, and to carry them
to Christ by prayer, certainly he would take
them in his arras and bless them, and send
them awav strengthened. Every sincere
desire to pray raight be improved to a blessed
communion with God ; every secret dislike of
impurity might be wrought up to sanctity of
life and conversation. Oh despise not there
fore " the day of sraall things ;" shut uot your
ears ao-ainst the secret adraonitions of the
Spirit ; they are none other than God hiraself
speaking to thee (as to Elijah) "in a still

.504

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Serm. LXI.

voice." You may one day come to know,
when with bitterness of soul you shall reflect
upou and recollect all these dealings of the
Spirit : Such a time I had an inclination to con
fess my idleness, my intemperance before God,
and amend it ; but I hearkened to the dissua
sions of my corrupt heart, and so neglected it.
Such a time I had strong motions and inten
tions to restore my ill-gotten goods ; but ray
covetousness restrained me. I say, then you
will know and confess, (as Jacob did of
Bethel,) " Of a truth God was in all these
workings, and I knew it uot."
2. The Spirit may be opposed, as it enables
the soul to perforra some imperfect obedience
to God's coraraands. A raan, by the convinc
ing energy of the Spirit iu the word, raay be
led, or rather drawn to mauy duties. Thus
Herod, in Mark, vi. 20, upou the soul-search
ing ministry of John, is said to have " done
many things." The Israelites also, in Psalm
Ixxviii. 34, were driven by God's judgments
to proceed very far iu his worship ; " When
he slew them," (it is said,) " they sought
him : and they returned and inquired early
after God." So that here we have both duty
and earnestness in duty ; but we see in the
following verse they quickly got loose from
those convictions ; " They flattered hira with
their mouth, and lied unto him with their
lips :" that is, their ensuing practices foully
falsified all those fair proraises of obedience
which they made under their convictions.
Such men's hearts may be ofteu heated by the
lively and warra irapressions of the Spirit ;
yet by their innate corruptions, as it were,
their proper forra, like water heated, they are
quickly recovered to their native coldness.
In Job, xxvii. 10, Job says, " Will the hypo
crite always call upou God ?" Iraplying, I
conceive, that frora the motions of God's
Spirit he may engage very fairly in that duty,
though he fall short of continuance. See the
convincing works of God's Spirit upon
Ephraim, in Hosea, vi. 4 ; they wrought in
him sorae superficial beginnings of goodness ;
but, as it is there expressed, " it was like a
morning cloud," when teraptations arose it
posted away, aud " like the early dew," pre
sently drunk up by the scorching heat of
raging lusts. Now this resistance of the Spirit
is much more heinous thau the former, inas
much as the practice of holiness is greater
than a bare desire aud inclination to it. To
injure or offend hira that does but wish and
desire our good, argues little ingenuity ; but
to grieve and oppose him that actuallj' endea
vours it, shews a plain want of humanity.
For him who has maintained some communion
with the Spirit, and has "took sweet counsel
with him," so that they " have often walked
to the house of God iu company ;" I say, for
such an one to lift up his heel in acts of defi
ance aud resistance of the Spirit, this is very

grievous. When a man haa proceeded verjr
far in the mortification of his pride, his
drunkenness, his lust, for him to return again
to the same excess of riot, this is a more than
ordinary provocation. "When he, is upon a
fair advance to Zoar, to the " city of life" and
deliverance, for such an one to look hack upon
Sodom, aud cast an eye of desire upon
his forsaken filth ; it is just with God to
make such au one a wonder and a sad example
of his abused mercy. But this is the upshot
of all, this is the very dividing point where
the Spirit of God and the souls of raen break
and part for ever ; they find a cursed pleasure
in sin, and none in a course of duty : and so,
maugre all the entreaties and wooing convic
tions of the Spirit, they relinquish duty, and
return to siu.
3. The Spirit may be opposed in that con
vincing work, whereby it enables the will to
forsake some sins. This work bears some
affinity with the former, but it is not altoge
ther the same. I confess, to yield perfect
obedience to all God's commands does include
in it a forsaking of all sin, and is consequen
tially, yea and really, the sarae with it. Bnt
iraperfectly to execute some good duties, and
iraperfectly to leave sorae sius, which is here
intended, are two distinct things. Now that
the Spirit is able to work up a soul eveu to
this also, and that the soul is likewise able to
frustrate this work, these following scriptures
will deraonstrate. (2 Peter, ii. 20,) we have
some that, by the convincing help of the
Spirit, "had escaped the pollutions of the
world," they had washed their hands of all
those enormities that raged aud reigned in the
lives of grosser sinners. Yet in the sarae
verse we have these also " again entangled and
overcome by their lusts :" and thereufion
compared to the most filthy creatures, which
being washed, with mhch greediness return
to their beloved mire and defilements. In
Gal. iii. 3, we find sorae " who had begun in
the Spirit," yet in danger to have " ended in
the flesh ;" so treacherous is sin in its depar
ture, and so violent in its returns. Certainly
in these cases it seems to retire and draw
back, only to come on afterwards with a
greater assault. For the appetite of siu being
only restrained, uot taken away, it returns
after a while with more violent fury upon its
object : and like a thirsty man, the longer it
has forbore to drink of the pleasures of siu,
it takes so much deeper a draught of them at
length. Thus sin is ouly pent up in the soul
by main force of the Spirit ; but when it finds
the least vent, it lashes out to the purpose :
sorae cannot neglect duties as they used to do,
because the terrors of God are uporf their
souls ; sorae dare not venture upon their
forraer lewd courses, because the Spirit meets
them with the drawn sword of God's ven
geance, casting the very flashes of hell in their

ON GENESIS, vi. 3.

505

faces, if they step a foot into those ways. So
that here the siuner is indeed held in bonds,
but his sinful nature is still unchanged ; like
the devils themselves, who though they are
kept in chains, yet they are still devils in
chains. The soul has lost the present exercise
of sin, yet still retains the faculty : but at
length the Spirit having for a long time kept
the soul from its lust, as God did Balaam
from his covetousness, and still hearing it
crying and craving after its beloved corrup
tion : even as God let Balaam go upon the
like importunity, so the Spirit slacks his
hold, and lets the soul loose to its sin. And
then it sins at an high rate indeed ; better
were it for a man never to have given the
Spirit any room, any place in his heart, than
at length thus to turn it out. We may truly
say of this holy guest, " turpius ejicitur, quam
non admittitur;" yea safer had it been for
such a soul to have still wallowed in his sin,
than being once rescued from it, again to
apostatize to it. For this is to siu from
choice, and that from choice grounded upon
experience ; for having tried both ways, to
wit, those of the Spirit and those of sin, by
such returns to it he does aloud proclaim his
judgment to the world that sin is better.
And thus much concerning the second gene
ral head, to shew how many ways the Spirit
may be resisted : I proceed to the
III. To -shew the reasous why upon such
resistance the Spirit finally withdraws.
1. The first reason is drawn from God's
decree. This is that which bounds all things,
and fixes the freest operations of second
causes: the event of things iu themselves
merely contingent, by this decree is starapt
certain and infallible. It turns a casualty
into a certainty ; a contingency into a neces
sity. And as the actions of the creature are
limited and determined by this decree, so the
most free actions of God himself come also
within tbe restraining compass ofrthe same.
God purposes before he acts, and his purpose
it is the raeasure of his operations ; and what
God wills, he wills iramutably. His wisdom
and infinite knowledge foresees and debates all
inconveniences antecedently to every act of
volition ; and so there can be no new emergent
inconvenience that may unframe his resolu
tions and cause a change. Accordingly the
workings aud strivings of God's Spirit are
measured out aud bounded by this decree ; by
virtue of which its departure is firmly and
irreversibly intended, and sorae resistance of
it is thereby put beyond pardon. Some
think the like of the great sin against the
Holy Ghost, that it is not unpardonable from
its own nature, but from God's special decree ;
not because it is of so great malignity as to
surpass the extent of God's mercies, uor yet
because it is inconsistent with the meai^^ of
obtaining pardon ; but that God by an act of

sovereignty singled out this siu, and for the
glory of his justice, and the terror of those
that should abuse his grace, passed a decree
for ever to exclude it from all possibility of
remission. But thus much by way of digres
sion. Now this decree has not any active
influence or efficiency, so as actually to pro
duce or put in being the thing decreed. I
say the decree itself does not effect the thing,
but it engages God's veracity aud immutable
truth to see it certainly effected. There is
nothing therefore but, if we pursue it to its
first original, must of necessity terrainate in
this decree, as deriving from hence the first
rise and reason of its being. I say the reason,
though not the cause. In Ephes. i. 11, God
is said " to work all things according to the
counsel of his owu will." He resembles an
excellent artificer, who in all his works of art
has forelaid iu his mind a perfect model of his
intended fabric, before ever he sets the first
haud to it. It is finished iu the contrivance,
before it is so much as begun in the produc
tion. God says, " Shall I decree, and shall it
not come to pass ?" So by inversion we may
say. Shall any thing come to pass, and shall
not he decree? Would we kuow why the
Spirit of God departed from Judas, even to
the loss and perdition of his soul ? We have
au account in Johu, xvii. 12, it was, " that
the scriptures might be fulfilled ;" that is,
that the will or decree of God delivered in
scripture concerning Judas might be accom
plished. ., . i 11
Now what terrors should this strike into all
resisters of the Spirit, all prodigals of the
means of grace! Whosoever spends upon
mercy, spends upon a set allowance. God
has allotted and decreed to every man his
portion in the Spirit's workings, which, by
reason of the enforcing power of that decree,
he will never extend nor contract, diminish
nor augment. And since it is not knowu to
us in what point of our life God has set this
fatal bound, as it is a sovereign remedy to
prevent despair, that none might unadvised y
conclude against himself, that he had finally
resisted the Spirit : so, on the other hand, it
ought to be a strong argument to cut short the
outrageous progress of a presuming sinner,
since he knows uot but the very next sm he
is closing with, may separate between him
and the Spirit of God for ever. For shal
God lirait the natural days of our life, beyond
¦rtfhich we cannot pass, as it is in Job, xiv. 6,
and shall the days of the Spirit's striving with
us be undeterrained? Certainly what he says
of those may be said of the Spirit's workings,
« they are all numbered." And that they are
so will appear one day, when those exact bills
of our accounts, relating all our opposings even
of the sraallest motions of the Spirit, shall be
preferred aud read against us. Can we then
(as it is expressed in the prophet) disannul

.506

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Serm. LXI.

" God's covenant with day and night ?" Cin
we disappoint or change "the ordinances of
heaven and earth ?" Then raay we stretch
the fixed time of the Spirit's dealing with our
hearts beyond God's decree. Then raay we,
when our day of grace is expiring, cause the
sun of mercy to go ten degrees back-«'ard.
Alas! poor, inconsiderable, impotent men!
We must lay our raouths in the dust, and
give way to the irresistible decree of God for
ever. Can all the men iu the world, by the
uuited force of their power and policy, hinder
the sun from setting but for the space of one
hour ? nay, but of one moment ? And can
we weak sinful worras prolong our precious
day of grace at our pleasure ? True it is, the
mercy of God is infinite, aud his goodness past
finding out ; but he that has set bars and
doors to the sea has also set bounds to this
ocean of his mercy, and SJiid, Thus far shall
you come in your strivings with such a soul,
and no farther.
2. The second reason why the Spirit de
parts upon resistance, is because it is most
agreeable to the great intent and design of the
gospel. And this is twofold, suitable to which
the Spirit does accordingly appropriate a two
fold operation :
1. The first great gospel design is the con
verting and saving the elect ; and this is
accomplished byan effectual converting power.
which iu its addresses to the soul is invincible.
It does not persuade but overpower ; and
therefore never fails or miscarries, but effec
tually converts, sanctifies, and reduces the
soul. The infallible success of the work
depends upon the irresistible force of the
agent : by a happy, alluring, yet efficacious
violence it draws ; (Jereraiah, xxxi. 3, " With
loving-kindness have I drawn thee." Where
soever this power draws, the soul certainly
follows : I rather say certainly than necessa
rily, because necessity may seem to intrench
upon the free spontaneity of the will, although
it is clear that there is a kind of necessity
which is compatible with its freedom. The
drawing work of the Spirit it has the strength,
but uot the violence of coaction, (Luke, xiv.
23,) "Compel them to come in." There is a
compulsion indeed, but not such an one as is
against the will : but such an one as raakes it
willing. And tbis alone is sufficient to ener
vate the objections of those free-willers, that
exclaim of coaction and compulsion in an
irresistible converting work. Thus therefore
the Spirit effects God's great and priraary
gospel design, in calling horae his sheep, his
chosen ones, the objects of his eternal love :
and this is done by an effectual, never-failing
power in their vocation ; by which they are
fully instated iu their present possession of
grace, and sufficiently secured in their hopes
of glory for the future.
2. The second eud and design of the gospel

is to render reprobates inexcusable; and this
is no less eft'ectually done by the common
enlightening, convincing works of the Spirit,
which .are sufficient to take off all pleas, to
silence thera in their own defence, and to en
hance their guilt beyond excuse. It is con
fessed, the converting, renewing work of the
Spirit was never vouchsafed to any reprobate ;
they were never adraitted to share in the
children's bread. Yet God's denial of recover
ing grace cannot warrant them in a state of
sin. All, indeed, through Adam were gene
rally immersed iuto au equal plunge of raisery,
all were forlorn and broke, and as to the stock
of their first righteousuess totally bankrupt,
and the law still remains a rigid exactor of
obedience. The elect and reprobate both fell
from their righteousness, but God was pleaaed
to renew the store of the former, leaving the
latter destitute : but may not God even from
these, require perfect obedience, though they
have lost the power to perforra it ? A creditor
does not lose his right to his money, because
the debtor is unable to pay. Suppose a cre
ditor have two debtors, and both turn bank
rupt ; now if he of his own free cost and
favour supplies one, wherewithal to discharge
tho debt, may he not therefore demand it of
the other without the like supply ? Certainly
mercy to oue does not weaken or take off the
procedure ofthe law agaiust the other ; neither
our merits uor our misery can lay any obliga
tion upon God's grace. He that shall dare to
cavil and expostulate with his Maker at such
a rate of impiety and impudence, as the cor
rupt heart of man is apt to do; "Is it my
fault that I remain unconverted under all my
convictions? Had God vouchsafed to me con
verting grace as he did to others, I had been
converted as well as they ?" God will answer
the expostulations of such men, as he did
those, (Matt. xx. 13, 16,) " Friend, I do thee
no wrong." Is it not lawful to do with my
own free grace as I please? "Is thine eye
evil and malicious, because I am good?" Out
of my mercy I bestowed converting grace
upon such au unworthy sinner ; out of my
sovereignty I denied it to another, yet still
without any impeachment to my justice. His
justice is not at all injured when he confers
grace upon one, nor his mercy lessened when
he withholds it from another. However a
man may for a while please himself in such
objections against his Creator, and seem to
himself to unreason the equity of God's pro
ceedings ; yet there will be a time when the
sinner shall stand clearly convinced of the
righteousness of God's dealings iu his final
departure from him ; so as not to be able to
plead or reply any thing against hira in a
rational way to all eternity : and tbis of all
other will be the most stinging consideration,
the. most irksome and torraenting thought:
for if we observe the vilest, the most profligate

ON GENESIS, vi. 3.

507

malefactor, when he stands openly convict,
and that by the raost pregnant evidence, he is
apt to relieve his raind with such poor, perish
ing, forlorn persuasions, as, that he suffers
unjustly, that he has hard measure, and that
he smarts in the severe censures of men be
yond the raerit of his fact ; then, I say, the
slender comfort even of these apprehensions
will fail the sinner. For he shall evidently
find, and know himself utterly forsaken and
rejected by the Spirit, and withal, see it most
just and righteous that he should be so for
saken. This is that that will raost bitterly
gnaw and rack the proud heart of a reprobate,
when he shall be forced to acknowledge that
the Spirit's departure is not only his puuish
ment, but his desert : he shall theu confess,
that the Spirit was as real in his workings, as
he was peremptory iu his resistance : that he
was as pathetical and tender in the offers of
grace, as he was obstinate iu their refusal :
that the Spirit with much eagerness would
have often stepped betweeu him and the com
mission of his beloved sin, and that he with
as much veheraence rushed iuto it : that the
Spirit had used mauy forcible arguments to
conclude him into duty, and that he still flew
off; and when he could not answer them,
absolutely denied them. All these things, in
the disraal remembrance of them, will be like
so many -vultures devouring aud preying upon
a self-condemned soul.
But it may be here replied. What needs any
continuance of the Spirit's workings to ren
der a man inexcusable, since the very strivings
ofthe Spirit in natural conscience is sufficient
to effect this?
I answer ; that it is most true, that even
nature itself is able to cut off all excuse from
tbe mind of au awakened sinner : as is clear
from Rom. i. 20, where Paul, speaking of the
heathen, which were only acted by this prin
ciple, says, " that they were without excuse."
And again, iu Rom. ii. 15, we read of their
natural " consciences excusing and accusing
each other," according as their deeds were
good or evil. From whence it clearly follows,
that the motions of God's Spirit are contiuued
and vouchsafed to the impenitent under the
gospel, not barely to render them inexcusable,
but to render them iu a greater measure in
excusable, and to charge their irapenitence
with greater aggravations : for God intending
to the reprobates different degrees of punish
ments, it is requisite that in order to it, he
should present their sins under different aggra
vations. And thus we see God's two great gospel
designs; the first of them to convert the elect,
which is effected by the extraordinary power
of the Snirit ; the second to bereave the re
probate of excuse, which is accoraplished by
the ordinary strivings of it, in those convic
tions which in their issue prove ineffectual :

so that now the Spirit having finished the end
for which those workings were continued,
what in reason can follow, but the end being
acquired, those workings should cease ? In
human actions designed for the attainraeut of
auy end, wheu it is actually attained, the
continuation of that action is irrational and
absurd. And what is unsavoury and unbe-
seeraing in the actions of men, shall we
ascribe to those of the Spirit ? A man may
with as much reason set his reapers to work
when he lias finished his harvest, or set his
labourers to prune and lop his trees, which by
his own appointment they have alreadycut
down, as the Spirit continue his strivings
after he has fully accoraplished God's end
upon any sinner. He is sent only as God's
agent or ambassador to do his message, and
for a while to negotiate his business with the
hearts of the impenitent, not to take up his
fixed dwellingor habitation with them. There
fore it is most rational, that having done his
message, aud finished his embassy, he should
depart. 3. The third ground or reason why God
withdraws his Spirit upou our resistance, is
because it highly tends to the vindication of
his honour.
Now God may vindicate his honour two
ways in the Spirit's departure :
1. As it is a punishraent to the sinner, that
has dishonoured hira. God's glory cannot be
repaired but by the raisery of the party that
raade a breach upon it. God cannot be
glorious, till the offender is made miserable.
Now this is a punishment exactly correspou-
deut to the sin, that is, totally.spiritual. For
can there be a greater punishmeut for a sin
ner, than to be permitted to take a full swing
iu tbe free satisfaction of his lust? When
God bereaves a soul of his Spirit, there is, as
I may say, a decree passed iu the court of
heaven, in respect of that soul, for liberty and
toleration in sin. In this sense there is uo
distinction between the evil of sin and the
evil of punishment ; for the evil of sin is the
greatest evil of punishraent. If a man pos
sessed with frenzy should endeavour to
drown or stab himself, and being forcibly
withheld, should fight and strive to have his
will ; could there be any greater punishment
for his fighting and striving, than to be
delivered over to the free execution of his
intended raischief? We find the children of
Israel grieving, and even fretting God's Spirit,
in Ezek. xvi. 43, " Thou hast fretted me in j
all these things." Now what course does
God take to revenge himself? Does he
threaten them with the sword, with famine
and desolation? Does he give them over as
a prev to their eneraies, to be insulted over
by a "bitter captivity? No; but, what is
worse, that he may inflict spiritual judgraents,
he causes temporal judgments to cease ; in

508

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Serm. LXI.

verse 42, " I will make my fury toward thee
to rest, and my jealousy shall depart from
thee, and I will be quiet, and will be no raore
angry :" that is, his anger should grow to that
height, that it should be too great to be out
wardly expressed : it shonld buru inwardly :
and so it is much raore dreadful. The wind
when it breaks forth, it only shakes the trees ;
but when it is pent up and restrained within
the ground, it makes the very earth shake
aud trerable. Questionless, there is not an
expression in all God's word, that does more
fully and terribly hold forth God's anger,
than this wherein he says he will be angry no
more. It is clear therefore that God caunot
vindicate his honour by inflicting a greater
evil upon those that despise his Spirit, than
by withdrawing it. Then God punishes the
unjust man in a fearful way, wheu he inflicts
that matchless curse in Revel, xxii. 11, and
says, " He that is unjust, let him be unjust
still." Then does he take the sorest ven
geance of the unclean person, wheu he with
draws the pure raotions of his holy Spirit,
and says, " He that is filthy, let him be filthy
still." No penalty for sin so dreadful, as a
liberty to continue in sin.
2. God may vindicate his honour by clear
ing his injured attributes from those asper
sions that humau raistakes niight charge upon
them : for upon God's merciful, patient con
tinuance of his Spirit, after long opposition
made against it, from the facility of God's
forbearance, meu are prone to conceive other
wise of God than is either consistent with
their duty or his honour. But now, by thus
withdrawing of his Spirit, he does erainently
vindicate and recover the repute of his in
jured attributes, and of these two especially :
1. Of his wisdora. 2. Of his mercy.
1. He vindicates and asserts the honour of
his wisdom. I confess it is downright atheism
to deny God's wisdom iu words, aud few will
do it. But corruption is apt to think what
atheism only will avouch. And there is a
language of the heart which speaks clear
enough to God's dishonour, though uot to our
hearing. The voice of it in such a case is,
" How doth God know ? and is there know
ledge in the most high?" (Psalm Ixxiii. 11.)
Is it for God's wisdom to offer what he knows
will be rejected ; and to multiply his entrea
ties, that the sinner may only have occasion
to multiply affronts? Is it prudence to urge
and press a man with the continual offers of
that thing, which we know him to be fully
resolved for ever to refuse? Amongst men
there is none but the covetous and the foolish
that offer their gifts to those who they are
sure will not accept them. He that shall
give with the same importunity that others
ask, and shall entreat men to receive his
favours, plays the beggar in the midst of his
liberality. Now as long as the Spirit pro-

L

I rogues his workings after an obstinate resist
ance of them, so long he only seeks and sues
for a repulse ; he courts an affront. It is
mercy at first for God to send his Spirit ; but
wheu it is slighted, it is wisdom to revoke it.
2. He vindicates the honour of his mercy.
Such is the vileness of men, that even from
mercy itself they take occasion to blaspheme
mercy. For by thus presuming upon it, they
do not so much think or speak, as act their
blasphemies against it. He that goes on to
sin against mercy, he either thinks that God
knows it not, and so cannot punish hira ; or
that he is of so impregnable a clemency that
he will not. But as the forraer of these
strikes at God's omniscience, so the latter at
his mercy. For this is not properly mercy,
but fonduess; that is, au irrational mercy;
which we cannot add to God's nature, hut by
such additions we should diminish and de
tract from his perfection.
Now God by the departure of his Spirit
vindicates the honour of his mercy in a double
respect. 1. By shewing that it is no ways inferior,
much less contrary to his holiness. God's
attributes do not interfere uor clash : the
exercise of one does not justle out the other :
they are at perfect agreement : and mercy
will not enlarge itself to such a pitch as holi
uess will not warrant. God will let the
resisters of his Spirit see, that as he was
merciful to endure them so long, so he is too
holy to bear with them any longer. For
during the time of his forbearance, the re
pute of his holiness lies at stake. What glory
did God gain to his mercy, as it is in Psalm I.
by bearing with "such as consented with
thieves, as were partakers with adulterers, as
gave their mouth to slanders and reproaches?"
I say, what glory did he gain in verse 21,
"These things hast thou done, and I kept
silence ; and thou thoughtest that I was
altogether such au one as thyself?" Here we
see, in recompense of his forbearance, they
question his righteousness ; and from his per-
missiou conclude also his approbation of their
wickedness. 2. God in this vindicates the honour of his
mercy, by making it clear that it is not re
pugnant to his justice : nay, that it is not
only not repugnant to it, but also makes way
for a severer execution of it : and from hence
God may be said not only to be raerciful be
cause he will be merciful, but because he will
be just. Mercy neither can nor will rescue
an impenitent siuner from the hand of justice.
All the time that the infinite mercy of God is
striving and dealing with the heart of an
obstinate sinuer, his justice is like a sleeping
lion, ready to tear him in pieces whensoever
God shall awaken it. It is reported of
Dionysius, that setting to sea after he had
pillaged a temple, and having a very prospe-

ON GENESIS, vi. 3.

609

¦' 0 quam diis
are the gods

rous voyage, he cried out,
placet sacrilegium !" How
pleased with sacrilege ! The case of the obsti
nate siuner is not much unlike : when raen iu
the full pursuit of their sins find themselves
yet followed by the fresh gales of the Spirit
blowing upon their hearts, they are apt to
conclude, that God will still wait their leisure,
that these motions will be perpetual, and that
therefore they may take their own time to
accept of those terms, that they suppose will
be always offered : and consequently they will
venture to swear once more, to wantonize
once again, to take another sip or two of the
cup of intemperance, till the Spirit departs of
a sudden, and leaves them in a state of irre
coverable hardness and perdition. As chil
dren, when they play by the sea-shore, they
will in sport step a little into the water, and
presently a foot farther, and so on, till the
tide unexpectedly comes, and sweeps them
away beyond all possibility of return. As
long as au obdurate siuner goes ou resisting
the Spirit, eveu the angels of heaveii cry to
God, " How long, 0 Lord, holy aud just !"
"Where is the glory of thy holiuess, and thy
zeal for thy justice, that thou dost thus suffer
soprovoking,andyetsocontemptibleacreature to make a progress in his rebellion, to abuse
thy grace, and to affrout thy Spirit? Now
the righteous God is here even engaged to
withdraw his Spirit, and to vindicate the
honour of his mercy by the exercise of his
justice. 4. God withdraws his Spirit upon resis
tance, because this naturally raises in the
hearts of men au esteera aud valuation of the
Spirit" s workings : and the reason of this is,
because in so doing, men apparently see that
God himself puts an esteem and value upon
them, otherwise why should he so severely
bereave men of them upon their abuse? Were
it not a treasure, God would not be so choice
of it. God shewed what a value he put upou
his vineyard, by taking it from those hus
bandmen who had miseraployed it.
The great God is not jealous for a trifle.
God can continue worldly riches to men even
when they abuse them ; but if a spiritual
talent be raisimproved, it must be taken away.
Now upon whatsoever God shews his esteem,
it is natural for men, acting rationally, to
place theirs.
Now the esteem that the departure of the
Spirit begets upon their minds is twofold :
1. An esteem of fear. For this, like the
rest of God's judgments, is pasna ad unum,
terror ad omnes; a puuishment indeed to one,
bnt a terror to all. God in every punishmeut
does not intend revenge so much as example.
We read how the Spirit departed from Saul :
and certainly God designed it not only for a
judgment upon him, but also for a document
of fear to others ; otherwise, why do theso
a

things stand upon eternal record in scripture ?
Questionless the thought of this would put a
stop to any sober sinner ; it would give a re
striction to his appetite : and if there be any
thing that keeps the sinuer from causing the
Spirit to depart, it is the fear of his departure.
Meu are usually ruled and instructed by their
fears. It is the height of spiritual prudence
to draw caution from danger, to distil instruc
tion from punishments. And from a serious
consideration of the Spirit's final departure
from others, to secure it in its abode with our
selves. 2. The thought of this begets in the minds
of the godly an esteem of love. When they
shall know that God withdraws his Spirit
from the unworthy abusers of it, and yet con
tinues it to themselves notwithstanding all
their unworthiness, if there be auy but the
least grain of pious ingenuity iu them, they
caunot but reflect upon this distinguishing
love of God with melting returns of love and
affection. For who is there, eveu amongst the
most holy of men, but reflecting upon his own
heart must of necessity confess. Is there not
with me also au opposition to the Spirit, as
well as in others ? yet the Spirit has for ever
departed from them, aud still abides working
and striving with me. Singularity puts a
value and endearment upon mercy. Enjoy
ments that are peculiar are usually pre
cious. Application. You have heard that there is
a set time, after which the Spirit, being re
sisted, will cease to strive, aud depart : you
have also heard how mauy ways it may be re
sisted ; and withal, the several grounds and
reasons why it will withdraw upon such re
sistance. And now, what can be raore season
able than to wrap up all in the apostle's own
exhortation, (1 Thess. v. 19,) " Quench uot
the Spirit." It is clear therefore that it raay
be quenched. And if so, it will be our pru
dence to avoid all those courses that may not
only quench, but even cool it iu its workings.
Let every one be as careful and tender of
grieving the Spirit, as he would be of grieving
his ouly and his dearest friend. Believe it, it
is this Spirit alone that is able to stand by and
corafort you in all the disconsolate aud dark
passages of your lives. When he is gone, who
shall resolve and clear up all the doubts of our
misgiving and trerabling consciences? who
shall subdue all our corruptions ? who shall
bear up our desponding souls iu the midst of
afflictions ? who shall ward off the force aud
fire of temptations? Our own deceiving
hearts, an alluring world, a tempting Devil,
and all the powers of sin aud hell, will be let
loose upon us : and, what is the greatest
misery of all, being deprived of the Spirit, we
shall have nothing to oppose them ; no second
to assist us. Be ready therefore to entertain
it iu all its motions ; to cherish all its sugges-

510

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Skrm. LXI.

tions : whensoever it knocks at the door of
your hearts, (as it often does,) stand prepared
to open to it, and receive it with joy. "When
it speaks to you in the word, answer, as
Samuel did, " Speak, Lord for thy servant
hears." When it seeras to pull you from sin,
and says, " Do not that abominable thing
which my soul hates ;" draw back your hands
from the comraissiou of it, and do it not for a
world. When it enables you to relinquish
aud forsake some sins, never rest till you have
forsaken thera all. "When it raises you to the
perforraance of sorae good duties, still press
forward to perfection : let every holy motion
aud desire be improved into a holy action :
but if you should at any time chance to
grieve or oppose him, (as we do all of us too,
too frequently,) yet be sure that you persist
not in it, but recover yourselves by a speedy
and a serious humiliation. Mourn over your
disobedience, pray fervently for an obedient
heart. Assuredly you will hereafter find, that
it is better thus to strive with God in prayer,
than with the Spirit in his workings. Now
as arguments to dissuade or deter you from
this, and withal to persuade and excite you
to the former, take these motives :
1st, Our resisting of the Spirit iu his pre
cepts and instructions will certainly bereave
us of his comforts. Now tbe office of the
Spirit consists in these two great works, to
instruct and to comfort. The same Spirit that
in John xvi. 7, is termed a " Comforter," in
the thirteenth verse is s.aid to be a guide " to
load into all truth." Where we must note,
that his comforting work always presupposes
and follows his work of instruction ; yea, and
it is dispensed to raen as a reward for their
obedience to tbat : nay, before this work pass
upon the soul, it is not capable of the other.
For the Spirit to pour in comfort to au im
pure heart, before it is qualified and cleansed,
and as it were prepared, by its instructing,
convincing work ; it is as if a physician should
administer cordials to a corrupt, foul body;
they would do much more hurt than good,
till the ill humours are purged aud evacuated.
He that will not be reformed cannot be com
forted. God has inseparably joined these two
together, and therefore it is presumption for
any to hope to divide and put them asunder ;
as it is iu Rom. xiv. 17, " righteousness and
joy iu the Holy Ghost" go linked together.
Purity aud spiritual joy are as closely uuited
as sin and sorrow. It is iu vain to catch at
one and balk the other. He that will not
obey the Spirit as his instractor, shall never
enjoy him as a comforter.
Now the reason that such as resist the Spirit
cannot enjoy his comforts, is, because this re
sistance is inconsistent with those ways by
which the Spirit speaks comfort ; and these
are two :
1. The Spirit speaks comfortably, by giving

a man to understand his interest in Christ,
and consequently in the love of God. But it
is impossible for hira that resists the Spirit to
be sure of any of these, inasrauch as he falls
under those qualifications that render a man
the proper object of God's hatred, and totally
estranged frora Christ ; (1 Johu, iii. 6,)" Who
soever abideth iu Christ sinneth not; and
whosoever sinneth hath neither seen nor
knowu him." I suppose it will he easily
granted, that he who acts in a continual re
pugnancy to God's Spirit, by a despisal of all
his holy motions and suggestions, sins, and
that at a very high strain ; and upon this
concession, this scripture will unavoidably
conclude him so far unacquainted with Christ,
as neither to have seen uor known him. And
can we rationally imagine, that he who has
neither seen nor known Christ can have any
sure interest in him ? He that is interested
iu Christ is his friend ; (John, xv. 16,) " I call
you not servants, but friends :" but he that is
not so rauch as an acquaintance cannot pos
sibly be a friend. And for any interest in
God's love, he is totally excluded from that ;
(Psalm xi. 6,) " The wicked his soul hateth."
And such are all resisters of God's Spirit,
wicked iu the highest, xxt i^oxm and by way
of erainence. Now how can the Spirit con
vey comfort to such persons? To whom if i
he reports the truth, as the Spirit of truth i
can do no otherwise, he must tell them that i
they are aliens to Christ, strangers to the co- I
venant, eneraies to God, haters of him, and
therefore hated by him. Now if these cau be
arguments of comfort, theu he that resists i
God's Spirit may be comforted. |
2. The second way by which the Spirit !
comforts a man, is by discovering to him that i
grace that is within him ; that is, uot only j
by clearing up God's love to him, but also by
making him see his love to God. The strength
of this, as it is an argument of comfort, lies
here. Because our love to God it is the j
proper effect, and therefore the infallible sign '
of God's love to us, which is the great basis
and foundation of all comfort. We therefore
love because we were first beloved. But can
the love of God abide in him who resists and
does despite to his Spirit ? Can any one at
the same tirae fight like an enemy and love
like a friend? The sinner cannot give any
true evidence of his love to God inasmuch as
a continual, obstinate resistance of the Spirit
is inconsistent with grace ; and it implies a
contradiction for any one to love God, and to
oppose that Spirit, that is a Spirit of love.
And thus it is clear, that such as resist the
Spirit's strivings cannot share in his comforts.
And how inconceivably sad and miserable it
is to want them, noue knows so much as
those that have wanted them. If God should
let loose all the sorest afflictions of this life
upon you, and should awaken j'our consciences

ON GENESIS, vi. 3.

511

to accuse you, and withal possess your guilty,
despairing souls with a lively sense of his
wrath for sin, and fill you with the terrors of
hell, so that you should even roar by reason
of the disquietness of your hearts, as he had
done to sorae, aud particularly to David, you
would then know what it is to have the Spirit
as a comforter. However, when you corae to
look death in the face, and are upon your
passage into eternity, and presently to appear
before God in judgment, then you will prize
the comforts of the Spirit. And if you ever
hope to enjoy them at that disconsolate hour,
beware how you resist his strivings now.
The second motive why we should comply
with the Spirit is because the resisting of it
brings a raan under hardness of heart and a
reprobate sense. Now a man is then said to
be under a reprobate sense, when he has lost
all spiritual feeling ; so that when heaven and
the joys thereof are displayed before him, he
is not at all affected with desire ; when hell
and wrath and eternal misery are held forth
to him, he is not moved with terror.
Now resisting of the Spirit brings this hard
ness upon the heart two ways :
1. By way of natural causation. Hardness
of heart is the proper issue and effect of this
resistance. Every act of opposition to the
Spirit disposes the soul to resist it farther ; as
the reception of one degree of heat disposes
the subject to receive the second, and the
second the third, till it arrives to the highest.
And the more frequent the Spirit's workings
have been, the heart grows more insensible
and hard ; as a path, by often being trod, is
daily more and more hardened. Custom in
sin produces boldness in sin ; and we know
boldness is for the most part grounded upon
the insensibility of danger.
2. This resistance brings hardness of heart,
by way of a judicial curse from God. It causes
God to suspend his convincing and converting
grace; whereupon the sinner is more and
more established and confirmed in his siu. It
is not to be questioned but the hardness of
Pharaoh's heart at the time of his destruction
had in it something of puuishment as well as
sin ; and was penally inflicted upon him as a
judgment for his irrational hardness uuder
God's former judgraents. I shall allege no
more examples ; this is sufficient to demon
strate how dreadful a thing it is to be punished
with a hard heart. It is this alone, to say
no more of it, that renders all the means of a
mau's salvation utterly ineffectual.
The third motive is, because resisting of
the Spirit puts a man iu the very next dis
position to the great and unpardonable sin
against the Holy Ghost. For this dreadful
sin is only a greater kind of resistance of the
Spirit. And all the foregoing acts of resis
tance are like so many degrees and steps lead
ing to this. For since a man cannot presently

and on tbe sudden arrive to the highest pitch
of sin, there are required sorae previous ante
cedent dispositions to enlarge, and, as^ it were,
make room in the heart for the admission of
so great a sin as this. All former oppositions
of the Spirit empty their malignity into this
one, which virtually includes them all, as
rivers erapty themselves into the sea. It is
confessed a man may frequently oppose the
Spirit, aud yet not commit this great sin ; yet
none ever coraraitted this sin, but such as had
before frequently resisted the Spirit. Some
indeed make the sin against the Holy Ghost
to be only a blasphemous rejection of the
external objective testiraony of the Spirit,
that is, of his miracles, by which he attested
the truth of the gospel, so as to ascribe them
to the Devil. But as for a wilful, malicious
opposing of the internal, efficient persuasion
of the Spirit upon the heart, they doubt
whether the nature of mau is capable of such
au act. Here, not to exclude the forraer from
being the siu against the Holy Ghost, certain
it is, that the general judgments of di-vines do
agree in the latter. And Hebrews, vi.4— 6,
seems not obscurely to evince the sarae.
Aud thus you have seen that way marked
out before you that leads to the sin against
the Holy Ghost. Therefore it neariy concerns
all resisters of the Spirit to bethink themselves
whither they are going, and to beware that
they do not slide into that that is unpardon
able. It is wisdom timely to depart from
your sins, before the Spirit finally departs from
you. I hope there is none here that either
has or ever shall coramit this great siu ; yet
consider, which certainly is terror enough to
a considering mind, that if you go on, and
still proceed to resist the Spirit, it is possible
that you raay. And in things that concern
the everiasting ruin of an imraortal soul,
miserum est posse si velis. It is a raiserable
aud a dangerous thing to be able eternally to
undo yourselves if you will. Wherefore 1
should now entreat and advise all, as they
desire the comforts of the Spirit, as they tender
the good of their precious, never-dying souls,
as they wish for the unspeakable satisfaction
of a peaceable conscience, as they hope to
enioy the refreshing sense of God's love here,
and to behold his face with joy hereafter, that
they would forbear to resist the strivings of
the Spirit ; for if we still go on farther anu
farther, till we come to resist him so far, he
will then seal and fit us for wrath and judg
ment in this worid, and then actually deliver
us up to it in the next.

510

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Serm. LXII.

SERMON LXII.
' For I say unto you. That unless your righteousness exceed
the righteousness of the scribes and pharisees, ye shall in no
case enter into the kingdom of heaven." — Matt. v. 20.
i! We have here the great doctor of souls in
his sermon upon the mount applying himself
to the great business of souls, their eternal
happiness and salvation ; a thing aimed at by
all, but attained by few. And since there
can be no rational direction to the end, but
what is laid in the prescription of the means,
he shews them the most effectual course of
arriving to this happiness that is imaginable ;
and that is, partly by discovering those ways
and means by which meu come to miss of
salvation ; and partly by declaring those other
ways by which alone it is to be attained : first
he shews them how it canuot be acquired ;
and secondly how it may. It cannot be
attained by " the righteousness of the scribes
and pharisees ;" it may be attained by such
an one as does exceed it.
In order to the understanding of the words,
I must premise some short explication ofthese
three things :
I. Who and what these scribes and pharisees
were. II. What is here meant by " righteousness."
III. and lastly. What by " the kingdom of
heaven." I. And first for the first, who these scribes
aud pharisees were. It would be both tedious,
and, as to our present business, superfluous
to discourse exactly of the original and ways
of the several sects that about the time of
our Saviour infested the Jewish church ; such
as were the Sadducees, Pharisees, Essenes,
and Herodians. Let it suffice us, therefore,
to consider so much of them as may contri
bute to the clearing of the text ; which is,
that these pharisees were a powerful ruling
sect araongst the Jews, professing and pre
tending to a greater sanctity of life and purity
of doctrine than any others. Upon which
account they gave denoraination to their sect
frora pharash, a word iraporting separation ;
as that they were raen who had sequestered
and set apart theraselves to the study and
pursuit of a more sublime piety aud strict
ness of life thau the rest of raankind ; as also
such as gave the best interpretations of the
Mosaic law, not ouly expounding, but also
correcting and perfecting it where it was de
fective. Iu which respect they struck in with the
scribes. For pharisee is the narae of a sect,
sc'ribe of an office ; and signifies as much as a
doclor, one whose employment it was to in

terpret and expound the law to the people in
their synagogues. So that in short the scribes
and pharisees amongst the Jews were snch as
owned theraselves for the strictest livers and
the best teachers in the world.
IL The secoud thing to be explained is,
what our Saviour here means by righteousnm.
The word may have a twofold acception :
1. It may import a righteousness of doc
trine ; such an one as is to be the rule and
measure of the righteousness of our actions.
2. It may iraport a righteousness in point
of practice ; that is, such an one as denomi
nates a man just or righteous ; as the former
properly denominates a man only sound or
orthodox. And now, according to these two senses, as
righteousness is twice raentioned in the text ;
so it is first mentioned in one sense, and then
in the other.
The righteousness called by our Saviour the
" righteousness of the pharisees," signifies the
righteousness taught by the pharisees, which
is manifest from the whole drift of the chap
ter. In all which throughout, it is evidently
Christ's design to oppose the purity of his
doctrine in the clear exposition of the law, to
the corrupt and pernicious expositions that
the pharisees gave of tho same.
But then the other righteousness, called by
our Saviour " your righteousness," imports a
righteousness of practice, a pious life, or a
course of evangelical obedience. So that the
sense of our Saviour's words, taken more at
large, runs thus : Unless you pursue and live
up to a greater measure of piety than what
the scribes and pharisees teach and prescribe
you iu their perverse and superficial glosses
upon the law of Moses, you will find it in
finitely short and insufficient to bring you to
heaven. Your lives must outdo your lessons.
You must step farther, and bid higher, or you I
will never reach the price and purchase of a
glorious immortality.
III. The third and last thing to be ex
plained is, what our Saviour here means by
" the kingdom of heaven :" for there are three
several significations of it in Scripture.
1. It is taken for the state and economy of
the church under Christianity, opposed to the
Jewish and Mosaic economy ; in which seuse
that known speech both of John the Baptist
and of our Saviour is to be understood, in
which they told the world, " that the king
dom of heaven was at hand ;" that is, that the
Mosaic dispensation was then ready to expire
and cease, and that of the Messiah to take
place. 2. It is sometimes taken for the kingdom
of grace, by which Christ rules in the hearts
of men. In which sense those words of his
to the young man are to be understood in
Mark, xii. 34, " Thou art not far from the
kingdom of God." That is, Thou art not far
=^_,=:^^_^^^,,,^^,^^_^^_  ^J

ON MATTHEW v. 20.

513

from sueh a frame and disposition of spirit, as
fits a man to be my disciple and subject, aud
so brings him uuder the spiritu.al rule of my
sceptre. 3. and lastly. It is taken for the kingdom
of glory, which is the prime and most emi
nent acception of it ; and which I conceive is
intended here ; though I deny not but sorae
would have it expounded in the first of these
three senses.
But besides that the natural aspect of the
phrase seeras to favour this interpretation,
the word " entering into" much more easily
denoting a passage into another place, than
merely into another state or condition ; the
same is yet farther evident frora hence, that
an entrance into the kingdom of beaven is
here exhibited as the end and reward that
men propose to themselves as attainable by
the righteousness of their lives, and conse
quently to commence npon the expiration of
them ; which therefore cau be nothing else
bnt a state of blessedness in auother world.
These things premised by way of explica
tion, we may take the entire sense of the
words in these three propositions :
I. That a righteousness is absolutely neces
sary to the<Bttainraent of salvation. Which
is an assertion of such self-evidence, and so
universally granted by all, in appearance at
least, that to cast any remark upon it might
at most seem ridiculous, did not so raany iu
the world contradict their profession by their
practice; and while they own designs for
heaven, yet indeed live and act as if they were
candidates of hell and probationers for dara
nation. 2. As a righteousness is necessary, so every
degree of righteousness is uot sufficient to
entitle the soul to etemal happiness. It
must be such an one as exceeds, such an one
as stands upon higher ground, than that which
usually shews itself in the lives and conver
sation of the generality of raankind.
Sdly, and raore particularly. That righteous
ness that saves and lets a man into the king
dom of heaven, raust far surpass the best and
the greatest righteousness of the raost refined
and glistering hypocrite in the world.
' Which proposition, as virtually containing
in it both the former, shall be the subject of
j the following discourse. And the prosecution
ofit shall lie iu these three things :
i I. To shew the defects of the hypocrite's
j righteousness, here expressed by " the righ-
i teousness of the scribes and pharisees," and
I declared for such an one as cannot save.
II. To shew those perfections and condi-
I tions by which the righteousness that saves
I and brings to heaven does transcend aud sur-
j pass this.
I III. and lastly. To shew the grounds and
reason of the necessity of such a righteousness
in order to a man's salvation.
TOL. 11.

And first, for the defects of the hypocritical,
pharisaical righteousness, we may reckon
several :
1. As first, that it consisted chiefly in the
external actions of duty ; never taking care of
the inward deportment of the soul, in the
regulation of its thoughts, wishes, and affec
tions ; in the due composure of wbich consists
the very spirit and vital part of religiou.
The pharisees taught the Jews, that he who
imbrued not his hand iu his brother's blood
was no murderer, and that he who defiled not
his neighbour's bed could uot be charged with
a violation of that command that forbade
adultery. So that it seems, according to
them, a raan might innocently burn with
malice and revenge, lustful and impure
thoughts, so long as he could keep the furnace
stopped, and prevent them from breaking
forth and raging in gross outward commis
sions. Thus (as our Saviour told thera) making
clean the outside of the platter, and smoothing
the surface of their behaviour, while their
inward parts were full of all noisoraeness,
filth, and aboraination. The hypocrite and
the pharisee, like sorae beasts, are only
valuable for their skin and their fine colours ;
so that after all their flourishes of an outward,
disserabled piety, all those shows of abstinence
and severity, by which they arause the eyes
of the easy, credulous world, we cannot say
properly of any one of them, that he is a good
man, but only a good sight ; and that too,
because we cannot see all of hira.
Such persons are not the temples or habi
tations, but the sepulchres of piety ; aud we
know that when we have seen a sepulchre,
we have had the best of it : for there is none
so ill a friend to his other senses, as to search
or look into it any farther. The pharisees
were thought and accounted by the deluded
vulgar the greatest heroes in piety, the high
est and most advanced proficients in the
school of religion, of all others whatsoever ;
so that at the same tirae they were both the
glory and the reproach of the rest of their
brethren the Jews, whora they seemed to
obscure, and even to upbraid, by their vast
transcendency in the ways of sanctity and
devotion : and yet our Saviour gives you the
very original and spring-head of all those
shining performances, in Matt, xxiii. 5, where
he tells you, " that all'their works they did to
be seen of raen." It was the eye of the
world that they courted, and not the eye of
heaven that they feared. Otherwise, surely
they would have tliought themselves respon
sible for all the villainy and hypocrisy of
their hearts ; for all their bosom-cabinet-
concealed impurities; since all these were as
open to the eye of God's searching omniscience,
and as odious to the pure eye of his holiness,
as murders or robberies coraraitted in the
2k

il4

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Serm. LXII.

face of the sun, aud revenged upon the actors
of thera by the hand of public jiistice.
And where these were cherished by the
inward affections and approbations of the
heart, demure looks, long prayers, aud en
larging of phylacteries, were but pitiful, thin
arts to recommend tbera to the acceptance of
that God, who looks through appearances, .and
pierces iuto the heart, and ransacks the very
bowels and entrails of the soul, rating all our
services according to the frarae and teraper of
that. For being a spirit, he judges like a
spirit, and cannot be put off with dress and
dissimulation, paint and varnish ; and the
fairest outward actions of duty, not springing
from an inward principle of piety, aro uo
better, in the sight of him who abominates
nothing more than a foul heart couched under
a fair behaviour.
2. A second fault and flaw in this righteous
ness was, that it was partial and imperfect,
not extending itself equally to all God's
coraraands : some of which the pharisees
accounted great ones, and accordingly laid
sorae stress upon the observation of them :
but some again they accounted but little ones,
and so styled them in their common phrase,
and shew as little regard to them in their
practice. Which defect, as it was eminent in them,
so it is also common to every hypocrite iu the
world, who never comes up roundly to the
whole compass of his duty, even then when
lie makes the raost porapous show ; but
singles out some certain parts, which perhaps
suit best with his occasions, and least thwart
Ilia corruptions, leaving the rest to those who
may like them better. As the proud or
unclean person may be liberal and charitable
to the poor, frequent in the service of God,
abhor a lie, or a treacherous action, with
many other the like duties, that do not
directly grate upou the darling sin that ho is
tender of : but what says he all this tirae to
those precepts that charge his pride and his
uncleanness? God calls upon hirn to be
hurable as well as cliaritable, to be pure and
chaste, as well as devout ; nor will it suffice
hiiu to chop and change one duty for another ;
he cannot clear his debts by piaying part of
the great sum he owes. The obligation of the
law is universal and uniform, and carries au
equal aspect to every instance of religiou
lying within the compass of its command.
Upon which account it is said, (James, ii. 10,)
that " he that offends in one is guilty of all."
For by so doing he breaks the whole chain of
duty, which is as really broke and divided by
the breach of one link, as if every one of them
was took asunder. Nor is it otherwise in the
laws of men. For surely he that is convict of
murder has no cause to excuse that violation
of tbe law upon this account, that he is no
thief or traitor : the law is as really though

not as broadly violated by one transgression
as by a thousand : and whosoovcr lives, and
allows himself in the constant neglect of any
one of Christ's commands, and expects to bo
saved upon the stock of his obedience to the
rest of them, (though oven the supposition of
such au obedience is absolutely impossible,)
that mail has a hope altogether as absurd,
sottish, and ridiculous, in reference to his
future s.alvation, as if in the foreraentioned
case a convict murderer should think to
escape the sentence aud execution of death,
by pleading tliat he never broke open a
house, nor conspired the death of his prince,
or bore his share in a public rehellion : how
would every ono hiss and explode such a
defence !
David knew that there was no building any
solid confidence upon a parcelled, curtailed
obedience ; and therefore he states his hope
upon such an one as was entire and uni
versal, (Psalm cxix. 6,) " Then shall I not be
ashamed, when I have respect to all thy com
mandments." Evory disappointment cer
tainly draws after it a shame ; and whosoever
hopes to stand before God's tribunal in the
strength of a righteousness maimed in any one
integral part of it, will havo a defeat and a
disappointraent cast upon his greatest expec
tation and his highest concernment ; he will
be lurched in that that admits of no after
game or reparation.
God exacts of every soul that looks to enter
into the kingdora of heaven a perfect righteous
ness ; perfect, I say, with a perfection of sin
cerity, which is a perfection of parts, though
not of degrees : that is, there is no one grace
or virtue but a Christian must have it before
ho can be saved : though such is the present
state of huraan infirraity, that he caunot in
this life attain to the highest degree of that
virtue. But as an infant is a man, because
he has all the parts of a man, though ho has
them not in that bulk and strength that those
have who aro grown up ; so ho is righteous
and sincere who perforins every divine pre
cept, omitting uo ono of thora, though his
performances havo not that perfection and
exactness that is to be found in the obedience
of a person glorified and made perfect. How
ever, still we see that universality is required,
and an equal compliance with all the divine
precepts. For as it is not a handsome eye,
a handsome hand, or a handsome leg, but
an universal symmetry and just proportion of
all the raembers aud features of the body,
tbat makes a handsome man ; so neither is
it the practice of this or that virtue, but an
entire complexion of all, that must render
and denorainate a raan righteous in the sight
of God. And therefore it was infinite folly
in the pharisees to be exact in otiier things,
even to the tithing of rue and cummin, and
iu the meantime to lop off the force and de-

ON MATTHEW v. 20.

516

sign of a grand precept of the law, by allow
ing raen in sorae cases not to pay honour
to their parents ; as we read in Mark, vii.
10 — 13, making it a daranable sin forsooth
to deprive the priest of a salad, but a very
allowable thing to suffer a parent to starve
with hunger. But when such a deluded
wretch shall brave up his accounts to God,
" that he prayed often, fasted twice a-week,
paid tithe of all that he had ;" what will he
answer, when God shall reply upon him ;
Ay, but, friend, what have you done for your
distressed father and mother? Your bowels
have been shut np to your nearest kindred,
and you have not relieved the poor, though
recommended with the dearest relation.
Then he will find, that the perforraance of
one duty can be no recompense for the orais
sion of another.
Men should raeasure their righteousness by
the extent of Christ's satisfaction for siu,
which was far frora being partial or imper
fect ; it grasped and coraprehended all the
sius that either were or could be committed.
And if, in the application of this satisfaction
to any soul, Christ should take all the sins of
it npon his own score, one only excepted,
that one sin would inevitably expose it to the
fiill stroke of God's vengeance, and sink it for
ever into endless perdition.
Let a man therefore shew me any oue part
of the law, for the transgression of which
Christ did not shed his blood ; and for the
pardon of which the merits of that blood
must not be iraputed to him, if ever it is par
doned; and I will grant, that in the general
rules and obligations of obedience, that part
of the law admits of an exception, and con
sequently obliges not his practice : but Christ
knew full well how imperfect a Saviour and
Redeemer the world would have found hira,
had he not paid a price to divine justice for
every even the least and most despised devia
tion from the law. One peccadillo, as sorae
phrase it, if not satisfied for, had been enough
to crack and confound the whole system of
the creation, aud to have lodged the whole
mass of mankind eternally in the bottomless
pit. From all which it appears, that the partial,
mangled obedience that the hypocrite or the
pharisee pays to the divine precepts, can en
title him to no right of entrance into the
kingdom of heaven : there is uo coming
thither with a piece of a wedding garment,
with the ragged robe of a half and a curtailed
righteousness : and the righteousuess of the
most eminent unregenerate professor araounts
to no more, who is never so clear and entire
in duty, but that he has his reserves, his
allowances, and exemptions from some severe,
troublesome precept or other, that he is re
solved to dispense with himself iu the obser
vance of ; as never worshipping God but with

a proviso, that he may still bow in the house
of his beloved Rimraon.
3. The third defect of this pharisaical un
sound righteousness is, that it is legal ; that
is, such au one as expects to win heaven upon
the strength of itself and its own worth.
Which opinion alone were enough to erabase
the very righteousness of angels in the sight
of God so far, as to render it uot only vain,
but odious ; and to turn the best of sacrifices
into the worst of sins. It is an affrout to
mercy for any one to pretend raerit. It is to
pull Christ down from the cross, to degrade
hira from his mediatorship ; and, in a word,
to nullify and evacuate the whole work of
man's rederaption.
For, as Saint Paul argues most irrefragably,
" if righteousness is by the law, then is Christ
dead in vain :" since upon this supposition
there can be uo necessity of Christ or Christi
anity ; and the gospel itself were but a need
less aud a superfluous thing : for it is but for
a man to set up aud traffic for heaveu upou
his owu stock ; aud to say to hiraself, " I will
do this, and live : ray own arm shall bring
salvation to me, and ray righteousness shall
uphold me."
Bnt who art thou, O vain man ! that durst
reason thus about thy eternal state ? when, if
God should enter into judgment with the best
of his servants, " no flesh living could be
justified in his sight :" a sight that endures
not the least unpardoned, unremitted trans
gression ; that " charges the very angels with
folly." So infinitely exact, searching, and
spiritual, is the eye of divine justice, and so
vastly great is the prize of glory that we run
for, so much higher and more valuable than
our choicest and most elaborate performances !
And can we think then, that a few broken
prayers, a few deeds of charity, a few fastings
and abstinences, and restraints of our appe
tites, will carry in them such a coraraanding,
controlling value, as to bear us through God's
tribunal, and to make the doors of heaveu fly
open before ns, that we may even with the
confidence of purchasers enter aud take pos
session of the mansions of glory ? Some per
haps may thiuk so, who suppose they can
never think too well of themselves.
But as arrogant as such a thought is, its
arrogance is not greater than its absurdity.
For as Job says, "Who cau bring a clean
thing out of au unclean ?" And as our Savi
our, " Who can gather figs from thistles ?" or
the grapes of a perfeot righteousness from the
briers and thorns of a corrupt and degenerate
nature? Since the ruins of our faculties by
original 'sin, let the devoutest and the sin
cerest Christian in the world bring rae the
best and the exactest duty that ever he per
forraed, and let hira sift, exaraine, and com
pare it to the rigid measures of the law, and
the holiness of the divine nature, and then

516

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Serm. LXII.

let him venture the whole issue of his eternal
happiness upon it if he dares. Did men con
sider how many thiugs go to the making of
an action perfectly good, and how many such
good actions are required to integrate and
perfect a legal righteousness ; it were impos
sible for them to reflect with auy fondness
upon the very best of their services, which
are always allayed with such mixtures of
weakness and imperfection.
And therefore let uot any pharisee be too
confident ; for be his righteousness what it
will, yet if he hopes to justify himself by it,
he will fiud that persons justified iu this man
ner are never glorified. Men raay saint them
selves as they please ; but if they have nothing
to read their saintship in but their own rubric,
they raay chance to find themselves condemned
in heaven, after they have been canonized on
earth. And thus I have shewn the three great
defects cleaving to the righteousness of the
pharisee, who is here represented as the grand
exemplar and standard of hypocrisy ; all
hypocrites more or less partaking of both the
uature and defects of the pharisaical righteous
ness. And if we now grant, as with great
truth and readiness we may, that the pharisee
or hypocrite may live up to such glorious
externals and visible shows of religiou, as to
astonish the world with an admiration of his
sanctity ; so that in the judgment and vogue
of all, he shall stand heir apparent to a crown
of glory and iraraortality ; which yet in
reality and truth he has no more title to, than
he who acts the part of a king upon the stage
has a claim to a sceptre or a kingdom : then
what judgraent can we pass upon the gene
rality of meu tbat wear the narae of Chris
tians, and upon that account seem big with
expectations of a glorious eternity, yet are as
much short of a pharisaical righteousness, as
that is short of sincerity ? Alas ! they are
not arrived so far as to approve themselves to
the eye of the world, so far as to appear godly,
or so much as to be mistaken for religious.
But by an open sensuality and profaneness, their
behaviour seeras a constant defiance of heaven,
and a confutation of their religion. It were
worth the knowing by what reasonings and
discourses such raen support their minds and
reconcile their future hopes to their present
practices : for if he, whom the world judges a
saint, may yet be " in the gall of bitterness "
and " a son of perdition," is it possible that
such au one, whose actions proclaim him even
to the world for a reprobate and a castaway,
should yet indeed be a pious and a sincere
person ? No, assuredly ; for though the piety
of a 'man's outward actions raay very well
consist with the villainy of his heart, yet it
is irapossible, on the other hand, for a life
outwardly bad, to be consistent with an
heart inwardly good ; and those that set forth

for heaven in the contrary persuasion and
principle, when they meet with hell in their
journey's end, will find that they missed of
their way.
And thus much for the first thing, which
was, to shew the defects of the hypocritical,
pharisaical righteousness. I proceed now to
the Second, which is, to shew those perfections
and qualities by which the righteousness that
saves and brings to heaven does transcend and
surpass that. Many might be recounted, but
I shall insist upon four especially.
1. As first, that it is entirely the same,
whether the eye of mau see it or see it not.
It cau do its alms where there is no trumpet
to sound before it, and pray fervently where
there is no spectator to applaud it. It finds
the same enlargements aud flowings of affec
tion when it pours forth itself before God in
private, as when it bends the knee in the
solemn resorts of the multitude, and the face
of the synagogue. It is contented, that the
eye of Omniscience is upou it, and that it is
observed by him who sees in secret, as scorn
ing to move upon the inferior raotives of
popular notice and observation.
For it acts by a principio that holds no
intercourse with the world, even the pure
abstracted love of God, which would be as
active and operative, if there were no other
person in the world but him alone in whose
breast it is. And therefore there is no ex
ternal interest that can bear any share in the
heat aud activity of such an one's devotion.
It needs no company to keep it warm. For
he transacts with God, and with God alone;
so that if he can be heard above, he cares not
whether or no he is seen here below.
But it is rauch otherwise with the hypo
crite ; his devotion grows cold, if uot warmed
with the crowd and the throng. He designs
uot to be, but to appear religious. He can
willingly want the inward part of a Christian,
so he may be esteemed and coraraended for
the outward. For as it is said of some vain
glorious pretenders to science, that they desire
knowledge, not that they may know, but that
they may be known ; so sorae affect the garb
of the pious and the austere, who abhor the
rigours of a real and a practical piety. They
cau be infinitely pleased with the dress and
fashionable part of religion, while they hate
and loathe the grim duties of self-denial and
mortification. In short, they are like fire
painted upon an altar ; they desire not to be
hot, but only to shine and glister.
And it is this worthy principle that brings
so many to the worship of God, only to court
the eye of some potent, earthly great one, who
perhaps commands and lords it over their
hopes and their fears ; so that when he is pre
sent, they will be sure to be so too ; and when
he is absent, they can be as ready to turn their

ON MATTHEW, v. 20.

617

back upon heaven, and to think it below their
occasions, if not also their prudence, to sacri
fice business to prayer, which is a thing that
they never make their business^
But what would or could such a person
plead, should God arrest hira in the church,
and summon him to his tribunal iu the midst
ofthese his solemn mockeries of heaven, and
ask him who and what it was that brought
him thither to that place ? Surely he could
not answer that it was God ; for then why
should uot he be there as well in the absence of
the grandee his patron, unless he thought that
God also was one of his retinue, and so was no
where to be found out of his company.
But this very thing makes it but too, too
evident, that it is a mortal eye that every such
hypocrite adores ; so that in all his most
solemn addresses he cannot so properly be
said to act the Christian, as to act a part.
Such pharisees come to church, and frame
themselves into postures of zeal and devotion,
as womeu dress themselves, ouly to be stared
upon and adraired. If they were sure of uo
beholders they would not be fine ; for it is the
spectator that makes the sight.
I wish all those would lay this considera
tion to heart who are concerned to do so, and
measure the sincerity of that holiness they so
much value themselves upon, by this one
mark and criterion ; for cau they answer from
their hearts, that it is purely the love of duty
that engages them in duty ? Is there nothing
of pageantry and appearance that models and
directs and gives laws to all the little designs
they bring along with them to church ? Does
not tne consideration of what such or such an
one will say or think of them bring many to
sermons, aud, which I tremble to think of,
even to the sacrament, who ueither by the
necessity or excellency of the duty itself would
ever be induced to vouchsafe their attendance
upon it ; but could be contented to live with
out sacraments for ever, aud to eud their days
like heathens and outlaws from all the graces
of the second covenant aud the mysteries of
Christianity ?
If there be any such that hear me, let them
lay their hands upon their hearts, and assure
themselves, that God loathes all their services,
and detests their righteousness, as the highest
afiront that can be passed upou all his attri
butes, and consequently has assigned it itsre-
"ward in the lot and portion of hypocrisy.
But now the sincere and the really holy
person apprehends a beauty and a worth in
the very exercise of duty, and upon that ac
count still carries the reason of his devotion
about hira and within him ; so that when he
has shut to his door, and sequestered hiraself
from the popular gaze, then chiefly he sets
himself to the work of prayer and piety, and
accounts his closet a teraple, aud his con
science an araphitheatre.

2. A second property of such a righteous
ness as is saving and sincere, is au active
watching agaiust and opposing every, eveu
the least siu. How sraall aud almost indis
cernible is a dust falling into the eye, and yet
how troublesorae, how uneasy, and afflicting
is it ! Why just so is the least sin in the eye
of a sanctified person ; the sense of it is quick
and tender, and so finds the smallest invasion
upon it grating and offensive. We know
when David cut off the skirt of Saul's gar
ment, at which tirae he was far from any
hurtful designs upon his person, yet it is said
of him, that imraediately upon the doing of
it " his heart sraote him ;" so fearful was he,
lest he might have transgressed the lines of
duty, though his conscience did not directly
accuse him of any such transgression. Now
as solicitous as David was after this action, so
cautious and timorous is every sincere person
before he attempts a thing. That plea for sin,
"Is it not a little one?" which is the lan
guage of every rotten heart, is no argument
at all with tim for its commission.
For he knows that there is uo sin so little,
but is great enough to dishonour an infinite
God, and to ruin an immortal soul ; noue so
little, but designs and intends to be great,
nay thegreatest, and would certainly so prove,
if not cut off and suppressed by a mature pre
vention. Every lustful thought left to its
owu natural course and tendency would be
incest, every angry thought murder, and
every little grudging of discontent and mur
muring would at length ripen into blasphemy
and cursing ; did not the sanctifying or re
straining grace of God interpose between the
conception and the birth of most sins, and
stifle them iu the womb of that concupiscence
that would otherwise assuredly bring thera
forth, and breed them up to their full growth.
And this the new creature iu every truly
righteous person is sufficiently aware of, which
makes him dread the very beginnings of sin,
and fly even the occasions of it with horror.
For he knows how easily it enters, and ho-w
hardly it is got out ; how potent and artificial it
is to tempt and insinuate, and how weak his
heart is to withstand a suitable temptation.
He considers also how just it is with God
to give those over to the highest pitch and de
gree of sin, who make no conscience of resist
ing its beginnings; aud withal how frequently
he does so, withdrawing the supports and
influences of his grace, and leaving the soul,
after every yielding to sin, more and more
defenceless against the next encounter and
assault it shall raake upon hira. All which
considerations of a danger so vastly and in
credibly great, are certainly very sufficient to
warrant the nicest caution and fearfulness in
this case, upou all accounts of prudence
whatsoever. But now if we examine the righteousness

.518

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Serm. LXII.

of an unsound, pharisaical professor by this
property, we shall find it far from being thus
affected toward sin ; it easily connives at and
allows the soul in all lesser excursions and de
clinations from the rule, readily complies with
the raore moderate aud less impudent pro
posals of the terapter : so that such au one
never coraes so much as to startle, or think
hiraself at all concerned about the security of
his eternal estate, till some great and clam
orous siu begins to cry aloud and ring peals of
imminent approaching vengeauce in his con
science ; and then perhaps he looks about him
a little, praj'S twice or thrice, dejects his coun
tenance, and utters a few melancholy words,
and so concludes the danger over, his sin
atoned, his person safe, and all perfectly well
again. But this is a righteousness took up
upon false raeasures, a righteousness of a raan's
owu inventing, and consequently such an one
as can never determine in the peace of him
that has it.
But the truly pious is never at rest in his
mind, but wheu he stands upon his guard
against the raost minute and iuobservable en
croaches of sin, as knowing thera upou this
account perhaps more dangerous than greater ;
that the enemy that is least feared, is usually
the soonest felt. For as in the robbing of a
house, it is the custom for the sturdiest thieves
to put in some little boy at the window, who
being once within the house, m.ay easily open
I the doors, and let thera in too : so the terapter,
j iu rifling of the soul, despairs for the most
I part to attempt his entrance by sorae gross
, siu of a dismal, frightful hue and appearance,
and therefore he employs a lesser, that may
i cree]) and slide into it insensibly ; which yet,
i as little as it is, will so open and unlock the
j bars of conscience, that the biggest and the
! most enormous abominations shall at length
I make their entrance, and seize and take posses-
I sion of it.
I Let no mau therefore measure the small
ness of his danger by the smallness of any sin ;
' for the sraaller the sin, the greater may be
! the stratagem. We may have heard of those
, who have been choked with a fly, a crura, or
, a grapestone. Such contemptible thiugs carry
iu them the causes of death ; and it is not
impossible, though sorae have had swallows
large enough for perjuries, blaspheraies, and
murders, yet that others may chance to be
choked and destroyed with sinful desires, idle
words, and officious lies. How many ways a
soul may be ruined, few consider ; those that
do, will not count it scmpulosity to beware
ofthe least and slenderest instruments of dam
nation. But if to be so very nice and suspi-
' cious be called by any scrupulosity, such must
i know, that no scrupulosity about the matters
of eternity can be either absurd or superfluous,
I but in these affairs is only another name for
care and discretion.

3. The third discriminating property of a
sincere, genuine, and saving righteousness is,
that it is such an one as never stops, or con
tents itself in any certain pitch or degree, but
aspires and presses forward to still an higher
and an higher perfection. As the men of
the world, when they are once iu a thriving
way, never think themselves rich enough,
but are still improving and adding to their
stock ; just so it is with every sanctified per
son in his Christian course : he will never
think himself holy and humble and mortified
enough, but will still be making one degree
of holiness a step ouly to another : when he
has kindled the fire in his breast, his next busi
ness is to make it flame and blaze out. If it
were possible for him to assign such a precise
measure of righteousness as would save him,
yet he would not acquiesce in it ; since it is
not the mere interest of his own salvation,
but of God's honour, that principles and
moves him in the whole course of his actions.
And then he knows, that if God cannot be
too much honoured, he cannot be too right
eous ; and that if he cannot too intently
design the eud, he can never too solicitously
prosecute the means. It was an expres
sion of a father, concerning the apostle Paul,
that he was insatiabilis Dei cultor, an insa
tiable worshipper of God : so that having
pitched his mind upon this object, his spiri
tual appetites were boundless and unlimited.
It is observed of the two nobler senses, the
seeing and the hearing, that they are never
tired with exerting themselves upon such
things as properly affect them ; for surely none
ever surfeited upon music, or found himself
cloyed with the sight of rare pictures. In
like raanner the desires of the righteous are
so suited and frained to an agreeableness with
the ways of God, that they find a continual
freshness growing upou thera iu the perform
ance of duty ; the more they have prayed,
the more fitand vigorous they find themselves
for prayer : like a stream, which the farther
it has ruu, the more strength aud force it has
to run farther.
Such persons are carried fortli to duty, not
Upon designs of acquisition, but gratitude ;
not so much to gain something from God, as
(if it were possible) to do something/or him.
And we all know, that the nature aud genius
of gratitude is to be infinite and unmeasure
able in the expressions of itself. It raakes
a David cry out as if he even laboured and
travailed to be delivered of sorae of those
thankful apprehensions of the divine goodness
that his heart was big with ; (Psalra cxvi. 12,)
" What," says he, " shall I render to the
Lord for all his benefits ?" All that he could
do or say for God seeraed to him but a short
and slender declaration of those aboundings
of affection, that within he found and felt in
expressible.

ON MATTHEW, v. 20.

519

But now if we come to try the spurious,
unsound righteousuess of the hypocrite by
this test, how pitiful, how false, and how
contemptible a thing will it appear ! For he
designs not to excel or to transcend in the
ways of sanctity. If he cau but patch up
such a righteousness as shall satisfy and still
his conscience, and keep it from grumbling
and being troublesorae, down he sits, and
there takes up, as being far from the arabition
of making a proficiency, or coramencing any
degree in the school of Christ. But, believe
it, a man may be righteous in this manner
long enough before he is like to be saved for
being so. For the truth is, such au one does
not really design to be righteous, but only to
be quiet. And in this one thing you will
find a never-failing mark of difference between
a pharisaical hypocrite and a truly sanctified
person, that the former raeasures his righteous
ness by the peace of his conscience, and the
latter judges of the peace of his conscience by
his righteousness.
4thly, The fourth and last property of a
sincere and saving righteousness, which most
certainly distinguishes it from the hypo
critical and pharisaical, is huraility. For I
dare venture the whole truth of the gospel
itself upon this challenge. Shew me any
hypocrite in the world that ever was humble.
For the very nature and design of hypocrisy
is, to make a man a proud beggar ; that is, by
the most uncomely mixture of qualities, at
the sarae time poor and vain-glorious. We
have the exact character of him in Rev. iii.
17 ; " Thou sayest, I am rich, and increased
with goods, and have need of nothing ; but
knowest not that thou art wretched, and
miserable, and poor, aud blind, and naked."
It is the business of every hypocrite to raake
a show, to disguise his penury with appear
ances of plenty aud magnificence : and upon
that account it concerns hira to make the
utmost iraproveraent of the little stock he
has : to look upon every duty as meritorious,
every prayer as not so much asking a mercy
as elairaing a debt frora heaven, till at length,
as it were, even dazzled with the false lustre of
his own performances, he breaks forth into the
})harisaical doxology, " God, I thank thee,
that I ara not as other raen." Thus pluraing
and priding himself in all his services, as if
in every action of piety he did God a courtesy,
and passed an obligation upon his Maker.
But how does the sincere person behave
himself both in and after every duty per
formed by him ? Surely with a very different
spirit. Self-abhorrence and confusion of face,
like the poor publican, makes him cast down
his eyes while he is lifting up his heart iu
prayer: and when he has exerted his very
utmost zeal in the divine worship, he lays his
person and his services in the dust before
God, and is so far from expecting a reward

for their value, that he counts it a mercy not
to be condemned for their imperfection ; and
though God condemns him not, yet he is
ready to condemn himself.
" God be merciful to rae a sinner," is the
constant language of his heart in the conclu
sion of his choicest perforraances ; for wheu
he has done his best, he knows that it will
scarce araount to so rauch as well ; so that if
there was not a gospel to qualify and mitigate
the rigours of the law, he knows the demands
of it were too high aud exact to be answered
upon the stock of nature, attainted with
guilt, aud disabled with infirmity. Aud
knowing so much, he never expostulates the
injustice or unkindness of God's judgments,
be his afflicting hand never so pressing and
severe upon hira. He acknowledges that
severity itself cannot outdo the provocation of
his sins ; which, though it were possible for
God to be cruel, yet had rendered it irapos
sible for him to be unjust. And therefore he
kisses the rod and embraces the scourge, and
confesses the righteousness, even where he
faints uuder the burden of an affliction. In
a word, after he has done all to purge, purify,
aud reform himself, he is not yet pleased with
himself ; but iu the very exercise of his graces
finds those flaws, those failures and blemishes,
that makes him wonder at the methods and
contrivances of divine mercy ; that God can
be infinitely just, aud yet he not infinitely
miserable. Having thus finished the second thing, and
shewn those perfections and qualities by
which the righteousness that saves and brings
to heaveu does transcend and surpass that of
the hypocrite and pharisee ; I descend now to
the Third and last, which is, to shew the
grounds, the reasons, and causes of the neces
sity of such a righteousness, in order to a raan's
salvation, and entrance into the kingdora of
heaven. 1st, The first shall be taken from the holiness
of God ; whose nature will never suffer him
to hold so strict and intimate a comraunion
with his creature, as he does with those whora
he adraits into heaven, unless the divine
ira^e and sirailitude, defaced by sin, be in
sorae degree repaired and renewed upon him.
For surely there is none who adraits his
swine into his pariour or his bedcharaber ;
and the corruption of raan's uature, unraorti
fied, and unremoved by the contrary habits of
holiuess, degrades a man to the same vileness,
the same distance from, and unfitness for, all
society with his Maker. It cannot but be
the most offensive and intolerable thing to
nature, for the healthful and the sound, the
curious and the cleanly, to converse with
sores and ulcers, rottenness aud putrefaction ;
and yet a soul covered with the leprosy of sin
is infinitely more loathsome and abominable

5-iO

SOUTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS.

Serm. LXII.

in the most pure eyes of God. For how is it
possible for truth to cohabit with hypocrisy,
purity with filth, and the transcendently holy
and spiritual uature of God to associate with
lust and sensuality? And these are the
endowments, and ornaments, and commend
ing qualifications of every unsanctified person,
every hypocrite and pharisee, let him shine
with never so fair and bright a reputation iu
the eye of the credulous and deluded world.
But the matter stops not here. Such an
one is unfit for the presence of God, not only
upon the account of his impurity, but also of
his enmity. For what should a sinner do in
heaven, any more than a traitor or a rebel do
in court? The exasperated justice of God
will prey upon the unpardoned sinner where
soever it meets him, even in the highest
heaven, if it were possible for him to come
thither ; and whensoever it does so, it is that
that makes hell ; which is not so properly the
name of a place as of a condition ; a condition
consigning the soul over to endless raisery and
desperation. And could we iraagine a person
locally in Abraham's bosom, yet if he brought
with hira the worm of conscience, and the
secret lashes of an infinite wrath, that raan
were properly in hell, or hell at least in him,
wheresoever the place of his abode or resi
dence might fall.
2dly, The other reason for the necessity of
such a transcending righteousuess, in order to
a man's entrance iuto heaven, shall be taken
from the work and eraployraent of a glorified
person in heaven ; which is the continual
exercise of those graces which here on earth
were begun, and there at length shall be
advanced to their full perfection : as also the
contemplation of God in all his attributes,
together with the whole series of his astonish
ing actions, by which he was pleased to mani
fest and display forth those great attributes to
the world ; whether iu creation, by which he
exerted his omnipotence in calling forth so
beautiful a fabric out of the barren womb of
nothing aud confusion : or in the several
traces and strange meanders of his providence,
in governing all those raany casualties and
contingencies in the world, and so steadily
directing them to a certain eud, by which he

shews forth the stupendous heights of his
wisdom aud omniscience ; and lastly, in the
unparalleled work of man's redemption, by
which at once he glorified and unfolded all
his attributes, so far as they could be drawn
forth into the view of created understandings.
Now a perpetual meditation and reflection
upon these great subjects is the noble employ
ment ofthe blessed souls in heaven.
But can any, whom the grace of God has
not thoroughly renewed and sanctified, be
prepared and fitted for such a task? No,
assuredly ; and therefore it is worth our
observing, that those who, living dissolutely
in this world, do yet wish for the rewards of
the righteous in the other, commence all such
wishes upon a vast ignorance and mistake of
their owu minds ; not knowing bow unsuit
able, and consequently how irksome, the
whole business of heaven would be to their
unsanctified appetites and desires. For what
felicity could it be to a mau always accus
tomed to the revels and songs ofthe drunkards,
to bear a part in the choir of saints and
angels, singing forth hallelujahs to him that
sits upon the throne ? What pleasure could
it be to the lustful, the sensual, and unclean
person, to follow the Lamb, with his virgin
retinue, wheresoever he goes ?
Such persons deceive themselves when they
wish themselves in heaven ; and, in truth,
know not what they desire : for however they
may dread and abhor hell, yet it is irapossible
for them to desire heaven, did they know
what they were to do there : and therefore,
instead of making Baalam's wish, that they
" raay die the death of the righteous," they
should do well to live the life of such ; and to
hearken to Christ coraraanding them to " seek
the kingdom of heaven," by first seeking the
"righteousness thereof." For it is righteous
ness alone that must both bring men to
heaven, and make heaven itself a place of
happiness to those that are brought thither.
To which the God of heaven, and Fountain
of all happiness, vouchsafe to bring us all : to
whora be rendered and ascribed, as is most
due, all praise, raight, majesty, and dominion,
both now and for evermore. Amen.

THUEE SERMONS.

[FIRST PUBLISHED IN 1717.]

SEKMON I.
ON THE MARTYRDOM OF KING
CHARLES I.
PEEACHED AX COUET ON THE THIRTIETH OF JANUARY.*
" And it was so, that all that saw it said, There was no such
thing done or seen from the day that the children of Israel
came up from the land of Egypt unto this day ; consider of it,
take adrice, and speak your minds. " — Judges, xix. 30.
There is a certain fatal pertinency in the
very phrase of the text ; for when there were
judges, there was no king in Israel, though,
as to the present purpose, they were judges of
another nature that removed ours. We have
an account of this prodigious and horrid
action, clothed with all the circumstances of
wonder and detestation, but yet well timed
for its commission, it being done when, upon
the want of the regal power, (Judges, xxi.
25,) " every man did what was right in his
own eyes ;" or, in another dialect, " as the
Spirit raoved him." And as for the authors
of this execrable fact, we have them defending
themselves with their swords, aud for some
time asserting their villainy, with their success
and victory against their brethren, twice
beaten and massacred before them in a
righteous cause, as you may see in the next
chapter. I do not profess myself either delighted or
skilled in mystical interpretations, and to
wiredraw the sense of the place, so as to make
it speak the death of the king ; as some, who
can interpret scripture, as if the whole book
of God was only to tell things transacted in
England and Scotland ; so that there cannot
be so much as a house fired or a leg broken,
but they can find it in Daniel or the Revela-
* This Discourse is tfae same in substance with Serm. L. vol. I.
P. 432, preached on a similar occasion.

tion. No, I pretend to no such skill ; it is
enough for me if I bring the preseut busiuess
and the text together, not by design, but
accommodation : and as the phrase runs full
and high, so I doubt uot but to fiud such a
parallel in the things themselves, that it may
be a question whether of the two may have
a better claim to the expression. Tbe cause
here, which was worded with so high aggrava
tions, was an injury done to one single Levite,
in the villainous rape of his concubine ; the
resentment of which was so great, that it
engaged the rest of the tribes to revenge his
quarrel with a civil war, iu which the pre
eminence and conduct was given by God's
appointraent to the royal tribe of Judah : the
sceptre being most concerned to assert the
privileges aud revenge the injuries of the
crosier. We have the Benjamites sturdily
abetting what they had impiously done, and
for a while victorious iu villainy, by the help
of God's providence, trarapling ou those that
fought by the warrant of his precept.
Let us now see the counterpart : he that
dates the king's murder from the fatal blow
given on the scaffold, judges like him that
thinks it is the last stroke that fells the tree ;
the killing of his person was only the con
suraraation of his murder, first begun in his
prerogative. We have heard the knack of a
double capacity, personal aud politic, aud I
suppose they distinguish the king into two,
that each party might raurder him under one.
And for those whose loyalty does only consist
in designing that action which was taken out
of their hands, and having laid the premises,
they protest against the conclusion ; they cover
their prevarication with a fig-leaf, and only
differ from the other party in this, that these
endeavour to disguise the author of the fact,
those only the executioner. Well theu ;
when a long sunshine of mercy had ripened
the sins of the nation, so that it was now
ready for the shatterings of divine vengeauce :
the seed of faction aud rebellion having been
for a long time studiously sown by schismatical

52-2

TIIREE SERMONS.

Sebm. J,

doctrines, and well watered by seditious lec
tures, the first assault was made against the
tribe of Levi, by some implacable enemies of
the church, the fury of whose lust and arabi
tion nothing could allay, till they had full
scope to prostitute her honour, and ravish her
revenues ; till at length, cut, divided, torn in
pieces, as she was, she lay a ghastly spectacle
to all beholders, to all the Israel of God.
And as this was done to our English Levites,
so it was acted by Benjamites ; by so many
Benjaraites as raven like wolves, till by their
rapine and sacrilege they had their mess five
times bigger than their brethren's. The
prosecution of which quarrel was armed by
the royal standard, and the defence of the
church managed by the defender of the faith ;
iu which it pleased the all- wise God to cause
Judah to fall before Benjarain, the lion to be
a prey to the wolf ; by which fatal trace of
Providence the king being killed long before
forty-five, by natural and iraraediate sequel
to coraplete the action, Charles was murdered
in forty-eight. And this is the black subject
of this day's solemnity. In my reflections
upou which, if detestation, (that is, a due
i apprehension of the blackest fact that ever
I the sun saw, since he withdrew upon tho
suffering of our Saviour,) chance to give au
edge to sorae of ray expressions, let those
know, (the nature of whose actions has mado
truth look like a sarcasm, and descriptions
sharper th.an invectives,) I say, let these cen
surers know, (whose innocency lies only in
the Act of Indemnity,) that to drop the
blackest ink and the bitterest gall upou this
fact, is not satire, but propriety.
Now since the text says, "There wasnosuch
thing ever done or seen," tbe proper prosecu
tion of the words, all applied to this occasion,
must be to shew wherein the strangeness of
this deed consists ; and since the nature of
every particular action is to be learnt by
reflecting upon the agent aud the object, with
all the retinue of circumstances that attend it,
under a certain deterraination, I shall accord
ingly distribute ray following discourse into
these raaterials : I shall,
I. Consider the person who suffered.
II. Shew the preparatiou or introduction to
his suffering.
III. Shew you the qualities of the agents
who acted in it.
IV. Describe the circumstances and manner
of the fact.
Lastly, Point out the destruction and grim
consequences of it.
Of all which iu their order.
I. He that suffered was a king, and, what
is raore, such a king as was not chosen, but
born to it ; owing his kingdom, not to the
voice of popularity, but the suffrage of nature ;
he was a David, a saint, a king, but never a
shepherd : all the royal blood in Christendom

ran in his veins, that is, many kings went to
the making up of him, and his improvement
and education fell in ways not below his
extraction. He was accurate in all the com
mending excellencies of human accomplish
ments, able to deserve, had he not inherited, a
kingdom : of so controlling a genius, that in
every science he did not so rauch study as
reign, he appeared not only a proficient, but
a prince ; and, to go uo farther for a testimony,
let his own writings serve fora witness, which
speak hira no less an author than a raonarch,
composed with such au unfailing accuracy,
such a commanding, majestic pathos, as if
they had been written not with a pen, but a
sceptre : aud as for those whose virulent aud
ridiculous calumnies ascribe that incomparable
work to others, it is a sufficient argument
that those did not, because they could not
write it. It is hard to counterfeit the spirit of
majesty and the inimitable peculiarities of an
incoraraunicable genius. At the council-table
he had ability enough to give himself the best
counsel, but the unhappy modesty to diffide
in it, indeed his only fault ; for raodesty is a
paradox in majesty, and humility is a solecism
in supremacy.
Look we next on his piety aud incompar
able virtues, though, without any absurdity,
I may say, that his very endowments of
nature were supernatural ; so pious was he, |
that if others had measured their obedience to j
him by his to God, he had been the most
absolute monarch in the world. As eminent
for frequenting the temple, as Solomon for
building one : uo occasions ever interfered
with his devotion, nor business outdated his
time of attendance in the church. And here
I should not pay a due tribute to his memory,
did I forget that remarkable instance of con
stancy of soul, (not to be shocked by the
severest strokes of ill fortune,) with which he
received the surprising news of the sudden
loss of a dear friend and faithful servant,
sacrificed by a vile assassin to the unjustifiable
and groundless clamours of an ill-informed
people, as well as to private spleen. How
gallantly in this affair did he suppress human
nature, and restrain that flood of tears due to
the raemory of his friend, till he had finished
his duty towards God. So firm was he in the
protestant cause, though he lay in the mid-st
of temptation, in the very bosom of Spain,
and though France lay iu his, yet nothing
could alter him, but he espoused the cause of
his religion more than his beloved queen.
He ever filled the title under which we prayed
for hira. He could defend religion as a king,
dispute for it as a divine, and die for it as a
raartyr. I think I shall speak a great truth
in saying, that the only thing that raakes
protestantism considerable in Christendora is
the church of England, and the only thing
that does now cement and confirm the church

ON THE MARTYRDOM OF CHARLES I.

523

of England is the blood of that blessed martyr.
He was so well skilled in all controversies,
that we may well style him iu all causes
ecclesiatical, not only supreme governor, but
moderator, nor more fitto fill the throne than
the chair ; and withal, so exact au observer
and royal rewarder of all such performances,
that it was an encouragement for a mau to be
a divine under such a prince. Which piety
of his was set off with a whole train of moral
vhtues. His teraperance was so great and
impregnable amidst all those allurements with
whieh the courts of kings are apt to melt the
most stoical and resolved minds, that he did
at the same tirae both teach and upbraid the
court ; so that it was not so rauch their owu
vices, as his virtue, that rendered their de
bauchery inexcusable. Look over the -whole
race of our kings, and take in the kings of
Israel to boot, and who ever kept the bonds of
conjugal affection so inviolate? David was
chiefly eminent for repenting in this raatter ;
Charles for not needing repentance. None
ever of greater fortitude of mind, which was
more resplendent in the conquest of himself,
and in those miraculous instances of his pas
sive valour, than if he had strewn the field
with the rebels' arms, and to the suffrage of
hisown cause joined the success of theirs ; and
yet, withal, so meek, so gentle, so merciful,
and tbat even to cruelty to himself, that if
ever the lion dwelt with the lamb, if ever
courage and meekness were united, it was in
the breast of this royal person ; and, which
makes the rebellion more ugly aud intolerable,
there was scarce any person of note araong his
enemies who did not wear his colours, and
carry sorae particular mark of his favour and
obligations ; sorae were his own raenial
servants, and " eat bread at his table," before
they " lifted up their heel agaiust him ;" some
received from him honours, some offices aud
employraents. I could mention particulars
¦ of each kind, did I think their names fit to be
heard in a church or from a pulpit. In short,
he so behaved himself toward thera, that their
rebellion might be malice indeed, but could
, not be revenge.
And these his persoual virtues shed a suit
able influence upon his government for the
space of seventeen years ; the peace, plenty,
and honour of the English nation spread itself
even to the envy of all neighbouring coun
tries ; and when that plenty had parapered
: them into unruliness and rebellion, yet still
the justice of his government left them at a
loss for an occasion to rebel, till at last ship
money was pitched upon as fit to be reforraed
by excise and taxes, and the burden of the
subjects took off by plunderings aud sequestra
tions. The king now, to scatter that cloud
which began to gather and look black upou
the chnrch and state, made those condescen
sions to their impudent petitions, that they

had scarce any thing to make war for, but
what was granted them already ; and having
thus stript himself of his prerogative, he left
it clear to the world, that there was nothing
left for them to fight for, but only his life.
Afterward, in the prosecution of this un
natural war, what overtures did he make for
peace ! Nay, wheu he had his sword iu his
hand, his armies about him, aud a cause to
justify him before God and man, how did he
choose to compound himself into nothing!
to depose aud unking himself by their hard
and inhuman conditions ! Bnt all was
nothing : he might as well compliment a
mastiff, or court a tiger, as think to win those
who were now hardened in blood, aud
thoroughpaced iu rebellion. Yet the truth is,
his conscience uncrowned him, as having a
mind too pure and delicate to adrait of those
maxiras and practices of state that usually
make princes great and successful.
Having thus, with an unheard of loyalty,
fought agaiust him aud conquered him, they
commit hira to prison ; and the king himself
notes, that it has always been observed, that
there is but little distance between the prisons
of kings and their graves : to which I subjoin,
that where the observation is constant, there
must be some standing cause of the connec
tion of the thing observed ; aud indeed, it is
a direct translation from the prison to the
grave; tbe difference between them being
onlv this ; that he who is buried is imprisoned
under ground, and he that is imprisoned is
buried above ground : aud I could wish, that
as they slew and buried his body, so we had
not also buried his funeral.
But to finish this poor and imperfect de
scription, though it is of a person so renowned,
that he neither needs the best, nor can be
injured by the worst ; yet, iu short, he was a
prince whose virtues were as prodigious as his
sufferings ; a true father of his couutry, if but
for this only, that he was father of such a son.
Aud yet the most inuoceut of men, and best
of kings, so pious aud virtuous, so learned aud
judicious, so merciful aud obliging, was re
belled agaiust, drove out of his own house,
pursued as a partridge ou the mountains, like
an ea-'le in his own dominions, inhumanly
irapri^ned, and for a catastrophe of all, most
barbarously murdered; though in this his
murder was the less woful, in that his death
released him from his prison.
II Having thus seen the person suffering,
let us in the next place see the preparations
of this bloody fact ; and indeed, it would be
but a preposterous course, to insist only on
the consequent, without taking notice of the
antecedent. It were too long to dig to the
spring of this rebellion, and to lead up to the
secrecies of its first contrivance; but as David s
phrase is, upon another occasion, it was
framed and fashioned in the lowest parts of

THREE SERMONS.

Serm. L

the earth," and there it was " fearfully aud
wonderfully made," a work of darkness and
retirement, removed from the eye of wit
nesses, even that of conscience also ; for
conscience was not admitted into their
council. But their first aim was to pro
cure a Levite to consecrate their design, aud
a factious ministry to christen it the cause
of God : they still own their party for God's
own Israel, aud being so, it raust needs be
their duty to corae out of Egypt, though they
provide themselves a Red sea for their
passage. For their assistance they repair to the
northern steel, and bring in an unnatural,
mercenary crew, that like a shoal of locusts
covered the laud, such as inherited the descrip
tion of those, which God brought upon his
people the Jews ; " a natiou fierce, peeled, and
scattered :" and still we shall read that God
punished his people frora the north, — as, Jer.
1. 3, " Out of the north comes destruction,
which shall make the land desolate ;" Jer.
iv. 6, " I will bring evil from the north, and
great destruction." Now to endear and unite
these into one interest, they invented a cove
nant, much like to that which some are said
to make with hell, aud an agreement with
death. It was the most solemn piece of per
jury, the most fatal engine against the church,
and bane of monarchy, the greatest snare of
souls, and mystery of iniquit}', that ever was
hammered out by the wit and wickedness of
man. I shall uot, as they do, abuse scripture
language, and call it " the blood of the cove
nant," but give it its proper title, " the cove
nant of blood ;" such an one as the brethren,
Simeon and Levi, raade, when they were
going about the like designs ; their very pos
ture of taking it was an ominous mark of its
intent ; and their holding up their hands was
a sign they were going to strike. It was such
an olio of treason aud tyranny, that one of
the assembly of their own prophets gives this
testiraony of it, in his narration upou it, (and
his testiraony is true ;) " that it was such
a covenant, that whether you respect the
subject-matter of it, or the occasion of it, or
the persons engaged in it, or lastly, the man
ner of iraposing it, tbe like was never read,
seen, or heard of." The truth is, it bears no
other likeuess to other ancient covenants,
than as at the making of them, they slew
beasts aud divided them, so this was solem
nized with blood, slaughter, and division.
But that I may not accuse in general, without
a particular charge ; read it over as it stands
prefixed to their catechisms (as if without it
their system of divinity was not complete,
nor their children like to become Christians,
unless they were schooled to treason, and
catechised to rebellion,) I say, in the covenant
as it stands here, iu the third article of it,
after they had first promised to defend the

privileges of parliament, and the liberties of
the kingdom ; at length they also promised
to defend the person of the king, naraely, in
the preservation and defence of the true reli
gion, and the liberties of the kingdora ; so
that their promise of loyalty to him was not
absolute, but conditional, bound hand and
foot with this stipulation, so far as he pre
serveth the true religion and liberties of the
kingdom. Now those very persons who
covenanted thus, had already from pulpit and
press declared, the religion and way of wor
ship established in the church of England,
and then maintained by the king, to be false,
popish, and idolatrous ; and withal, that the
king had invaded their liberties. Now for
men to suspend their obedience upon certain
conditions, which very conditions they de
clared at the same time uot perforraed, was
not to profess obedience, but reraonstrate the
reasons of intended disobedience. We have
seen the doctrine of the covenant ; see now
the use of this doctrine, as it was charged
horae with a suitable application, in a war
raised against the king, in the cruel usage and
iraprisonraent, killing, sequestering, and un
doing of all that adhered to hira. All whieh
horae-proceedings, though his raajesty now
stupendously forgives, yet the world will not,
cannot yet forget ; his inderanity is not an
oblivion : and for those persons who now
clamour and cry out, they are persecuted,
because they are no longer perraitted to per
secute, and who choose rather to quit the
ministry, than disown the obligation of the
covenant, I leave to all impartial and under
standing minds to judge, whether they do uot
by this openly declare to the world, that they
hold themselves obliged by oath, as they are
able, to act over again all that hath hitherto
beeu done by virtue of the covenant, and
consequeutly that they left not places for
being nonconformists to the church, but for
being virtually rebels to the crown,; which
makes them just as worthy to be indulged as
a dropsy or a malignant fever, which is exas
perated by mitigations, and inflamed by every
cooling infusion.
But to draw the premises closer to the pur
pose : I argue, that which was the proper
means to enable the king's enemies to make
war against him, and upon that war to con
quer, and upou that conquest to imprison,
and inevitably to put the power in the hands
of those, who by that power in the end did
murder him ; that, according to the genuine
consequence of reason, was the natural cause
of his murder. This is the proposition that I
assert, but I shall not trouble myself to make
the assumption : and indeed those who wipe
their mouths, and lick themselves innocent
by clapping this act upon the army, raake
just the same plea that Pilate did for his in
nocency in the death of Christ, because he

ON THE MARTYRDOM OF CHARLES I.

525

left the execution to the soldiers ; or what the
soldiers may make for clearing themselves of
all this blood that they have sJWlt, by charg
ing it upon their swords. I conclude there
fore, that this was the gradual process to this
horrid act, this the train laid to blow up
monarchy, this the step by which the king
ascended the scaffold.
III. Come we now, in the third place, to
shew who were the actors in this tragic scene.
When through the anger of Providence, the
thriving army of rebels had worsted justice,
cleared the field, subdued all oppositions and
risings, even to the very insurrections of con
science itself; so that impunity at length
grew into reputation of piety, and success
gave rebellion the varnish of religion ; that
they might consumraate their villainy, the
gown was called in to complete the execution
of the sword ; aud to make Westminster-hall
a place to take away lives as well as estates,
a new court was set up, and judges packed;
who bad no more to do with justice, than so
far forth as they deserved to be the objects of
it : in which they first begin with a confuta
tion of the civilians' notion of justice and
jurisdiction, it being with them no longer au
act of the supreme power. Such an inferior
crew, such a mechanic rabble were they,
having not so much as any arms to shew the
world, but what they used in rebellion ; that
when I survey the list of the king's judges,
and the witnesses against him, I seem to have
before me a catalogue of all trades, and such
as might have better filled the shops of West
minster-hall, than sat on the benches ; sorae
of which carae to be possessors of the king's
houses, who before had no certain dwelling
but the king's highway ; and some might
have continued tradesmen still, had not wjint
and inability to trade sent thera to the war.
Now that a king, such a king, should be mur
dered by such, the basest of his subjects, and
not like aNimrod, (as some sanctified preachers
have called hira,) but like Acteeon torn by a
pack of bloodhounds ; that the steam of a
dunghill should thus obscure the sun ; this so
mnch enhanceth the calaraity of this royal
person, aud makes his death as different from
his, who is conquered and slain by another
king, as it is between being torn by a lion,
and being eaten up by verrain ; pardou the
expression, for it came into my mind by
speaking of those, many of whom were sorae
time beggars. For the feet to trample upon,
yea kick at the head, would it not look like a
monster? But indeed, these of all others
were the fittest instruments for such a work ;
for base descent and poor education disposeth
the mind to impiousness and cruelty ; as of
beasts those are the most savage, which are
bred in dens, and have their extraction from
underground : these therefore were the worthy
judges, and condemners of that great king ;

even the refuse of the people, and the very
scum of the nation, that was at that time
both the uppermost and basest part of it.
I"V. Pass we now, in the fourth place, to
the circumstances and manner of proceeding
in this ugly fact. And the circumstances, we
know, have the greatest task in determining
the nature of all actions, as we judge of any
one's parts or qualities, by the nature of his
attendants. First, then, it was not done like
other works of darkness, in secret, nor (as
they use to preach) in a corner, but publicly,
coloured with the face of justice, managed
with openness and solemnity, as solemn as
the league aud covenant itself. History in
deed affords us many examples of princes
clandestinely murdered, which though it be
villainous, is in itself more excusable ; for he
that doeth such a thing in secret, by the man
ner of doing confesseth himself ashamed of
the thing he does : but he that acts in the face
of the sun, vouches his work for laudable,
glorious, and heroic. Having brought hira to
the high court of justice, (so called, I conceive,
because justice was there arraigned aud con
deraned, or perhaps because it never shewed
mercy) by a way of trial as unheard of as
the court, he was not permitted so much as
to speak in his own defence, but, with the
innocence aud silence of a larab, conderaned
to slaughter ; aud it would have been well
for thera if they could as easily have iraposed
silence on his blood. Beiug condemned, they
spit in his face, and delivered hira to the
mockery and affronts of the soldiers ; so that
I wonder where the blaspheray lies, which
some charge upou those who make the king's
suffering soraething to resemble our Saviour's :
but is it blaspheray to compare the king to
Christ iu that respect, in which Christ him
self was made like a servant ? For can he be
like us in all things, and we uot like him ?
Certainly there was something in that provi
dence, that appointed so long ago the chapter
to be read on the day of our Saviour's pas
sion, to be read likewise ou the day of our
king's; and I ara sure that the resemblance is
so near, that hail he lived before him, he had
been a type of him. I confess there is some i
disparity iu the case, for they shewed them
selves worse than the Jews. But however,
since they object that we raake the king like
Christ, I am willing it should be their commen
dation to be as unlike Christ as they please.
Let us now follow hira from their mock-
tribunal to the place of his residence till his
execution. Nothing remains for a mau con
deraned, and preseutly to leave the world,
but these two things ; 1st, To take leave of
his friends, a thing not denied to the vilest
malefactor, which is sufficiently apparent in
that it hath not been denied to theraselves :
yet no entreaties frora him or his royal con
sort could prevail with these murderers to let

526

THREE SERMONS.

Serm. I.

her take the last farewell and commands of
her dying husband. He was permitted to
take no farewell but to the world. Thus was
he stript of all, even from the prerogative of
a prince, to the privilege of a malefactor. The
next thing desired by all dying Christians, is
freedora to converse with God, and to prepare
themselves to meet hira at his dreadful tribu
nal ; but with an Italian cruelty to the soul,
as well as the body, they debar him of this
freedom also, and even solitude, his former
punishment, is now too great an enjoyment.
But that they might shew themselves no less
eneraies to private, than they had been to
public prayers, they disturb his retirements,
and with scoffs aud continual calumnies up
braid those devotions which were then inter
ceding for them ; and I question not but
fanatic fury was at that height, that they
would have laughed at Christ himself, had he
used his own prayer.
With these preludiums is he brought to the
last scene of mockeries and cruelty, to a stage
erected before his own palace ; and for a
greater affront to majesty, before that part of
it in which he was wont to display his royalty,
and to give audience to ambassadors, where
now he could not obtain audience for himself,
in his last addresses to his abused subjects.
There he receives the fatal blow ; there he
dies, conquering and pardoning his enemies ;
and at length finds that faithfully performed
on the scaffold, which was at first promised
in the parliaraent, and perhaps in the sarae
sense, that he should be a " glorious king."
And even this death was the mercy of the
murderers, considering what kind of death
several proposed, when they sat in council
about the manner of it, eveu uo less than to
execute him in his robes, and afterwards to
drive a stake through his head and body,
to stand as a raonuraent on his grave. In
short, all kinds of death were proposed, that
either their malice could suggest, or their own
guilt deserve. And would these then now
find in their hearts, or have the face to desire
to live? And to plead a pardon from the
son, who thus murdered the father ? I speak
not only of those wretches who openly em-
brued their hands in the bloody seutence, but
of those more considerable traitors who had
the villainy to manage the contrivance, and
yet the cunning to disappear at the execution,
and perhaps the good luck to be preferred
after it. And for those who now survive, by
a mercy as incredible as their crimes, which
has left them to the soft expiation of solitude
and repentance ; though usually all the pro
fessions that such make of repentance are
nothing else but the faint resentments of a
guilty horror, the convulsions and last breath
ings of a gasping conscience : as the mercy by
which they live is made a visible defiance to
government, and a standing encouragement to

these alarms of plots and conspiracies : so I
beseech God, that even their supposed repen
tance be norsuch, as both themselves and the
kingdom hereafter may have bitter cause too
late to repent of. And if, indeed, they should
prove such as have no conscience but horror,
who by the same crimes will be made irre
concileable, for which they deserve to he un
pardonable ; who would resume these repent
ings upou opportunities, which they made
upou extremity ; and being saved from the
gallows, make the usual requital that is made
for that kind of deliverance : I say, if such
persons should only for a time be chained,
and tied up, like so many lions in the tower,
that they may gain more fierceness, and run
again at majesty, religion, laws, churches, and
the universities ; whether God intends hy this
a repetition of our former coufusions, or a
general massacre of our persons, (which is
most likely,) the Lord in his mercy fit and
enable us to endure the smart of a raisim
proved providence, and the infatuated frustra
tion of such a miraculous deliverance.
But to return to this blessed martyr. We
have seen him murdered ; and is there any
other scene of cruelty to act ? Is not death
the end of the murderer's malice, as well as of
the life of him that is murdered ? No, there
is another and viler instance of their implac
able cruelty ; iu the very erabalraing of his
body, and taking out of his bowels, (which,
had they not relented to his enemies, had not
been so handled,) they gave order to those to
whom that work was committed, diligently
to search and see, (I speak it with shame and
indignation) whether his body was not infec
ted with some loathsome disease; I suppose,
that which some of his judges were so mnch
troubled with. Now any one may see, that
farther to intimate an inquiry was in effect
to enjoin the report. And here let any one ]
judge, whether the remorseless malice of im
bittered rebels ever rose to such an height of j
tyranny ; the very embalming his body must |
be raade a means of corrupting his name ; as
if his murder was not complete, if, together
with his life, they did not assassinate his fame,
and butcher his reputation. But the body of
that prince, innocent and virtuous even to a
miracle, had none of the ruins and genteel
rottenness of our modern debauchery ; it was l
firm and clear like his conscience ; he fell like [
a cedar, no less fragrant than tall and stately.
Rottenness of heart and bone belong to his
murderers, the noisoraeness of whose carcasses,
caused by the noisoraeness of their lives, might
even retaliate and revenge their sufferings, and
while they are under the execution, poison the
executioner. But the last grand comprehen
sive circumstance, which is as it were the very
form and spirit that did actuate and mn
through all the rest, is, that it was done with
the pretence of conscience, and the protesta-

ON THE MARTYRDOM OF CHARLES I.

527

tions of religion, with eyes lift up to heaven, ex
postulating with God with pleas of providence,
and inward instigations, till at last, with much
labour and many groans, they were delivered
of tbeir conceived mischief. Aud certainly
we have cause to deplore this murder with
fasting, if it were but for this reason, that it
was contrived and committed with fasting ;
every fast portended some villainy, as still a
fiimine ushers in a plague : but as hunger
serves only for appetite, so they never ordained
a humiliation, but for doing something, which,
being done, might find them matter of a
thanksgiving ; aud such a fury did abused
piety inspire into the church militant, upon
these exercises, that we might as safely raeet
an hungry boar as a preaching colonel after a
fast, whose raurderous humiliations strangely
verify that prophecy, (Isaiah, viii. 21,) "When
they shall be hungry, they shall curse their
king aud their God, and look upw^ards ;" that
is, they should rebel and blaspheme devoutly.
Though, by the way, he that is always look
ing upwards, can little regard how he walks
below. But was there any thing in the whole book
of God to warrant this rebellion ? Instead of
obedience, will they sacrifice him whom they
ought to obey ? Why, yes : Dauiel " dreamed
a dream," aud there is also soraething in the
Revelation concerning a " beast," and a
" little horn," and a " fifth vial," and there
fore the king ought undoubtedly to die : but
if neither you nor I can gather so much from
these places, they will tell ns, it is because we
are not inwardly enlightened. But others,
more knowing, but not less wicked, insist not
so much on the warrant of it from scripture,
but plead providential dispensations ; God's
works, it seems, must be regarded before his
words ; and their Latin advocate, Mr Milton,
who, like a blind adder, has spit so much
poison on the king's person and cause, speaks
to this roundly : " Deum secuti ducem, et
impressa passim divina vestigia venerantes,
viam "haud obscuram, sed illustrera, et illius
anspiciis commonstratam et patefactam in-
gressi sumus."
But must we read God's mind iu his foot
steps, or in his words ? This is as if, when
we have a man's handwriting, we should
endeavour to take his raeaning by the measure
of his foot. But still is pleading conscience
a covering for all enormities, and an answer
to all questions and accusations also. What
made them fight against, imprison, and
murder their lawful sovereign? Why con
science. What made them extirpate the
government, and pocket up the revenues of
the church ? Conscience. What made them
perjure theraselves with contrary oaths ? what
made swearing a sin, and forswearing noue ?
what made them lay hold on God's promises,
and break their own? Conscience. What

made them sequester, persecute, and undo
their brethren, ravin their estates, and ruin
their families, get into their places, and then
say they only rob the Egyptians ? Why still
this large capacious thing is conscience. The
poet says, " "Vis fieri dives, Bithynice ? con-
scius esto ;" which I think may be properiy
construed thus : " If you would be rich, be"
(in their sense) "conscientious." We have
lived uuder that model of religion, in which
nothing has been counted impious but loyalty,
nor absurd but restitution. But, O blessed
God, to what an height cau prosperous,' auda
cious impiety rise ! Was it not enough that
men once crucified Christ, but that there must
be a geueration of men who would crucify
Christianity ? Must he who taught no defence
but patience, allowed no armour but submis
sion, and never warranted the shedding any
blood but his owu, be now again mocked
with soldiers, and vouched the author and
patron of all those hideous aud rebellious
acts, which an ordinary irapiety would stand
araazed at, and which in this world he has so
plainly conderaned iu his word, and will
hereafter severely sentence in his own person ?
Certainlv, these monsters are not only spots
in Cliristianity, but so many standing excep
tions from humanity and nature.
"V. In the fifth aud last place, let us view
the horridness of the fact iu the fatal conse- ^
quences that did attend it. Every villainy is ;
like a great absurdity, drawing after it a
numerous train of homogeneous consequences;
aud none ever spread itself into raore than
this. But I shall endeavour to reduce them
all into two sorts ; such as were of a civil, and i
such as were of a religious concern. <
Aud first for the civil, political consequences
of it ; there immediately followed a change of
that government, whose praise had been pro- ¦
clairaed even by its eneraies. It was now
shred into democracy ; and the stream of ;
governmeut being cut into many channels,
ran thin aud shallow : whereupon the subjects [
had many masters, and every servant so many
distinct services. But the wheel of Provi
dence, which they only looked at, and that
even to giddiness, did not stop here ; but by ,
a fatal vicissitude, the power and wickedness
of those raany were again compacted into one,
and from that one returning again into many,
with several attending variations, till at length
we pitched upon one again, one beyond whom
they could uot go, the neplus ultra of all regal
excellencies, as all change tends to, and at
last ceases upou its acquired perfection. Nor
was the government only, but the glory ot
our nation also changed ; distinctions of orders
confounded, the gentry and nobility, who
voted the bishops out of their dignities in
pariiament, by the just judgraent of God
were thrust out themselves, and brought
under the lash of an imperious beggar on

528

THREE SERMONS.

Serm. I.

horseback. Learning was discountenanced,
and the universities threatened ; the law to
be reformed ; the model of the nation to be
burnt : such an inundation and deluge of
ruin, reformation, aud confusion, had spread
itself upon the whole nation, that it seeraed
a kind of resemblance of Noah's flood, in
which a few meu survived among beasts.
The second sort of consequences were of re
ligious concern. I speak not of the contempts
and rebukes lying upon the preachers of
those days ; for they brought their miseries
upon theraselves, and had a great deal raore
cause to curse their own seditious sermons,
thau to curse Meroz. They sounded the first
trumpet to rebellion, and like the saints, had
grace to persevere iu what they first began ;
courting an usurper, and calling themselves
his loyal and obedient subjects, never endea
vouring so much as to thiuk of their lawful
sovereign. I speak uot therefore of these ;
but the great destructive consequence of
this fact was, that it left a lasting slur
upon the protestant religion : " Tell it
not in Gath, publish it not in the streets of
Askelon, lest the daughters of the Phil
istines triumph, lest the papacy laugh us
to scorn. I confess the seditious writings
of some who call theraselves Protestants
have sufficiently bespattered their religion.
See Calvin warranting the three estates to
oppose their prince, 4 Instit. ch. 20. sect.
31. See Mr Knox's Appeal, and in that,
arguments for resisting the civil magistrate.
Road Mr Buchanan's discourse de jure regni
apud Scotos. Read Vindicice contra Tyrannos,
under the name of Junius Brutus, writ by
Ottoman the civilian. See Parous on the 13th
to the Romans, where he states a large term,
atrocem aliquam injuriam, and a very easy
application, to be sufficient reason for the
taking up arms against the king. But this is
rather a comment on the covenant, than on
the 13th to the Romans. Both of which, as
they teach the sarae doctrine, so they deserved
and had justly the sarae confutation. But
these principles, like sleeping lions, lay still a
great while, and never were completely
awaked, nor appeared in the field, till the
French holy league and the English rebellion.
Let the powder-plot be as bad as it will, yet
still there is as much difference between that
and the king's murder, as between an action
and an attempt : what bulls and anathemas
could not do, seditious serraons have brought
about. What was then contrived against the
parliament, has since been done by it : what
the papists' powder intended, the soldiers'
matches have effected. I say, let the powder-
plot be looked upon, as indeed it is, the pro
duct of hell, as black as thesouls and principles
that hatched it ; yet still this reforraation-
raurder will preponderate, and January always
have the precedency of November.

And thus I have traced this accursed ftct
through all the parts aud ingredients ofit;
and now, if we reflect upon the quality of the
person upon whom it was done, the condition
of the persons that did it, the means, manner,
and circumstances of its transaction ; I sup
pose it will fill up the measure and reach the
heights of the words in the text, " that there
was never such a thing done or seen since the
day that the children of Israel came out ofthe
laud of Egypt until this day." For my part,
my apprehensions of it overcharge my expres
sions ; and how to set it off, I kuow not; for
black receives uo other colour : but when I
call to mind all the ideas of horror, and all
the records of the Grecian and barbarian
murders, together with new-fancied instances,
aud unheard of possibilities, yet I find none
paralleled, aud therefore have this only to say
of the king's murder ; that it is a thing, than
which nothing can be iraagined raore strange,
and araazing, and astonishing, except its
pardon. And now, having done with the first part
of my text, does it not naturally engage me
in the secoud? Must such a deed, as was
never seen nor heard of, never be spoken of ?
or must it be stroked with smooth, mollifying
expressions ? Is this the way to cure the
wound, by pouring oil upou those that made
it ? And must Absalom be therefore dealt
gently with, because he was a sturdy rebel?
If, as the text bids us, we consider the fact,
and take advice with reason and conscience,
we cannot but obey it iu the following words,
and speak our minds. For could Croesus's
durab son speak upon the very attempting a
murder upon his prince and father, and shall
a preacher be dumb, when such an action is
coraraitted ? Therefore having not yet finish
ed my text, uor, according to the coramand
of it, spoken all my mind, I have one thing '
more to propose, and with that to conclude.
Would you be willing to see this scene ^
acted over again ? To see that restless plotting j
humour, that now boils and ferments in many \
traitors' breasts, once more display itself in
the dismal effects of war and desolation?
Would you see the rascality of the nation in
troops and tumults beleaguer the royal palace ?
Would you hear the ministers absolving their
congregations from their sacred oath of alle
giance, aud sending them into the field to lose
their lives and souls, in a professed rebellion
against their sovereign? Would you see an
insolent, overturning army, in the heart and
bowels of the nation, moving to and fro, to
the terror of every thing that is noble, gene
rous, and religious? Would you see the loyal
gentry harassed, starved, and undone, by the i
oppression of base, insulting coraraittees?
Would you see the clergy torn in pieces, and
sacrificed by the inquisition of synods, triers,
and commissioners? And to mention the

ON THE MARTYRDOM OF CHARLES I.

529

igreatest last ; would you have the king, with
his father's kingdoms, inherit also his fortunes?
Would you see the crown trampled upon,
majesty haled from prison to prison, and at
length, with the vilest circumstances of spite
and cruelty, bleeding and dying at the feet of
bloody, inhuman miscreants ? Would you,
now Providence has cast the destructive in
terest from the parliaraent, and the " house"
is pretty well " swept" and " cleansed," have
the old "unclean spirit return, and take to
itself seven other spirits," seven other in
terests, " worse than itself, and dwell there,"
and so make our " latter end worse than our
beginning ?" We hear of plots and corabina
tions, parties joining and agreeing ; let us not
trust too much in their oppositions among
themselves. The elements can fight wi th each
other, and yet unite into one body ; Ephraira
against Manasses, aud Manasses agaiust
Ephraira, and both equally agaiust the royal
tribe of Judah. Now if we fear the letting
loose these furies again upon us, let us fear the
returns of our former provocations : if we
woiild keep off the axe from our princes and
nobles, let us lay it to our sius ; if we would
preserve their lives, let us mend our own.
We have complained of armies, committees,
sequestrations ; but our sins are those that have
sucked the blood of this nation. These have
purpled the scaffold with royal blood ; these
have blown up so mauy uoble families, have
made so many widows, have snatched the
bread out of the mouths of so many poor
orphans. It is our not " fearing God," hath
made others not " honour the king ;" our uot
benefiting by the ordinances of the church,
that hath enriched others with her spoils.
And how is our church (the only church in
Christendom we read of whose avowed princi
ples and practices disown all resistance of the
civil power) struck aud laid at, at this time I
Bnt when I hear of conspiracies, seditions,
designs, covenants, or plots, they do uot much
move or affright rae : but when I see the same
covetousness, the same drunkenness and pro
faneness, that was first punished in ourselves,
and then in our sanctified enemies ; wheu I
see joy turned into revelling, and debauchery
proclaimed louder than it can be proclaimed
against : these, I confess, stagger aud astonish
me; nor can I persuade myself we were deliver
ed to do all these abominations. But if we
have not the grace of Christians, yet have we
not the hearts of men ? have we no bowels nor
relentings ? If the blood and banishment of our
kings, if the miseries of our comraon mother
the church, ready to fall back into the jaws of
purchasers and reformers, cannot move us, yet
shall we not at least pity our posterity? Shall
We commit sins, and breed up our children to
inherit the curse? Shall the infants now
unborn have cause to say hereafter in the
bitterness of their souls, "Our fathers have
VOL. II,

eaten sour grapes" of disobedience, and our
" teeth are set on edge" with rebellions and
confusions? How doth any one know, but
the oath that he is now swearing, the very
lewdness he is now committing, raay be scored
up by God as an item for a new rebellion ?
"VVe may be rebels, and yet not vote in parlia
ment, uor sit iu committees, nor fight in
armies : every sin is virtually treason ; and
we may be guilty of murder in breaking
other comraandraents besides the sixth. But
at present we are " raade whole :" God hath
by a miracle healed our breaches, cured the
maladies, aud bound up the wounds of a
bleeding nation. What remaius now, but
that we take the counsel that seconded the
like miraculous cure, " go our ways, sin uo
more, lest a worse thing come upon us." But
since our calamities have reached that height,
that they give us rather cause to fear a repeti
tion, than a possibility of gradation ; I shall
dismiss you with the sarae advice upon a
different motive, " Go sin no more, lest the
same evil befall you." Which God of his
infinite mercy prevent ; eveu that God " by
whora kings reign and princes decree justice,"
by whora their thrones are established, and by
whom their blood will be revenged.
To whom be rendered and ascribed, as is
most due, all praise, might, majesty, and do
minion, both now and for evermore. Amen.

SERMON II.
ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTIONS TO BE
STRICTLY MAINTAINED.
PREACHED AT OXFORD.*
** To whom we gave place by subjection, no, not for an hour ,
that the truth of the gospel might continue with you."
Galatjans, ii. 5.
Cheistianitt having been now in the world
above sixteen huudred years, there is hardly
any condition that cau befall the church, but
may be paralleled, or at least reserabled, by the
condition it has beeu in, iu some place or age
before. That which our church labours uuder
at present, is the bold and restless encroach
raents of raany amongst ourselves, upon tbe
bishops aud pastors of it.
1st, By an endeavour to cast out of our
public worship sorae ceremonies and usages
hitherto received in it ; aud instead of sub
mitting to their spiritual governors iu such
matters, they insolently require of their gover-
* This sermon may be compared with Sermon LX. vol. I
p, 522. on the same aubject 2l

530

THREE SERMONS.

Serm. II.

nors to comply with them, though contrary
to their own judgment, and that also backed
with truth and reason, as well as law and
authority. And then (upon their refusal to
yield to such innovators) by traducing them
as persons of another religion, of a different
Christianity ; and in a word, as papists and
idolaters, for persisting in the use of those
ceremonies, which, upou the most serious de
liberation had about these things, by such as
laid down their lives against popery, have by
full authority, both ecclesiastical and civil,
been established iu our church.
Not much unlike this case of ours, we have
one mentioned here, in the church of Gralatia,
aud that as early as the times of the apostles
themselves ; in which many, both Jews and
Gentiles, being converted to Christianity, a
great dispute arose, whether the Jewish cus
toms were to he joined with the Christian
profession, and consequently, whether the
converted Gentiles ought not to have been
circuracised according to the law of Moses, as
well as baptized according to the religion of
Christ. The Jewish converts, who were
raost infinitely fond of the Mosaical rites, even
after their enrolment under Christ's banner,
fiercely contended not only for the continuance
of circumcision araongst theraselves, but for
obliging the proselyte Gentiles to the same
custom also. And in this their error they
were the more confirmed by the example and
practiceof Saint Peter, the great apostle ofthe
circumcision, (it being the fate of fhe church
then, as well as since, to have some of its
chief leaders betray the truth aud interest of
it, by unworthy and base oorapliances with
its eneraies.) Saint Peter, I say, thus juda-
izing in sorae things, aud that even contrary
to his owu conscience, as well as to the truth of
the gospel, (for the text tells us in the 12th and
13th verses, that it was neither better uor
worse thau downright dissiraulation ; and
such an one is like a contagious pest, which
spreads the infection on many more besides
himself,) did by his exaraple mightily en
courage those Jewish Christians, not only to
have confidence in their errors, but also to an
expostulation with Saint Paul himself, who,
being an apostle of the Gentiles, both taught
and practised quite otherwise; aud so far did
it carry them, that they questioned the very
truth of his doctrine, calling it auother
gospel, and by no means the same that
Christ and the rest of the apostles had
taught before, as is intimated in the first
chapter and the Sth verse. They reflected
also very slightingly on his person and apostle
ship, extolling Saint Peter, and others, as
pillars, but despising Saint Paul, as nothing
in coraparison. Upon which, Saint Paul
coming to visit these Galatian converts, with
Titus his corapanion, they press him very
earnestly, and with an importunity next to

compulsion, to have Titus circumcised, accor
ding to their false notion of the necessity of
circumcision. And yet, as false as this opinion
was, it wanted not some colour of arguments ;
for might not these Galatians plead, in behalf
of the continuance of circumcision, that
Christ himself declared, " he came not to de
stroy the law of Moses, but to confirm and
fulfil it?" And was not this circumcision one
of the most considerable parts of the law ? So
considerable indeed, as to be the grand obli
gation to bind men to all the rest. Did not
also Christ commaud his own disciples to hear
and do what the pharisees taught them out of
Moses's chair, and did they teach or own any
thing equally necessary, or more necessary
than circumcision? As a confirmation of
all this, did not Saint Peter, who was the
proper apostle of the circumcision, agree and
concur with them in the practice of it, or at
least not dissuade them from it ; nay, and
did not Saint Paul himself cause Timothy to
be circumcised ? And if in this matter there
should be auy difference between these two
apostles, was not the advantage clearly on
Saint Peter's side, who, having conversed per
sonally with Christ in the flesh, might ration
ally be presumed to know the true sense and
design of the gospel more than Saint Paul,
who had not that benefit ; and consequently,
that it must be much safer for them in that
controversy to adhere to the former than to
the latter ? Lastly, over and above all, might
they not plead themselves extremely scandal
ized, grieved, and offended at the disusage of
circumcision, which they were sure was at
first instituted by God, and never since (for
what they could fiud) forbidden by Christ,
but rather, on the contrary, countenanced by
bis own practice? These things certainly
carry some show of reason in them, and were
much more forcible allegations for circum
cision, than any that our sectaries bring
against our ceremonies ; and yet, as forcible
as they seemed, they had no other effect on
Saint Paul, than that with great stiffness he
rejects both them and those that urged them ;
and upon a full hearing of the raerits of the
whole cause, resolves uot to give place to them,
no, not for an hour.
This was the occasion of these words ; in
which are five particulars worth our observa
tion: 1st, A fierce opposition made by some
erroneous private Christians in the church of
Galatia agaiust Saint Paul, a great apostle,
and consequeutly of prime authority in the
church of Christ.
2dly, The cause of this opposition, the vio
lent aud unreasonable demands made to him,
to confirm the practice of a thing as necessary,
which in itself was not so.
Sdly, The methods taken in this opposition,
namely, slandering his doctrine, and detract-

ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTIONS TO BE STRICTLY MAINTAINED, sai

ing from the credit and authority of his per-
sou, for withstanding these their encroaching
demands. 4thly, The wholesome method made use of
by the anostle in dealing with these violent
encroachers ; that was, uot to give place to
them in the least, no, not for an hour.
fithly and lastly, "The eud and design in
tended by the apostle in this his method of
dealiug with them, namely, the preservation
of the gospel in the truth aud purity of it,
that those sacred truths might have their due
regard among them.
The sum of all which particulars I shall
connect into this one proposition, which shall
be the subject of this following discourse ;
namely. That the best aud most apostolical
way to establish a church, and to secure it iu
a lasting continuance of the truth and purity
ofthe gospel, is, for the governors aud minis
ters of it not to give place at all, or yield up
the least received constitution of it to the de
mands or pretences of such as dissent or
separate from it ; all which is a plain, natural,
nndeniable inference from the practice of
Saint Paul in a case so like ours, that a liker
can hardly be imagined. The prosecution of
this proposition I shall endeavour to manage
under the following heads :
First, I shall consider and examine the pre
tences alleged by dissenters for our remitting
or yielding up any of our ecclesiastical con
stitutions. Secondly, I shall shew you the natural con
sequences of such a tame resignation.
Thirdly, I shall shew what influence and
efficacy a strict adherence to the constitu
tions of the church, and an absolute refusal to
part with any of them, is likely to have upon
thesettleraent of the church, aud purity of the
gospel araongst us.
But before I enter upon the discussion of
any of these, I must premise this observation,
and rule of all I shall say upon this sub
ject, namely, that the case is altogether the
same, of requiring upon the account of con
science forbearance of practices in theraselves
lawful, throngh a pretence of their unlawful
ness, and an imposing upon the conscience
practices in themselves not necessary, upou
all^tion and pretence of their necessity;
¦which latter was the case between Saint Paul
and these Galatians, as the former is between
onr chnrch and the sectarists. Now both of
these courses are superstitious, and equally so.
For though lewdness and ignorance have still
carried the cry of superstition agaiust our
church ceremonies, yet (as a learned prelate*
hath fully proved in his "Visitation sermon)
that charge truly recoils upon our dissenters,
m the very point and matter before us. For
as to urge the practice of a thing indifferent
* Bishop SandenoQ.

as a part of God's worship, and for itself ne- {
cessary to be practised, (which our church
never did nor does in the injunction of any of ,
her ceremonies,) is superstitious : so to make j
it necessary to abstain from practices in them
selves lawful, or at least indifferent, alleging
that they are sinful, and consequently that
an abstinence from them is part of our obedi
ence to God, this is altogether as superstitious,
and diametrically opposite to and destructive
of the Christian liberty that Christ has in
vested his church with.
This premised, I shall now enter upon the
first thing proposed ; which was, to consider
and examine the pretences alleged by dis
senters, for the quitting or yielding up any of
the constitutions of the church. Aud here in
a noted discourse so acceptable to such as hate ^
the church, and hope shortly to ruin it, we
have their chief pretences already gathered to 1
our hands uuder very few heads, namely, the I
infirmity, the importunity, and plausible
exceptions of our sectarists : concerning the
first of which, the plea of infirmity or weak- I
ness, if it be raeant of such a weakuess (as it
must be, ifit argues any thing) as in the 14th
chapter of the Epistle to tho Roraans, or the
Sth chapter of the 1st Epistle to the Coriu-
thiaus. Saint Paul speaks of in those weak i
brethren, who in his tirae, being newly eon-
verted from Judaism or Gentilism, were for a
while to be borne with iu sorae thiugs ; it is
most evident that the case of these converts
then, and of our dissenters now, are so widely
different, that where people have from their ;
infancy been brought up ina Christian church,
and by Christian parents and teachers, such '
infirraity or weakuess the apostle there men- !
tions, in persons newly converted from other |
religious, ueither is nor can be pleaded ; since,
after so many opportunities of instruction, j
there can be no doubting or dissatisfaction in
things necessary to be knowu, practised, or i
forborne, but what iu all persons enjoying !
those means is very culpable, and in most ;
inexcusable ; so that the plea is impertinent.
2dly, And for that other, of iraportunity, it ;
is so senseless, and withal so sharaeless a
pretence, that it raay be referred even to the !
judgment of those that make it ; whether, in
case this was admitted against thiugs legally 1
established, any laws in the world could pos- .
sibly subsist or continue, where people were
bold and violent enough to oppose and exclaim
against them. Aud since the civil state has j
found it necessary to arm itself with laws
against sturdy beggars, it is, raethinks, some
what hard, that in the ecclesiastical state
sturdy beggars should control the laws. In
the last place, therefore, let us see what is to
be ascribed to their phrase of plausible excep
tions ; where it will concern us, first of all, to
inquire iuto the force aud meaniug of this [
word plausible, this high and mighty word, to

5.S2

THREE SERMONS.

Serm. II.

-which the long received constitution of a
whole church ought to give place. Now
plausible, I conceive, may have one of these
two significations :
1st, It may be taken for that which carries
with it more appearance and show of reason
than its opposite, iu the j udgment or opinion
of the multitude. Or,
2dly, For that which carries a greater ap
pearance and show of reason in the judgment
of the more sensible part of mankind.
In either of these senses, I shall shew that
it makes nothing for them, and that from the
following considerations ;
1st, Because there is actually a church, a
greater nuraber of persons in the nation, that
practise aud conform to the use of those things
now in debate between us, than there is of
those who stand off, and abstain from them.
This being so, unless we will judge those men
gross hypocrites, we are bound in reason and
Christian charity to believe, that there appears
to them a greater ground of reason why they
should so conform, than why they should
not ; and consequently the first signification
of plausibility fails our dissenters, since the
number of those to whom conformity appears
more rational, is much larger than the number
of those to whom the exceptions against it
appear to be so. In this sense therefore the
exceptions cannot be allowed to be so much as
plausible. But then,
2dly, Admitting (which as they cannot
prove, so neither do we grant) that there were
this kind of plausibility iu their exceptions
brought against conformity, yet I deny that
which is plausible in this sense, that it appears
reasonable to the opinion and vogue of the
multitude, ought to take place of that whicli
is deemed to have greater reason for it in the
sense and judgment of the more knowing,
though rauch inferior to the other in number :
which is the other sense, iu which I shewed
the word plausible may be taken.
Sdly, The third consideration is, that since
the governing part of the church and state
have declared for conformity, by making laws
to enjoin it; and since in all governments the
advantage of wisdom and knowledge, in
making or changing, must in reason be pre
sumed to be rather on the side of those that
govern, than of those that are to be governed ;
it follows that, according to the other sense of
plausibility, conformity and the reasons for it
are more plausible, than the exceptions and
arguments alleged against it.
4thly, The fourth and last consideration,
which eradicates the foregoing pretence, is,
that the ground of passing a thing into a law,
and of retaining that law wheu once made, is
not the plausibility of the thing or law to the
sense of the vulgar, but the real condueibility
of it to the good of the multitude ; and that
accords to the sense aud judgment of those

who are to govern and make laws for it. To
which I add farther, that a thing raay be
really and practicably conducing to the good
of the multitude, though neither suitable to
the opinion or huraour of it, and consequently
no ways plausible to it.
Now from these four consequences it being
manifest how insignificant that pretence,
taken from the plausibility of the noncon
formists' exceptions against the constitutions
of our church, proves to be, since they are
neither plausible, as proceeding from the wise
and governing part of the nation, nor yet as
from the greater or more numerous part of it ;
nor lastly, ought to have any control upon
the laws, though they were never so plausible
upou this last account : I shall pass from the
plausibility to tbe force of the exceptions, and
see whether we cau meet with any strength
of reason, where we have not yet found the
show. And here I shall not protend to recount
them all in particular, but ouly take tliem as
reducible to, and derivable from, the following
three heads :
First, The unlawfulness, or.
Secondly, The inexpediency, or.
Thirdly and lastly. The smalluess, of the
things ex'cepted against. I shall only touch
briefly upon each of them, for the corapass of
this discourse will allow no more.
1st, For their leading plea of the unlawful
ness ofour ceremonies, grounded upon the old,
baffled arguraent drawn frora the illegality of
will-worship, and the prohibition of adding to
and detracting from the word and worship of
God : no other answer cau or need be given
to it, but that which has been given over and
over; that our ceremonies are not esteemed
by our church either as divine worship, or as
any necessary essential part of it, but only as
circumstances and external appurtenances for
the more decent performance of the worship.
For that man should of his own will impose
on us any thing as the necessary worship of
God, or add any thing to the worship as a
necessary essential part of it, this questionless,
as the aforementioned allegations sufficiently
prove, must needs be sinful. But if from
hence it be affirmed also, that uo circumstance
is to be allowed iu divine worship, but what
is declared and enjoined by express scripture,
the consequence of this is so insufferably ridi
culous, that it will extend to the raaking it
unlawful for the church to appoint any place
or house for God's worship ; nay, it will lead
also to the very taking down of pulpits, read
ing-desks, fonts, aud every thing else circum
stantially ministering to the discharge of
divine service, if not expressly mentioned and
coraraanded in the word of God. And let
them, upon the foregoing principle, avow tiit
absurdity of the consequence ifthey can. But
it has been well remarked, that these men do
not indeed believe themselves, wheu thc\

ECCLESIASTICAL;:CONSTITUTIONS TO BE STRICTLY MAINTAINED. 533

plead our rites unlawful. For when an act of
parliament enjoined all persons in office to
take the sacrament according to the use of the
church of Englaud, (and that, we know, is to
take it kneeling,) we find none of them refus
ing, how idolatrous soever at other times they
esteemed it, rather than turn out of the least
ofiice of gain they were possessed of ; which,
had it been unlawful, surely men of such
tender consciences, as they own themselves to
be, would never have been brought to do, since
notthe least unlawful thing ouglit to be com
mitted for the greatest temporal advantage
But since these men have, by so

many other instances, manifested to the world
that they look upon their own will as their
law, they would do well hereafter to allege uo
other argument for the unlawfulness of our
ceremonies. Aud therefore, to pass to their
second plea, of inexpedience, or inconveniency
of them ; to which I shall give the two fol
lowiug answers:
1st, Tbat inexpedience, being a word of a
general, indefinite sense, and so deterrainable
by the several fancies, humours, apprehen
sions, and interests of men about the same
thing, so that what is judged expedient by
one man is thought inexpedient by another ;
the judgment of the expediency or inexpe
diency of raatters formed into laws ought in
all reason to rest wholly in the legislators and
governors, and consequently no private persons
ought to be looked upon as competent judges
of the inexpediency of that which the legis
lative power has once enacted and established
as expedient.
2dly, I affirm also, that that which is not
only in itself lawful, but highly conducible to
so great a concern of religion, as decency and
order in divine worship ; and this to that
degree, that without it such order and decency
could not subsist or continue ; this canuot
otherwise be inexpedient upon any con
siderable account whatsoever. But then all
these considerations of inexpediency will be
abundantly overbalanced by this one great
expediency ; for since the outward acts of
divine worship cannot be performed but with
some circumstances and posture of body,
either every man must be left to his own
arbitration, or use what circumstances and
postures he pleases, or a rule must be laid
down to direct these things after one and the
same manner. The former of necessity infers
diversity and variety in the discharge of the
same worship, and that by the same necessity
infers disorder and indecency ; which_ by
nothing but an uniformity iu the behaviour
and circurastances of persons joining in one
and the sarae worship can be prevented.
This argument, I confess, concurs directly for
the necessity of ceremonies in general about
divine service ; but so far as ours are argued
against upon a general account, and till they

are proved particularly unfit for the general
end, the same may be also a defence of ours
in particular. Corae we now to the
Sd and last exception, grounded upon the
smallness of the things excepted against ; to
whicli also my answer is twofold : (1st,) That
these things being in themselves lawful, aud
not only so, but also determined by sufficient
authority, the smalluess is so far from being
a reason why men should refuse and stand
out against the use of them, that it is an un
answerable argument why they should, with
out any demur, submit and comply 'with
authority in matters which they themselves
confess to be of no very great moment. For it
ought to be a very great and weighty matter
indeed that can warrant a man in his disobe
dience to the injunctions of auy lawful autho
rity ; and that which is a reason why raen
should comply with their governors, I am sure
can be no reason why their governors should
give place to thera. But (2dly,) I add farther,
that nothing actually enjoined by law is (or
ought. to be looked upou as) sraall or little, as
to the use or forbearance of it during the con
tinuance of that law, nor yet as sufficient
reason for the abrogation of that law, since,
be the thiug never so small in itself, yet, being
by great deliberation first established, and for
a long time since received iu the church, and
contended for with real and great reason ou
its side, be the reasons never so plausible
(which yet hitherto does not appear) on the
other, yet the consequence of a change can
not be accounted small, since it is certainly
very hazardous at best, and doubtful what
mischief it raay occasion, how far it niay
proceed, and where it may end ; especially
since the experience of all governments has
made it evident, that there was hardly any
thing altered in a settled state, that was not
followed by more alterations, and several in
conveniencies attending these alterations ; not
indeed at first foreseen, but such as iu the
event made too great impressions on the
public to be accounted either small or incon
siderable. These exceptions being therefore
stripped of their plausibility and force too,
and retorted upou the patrons of them, it fol
lows, that notwithstanding all our harangues
concerning our difference in smaller things,
as the phrase now is, and our contending
about shadows and the like, made by some
amongst us, who would fain be personally
popular at the public cost, and build them
selves a reputation with the rabble upon the
ruins of the church, that by all the obliga
tions of oaths and gratitude they are bound
to support, as I am sure that supports thera.
It follows, I say, that for the governors of
our church, after all this, to be ready to yield
up the received constitutions of it, either to
the infirmity, or importunity, or pl.iusible
exceptions, (as their advocates are pleased to

534

THREE jSERiVIONS.

Sf.hm. II.

term them,) of our clamorous dissenters, is
so far from being a part either of the piety or
prudence of those governors, that it is the fear
of many both pious and prudent too, thatin the
end it will be like to prove no other than the
permittiug of a thief to come into the house,
only to avoid the noise and trouble of his
knocking at the door. And thus much for
the first thiug proposed ; which was to con
sider and exaraine the pretences alleged by
dissenters for our quitting or yielding up any
of our ecclesiastical constitutions. I corae to
shew now the second thing, which is, what
are naturally like to be the consequences of
such a tame resignation. In order to which,
I shall consider these two things :
1st, What the temper and dispositions of
those men who press so much for compliances
have usually been.
2dly, What the effects and consequences of
such compliances or relaxations have been
formerly. And first, for the temper of these men.
This certainly should be considered ; and if it
ought to give any force to their demands, it
ought to be extremely peaceable and impar
tial. But are there any qualities incident to
the nature of raan, that these persons are
farther frora ? For did they treat the gover
nors of the church with any other appellation
but that of, — priests of Baal, idolaters, perse
cuting Nimrods, formalists, dumb dogs, proud
popish prelates, haters of God aud good men,
&c. ? I say, is not this their usual dialect ?
And can we iraagine that the spirit of Christi
anity can suggest such language and expres
sions ? Is it possible, that where true religion
governs iu the heart, it should thus utter itself
by the mouth? And to shew yet farther
that this temper can manifest itself by actions
as well as words, did not these, who now
plead conscience against law, persecute, plun
der, kill, and murder those who pleaded and
followed conscience according to law? Aud
can auy one assure the government that they
will not, under the sarae circumstances, do
again the same things ? And for their ira
partiality, did they ever grant allowance or
toleration to any that were dissenters from
them ? The presbyter would grant none ;
and so much has he given the world under
his own hand, in thoseraany clamorous libels,
and that spawm of pamphlets composed on
that subject. Aud when his younger brother,
tbe raore able and more successful sectarist of
the two, had undermined hira, and intro
duced toleration, yet still episcopacy as well
as popery stood expressly excepted from any
benefit by it, or part iu it. This is the way
and teraper of the persons we have to deal
with ; and what pity is it that the whole
government, both ecclesiastical and civil,
should not lean to and bear with them ! A
faction that will be sure to requite such a

favour once done them, by using it to the re
proach and ruin of them that did it. And
thus having given sorae short account of the
teraper and disposition of these men, the next
thing is to consider, \
2dly, What the effect and consequences of
such compliances or relaxations have been
heretofore. And for this I appeal to the
judgment, reading, and experience of all, who
have in any measure applied themselves to
the observation of men and things, whether
they ever yet found, that any who ever pressed
for indulgencies and forbearances rested in
them once granted, without proceeding any
farther ? None ever yet did, but nsed them
only as an act and instrument to get into
power, and make every concession a step to a
farther demand ; since every grant renders
the person to whom it is made so much the
more considerable, when he thinks fit to
ask more. To grant, is to give ground ; and
such persons ask some things only in order to
their getting others without asking ; for no
other encroachers upon or enemies to any
public constitution ask all at first : sedition
itself is mode.st in the dawn, and only tolera
tion raay be petitioned, where nothing less
than erapire is designed. The nature of man
acts the same way, whether in matters civil
or ecclesiastical ; and can we easily forget the
methods by which that violent faction grew
upon the throne ? Did not the facility and '
too fatal mercy of a late prince irabolden !
their impudence, instead of satisfving their ',
desires ? Was not every concession, every ;
remission of his own right, so far from allay
ing the fury of their greedy appetites, that,
like a breakfast, it rather called up their
stomachs, and fitted them for a dinner ? Did
not craving still grow upon granting, till no
thing remained to be asked on one side or
given on the other, but the life of the owner?
Thus it was with the state : and I would fain
hear any solid reason to prove that it will not
happen alike to the church : for how has the
papacy grown to that surprising height, and
assumed such an extravagant power over
sovereign princes, but by taking advantages
from their own grants and favours to that
see? Which still took occasion from them
to raise herself gradually to farther pretences,
till courtesy quickly passed into claira, and
what was gotten by petition was held by pre
rogative ; so that at length insolence, grown
big and bold with success, knew no hounds,
but trampled ou the necks of emperors, con
trolled the sceptre with the crosier, and in
the face of the world openly avowed a supe
riority and preeminence over crowned heads.
Thus grew the papacy; aud by the same way
will also grow other sects : for there is a
papacy in every sect or faction : for they all ;
design the same height and grandeur, though |
the pope alone has had the fortune to cora-

ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTIONS TO BE STRICTLY MAINTAINED. 535

pass it. And thus ha-ving she-wn what have
been the effects of such concessions heretofore,
as well as described the temper of the persons
who now press for them, I suppose it will
not be very difiScult for ns to judge what are
like to be the future effects and consequences
of the same amongst ourselves : conceming
whieh I shall lay down this assertion ; that
what effects and consequences any thing had
formerly, and what in its own nature it tends
to, and is apt to produce, it is infinitely sot
tish and irrational to imagine or suppose that
it will not produce and cause in the world for
flie future ; and I believe, hardly any nation
hut ours would suffer the same cheat to be
trumped npon it twice immediately together.
Every society in the world subsists in the
strength of eertain laws, customs, and re
ceived usages uniting the several parts of it
into one body. And accordingly the parting
with any of these laws or customs is a real
dissolution of the continuity, aud consequently
a partial destmction of the whole. It cer
tamly shakes and weakens all the fabric ; and
weakness is but destruction begun ; it tends
to it, and naturally ends in it ; as every dis
ease of the body will be death, and no mis
chief cures itself. But to pass by arguments
deduced from the general nature of things, to
the same made e-vident to sense in particular
instances, let ns first of all suppose our dis
senters to be dealt with upon terms of com
prehension, (as they call it,) and took into
the oommnnion of the chnrch, without snb-
itdtting to the present conditions of its com
munion, or any necessary obligation to obey
the established rules of it, then these things
must follow :
First, That men shall come into the national
ministiy full of their covenanting rebellious
principles, even keen upon their spirits, and
such as raised and carried on the late fatal
war. Then it will also follow, that in the
same diocese, sometimes in the very same
town, some shall use the surplice, and others
not ; each shall have their parties prosecuting
one another -with the bitterest hatred and
animosities ; some in the same church, and
at the same time, shall receive the sacrament
kneeling, some standing, and others probably
Bitting ; gome shall make use of the cross in
baptism, and others shall not only not use it
themselves, bnt also invdgh and preach
against those who do ; some shall preach this
part, others that, and some none at all. And
where, as in cathedrals, they cannot avoid the
hearing of it read by others, they shall come
into the church when it is done, and stepping
into the pulpit, conceive a long, crude extem
porary prayer, in reproach of all those excel
lent ones just offered up before. Nay, in the
some cathedral yon shall see one prebend in a
surplice, another in a long coat or tunic, and
in performance of the service, some standing

up at the creed, the doxology, or the reading
of the gospel, others sitting, and perhaps
laughing and winking upon their fellow schis
matics in contempt of those who practise the
decent order of the church : and from hence
the mischief shall pass to the people, dividing
them into parties aud factions, so that some
shall come to the assembly of the saints, only
to hear a favourite preacher, aud for ever after
be sure to be absent. I will give no counte
nance, says one, to the formalist ; nor will I,
says another, with much better reason, give
ear to the schismatic ; all this while the
church is rent in pieces, and the common
enemy gratified. Aud these are sorae of the
effects of comprehension ; nor indeed could
any other be expected from a project sq
nearly allied to fatal forty-one ; so that I dare
avow, that to bring in comprehension is, in
plain terms, nothing less than to establish a
schism in the chnrch by law, and settle a
plague in the bowels of it, that shall eat out
the very heart and soul ; so far consume the
vitals and spirits of it, that in the corapass of
a very few years, it shaU scarce have any
visible being or subsistence, or so rauch as the
face of a national church to shew. {
But from comprehension let us pass to tole
ration, that is, from a plague within the church
to a plague round about it. And is it possible
for the church to continue souud, or indeed so I
much as to breathe, in either of these cases ? }
Toleration is the very pulling up thefloodgates, ¦
and breaking opeu the fouutains of the great I
deep, to pour in a deluge of wickedness, heresy, j
and blasphemy upon the church. The law of
God commands men to profess and practise
the Christian religion ; the law of man, in
this case, will bear you out, though of none,
or of one of your own choice. Therefore, an ,
hundred different religious at least shall, with j
a bare face and a high hand, bid defiance to |
the Christian ; some of which, perhaps, shall i
deny the Godhead of Christ, some the reality
of his manhood, some the resurrection, and
others the torments of hell. Sorae shall
assert the eternity of the world, and tbe like, \
and all this by authentic allowance of law. i
Upon this footing, it shall be safe for every ;
broacher of new heresy to gain as raany pro- i
selytes to it as he can ; and there is none of ;
them all, though never so absurd, irapious,
and blasphemous, but shall have proselytes
and professors more or less : and what a large
part of the nation must this necessarily draw
in! So that as number aud novelty easily [i
run down truth and paucity for a while, the j
orthodox part of the nation, the church, will
quickly be bome down, and swallowed up.
And since it is impossible for govemment or !
society to subsist where there is uo bond or
cement of religion to hold it together, confu- i
sion must needs follow. And since it is ;
equally impossible for coufusion to last long, |

:y.]G

THREE SERMONS.

Skrm. II.

but th.at it must at last settle into something,
that will and must be popery, infallibly, irre
sistibly : for the church of England beiug
once extinct, no other sect or church has any
bottora or foundation, or indeed any tolerable
pretence to set up upon, but that. And that
this deduction of things is neither inconse
quent nor precarious, wu may be assured
from the papists themselves ; for did not
tbeir Iato agent, who lost his life in their
service, and whose letters are so well known,
tell us in one of them, " that tho way by
which he intended to have popery brought in
was by toleration ; and that if an act for a
general liberty of conscience could be ob
tained, it would give the greatest blow to the
protestant religion here that over it received
since its birth ?" Did ho not also complain,
" that all their disappointments, iniBories,
and hazards wore owing to tho fatal revoca
tion, (as ho calls it,) of the king's declaration
for liberty of conscienco?" Aud lastly, does
he not affirm, " that all the advantage they
expected to raake was by tho help of tho
iion-conforinist'i, presbyterians, indcpoiidonts,
aud other sects?" I purposely use his own
words ; and shall we not think that tho
papists theiijsoives know what wore tho pro-
pcrot and most cffcctu:il means for tho prose
cution of their own interests? So that let
all our se[iai-atists and dissenters know that
thoy themselves aro the pope's artificers, to
carry on his work, and do that for him,
which ho cannot do for himself. They aro
his liarbirii,'ers .'uid forcrunneiH, to prepare
and make plain a way for liim to como
amongst iis. Thus thoy, even thoy, who aro
the most cliiinorous declairaers against popory,
aro tho surest und most industrious factors
for it. It is the weakening tho church of
England by tlioir separation from it, and
their invectives against it, which gives Rome
a handle to attack it, thus weakened to her
hands, with victory and success. The thief
first breaks the hedge of the vineyard, to filch
away, perhaps, but a few clusters, but the
wild boar enters the same breach, and makes
havock of all.
As for the church of England, whatsoever
fate may attend it, this may and must bo
said of it, that it is a church which claims no
independent secular power, but, like a poor
orphan, ex|iosed naked and friendless to the
world, pretends to no other help but the
goodness of God, the piety of its principles,
and the justice of its own cause to maintain
it. A church not born into the world with
tooth and talons, like popery and presbytery,
but like a lamb, innocent and defenceless and
silent, not only under the shearer, but under
the butcher too ; a church which, as it is obe
dient to the civil powers, without auy treach
erous distinctions or reserves, so would be
glad to have the countenance and protection

of that power : and though it cannot bo pro
tected by it, is yet resolved to bo peaceable
and quiet under it ; and while it parts with
all, to hold fast its integrity. And if God
should, for tho nation's unworthy and un
grateful usage of so excellent a cliurch, so
pure, so peaceable a religion, bereave us of it,
liy letting in the tyranny and superstition of
another, it is pity but it should corae in its
full force and power. And then I hope that
such as have betrayed and enslaved their
country, will consider, that there is a temporal
as well as ecclesiastical interest concemed in
the case ; that there aro lands to be converted
as well as heretics; and those who pretend
they can with a word's speaking change the
substance of some things, can with as much
case alter the properties of others. God's
will be dono in all things ; but if popery
over coraes in by English hands, wo noocl not
doubt but it will fully pfiy tho score of those
who bring it in.
Sdly, I come now to the third and last
thing proposed, which was to shew what
influence and efficacy a strict adherence to the
constitutions of the church, and an absolute
refusal to part with any of thcni, is like to
have upon the settlement of the church, and
the purity of tho gospel amongst us ; and for
this I shall point out three ways, by which it
tends effectually to procure sucha settlement.
First, By being tho grand and raost sove
reign ineaiiH to cause and preserve unity in
thechurch. The Psalmist mentions this as one
of tho noblest and greatest excellencies of the
Jewish church, (Psalm cxxii. 3,) " that it
was built as a city that is at unity in itself."
Unity gives strength, and strength contiuu-
anco. Tho catholics abroad frequently tell
us, that if wo could bo united amongst our
selves, we should be a formidable church in
deed ; aud for this reason there was nono they
so mortally hated, as the late renowned arch
bishop and martyr, whose whole endeavour
was to establish a settled uniformity iu all the
British churches. For his zeal and activity
in which glorious attempt, the presbyterians
cut hira off', according to the papists' hearts'
desire. Now a resolution to keep all the
constitutions of the church, the parts of its
society, and conditions of its comraunion,
entire, without lopping any of them, must
needs unite all the ministers and raerabers of
it, while it engages them (as the apostle so
passionately exhorts his Corinthians, 1 Cor.
1. 10) " to speak all the same thin^ :" but if
any one is indulged in the omission of the
least thing enjoined, they cannot be said "to
speak all the same thing." In which case,
besides the deformity of tbe thing itself, that
where the worship is the same, the tnanner
of perforraing it should be so different ; this
difference of practice will also certainly pro
duce an irreconcileablo division of minds,

KOO LKSI AS r 1 0 A L CO.N STI I f TIO N S TO BE STRICTLY MAINTAINED. 587

^nee s«cli diversitv cauuot b« imagined to
jwweeed from auy other thing than an opinion
th»t one man understands aud does his duty
dfter abetter and more spiritual manner thaii
MioUt«r, and consequently has tho start of his
wishbour or f«Uow-iuinister, either iu point
of jiidgm«ut or devotion, iu neitiier of which
M« mm to allow precedencv, especially when
H eomes once to be wntested. Unity without
uuitomity, is like essence witiiout existence,
« u>«i« wonl and a notion, and no where to
be found in nature.
Sdly, -V. strict adherence to the constitutions
ofthe ohurch is a direct way to settle it, by
Ugettinff in her oneuiies thenisidvos an opi-
aioa of tne goodness and requisiteness of those
ways, for -wEich they see the gx-iverumeut and
ministry of the churcli so concerned, tliat
. they ean by no means be brought to reee^le
; from them. Let fectious ^K^rsons preteud
what they -will outwardly, yet they canuot
but reason with themselves inwarilly. that
(^tainly there must be soniothing more than
I «4)iiary in those things, that men of parts,
teason, aud good lives so strenuously contend
j tat, and so tenaciously adhere to. For it is
[ uot natural to supjHwe tliat serious meu will
^ or eau be resolnte for trifles, tight for straws.
! aad encounter the fiervest opposition for sueh
I things, as all the inter»--sts of piety aud reli-
i; mm may be equally prvnidinl for, whether
1" we churcli retains or jvirts with tliem. This
Jsunnatural aud impious ; and on the other
side, let none think the people will have any
, WTwence for that, for which the pastors of
! the ehurch themselves show au inaifiereuce.
And here let me mention a grvat, but ssd
; truth, not so lit to be spoke, as to Iv sigheil
out bjr every true son and lover of the church,
i that the wonnds the eliur«h of Kngl.'uid now
! bleeds by, she has rtveivtxl •• in the house of
her frieads," her fi>l.si\ undernuning friends ;
(and that noneonforraitr and ,<» separation
ftwn it, and a ivutempt of tho excellent eou-
stitutiott of it, have pnveeded froin nothing
more thau from the (vurtial, treadierous balt-
wnfortnity of many of its own ministers : the
I snrnliee sinneumcs worn, and oftener laid
I asWe ; the liturgv so read, as if they wer*
h aslianied of it ; tlie service so curtaiU-Tl, as if
I the people -were to have but the tenths of that
I fcr whidt thoy paid tbeir own tenths ; the
I tetl^asUeal habit lu^lected, the saerament
1, mdeeently administered, tlie furniture of the
ahar abused, and the table of the Lord pro
filed. These aud the like vile passages ha-re
nade'BMmy nonconformists to tie diurch, by
thwr conformity to their minister. It -wras au
: obser?ation of a iudioioiis prelate, that of all
, thesorts of eueiuios that the chureh liad, there
.; "were noue so devilish and pernicious, amd
f KWy to prove s^i fetal to it, as tlie eonfiwnu-
I >»g puritan. It was a gr\xit truth, and not
? long after mtifie^i bv di«adful experience : fi>r

if ^-ou would know what the conforming
purihm is, he is one that lives by the altar.
and turns his back upon it ; one that catches
at the prt>feruients of the oluirob, but bates
tlie disdpline find orders of it. Oue that
practises confonuity, as popery takes oaths
and tests, with au iii ward abhorrence of wliat
he does for the present, and a resolution to
act quite contrary wheu occasion serves. Oue
who during his conformity will be sure to be
known by suoh a distinguishing badge as sluUl
poiut hiiii out to and secure nis credit with
the fanatical brotherhood. One that still
dedines reading the diurdi-service himself,
leaving the work to curates and readers, there
by to keep up.iw ad\-antageous interest with
thriving, seditions tradesmen, and groaning,
ignorant, but rich widows ; one that iu tlie
midst of eonformit-v' thinks of a turn, and is
careful to behave himself as not to outshoot
his home, but to stand right aud fiiir, in case
a revolution sliould bring fiuiaticisiu a^in
into foshiou, which it is more thau possible
he secretly wishes for.
These aud tbe like .ire tbe principles that
act aud govern the conforming puritan ; who,
in a worxl, is nothing else but ambition,
avariet\ and hyjiocrisy, serving jill the real
interests of schism and faction iu the church's
livery. Now if there Iv any sueh here, (^.is I hope
there are none,) however he may seotli up
and flatter himsdf, yet wheu he hears of such
aud sueh of his ueigblvurs, parishioners, or
acquaintance running to eonveutieles, sudi
and sndi turned quakers, others fallen off to
Soperv ; and lastly, when the noise of the
readtul nation.il disturbances and dangers
shall ring abont his ears, let him lay his hand
upon his heart and ssiy. " It is 1, that by
conforming b\* halves, aud by treai-herously
prevarioaiiiig with my duty, so soleuiuly
sworn to ; 1, that by bringing a contempt
upon the serviee aud order of the purest and
Vst constituted diurch in the world, slabber
ing over the oue, and slighting the other,
h.iVeseandaliied and toss^xl a stumbling-block
befon- the neigliKMiriuxHl. aud have beeu the
cause of this man's taolion. that man's qu.iker^
ism, the other's popery, aud thereby have in
my proportion contributal to those convulsions
that now sxi terriblv shake and threaten both
church and stjite."' 1 say. let him tjike his
share of this herrid guilt, for (Jod and mau
must lav it at his d^vr • it is the genuine result
of his actions : it is his o« u : and will stick
fiister and closer to him, than to be thrown
oJf bv him like his surplice.
Tliirxllv and lastly, A siriet adhert^ncetothe
rules of the dmrdi". without yielding to any
abatement iu favour of the dissenters, is tlie
way to stniie .lud establish it, by p«^se^ng
its enemies with an awful esteem of the con
science aud courage of the goveruois and

538

THREE SERMONS.

Serm. II.

ministers of it. For if the things under
debate be given up to the adversary, it must
be upon one of these two accounts ; either, —
1st, That the persons who thus yield them
up judge them unfit to be retained ; or,
2dly, That they find themselves not able to
retain them. One or both of these of ueces-
sity must be implied in such a yieldance. In
the first case, then, our dissenters will cry out,
"Where has been the conscience of our church-
governors for so many years in imposing and
insisting on those things, which they them
selves now acknowledge and confess not fit to
be insisted upou ? And is not this at once to
own all the libellous charges and invectives
which the nonconformists have been so long
pursuing our church with? Is not this to
$ing dirt upon the government of it, ever
since the reformation ? Nay, does not the
same dirt fall upon the very reformers them
selves, who first put our church into that order
it is in at preseut, and died for it when they
had done ? Such, therefore, as are disposed to
humour these dissenters, by giving up any of
the constitutions of our church, should do well
to consider what and how much is imported
by such an act ; and this they shall find to be
no less than a tacit acknowledgraent of tho
truth and justice of all those pleas by which
our adversaries have been contending for such
a cession all along. The truth is, it will do a
great deal towards the reraoval of the charge
of schism from their doors to ours, by repre
senting the grounds of their separation from
us hitherto lawful at the least. For the whole
state of the matter betweeu us lies in a very
little compass ; that either the church of
England enjoins something unlawful as the
condition of her coramuuion, and then she is
schismatical ; or there is nothing unlawful
enjoined by her, and then those that separate
from her are schisraatics ; and till they prove
that the church of England requires of such
as coraraunicate with her, either the belief of
soraething false, or the practice of soraething
impious, it is impossible to prove the unlaw
fulness of those thiugs that she makes the
condition of her communion, and consequently
to free those that separate from the charge of
schisra. Now while this is the persuasion of the
governors of our church conceming these
thiugs, the world cannot but look upon them
in their unmoveable adherence to them, as
acting like men of conscience, and, which is
next to it, like men of courage. The reputa
tion of which two qualities in our bishops
will do more to the daunting the church's
enemies, than all their concessions can do to
the reconciling of thera. Courage awes an
eneray, and backed with conscience, confounds
him. He that has law on his side, and re
solves not to yield, takes the directest way to
be yielded to. For where an enemy sees

resolution, he supposes strength ; but to yield
is to confess weakness, and consequently to
imbolden opposition. And I believe it will
be one day found, that nothing has contri
buted more to make the dissenting noncon
forming party considerable, than their being
thought so. It has been our courting and
treating with them, that has made them stand
upon their own terras, instead of coming over
to ours. And here I shall shut up this con
sideration with one remark, and it is about
the council of Trent. The design of whieh
council, in all the princes that were so earnest
for the calling it, was to humble and reduce
the power of the papacy ; aud great and fierce
opposition was made against it all along by
the prelates and ambassadors of those princes ;
but so far were they from prevailing, that the
papacy weathered out the storra, and fixed
itself deeper and stronger than ever it was
before. But what raethod did it take thus to
settle itself? "Why, in a word, no other than
a positive resolution not to yield or part with
any thing ; not to give way either to the im
portunity or plausible exceptions, nor, which
is more, to the power of those princes. So
that, (as the writer of the history of the
council observes,) notwithstanding all those
violent blusters aud assaults made on every
side against the papal power, yet, in the end,
the patience and resolution of the legates
overcame all.
Now what may we gather from hence? i
Why surely this very naturally ; that if
courage and resolution should be of such force
to support a bad cause, it cannot be of less to
maintain and carry on a good one ; and if
this could long prop up a rotten building, that
had no foundation, why may it not only
strengthen, but even perpetuate that which
has so firm an one as the chnrch of England
stands upon ? And now, to sum up all, could
Saint Paul find it necessary to take suoh a
pereraptory course with those erroneous dis
senters in the church of Galatia, as " not to
give place to them, uo, uot for an hour;"
aud is it not more necessary for us, where the
pretences for schism are less plausible, and the
persons perverted by it raore nuraerous? Let
us briefly lay together the reasons and argu
ments why we sliould deal with our disseuters
as Saint Paul did with those, not to give them
place at all, because, —
1st, By our yielding, or giving place to them,
we have no rational ground to conclude we
shall gain them, but rather encourage them
to encroach upon us by farther demands ;
since the experience of all governments have
found concessions so far from quieting dis
senters, that they have only animated them
to greater and fiercer contentions.
2dly, By our yielding or giving place to
them, we raake the established laws (in which
these men can neither prove injustice nor iu-

ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTIONS TO BE STRICTLY MAiNlAINED. ob9

expedience) submit to thera, who in duty,
reason, and conscience, are bound to obey
those laws.
Sdly, By our yielding or giving place to
them, we grant to those who, being themselves
in power, never thought it reasonable to grant
the same to others in the same case.
4thly, By our yielding or giving place to
them, we bring a pernicious, incurable evil
into the church, if it be by a comprehension ;
or spread a fatal contagion round about it, if
it be by toleration.
Sthly, By our yielding to these men in a
way of comprehension, we bring those into
the church who once destroyed aud pulled it
down as unlawful and unchristian, and never
yet renounced the principles by which they
did so ; nor (is it to be feared) ever will.
6thly, By such a comprehension we en
deavour to satisfy those person who could
never yet agree among themselves about any
one thing or constitution in whicli they would
all rest satisfied.
7thly, By indulging them this way we act
partially, in gratifying one sect, who can pre
tend to no favour, but what others may as justly
claim who are not comprehended ; and withal
imprudently, in indulging one party who will
do us no good, to the exasperati on of many more
who have a greater power to do us hurt.
Sthly, By such a concession we sacrifice the
constitutions of our church to the will and
humour of those whom the church has no
need of, neither their abilities, parts, piety,
or interest, nor any thing else belonging to
them considered.
9thly and lastly. By such a course we open
the mouths of the Romish party against us ;
who will still be reproaching us for going from
their church to a constitution that we ourselves
now think fit to relinquish, by altering her dis
cipline and the terms of her communion ; and
may justly ask us where, and in what kind of
church or constitution we intend finally to fix.
These, among many more, are the reasons
why we contend, that our dissenters are not
to be given place to.
But after all this, may it not be asked,
•whether it were not better to submit to the
aforementioned inconveniences, rather than
the church should be utterly ruined ? To this
I answer, that the case is fallaciously put, and
Supposes that if these things were submitted
to, the chureh will not be ruined, which I
deny ; and upon the foregoing grounds aflirm
it to he much more probable that it will. To
which I add, that of the two, it is much better
that the church should be run down by a rude
riolence overpowering it, than be given up by
oM own act and consent. For the first can
only take away its revenues, and discourage
6r suppress the public exercise of its disci
pline, but cannot destroy its constitutions ;
the latter does. The former will be our

calamity ; but the latter, being the effect of
our own consent, will render us inexcusable
to all, both our friends and enemies, and our
selves too ; and in the raidst of our desola
tion, leave us not so ranch as the conscience
of a good cause to corafort us.
To explain which by instauce : Suppose
the land overrun by a foreign invasion, yet
still the body of the laws of England may be
said to reraain entire, though the execution
of thera be superseded : but if they be can
celled by act of parliament, they cease to be,
or to be called any longer, the laws of Eng
land. In like manner, if our church-gover
nors and the clergy concur not to the dis
annulling of the canons, rules, and orders of
the church, the constitution of it will still
remain, though the condition of it be obscured
by persecution, and perhaps disabled frora
shewing itself in a national body ; just as it
fared with it in the late rebellion : and who
knows, but if force and rapine should again
bring it into the sarae condition, the goodness
ofGod raay again give it the like resurrection ;
but if we surrender it up ourselves, to us it is
dead, and past all recovery.
And therefore what reraains now, but that
we implore the continued protection of the
Almighty upon a church, by such a miracle
restored to us, and (all things considered) by
as great a miracle preserved hitherto amongst
us, that he would defeat its enemies, and in
crease its friends ; and settle it upon such
foundations of purity, peace, and order, " that
the gates of hell may not prevail against it."

SERMON III.
THE CERTAINTY OF A JUDGMENT
AFTER THIS LIFE.
PREACHED AI ST MART'S, OXON.
" -We must all appear before the judgment scat of Christ ; that
every one may receive the things done in hia body, according
to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad." 2 CoR. V. 10.
Besides instruction and exhortation, -which
have never been wanting (at least in this last
age) to those of this church, there are but two
ways or means raore, in the ordinary course
of divine Providence, by which the reasonable
creature is to be wrought upon ; I raean, by
which man is either to be taken off from the
forbidden evil he is inclined to, or drawu to
the commanded good he is averse frOra ; and
those two are, the hope of a reward for one,
and the fear of punishment for the other ;
that those who have neither ingenuity nor
gratitude, nor will be allured to piety and
obedience by the fruition of God's mercies,

540

THREE SERMONS.

Serm. III.

may yet, out of a self-love at least, and im
patience of suffering, be frighted from dis
obedience and profaneness by feeling of God's
judgments. And truly, if we of this nation
had been so ingenuous and well-natured a
people as tbat the forraer of these (I mean
God's raercies) would have prevailed with us,
we had long since been inwardly the best, as
we were outwardly the happiest of all nations.
For never was there any people, since the
creation of raankind, that enjoyed, for so long
time together, so many of God's mercies of all
kinds and degrees, and that with so many
aggravating circurastances to iraprove and
endear thera to us, as we did, whilst, for
alraost a century together, God courted us
and wooed us, as it were, without interruption
or interraission, by word and deed, by peace
and plenty, and by all sorts both of temporal
and spiritual expressions of his love, which
were possible for a Creator to make to a crea
ture : so that what God said once to the
church and nation of the Jews, he raight have
said unto us not long since, (Isaiah, v. 4,)
namely, " What could I have done more unto
my vineyard?" What could I have done
more, in love and kindness to the church of
England, than I have done? Why should you
be used kindly any more ! You will revolt
more, you will but abuse ray goodness, and
weary ray patience, and turn ray grace into
w.antoniiess, as much or more hereafter than
you have done already. And therefore God
having, according to his usual method, first,
and so long, tried all fair means to win us
and keep us to him, and all in vain, (most of
us still growing the worse the better we were
used by him,) he was compelled at last, (after
many warnings and threatenings to no pur
pose,) he was compelled, I say, (for he
delight.s not in the affliction of any creature,)
to make use of his other, and that which is
usually his most effectual, way of working
upon man, I mean, the way of his judgments ;
and that, first, by takingaway all his blessings,
which we had so long and so unthankfully
abused ; and secondly, by making us feel,
what we would not fear, the power and
effects of his wrath, which we had before so
often and so long provoked and despised ; so
that the measure of the affiictions wc lately
suffered, though it will still fall short of the
measure of our sins, yet is it correspondent,
in many respects, to the measure of that
happiness we forraerly enjoyed ; our peace
being turned into -war, our plenty into scar
city, our health into sickness, our strength
into weakness, our religion into hypocrisy on
the one side, and profaneness on the other;
and -we ourselves, who before had nothing
almost to wish for, had, in those times,
nothing alraost that we could hope for, being
then the object of scorn or pity, who were
before the object of euvy and admiration to

all our neighbouring kingdoms. And now
one would believe the dismal account of those
times, which our own sins brought npon us,
should have some good effect on our lives and
conversations ; one would think, I say, that,
if our foreheads were not of brass, our necks
iron, and our hearts adamant, we shouhl
either have been bended or broken with these
sufferings ; and that the bitterness of our
punishraent would by this tirae have so far
exceeded the sweetness of our sins, that we
should willingly have quitted the one, upon
condition we might have been (as certainly
we should have been) delivered from the
other. But, alas I such is coraraonly either
the blindness of our minds, the hardness of
our hearts, or the searedness of our consciences,
or rather the spiritual lethargy (as I may so
term it) of our souls, that most of us sleep in
as great security in the midst of all manner of
judgments, as Jonas did in the midst of that
storm which his own disobedience had raised.
Or if perhaps we aro awake with our ejes,
yet our hearts, as Nabal's was, are dead with
in us. So that to all our other raiseries this
plague, which is the greatest any man can
have iu this world, is added also ; I mean,
" that seeing, we should uot see ; and hearing,
we should not hear ; and understanding, we
should not perceive ;" nay, tbat even feeling,
we should not feel, or at least not feel what
raost hurts us, or what indeed was, is, and will
be, the true and only canse of our sufferings.
Whence it comes to pass, that very few of
us are, like David, the better, but many
thousands of us, like Ahaz, the worse, since
we were afflicted ; having, like the ground,
often drank up both " the former and latter
rain ;" the forraer of God's raercies, and the
latter of his judgments : and yet bring forth
nothing but briers and thorns, nothing but
hypocrisy and profaneness ; and consequeutly
must needs be (as the ground was) " nigh
unto cursing," aud I pray God our "end be j
not burning," for to men so heavily plagued, i
and yet for all that so incorrigibly wicked, j
as raany of us are, what reraains but (as
Saint Paul tells us) " a fearful expectation of !
judgment?" And by "judgraent" he means
not any temporal or worldly judgment, but
the conclusion, or rather coiisumraation, of
all our miseries here, with hell and damna
tion itself hereafter. And indeed it is " the ,
fearful expectation" of that future judgment,
or nothing, that mu.st work upou obstinate
offenders. The truth i.*, our spiritual lethargy
is not curable but by a spiritual fever, and it
must be the horror of an awakened and
affrighted conscience that raust melt and
mollify the hardness of our hearts. And
therefore have I made choice of this argu
ment to discourse on at this time, as being
persuaded that, if any thing at all w ill hurable
us, it must be the apprehension of and medi-

THE CERT.\IXTY OF A JUDGMENT AFTER THIS LIFE. 6il

tation ou the last judgment ; and this, I hope,
by God's blessing, may be efltectual iu some
measure to this purpose ; for surely no man
can be so fast asleep in his sins, but the sound
ing of the last trumpet iu his e,irs may startle
him ; neither can any man be running so fast
or so furiously in •• the broad way that leadeth
to destruction," but the flasliing of hell-fire
in his face may put him to a stand. And
tiierefore let all profane persons or hypocrites,
that live in any known sin or evil course of
life, attend with fear and trembling to this
most terrible and yet most infallible orade of
tbe great Grod. " For we must all appear
before the judgment-seat of Christ, that every
one may receive the things done in his body,
according to that he hath done, whether "it
be good or b.'ul.''
These words I shall not now consider (as
they may be) as matter of consolation to tlie
righteous ; but only, upon this occasion, handle
them iu the severer sense, or th.it of terror
only ; and from these words thus considered
I shall endeavour, (-waving all needless criti-
dsms,) 1st, To couvince every man's conscience tbat
there shall be indeed such an appearance, or
snch a general trial or doom of all mankind
after this life, as is here spoken of.
2dly, I shall try to make clear to every one
of onr understandings what manner of appear
ance, or trial, this shall be ; as also before
whom, and in what form of proceeding,
together with the issue, effects, and conse
quences of it.
Sdly and lastly, I will, by way of applica
tion, do my b^t endeavour to work upon
every mau's affiectious, by shewing you how
much all men, (of what quality and conditiL'n
soever they are,) especially the wickid and
ungodly, are concerned iu it ; and consequeut
ly how much it imports all men, especially
such meu, to thiuk upon it .ind prepare for it,
that, by a timely repentance, they may pre
vent the woful effects of it. To "begin then
with the
First of these general heads, in which I .am
to convince every man's consdence that there
shall be indeed such au appearance, or such a
general trial or doom of all mankind, after
this life, as is here spoken of : ueither let any
man thiuk this purpose unnecessary or super
fluous, as if it supposed a doubt, where none
"was, by making a qu^tiou of a principle ; for
though the affirmative of this proposition
(namely, that there shall be certainly sucb a
doom or judgment after this life) be, or ought
to be, a'principle nndeniable, indisputable,
and consequently unquestionable, amongst
such K are trulv Christians, yet because, as
Saint Paul says of the Jews, "all are not
Jews that are Jews outwardly," so may I say
too, that all are not Christians neither that
are so outwardly ; and because mauy pretend

to be of the church that hardly believe all
the articles of her Creed ; lastly, because
there are some amongst us that do not ouly
live, but talk, as if they thought there were
no accouut to be given of their sayings or
doings after this life, or at least as if they
either doubted or had forgotten this truth ;
for the siitisfaction of all it is therefore expe
dient to rescue from disbelief and contempt
this fundamental article ofour Creed, uaraely,
'¦ that Christ shall come agaiu to judge both
the quick and the dead." For proof of this
proposition against such as deny it, I desire
only this fair postulatiim, the acknowledgraent
of that truth, which is ordinarily acquirable
by the light of nature herself, uaraely, that
there is a God, or such a power as made us,
aud observes our actions ; aud granting this
conclusion, I question uot bnt to make it
appear eveu to the most profane persons, and
that frora the d ict.it es of their own reason,
together with such notions as they have or
may have of the Deity by the light of nature
itself, that there shall be a trial or judgment
of .ill men after this life, for the things that
all and every one of them have done here iu
the flesh, aud that,
1st, Because it is very agreeable to the
nature of God.
2dly, Because it is also very consonant to
the nature of the soul of man.
Sdly, Because it is necessary for the mani
festation of the divine justice.
ithly. Because the inequality and dispro
portion between actions aud events, raerits
aud rewards, men's parts and their fortunes
here in this life, doth seem to require and
exact such a judgment.
Sthly, Because there is an inbred notion, or
natural instinct and apprehension in all men,
that there will be such a judgment.
And 1st, The truth of this doctrine is very
applicable to the nature of God ; for what can
be more agrecible to the nature of the raost
pure and powerful agent, than to dravv and
unite uuto itself whatsoever is like itself,
as likewise to separate and remove frora
itself whatsoever is unlike itself? Now what
is like God, but that whieh is good ? aud what
uuliker him than evil ? Aud what is it to
unite the one to himself, bnt to reward ? or
to separate and remove the other, but to
punish ? And yet we see God neither rewards
all the good, nor punishes all the wicked iu
this world ; there must be therefore a time
hereafter, when both the one .lud the other
shall be performed, and that time is what I
call the hist iiulcrnieut.
2dlv, The truth of this doctrine is very
agreeable to the nature of the soul of man,
because otherwise the chief agent both in
food and evil should have little or no reward
for the one, aud little or no punishment for
the other. For the principal or chief agent

64'2

THREE SERMONS.

Sehm. III.

in all our actions (whether they be good or
bad) is the soul ; the body is but an organized
instruraent, or at most but an accessary in
either. An d yet all rewards and pun ishraents
appointed for good and evil by laws in this
life, are bodily and sensual, at least I am sure
they are finite, and mortal, and consequently
no way suitable or proportionable to the spiri
tual, immaterial, and immortal nature of the
soul. That therefore the chief agent or prin
cipal in all actions may have its reward or
punishmeut proportionable and adequate to
its own nature, it is necessary that at one
time or other there should be an inquisition
and judgment, whose effects, whether good or
bad, may be spiritual aud everlasting. Now
if a judgment producing such effects cannot
be here iu this life, it must therefore necessa-
1 rily be in another hereafter.
Sdly, It is not ouly requisite, but necessary,
that there should be a judgment after this
life for the manifestation of the divine justice :
for though whatsoever God doth is just, and
that because God does it, yet does it not
always appear to be so. Now God is not only
just iu himself, but will appear to be so to
others, and will have his justice confessed and
acknowledged, at one time or other, by the
hearts and consciences of all men. And
though the Creator is not obliged to account
to the creature for the manner how, or the
reason why, he doth any thing ; yet if he
will have the creature convinced of a thing,
tbat it is so or so, he must needs some w.iy
or other, or at some tirae or other, make it
appear to the creature that it is so ; and there
fore I say for this reason it is necessary, that
at some time or other there should be a gene
ral, a public, and a forraal trial, wherein the
actions of every particular man should be dis
covered to all in general, both angels and
men ; that so the actions being corapared
with the issue, and the merit balanced with
the reward, God might (as the apostle says,
Rom. iii. 4,) " be justified when he judgeth,"
whether he absolves or condemns, aud that
not only by those that stand by, aud are but
the hearers of it, but even by those them
selves that are judged. One of the main ends
therefore, (as I humbly conceive,) why God
" hath appointed a day to judge all the world,
(as the apostle speaks. Acts, xvii. 31,) is, to
give the whole world satisfaction, or to con
vince men and angels, whether they be good
or bad, of the exact and precise integrity and
impartiality of the divine justice in all and
every one of the acts and effects of it. And
hence it is, that this general doom is called in
scripture, " the day of the revelation of the
righteous judgraent of God ;" or the day
wherein God will reveal and make it appear,
that all his ways and all his judgments are
righteous : though the very being of a God
implies holiness and power, and consequently

justice, yet the ways and means God makes
use of to shew that infinite justice, are not
always obvious ; though we kuow by his
nature it is impossible for him to be unjust,
yet are there some things, in which, though
we search ever so diligently for the manner
how they come to pass ; yet I am apt to be
lieve them beyond the capacity of human
nature, and the measure even of divine revela
tion on this side the grave ; for example,
" that for the offence of one, condemnation
came upou all men," or that all men became
liable to eternal wrath, because one man had
eaten the forbidden fruit, is what wo ought to
deem exact truth, as consonant to express
scripture ; that the misery of all for the sin
of one would be a most just punishment, if
God should inflict it : but then we may be
lieve likewise, that the reasons of God's justice
in both these particulars are superior to the
comprehension of raortality, and not now
fathomable. The like may be said iu regard
of the punishment of finite aud temporal sin
with infinite aud etemal torraent ; whioh,
though it be true, that it shall be so, and con
sequently just that it should be so ; yet 1
believe it would perplex the wisest man
living to give a satisfactory answer (according
to our notions of equity and justice) how in
equity or justice it can be so. And therefore
in regard of these, and such other Ivai/oirra, or
hard truths as these are, it is, that Saint Paul,
(though bred at the feet of Gamaliel, and
rapt up into the third heaven, and conse
quently knowing as much or more of God
than ever man did,) cries out, as one over
whelmed in admiration and astonishment,
(Rom. xi, SS,) " 0 the depth of the riches
both of the wisdom and knowledge of God !
how unsearchable are his judgments, and his
ways past finding out !" But at the day of
judgment, the reason and equity even of
these, and of all other now seeming hard say
ings, shall be disclosed to us, that the right
eousness of all God's ways, and the impar
tiality of his dealings with the sons of men,
may be so clearly manifested to all, that the
very reprobates themselves shall he forced to
see and acknowledge their own damnation to
be most just, both in regard to the duration
and intenseness of it, having not so much as
the comfort of an excuse, nor any thing to
accuse or complain of, but their own folly and
fault for their destruction. And thus you
see, in the third place, the necessity of a judg
ment after this life, for the satisfaction of the
world, for the conviction of the wicked, and
consequently for the full and perfect raanifes
tation of the divine justice.
4thly, The strange disproportion^and unsui
tableness betwixt actions and events, merits
and rewards, men's parts and their fortune
here in this life, doth seem to exact, as it
were, at the hands of a righteous God, that

THE CERTAINTY OF A JUDGMENT AFTER THIS LIFE.

54a

there should be a day of au after-reckoning,
to rectify this, which is iu appearance so great
a disorder and confusion : and to put a real
and a visible difference betwixt the evil and
the good, the holy and the profane ; for now
there seems to benone at all, it being long since
the observation of oue of the wisest of men,
(Ecclesiastes, ix. 2,) " That all things happen
alike uuto all : there is one event to the right
eous, and to the wicked ; to the clean, and to
the unclean ; to him that sacrificeth, and to
him that sacrificeth not : as is the good, so is
the sinner ; and he that sweareth, as he that
feareth an oath." Nay it were well, if it were
no worse ; but the same wise man tells us,
(Eceles. viii. 14,) " that there be just men, to
-whom it happens according to the work ofthe
wicked ; and there be wicked men, to whom
it happens according to the work of the righ
teous :" " fora just man," says he, (Eccles. vii.
Ifi,) " many times perisheth in his righteous
ness, and a wicked man many times prolongs
his life in his wickedness." The self-evident
truth of these propositions cannot be ques
tioned by any man (though they were not in
holy writ) that sees and observes the dispen
sation of good and bad things in this life. To
conclude ; we see that riches, honour, pleasure,
and whatsoever the foolish world calls good,
they are for the most part, and in the greatest
measure, the portion of the worst of men ;
whereas poverty, pain, and shame, and what
ever else we usually term evil, are, for the
most part, and in the highest degree, the lot
of the righteous ; Dives being a type, as it
were, of the one, aud Lazarus of the other.
There must therefore, in all reason and equity,
be another audit, or time of account after this
life, to the end that, as Abraham said uuto
Dives, " those that have received good things
in this life," and been evil, " may be tormen
ted ; and those that have received evil things
in this life," and been good, " may be com
forted ;" " for if in this life only" good men
"had hope in Christ, they were" (as the
apostle tells us, 1 Cor. xv. 19) " of all men
most miserable." This argument, drawn
from the seeming unequal distribution of
things here below, I mean the calamity pf
good men, and the prosperity of bad men in
this life, is urged by the elder Pliny, and
some few others of the heathen moralists, to
prove the nonexistence of a God : for if, say
they, there be a God, he must needs be just
and good ; and if he be just and good, he
would not, he could not suffer good men to be
unrewarded, and evil men unpunished ; much
less conld he or would he endure, that evil
men should thrive in and by their wicked
courses, and good men fare the worse for their
goodness, as in common experience we see
they do. And truly if my conclusion con
ceruing the certainty of a judgment to come
after this life were not true, this argument of

theirs would shrewdly shake the first article
and foundation of all our creed, namely, the
being of a God. But supposing such a judg
ment to come, whereiu all good men shall
finally aud fully be rewarded, and all wicked
men finally and fully punished, we do at
once vindicate the power, the wisdom, the
providence, the justice, and consequently the
very being aud essence of God, from all blas
phemy and contradiction, notwithstanding
any disproportion or incongruity whatever,
that is or seems to be between actions and
events, merits and rewards, men's parts and
their fortunes, here in this life. And this is
the fourth reasou, why, granting there is a
God, we must necessarily grant likewise, that
there shall be a day of judgment.
6thly, The last reason I shall make use of,
to necessitate the evidence and enforce the
truth of the doctrine of a future judgment, is
that inborn and inbred notion and apprehen
sion, which all men have by nature, that
there is such a thing, together with the gene
ral expectation of all men, that there will be
such a thing : and this reason, ho-vv slight
soever it may appear to others, to me it seems
(what I hope I shall make it seem to you
also) most effectual and convincing ; for what
soever it is that all men think will be, without
doubt it shall be, because whatsoever all men
agree in, is the voice of nature itself, and con
sequently must be true : for the dictates of
nature are stronger thau the probats of reason,
I mean of reason not abstracted, but as it is
iu us mortals ; and, therefore, of all other
arguments, that which is drawn from natural ;
impression and instinct is most forcible and
concluding, and the knowledge arising from
such impression or instinct, though it be not '•
so full and perfect, yet it is more certain and
infallible than any other knowledge whatso- \
ever, arising from a man's own fallible dis- \
course and reasoning. I confess, indeed, that |
knowledge, the produce of instinct and natural
impression only, is uot so full, so perfect, nor i
perhaps so properly termed kuowledge, (be
cause the word scire properly denotes per \
causas scire.) as that which is concluded by
demonstration, or drawn from an evident ^
connection of one thing with another, or a '
consequence of one thing from another ; be
cause when a mau knows any thing by natu
ral impression or instinct only, be knows not
the reasous of what he knows ; he knows
Sti fan, that there is such a thing, but uot
hoTi hTi, why it is ; no, nor perhaps tI 'iaTi,
•what it is ; I mean not what it is in the exact
or distinct nature of it neither ; aud yet for
all that, this knowledge is (as far as it reaches)
more certain and infallible than any conclu
sion drawn from our own reasoning and dis
course can be. 1st, Because this inbred notion,
or this knowledge which we haye of any
thin" by natural impression or instinct, is not

544

THREE SERMONS.

Serm. III.

(as all other humau or acquired knowledge is)
a conclusion made by us from our own dis
course and judgment, which is always fallible,
or subject uuto error ; but it is a conclusion
made iu us by nature, or rather by the God
of nature himself, who can neither deceive
nor be deceived ; and therefore whatsoever we
know iu this manner, must needs be certain.
2dly, Because if the knowledge we have
by our instinct were not certain or infallible,
this received, and as yet undoubted maxim
both in natural philosophy and divinity,
namely. That God and nature do nothing in
vain, would uot be true : for if that were not
( so indeed, which all meu in general, and
every mau in particular, is naturally inclined
to believe to be so ; then that natural im
pression or instinct, whereby they are in
clined to think so, should be planted in them
to no purpose ; the affirraation of which is
not only a reproach in nature, but a blas
phemy against God himself ; because indeed
that which we call nature is but God's ordi
nary method of working in aud by the crea
ture. Sdly, That the knowledge which is an
effect of natural impression or instinct is in
deed certain and infallible, will easily and
clearly appear, if we but consider those crea
tures who have not the use of reasou, or of
instruction, of revelation, of tradition, or of
any other means of knowledge, (excepting
that of sense) but this of instinct or natural
irapression only : and yet we see, that those
irrational creatures have their knowledge more
iramediately, more certainly, and more infal
libly, than any man's deductions from his
own discourse aud reason. For instance, who
amongst us is there that doth or can know
his eneray (after the clearest discovery he
can raake of him) so certainly, or avoid him
so suddenly, as the lark doth the hobby at
the first sight ? What sick man, nay what
physician, knows his own disease, and the
remedy for it so exactly, as the dog knows
his vomit, and that which will procure it?
What husbandman knows his seasons more
exactly, or observes them more duly or punc
tually, than the stork, the crane, and the
swallow ? Lastly, (pardon the lowness of the
sirailitude,) what landlord or what tenant
foresees the ruiu ofhis own house so certainly,
or avoids it so seasonably, as the verrain his
inmates? And yet the lark never studied
Macbiavel, nor the dog Hippocrates, neither
were the stork, the crane, or the swallow ever
taught by natural philosophy to distinguish
seasons ; nor the vermin by judicial astrology
to foresee casual and contingent events : but
it has pleased the all-wise and gracious Crea
tor to supply the defects of reason in these
poor helpless animals, with a knowledge
which, though it be not so large and perfect,
yet it is more certain aud infallible, especially

in those thiugs that are necessary for the pre
servation of their existence and species, than
any knowledge attainable by men, by disqui-
sition or speculation, because (as I said before)
it is a knowledge not gotten by, but infused
in them by God and nature, who cannot err ;
and such a knowledge as this (I raean for the
kind ofit) is that which all raen haveof a judg
ment to come, or of something to be suffered
by evil doers after this life ; a knowledge, I
say, which is planted in thera, and not learned
by thera, but originally iu every man, aud
universally in all men ; aud whatsoever is so,
must needs be taught them by God and nature,
and consequently cannot be erroneous or un
certain. It is true indeed, that some parti
cular men, or some particular sort or sect of
men, may believe and maintain false and
foolish opinions, such as have neither solidity
of truth in them, nor reality of object with
out thera : but then such opinions as these
had their creation and production at first
from some one man's fancy, and from thence
derived by education and tradition, may
afterwards infect many ; and thus the opi
nion and practice of idolatry, or the worship
of more gods than one, carae into the world,
and spread itself over most part of mankind,
for it was not so from the beginning. ¦ But
the dictates and irapressions of nature do very
much differ from conceits or iraaginations of '
fancy, aud from traditional errors of custom
and education, in the first place ; because the
dictates and irapressions of nature are not
only general in most meu, but universal in
all raen ; whereas conceits of fancy, and tra
ditional errors of custom or education, flow
ing from thence, though they may he, and
ofteu are consented to, and believed by
many, yet none of them ever were or ever
will be consented to and believed by all. Thus
were the philosophers of old, and thus are the
Christians at this day divided into their
several sects and heresies.
2dly, The dictates andimpressions of nature,
as they are universally in all raen, so are they
originally in every raan without teaching.
And hence it is that Saint Paul tells us, (Rom.
ii. 14,) " that the Gentiles that had not the
law," (he raeans, that were never taught the
law as the Jews were,) had yet notwithstand
ing that very law in regard to the fundamental
notions of piety, justice, aud sobriety, written
iu all and every one of their hearts by nature
itself, and together with the law, by necessary
consequence, a belief and expectation of a re
ward for good and puuishment for evil after
this life : as appears by their " consciences ac
cusing and excusing them," even for those
things which were not punishable or reward-
able, nor perhaps discernible by any hut
themselves here in this world. Whence it
follows, that those notions of law and sug
gestions of conscience (whieh St Paul tells- us

THE CERTAINTY OF A JUDGMENT AFTER THIS LIFE.

545

were in all the Gentiles withbut teaching)
must needs be dictates aud impressions of a
simple and uncorrupted uature.
3dly,The dictates and impressions of nature,
(in quantum et quaten'us,) or as far as they
are merelj'' from nature, receive neither addi
tion nor diminution, (as they may do either)
from other principles : as they are universally
in all men without exception, and originally
in every man without instruction, so are they
equally and alike in all men without distinc
tion, in the Gentile as well asin the Jew, iu the
Barbarian as well as iu the Greek, in the
Pagan as well as in the Christian, and in those
that have no learning, as well as in those that
have ; whereas opinion, arising from conceit
of fancy, and knowledge, which is the pro
duct of human reason, and faith itself, which
is an effect of and assent to divine revelation,
are all of them stronger or weaker, more or
less, in their several subjects, according to the
strength, measure, and working of the several
principles from whence they flow. And con
sequently they are none of them equal in all
men, nor any of them equally at all tiraes
in those tbat have them : but the other
natural, impressive knowledge is quite con
trary ; such a kuowledge as this is that
apprehension which all men have or would
have (if their natural impressions were not
defaced iu thera) of a judgment to come, or
of a reward for the good, and a punishment
for the wicked after this life ; for never was
there any good man but hoped for it, or auy
wicked man but at some tirae or other was
afraid of it. In a word, there was never iu
any age in the world, either nation in general,
or any one man in particular, that owned the
being of a God, but he acknowledged a judg
ment to come also ; although the notion they
perhaps had of it was but in a confused and
imperfect manner ; as appears by those Ely
sian fields, or places of rest and happiness for
the good, and Phlegethon and Cocytus, those
black and burning lakes of fire and brimstone,
the places of torraent for the wicked, after
this hfe ; which the poets or heathen divines
speak of, as the general and received opinion
of all mankind, together with Minos, Rhada-
manthus, and iEacus, which were to be tho
judges; Alecto, Megara, and Tisiphone, the
fiends or furies which were to be the tor
mentors of the damned. This, I say, was the
general and the constant doctrine and opinion
ofthe heathen, which was registered, but not
invented by the poets ; being indeed in sub
stance the same which we Christians are now
taught more perfectly by divine revelation,
bnt was always instilled by nature itself,
though more obscurely and imperfectly, into
all mankind. Nay, those very men them
selves, who both by their words and actions
¦would raake others believe that they believed
no God, do many times shake and tremble
VOL, II.

upon the apprehension aud expectation of
some terrible thing or other that is to corae ;
so that whilst they deny a judge with their
mouths, they acknowledge a judgment in their
hearts. And indeed bad men are not always
so bold as they would seem to be, nor so little
afraid of God as they would have the world
think they are. For of all men, these atheists,
that would be, whenever they are in auy great
extreraity or danger, have the poorest, the
basest, aud the most dejected spirits. Give
rae a man of the coldest and softest constitu
tion, and let him be but innocent, andhe shall
look death (I mean a present, an evident, a
deliberate, and an unavoidable death) with
more courage and bravery in the face, thau a
man of the most fiery temper and most ex
alted spirit, if he be a villain, or guilty of any
horrid or heinous crime. And what is or can
be the reason of this, but that oue is secure,
and the other is afraid of some terrible thiug
after death, which can be uo other but that
general doom or judgment we now speak of,
the harbinger or forerunner whereof hath
taken up his lodging iu the breasts aud
bosoms of all men ; and tbat is conscience,
which hath always (unless it be asleep, oi
"seared," as Saint Paul calls it, "with an
hot iron") one of its eyes upon sin here, aud
the other upon punishment hereafter ; which
whosoever tells me be does not believe, he
must pardon me, if I tell him again, that I
do not believe him ; for it is impossible that
those inborn characters, that handwriting of
God and nature, I raean that innate irapres
sion or instinct which all raen have of a future
reward or punishment, should be utterly
blotted out of any mau ; forgotten perhaps,
or uot thought upon, or defaced, it may be,
but absolutely lost and aunihilated it cannot
be : and therefore, if there be any man afraid
or loath to own this truth, he betrays a secret
belief of it by his fears ; or if he do uot now,
he will do so at sorae tirae or other hereafter.
But against this which has been said it raay
be objected, that if the belief of a judgraent
to come were, as I aflirm it to be, an effect ot
natural impression or instinct, then it would
be universally equal in all, aud consequently
equal in every one of the same kmd ; for
we see, say they, that all larks are equally
afraid of the hobby, and every particular lark
as much at one tirae as at another. Besides,
it is apparent, that all raen do not equally
believe this truth ; nay, it is to be feared, that
some men do not believe it at all ; and ot
those who do, some believe it at one tirae
more, and less at another. Aud therefore
that this belief of a judgment to come (in
whomsoever it is) is the effect of some other
cause, and not of natural impression or lu-
stinct. To this objection I answer, tbat it is
true indeed, that all inbred and inborn im-
nressions or instincts are universally and con-
' 2 M

546

THREE SERMONS.

Srrm. III.

stantly equal in all particulars of the same
kind ; and always continue to be so in those
creatures which are not capable of either in
fection from without or corruption from
within. Aud such are all living creatures,
besides man ; which neither sway the rule
of nature, nor are swerved from it, but are
always constantly and equally guided by it,
as having no other principle from without to
corrupt or control it. But with raen it is far
otherwise ; for in them those notions of nature
that are born with thera may and do receive
augmentation or diminution, alteration or
corruption, from sorae other principles either
without us or within us. For instance, those
inborn notions, that there is a God, that there
will be a reward for those that live well, and
a punishment for those that live ill, and that
we should do unto others as we would have
others do unto us, and the like, raay and do
receive augraentation frora divine revelation,
and from right reason, aud from a good, either
religious or moral education and conversation ;
so that what was iraprinted in us by nature,
may be and is improved and confirmed in us
by other principles ; and therefore I will not
deuy, but a Christian may have a more con
stant and more confirmed and more perfect
knowledge both of a God andof a judgraent to
corae, and of that fundaraental equity which
ought to be betwixt one raan and another,
than he that hath no knowledge of these and
the like things, but by the light of nature
only. And by the same reasou one Christian
may have a more constant, distinct, and per
fect knowledge of the sarae truths than an
other Christian, according as the one raay be
raore or less enlightened by those higher
principles than the other, or raay make a
better or a worse use of thera. Again : as the
knowledge we have by instinct may be aug
mented and improved, confirraed and per
fected ; so it may be lessened and weakened,
defaced and corrupted ; nay, and for a time
so obscured, as it may seem both to ourselves
and others to be quite extinguished, and that
either by our own depraved reason, together
with our perverse will aud affections from
within us, or byan evil education, or a worse
conversation from without us, which mauy
tiraes infuse such opinions, (both concerning
God and ourselves) into us, as are quite
contrary to and destructive of our first no
tions ; and yet because they are more suitable
to our perverse will and affections, they are
frequently received and defended by our
depraved reason against the light of nature
itself. As a mau may easily perceive, that
will but read attentive!)' the first and second
chapters of Saint Paul's epistleto the Roraans,
whore the apostle having laid it down for an
undoubted conclusion, that the law, (he means
the moral law,) or the fundamental notions
of our duty towards God and man, was

written by nature in the heart of all the
Gentiles, and has proved it to be so, because
their consciences did justify them when they
did well, and accuse them when they did ill ;
yet he affirras likewise, that this very law
(though written iu their hearts by nature)
was so obscured, and almost quite erased from
their judgment, by their more perverse wills
and aftections, tli.it as they worshipped beasts
for God, so they made beasts of themselves,
and behaved themselves worse than beasts
to one another. This behaviour does no way
invalidate the forcibleness of this argument,
but rather intimates a deep stupefaction by a
long, inveterate habit of ill, fallen on their
rainds. So that, to conclude this poiut, there
raay be and is a natural knowledge in all men
of a future judgment, as well as the existence
of a God ; though in some perhaps the im
pression of either of these truths is not always
active or operative ; for we see that some men
are grown to such a habit of sensuality, or
brutality, that they do nothing almost accor
ding to reason ; aud yet I hope that no mau
will from thento conclude, that such men are
not reasonable creatures, or that they have no
such natural principle or faculty as reason at
all in them. And let this suffice for our con
viction in point of judgment or conscience,
that there shall be a day of judgraent after
this life ; which was my first general. I am
therefore now, in the
Second place, to inquire (as far as the light
of divine revelation will enable me) what
manner of thing this judgment or last doom
will be. Know, then, that the great appear
ance, trial, or judgraent which ray text speaks
of, is the general or grand assize of the whole
world, held in a heavenly high court of jus
tice by our Saviour, to hear, examine, and
finally determine, of all thoughts, words, and
actions, that ever were thought, spoken, or
committed, together with the causes, occasions,
circumstances, and consequences of all and
every one of thera, and accordingly to pro
nounce an irrevocable sentence either of
absolution or conderanation upon all men.
In which solemn description you have,
1st, The Judge.
2dly, The parties to be judged.
Sdly, The things controverted, or for what
they shall be judged.
4thly, The form of this trial, or the manner
of proceeding that shall be held iu it.
Sthly and lastly, The sentence itself, with
the issue and execution ofit.
First, then, for the judge at this general
and grand assize ; he must, as my text tells
you, be Christ; "For we must all appear
before the judgment seat of Christ," God and
man, in his two capacities of Godhead and
manhood connected : for as he was our
redeemer, so he is to be our judge, in both his
natures : he must, in the first place, be our

THE CERTAINTY OF A JUDGMENT AFTER THIS LIFE.

547

judge, as he is God ; because none but God
has jurisdiction over all the parties that are to
be tried at that judgment, which are angels as
well as men, princes as well as subjects, aud
the greatest peers as well as the meanest
peasants. Now, though one creature may
have jurisdictiou over auother, nay, over
many other creatures, yet no one has or cau
have authority over all his fellows, this being
a royalty or prerogative of the Creator him
self only. Again : Christ must be judge, as he
is God, because none but omniscience can
discern the main aud principal things that
shall be there called in question, which are
not words and actions only, but the hearts,
consciences, thoughts, purposes, and intentions
of all men. Lastly : Christ must be judge, as
he is God, because noue but God can give life
and execution to the seutence as pronounced
then, whether of absolution or condemnation ;
for none else can render the creature infinitely
and eternally happy, which is the execution
of one of the sentences ; or, on the other side,
render the other part of the sentence of infi
nite and everlasting misery effectual, but God
only; and therefore the judge at that trial
must necessarily be God, and consequently
this very act or office of Christ, the execution
of justice iu this judgment, is au irrefragable
argument of his godhead. But though God
only is or can be our judge at that great
tribunal, yet nevertheless he must not be God
only, but mau likewise ; aud that first in
regard of the judgment itself, to manifest the
equity, the indiscriminateness, and the impar
tiality of it ; which might be perhaps doubted
of, if the judge were either God or man ouly.
For if he were ouly God, he would be the
party offended ; and if only man, the person
ofiending: and a judgment, though really
never so just, may be, or seera to be, suspected
to be otherwise, when either of the parties
concerned is judge ; whereas Christ, being
God as well as man, and man as well as God,
must needs be acknowledged to be an equal,
an indifferent and impartial judge betwixt
God and mau, as beiug equally allied unto
them both. Agaiu : Christ must be judge as
he is man, in regard to the parties triable at
that day, whether they be sheep or goats ; I
mean, whether they be the just that are to be
absolved, or the wicked that are to be con
demned. For among the just there is none
so good but he might fairly be afraid to appear
at that judgment, if the same person were not
our Saviour who is to be our judge, who if he
brought not to the bench with him the pity
and compassion of a man, as well as the
power and justice of a God ; nay, if God at
that trial did not look upon us through him
self as man, and beholding the merits in his
own person, impute them to us, not one of all
mankind could be saved. He is to be judge
as man, therefore, that the just to be absolved

raay not fear to appear before him ; and he
must bo judge as man too, that the con
demned wicked raay have no cause of com
plaint, how severe usage soever they find from
him. For how can even the daraned them
selves murmur, repine, or except against tho
judgment, where the trial (as I shall shew
you presently) is by the evidence of their owu
conscience, and their condemnation pro
nounced by that judge, who laid down his
life to save sinners, and consequently cannot
possibly be imagined to condemn any but
such as would not be saved by him. Lastly ;
Christ must be judge, as he is man, in regard
of all raankind, or in regard of huraanity
itself ; I raean for the dignifying aud exalting
of huraan nature : that as the nature of man
was debased, and brought down to the lowest
degree of raeanness in the person of our
Saviour, in his birth, life, and at his dea,th ;
so the same uature, in the sarae person, raight
be exalted and raised up to so high a degree
of power, majesty, and honour, that not only
raen that had despised hira, aud devils that
had tempted hira, but even the blessed and
glorious angels themselves, whose corafort
aud assistance he once stood in need of, should
fall down, and tremble at his presence. And
thus much for the judge at this awful trial.
The second thing considerable in the de
scription I gave you of this judgraent are the
parties to be judged ; and those, briefly, (to
speak nothing of the evil angels, who are then
also to receive their full and final doora,) are
all persons, of all sorts, qualities, conditions,
and professions, young and old, rich aud
poor, high and low, one with another. For
at this bar, princes have no prerogatives, the
nobles have no privileges, nor the clergy
exemptions aud immunities, nor the lawyer
any more favour than his client; the rich
shall neither be regarded for their bags, nor
the poor pitied for his poverty ; but all indif
ferently shall have the same judge and the
sarae trial, the sarae evidence and the sarae
witness ; and if their cases be alike, (how
different soever their persons or estates may
be here,) their fate shall there be the same :
and thus rauch for the parties to be judged.
The next thing is, thirdly, the matters that
shall be questioned at that trial ; and thoso
are not our actions only, but our words also,
and not only our words, but our thoughts
too, and not only our thoughts, but our very
inclinations or dispositions themselves like
wise ; together with the place, time, occasion,
intention, and eud, for which every thing
was done, thought, or spoken, and that from
the first birth or instant of tirae, to the very
last periodical rainute of it.
And then, fourthly, for the raanner of pro
ceeding, there will be no occasion for exarai
nation of witnesses, or reading depositions ;
there will be no allegata or probata; for every

548

THREE SERMONS.

Serm. Ill,

man shall be indicted and arraigned, cast or
acquitted, condemned or absolved, by the
testimony of his own conscience, which shall
readily, though never so unwillingly, assent
to whatever the Judge shall charge it with,
whether it be good or evil ; whether it be for
him or against him. The book of life shall
be opened, wherein is registered and recorded
whatever good or evil, at any time, frora the
beginning of the world till the end of it, has
been done, spoken, consented to, or imagined
by any or all mankind : and what is more
wonderful, this is written in sucha character,
that all meu (of -n-hat nation or language
soever) must needs understand and acknow
ledge the truth of it ; this book being nothing
else but the counterpart (as it were) of every
man's conscience, which God keeps by hira as
an undeniable evidence to convince all men
with at the last judgraent.
In which I shall now consider the fifth and
last thing proposed to this description, viz.
the sentence itself, (whether of absolution or
conderanation,) the form of both which is
judicially set down by Christ himself, (Matt.
xxv. S4.) That of absolution in these terms,
" Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the
kingdora prepared for you from the founda
tion of the world ;" but of this sentence the
present occasion of our hurailiation will not
permit rae to speak, as too triumphant a topic
for this day. That other sentence, therefore,
(the sad but seasonable object of our present
meaitation,) you raay find in the 41st verse of
the same chapter, iu these words, " Depart,
ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for
the Devil and his angels." A dismal and
woful sentence, ray beloved, a sentence carry
ing hell and horror in the very sound of it ;
whilst every syllable does, as it were, stab the
soul, and every word bring with it a nevv
death (if I raay so say without a paradox) to
those that can never die. Have we auy of us
ever been present, when the sentence but of a
bodily death has been pronounced upon a
prisoner at the bar? and may not we observe
what horror and amazement does instantly
seize the poor wretch, what a deadly paleness
covers his face, what a ghastly distraction
rises in his countenance, what a faltering in
his speech, what a trembling in his joints,
what a cold sweat over his whole body ? and
yet all these were but weak and faint expres
sions of what his soul suffered. If any of us,
who have seen and observed all this, had but
once felt in ourselves what we have seen in
others ; then perhaps we might guess, and yet
but guess, at the fear and trembling, the
horror and amazement, which will not only
seize and lay hold upon, but devour and
swallow up the soul of man, upon the bearing
of that dreadful knell, that direful and fatal
sentence, which -will at once both pronounce,
and make hira unspeakably, inconceivably.

irrecover.ibly, and everlastingly miserable.
But why do I corapare things together so
infinitely disproportionate, as teraporal with
eterual, corporeal with spiritual, the death of
the body alone, with the death of soul and
body too, or the benches of raen with the
tribunal of God ? No, ray beloved, if the
sentence of that Judge were like those of ours
here, it would be well for the greatest part of
maukind ; for then perhaps it might either be
appealed from, or reversed ; or if neither, yet
at worst it might be endured, without their
being utterly and for ever undone by it.
Here on earth, perhaps, appeals may be
lodged, and carried from one place to another,
from an inferior to a superior authority. But
at the last day, to whom shall we appeal from
God our sovereign aud suprerae judge? Or
what higher court of judicature is there than
that of heaven ?
Lastly : when our Advocate himself con
demns us, who will be so compassionate, or
dare be so impudent as to plead for us?
When, therefore, this sentence is once pro
nounced, there is no more hope left either of
reprieve or pardon, of ease or intermission, of
alteration or ending ; but (whicli is the misery
of miseries) that torment which is intolerable
for a moment, must last for ever : a word that
must vex and rack the understanding, puzzle
and weary the imagination, distract and con
found all th© powers and faculties of the soul.
What pain is there, or can there be so little,
as man could be content on any consideration
to endure for ever ? What raan amongst us
is there so poor or so covetous, as that he
would be hired, or so stout or so patient, (if
he were hired,) that he could endure but the
aching of one tooth in extreraity, if he hoped
for no end of his pain? And yet the tooth
ache, the gout, the stone, aud the strangury,
the rack, and the wheel, with the rest of our
natural diseases or inventions of cruel inge
nuity, are but as so many flea-bitiugs, or
inconsiderable trifles, compared with the tor
ments of the damned. All pains here are
either tolerable, or not durable; either we
raay suffer them, or at least shall sink under
them. But there, there I say, in hell, is
acuteness of sense with acuteness of torment,
extremity of pain and extremity of feeling,
insupportable anguish, and yet ability to bear
it, where the fire always burns, and yet con
sumes not, where fuel is still devoured, and
yet it wastes not ; where, if a man had a
world of earth, he would give it all for one
drop of water, and yet the whole ocean would
not cool him ; where there is perpetual dark
ness, without rest, continual night, void of
sleep : and (to conclude what never shall be
concluded indeed) where there is always dis
traction without madness, dying without
death, misery without pity, and wishing
without hope. Such things as these cau

THE CERTAINTY OF A JUDGMENT AFTER THIS LIFE.

549

hardly be thought of, much less dwelt on,
without the greatest horror. If Saint Paul, a
prisoner at the bar, discoursing on this argu
ment, oould make an insulting Felix tremble ;
how much greater fear ought they to have,
who, living in any known breach of God's
commands, or open sin unrepented of, are
therefore much raore concerned in that future
judgment than Felix could be! He, you
know, was a heathen, but we are Christians ;
and you raay be assured the least Christian
sinner is greater than the greatest among the
heathens : because they cau sin but against the
light of nature, and their owu reasou only ;
whereas wicked Christians sin not only against
the light of nature and reason, but against
divine revelation iu the knowu precepts of
the law, aud those plainer ones of the gospel
also ; at once raost desperately slighting the
terrible threats of the one, aud most profanely
despising the gracious offers of the other. So
that if the honour either of God's mercy or of
his justice be dear unto hira, it raust neces
sarily be easier, not only for Felix, that never
heard of Christ, but even for Pontius Pilate
himself, who condemned him, thau it will be
for any wicked, irapenitent Christian at the
day of judgment. And therefore for applica
tion of all uuto ourselves, let us now (according
to my third and last general) endeavour to be
informed how far we ourselves are like to be
coneerned in the future judgment, taken (as I
have taken it all this while) in the wor.st sense,
and consequently how we ought to think of aud
prepare for it. Well then, if there be indeed
such a judgment to come, as I hope I have
fairly proved, we may frora thence conclude,
1st, That the greatest pretenders to wisdom in
this world are not the wisest men ; I mean
those great Ahithophels, those subtle steers
men of states aud kingdoras, those deep poli
ticians, aud civil oracles, (as it were,) of courts
and councils, who think this doctrine of a
future judgraent, as well as raost of the other
mysteries of the Christian religion, to be in
deed nothing else but reasons of state, or the
politic devices and inventions of the wiser sort
of men, (they mean such as they themselves
are,) to keep the weaker judgments and
stronger passions in the greatest awe, and so
to make them the more pliable aud con
formable to the laws and commands of men.
So that the end of all religion is (as these
political Christians suppose) terminated in
this life ; and that whatsoever foolish book
worms may talk of after this life, whether it
be the resurrection of the body, or the appear
ance of both body aud soul in another place,
with the eternal existence of thera both in
extremity either of pain or pleasure, with
whatsoever else our Christian faith obliges us
to believe, in order to another life, they are
but so many bugbears to fright children withal.
Or at best, (in those men's opinion,) they are

but the vain speculations of idle .md curious
wits, or the issue and product of raelancholy
brains, and fitter for the exercise of men's
disputative faculties in the schools, than for
the object of a wise man's hopes or fears in
any of his actions, as having indeed nothing
of solid truth or reality in them. But how
miserablj' mistaken and shamefully deceived
will these giant-wits, these mighty Solomons,
(as they are now thought,) then find them
selves to be, when awakened by the sudden,
the general, and fearful alarm of the last
trumpet out of that sleep, which they well
hoped would have been endless, they sliall see
themselves (to their inexpressible horror and
amazement) first summoned and haled to
judgment, and afterwards hurried and dragged
away by stranger and subtler spirits than
themselves, to torment and execution ; where
their senses will quickly convince their in
tellects, that what they formerly supposed
but a chimera, an idle speculation, or at best
but a politic invention, is indeed a sad, a seri
ous, and severe truth. Neither will it be the
least part of these men's hell, that they shall
eternally reproach themselves with folly, after
so exalted au opinion of their own wisdom.
To proceed, again, in the second place ; all
other hypocrites, as well as atheistical states
men, are fools also ; I say all other hypocrites,
because indeed these Christian politicians, or
politic Christians I just uow mentioned, are
a sort of hypocrites, namely, moral or civil
hypocrites, (as I may so call them,) because
they seem to believe what they do not,
and enjoin others what they care not for
themselves ; I mean the belief of Christian
doctrines and duties, and that for a raoral and
civil respect or end only ; to wit, in order to
the preservation of public peace and welfare
in the state ; which certainly were a very
good end, if it were not their only end in
so doing. But the other hypocrites I now
speak of are religious hypocrites, and not so
called because they are more religious than
the other, but because they are such hypo
crites as to pretend religiou for their main
eud, though indeed they intend and use it ouly
as a me.ans to advance and compass, not the
public, but their owu particular designs by
it, (whether tbey be honest or dishonest,) and
that often to the prejudice of the public in
terest both of church and state ; nay some
times, (as in our late intestine broils,) to the
apparent ruin or hazard of them both. And
therefore this kind of hypocrites, as they are
rauch more wicked and mischievous here iu
this worid, so (supposing a future reckoniug)
they will be far more miserable in another
state, than those hypocrites or atheists lately
mentioned. Indeed, if God was as easily to
be deceived as raen are, with false, specious
shows and pretences; or if these hypocrites
could hope to work upon God, as they once

550

THREE SKUM ONS.

Serm. III.

,iways juJi-

did upon the populace, by false words and
fluttering insinuations; or, lastly, if they
could make God (as they would fain havo
made the king) bolicvo, that tho domolisliiiig
of his palaces, tho robbing him ofhis roveniios,
tho persecuting of his ministers by their false
intorprotiiig and mis.ipplying of his word,
nay, and by driving himself (as much as iu
them lies) out of his own kingdom, tho
church ; if they cm, I say, when thoy como
to appear before the judgment seat of Clirist,
make him believe that these and all other
things thoy havo done of tho like kiml, were
all of tlicui dono in order to his service, and
with an iiitontion to make hini n much more
glorious God thau ho was before ; then lot
them bo thought as wise :is thoy would seoni
religious ; nay, lot them name thoir own
places and preferraents in heaven, .is thoy did
here on earth in tho time of their usurpation ;
for certainly no profcrniont can hardly bo
adciiuato to such ti-anscoudent spirits and
undertakings. And yot all this would bo no
difficult matter for thom to bring to pass ; if
cither, in tho first placo, they niight always
bo owned as tho highest .md supreme
eatery ; that is, if they might bo horoafto
thoy will needs bo hero, their own judges ;
or, secondly, if thoy m.ay not bo thoir owu
judges, or absolved by thoir own votes, ynt if
they niight at least bi' but tried (as thoy think
it very o(piitablo thoy should bo) by tlioir
own ordinance's, that is, by laws .'uid rules of
their own ooni|iosuro, without .'ind contrary
to the consent of tho sn promo logislaturo ; or,
lastly, if at that great assi/.o thoy can noithor
bo their own jiidgos, nor bo tried by thoir own
ordinances, yot at lo.ist if thoy may but havo
their own preachers or advooalos, (who pleaded
so powerfully for tlioiii to tho people,) to plead
for thera likewise bofuio (lod ; :iiid withal, if
those advocates of theirs may but bo allowed
to iiitorprol that kciiIoik'C which shall then bo
pronounced, with the saiuo assurance jiiid
falsity as thoy have interpreted others of holy
writ; noithor tlicy thoniselvos, nor any of
tlicir party, will run any great ha'/.ard. Ji'or
then (I raean if their scribes and pharisoos, if
their doctors of tho law and intcrprotors of
the gospel, may be believed) the nie.'ining of
" Go yo cursed" shall bo the contrary, " Como
ye blosso<i ;" and on the contrary, tho blessing
shall tai'itly imply only a eursi' ; as if that
which was s|)ukon to tlio.sc on tho loft hand
was niiaiit to those on tho right ; and the
words directed to tlioso on the right intended
for thoso on tho loft hand ; it being tho usual
interpretation of thoso doctors to mako tho
souse of God's word (how opposite soever to
tho letter of it) to bo always in favour of
themselves, and to condemn their foes ; who
bccauso thoy aro ononiios to the good old
cause, must needs bo o.steemod God's also.
But whether this supjio.sitiun bo true or false.

C:

(with all other coutrovorsios botwixt us and
thom,) they will bo fully, finally, and imimr-
tially detoi'Uiinod, when thoy and wo sliall
appear before the judgnient seat of Christ;
" For wo sluill all appear," says ray text ; that
is, wo shall uot onlv bo thoro, but bo preseni
every ono of us in his proper shiipo and like
ness ; no di.sguising of porsmis, no palliating
of actions, no ooiu'ealiiig of purposes, no dis-
sombling of iutontioiis at all there : " For wo
must all appear," suys ray text, yvftuiil xni
TtTpxxi>^iap<.ii">i, (iis tlio siimo apostle says in
another place,) imkod and bnrofiicod, and laid,
as it wore, flat upon our backs, not before a
close or n grand comniittoo of ignorant and
[i.irtial mon, who may docoivo and bo doooived,
lut before Christ, tlu^ most exact soarolier and
infalliblo disconior of all hearts ; und before
Clirist atteiulod on by all tho holy augols and
blessed saints, amongst whom, to tlioir greater
confusion, hypocrites shall perhaps soe some
sitting ut Christ's right hand, whom thoy have
formerly condemiUMl und oxocutod as nmlig-
naiits and dolinquonts. And araongst those,
I doubt not but thoy will soe him whom thoy
havo pierced, (I moan not Christ God, but
God's Christ, or God's anointed,) that bless
ed saint and raartyr their own sovereign,
whom they so inhumanly and barbarously
murdoi'ocl ; and whom, though thoy would
not look upon as an object either of rovo-
I'onco or pity hero, thoy shall, though un
willingly, bohobl him as au object of horror
and cdiiriisioii thero: an object which, next
unto hell itself, shall bo most dreadful and
terrible unto thom, whilst his wounds, bleed
ing afresh at tho sight of his niurdorers,
shall at oiicc^ upbraid, accuse, and condemn
thom. llowsoovoi-j I am sure thoy must
appear botbro tho judgnient seal of Christ;
that Chiist who is truth itself, aii<l in whoso
mouth thoro was no guile, and thoreforo he
cannot choose but abhor an hypocrite beyond
all sinners ; that Christ, who would not have
his own lifo dofondod against the unjust
violonco of tho lawful inagiHtnito, and thero-
foro cannot oiiduro u rebellious hypocrite, of
all hy|iooriten, uor a rebel upou a false pre
tence of religion, of all rebels. Lastly, boToro
that Christ that knows well enough that his
name and his worHliip, bis word oud Ins
sacraments, prayor, fasting, and tlio rest of
his sacred ordinancua, weio only made a stale
by tho hypocrites of thoso times, to conceal,
to make way for, and to compass their own
covctou.s, malicious, or ambitious ends ; and
con8C(iU(!iitly, whil.st they bragged of sotting
him upon his throne, they placed a rood in
his hand instead of a sceplie, and crowned
him in jost, whilst thoy cnicified him in
earnest ; and what is this, but to raock Christ
hirasolf as well as tho world horo ? And
therefore thoy tliomsolves shall bo mookod by
Clirist before all tho world horcaftor ; for as

THE CERTAINTY OF A JUDGMENT AFTER THIS LIFE.

551

thoy haye most unjustly mado m.iny innocent
and upright nion spootaoles to men and angols
here in this life, so shall thoy, unless a repon
tanco followed, bo mado a spectacle to men
and angels iu the lifo to como, being first put
to opon shame b\- having their mask of piety
plucked oft^ and consequently all tho rotten
ness of their hearts, and villainy of their do-
signs, made evident and apparent, and after
wards a double portion of the most exquisite
torments that hell cau att'ord shall be given to
them ; oue moiety for thoir sins, and another
for their hypocrisy ; ono for their groat pre
sumption in their daring to mock God, and
another for their far greater impudence in
pretending to honour aud serve, whilst thoy
did but raock him. This, I say, shall bo the
portion of the hypocrite at the day of
judgment, which appears to bo a very bitter
ono by that of our Saviour, (Matt. xxiv. 51,)
where it seeras, a greater puuishment cannot
be threatened or given than a portion with
the hypocrite : and yet even from thence we
may collect, that some sinners who .ire uot
hypoci'ites, yet aro equally bad, otherwise
they would not have thoir portion assigned
with them ; and those are such, who aro so
far from hypocrisy, that they do not, nor will
not, so much as pretend to bo religious ; I
mean those that call theinselves Christiaus,
and yet ai'e vvorse thau the worst of pagans,
such as sin \\ith a high hand, those impu
dently presumptuous and profane peKons,
tliat aro so far from concealing or disguising
any of thoir lewd couisos or practices, though
never so sinful and shameful, that *hey not
only own aud avow thom, but -value thoni
selvos for thom, as if to be a \\ itty scoffer, a
bold blaspheraer, a strong drinker, a noto
rious fornicator or adulterer, aud a desperate
contemner of all divino and human laws, were
the necessary ingredients towards the compo
sition of a gallant man, and consequently, as
if it were irapossible to be a gallant man aud
a good Christian : nay, as if it were uot
possible to bo a gallant man, and to be a man,
that is, a rational creature, without being
metamorphosed and transformed into a swine,
a goat, or some such brutish creature, by giv
ing up a raan's self to all manner of beastly
lusts, with as much liberty, and as little shame
or remorse, as beasts themselves do ; as if God
had given mon re.ason, not to govern and re
strain, hut to stir up and be subservient to
their sensual appetite; .ind what is all this,
but to do wli.it IS in a man's own power to
unman himself, and turn a rebel, not against
divinity and religiou, but agaiust humanity
and nature itself also ? And uow though this,
one would thiuk, were as bad as could be, yet
it were to be wished that some were not
Worse ; by not worse, I mean, that thoy would
be content and satisfied to walk alone by
themselves iu the ways and works of d.irk-

ness, without making it their business (as wo
see they do) to draw as many others as they
can down into hell with them, like the com
panions of Ulysses, who having drunk of
Circe's enchanted cup theraselves, and there
by boconie beasts, afterwards made use of all
the beastly inducomeiits they could to prove
the preforeiico of that to man's life, and so
persuade their other fellows to drink of the
same cup, and partake of a like fate with
them. And what is this but to pl.ay the
Devil's part, or to bo the priuce of darkness's
agents or factors horo in this world ? For as
the Devil himself is called A/«/3o?iof, or tho
tempter, because it is his busiuess* delight,
and study to tempt others ; so all that are
tempters of others into sin raay, by the s.ime
reason, be called devils ; I am sure they do
the Devil's work, and shall have (unless they
repeut) the Devil's wages for it. For if those
that "turn other men unto righteousness"
(as the prophet says) " shine like stars," or
have a much greater degree of glory in heaveii
thau other good men, who havo not been so
zealous or industrious to convert others ; by
the same reason, those who tempt other mou
into siu shall have a much greater degree
of torment in hell than other wicked men,
who have not been so malicious or contagious
iu corrupting and infecting those who have
convei'sed with them; which is an effect of the
most diabolical spirit that any man whilst on
this side the grave can possibly bo possessed
or endued withal. But whence, I wonder, is
this courage .against God ? Or what is it makes
some meu so bold and confident, not only by
being as wicked as they cau themselves, but
bv endeavouring to make others their prose
lytes ? Is it because they never think of any
thing at till beyond tho preseut ? If so, thoy
aro uo wiser than the brute beasts. Or is it
because tbey think of nothing beyond de.ith?
And of doiith too, perhaps, in the most gentle
and comfortable notion ; I mean, as death is
a rest from all labours, a cure of all diseases,
nn asvlum frora .ill enemies, and generally, as
it is 'an eud of all worldly troubles, aud a
deliverauce frora all earthly calamities and
vexations? Trulv, I must confess, to have
such a notion of death as this is, is no pleasant
meditation, especially when we mo ready to
sink uuder auy severe ditficulties or troubles.
But, alas ! ray beloved brethren, death is to
bo thought upon by Christiaus, not ouly as it
is the end of one life, but as the commence
ment of another, which, for better or worse,
must last for ever. Nay, death is to be thought
upon by wicked Christians, not as the begin
ning of auother life, but as tho entrance or
passage unto another death ; whore men shall
be dead to all pleasure, to all joy, to all com
fort, to all hopo ; this shall be their deathless
life,' or a lifeless death ; thoy sh.iU be however
alive to pain, alive to sharae aud horror of

THE CERTAINTY OF A JUDGMENT AFTER THIS LIFE.

conscience, and (which is worst of all) living
to despair of ever attaining any end or ease of
those torments. And now I would fain know,
whether auy the most profligate person has
courage enough to think of such a death as this
without fear, or the confidence to expect it
without trembling ? Let us therefore consider
it, and you especially, whoever you are, must
consider it seriously that forget God, or at least
forget him as he is a judge. Consider it, you that
by your drunkenness or uncleanness, or by
any other profane course of life, do seera, as it
were, to have made a covenant with death
and hell, aud think perhaps to have the more
favourable usage from the prince of darkness
hereafter, the more boldly you have avowed
yourselves to be his servants in advancing of
his kingdom here ; you that have done what
you can to prevent your Judge by pronouncing
sentence upon yourselves, and damning your
selves as often as you swear, which is alraost
as often as you speak, (for such is the custora
of coramon swearers,) think with yourselves,
I beseech you, whether your courage, how
great soever it be, will serve you, and your
strength, how much soever it be, will support
you, and for ever too, in such a place and such
a condition as I have imperfectly described
unto you ; " Can any of you dwell, and dwell
for ever, in everlasting burnings ? Aud yet
this shall be the dwelling, this shall be the
portion of the hypocrite," says the prophet,
(Isa. xxxiii. 14.) Aud the like portion with
the hypocrite shall the profane person parti-
i cipate. For though the way of the profane
and the hypocrite seem contrary, yet they
shall meet, and their end shall be the same ;
and though they deride and laugh at one

another here, yet they shall both of them
weep and gnash their teeth together hereafter.
" For the hypocrite shall be as tow, aud the
profane person as flax, and they shall both
burn together, and none shall quench them,"
God of his infinite goodness give them both
grace to foresee in time, and by repentance to
prevent this their so great danger ; for cer
tainly for any man to despise the divine jus
tice, with the endless and intolerable effects
of it, is not courage, but madness. And there
fore, to conclude all in a word, the best method
we can take, is to judge ourselves, that we
may not be judged of the Lord ; and because
" that day" (as the Lord himself tells us)
" shall come as a thief in the night," suddenly
and unexpectedly, let us always be sure to
have oil iu our lamps, that is, faith and re
pentance in our hearts, justice and charity in
our actions ; and whatever else we have to do,
let it be one part of our daily business seri
ously to meditate,
1st, Upon the vanity and shortness of our
lives ; and,
2dly, Upon the certainty and uncertainty
of our deaths.
Sdly, Upon the great exactness and severity
of the judgment to corae after death ; and,
4thly, and lastly. Upon the eternity and
imrautability of every raan's condition in the
other world, whether it be good or evil. And
then, I hope, by God's grace sanctifying these
our endeavours, our condition there will be
such, as we shall have no cause to desire
either an end or an alteration of it.
Which God of his raercy grant us all,
through the raerits of his Son, and the happy
conduct of his Holy Spirit. Amen.

INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

The References are to the Voiome, Page, and Column.

Abilities an object of envy, i. 508, 1
Abraham's equivocation, ii. 224, 1
 resolution to sacrifice Isaac
justified, i. 49.3, 2
Abstinence, total, sometimes a
duty, ii. 294, 2
Academies taught by sectarians
sbould be suppressed, ii. 430, 2
Access to God through Christ
commanded as the only way,
ii. 497, 1
Accusation, an, supposes, and is
founded upon, some law, i. 201,1
Acquiescence, there sbould be an,
in what God has in store for
us, i. 184, 1
Act, unjustifiable consequences of,
ii. 47, 2
Action, the consumtnation of sin,
u. 501, 1
 every sinful, leads to an
other, i. 275, 2
Actions, bad, not excused by good
intentions, i. 76, 1
 good, some people call bad,
and DMje versa, i. 149, 1
 springing from goodrnatiire
reducible to two principles, i. 90, 1
 promises short of, i. 227, 2
 sin of, ii. 431, 1
 there is an invisible spring
of all our, i.212, 1
 not icords, are sufficient to
shew our good-will, i. 226, 2
Actual sin flows from original sin,
ii. 430, 2
 measure of, ii. 431, 1
Adam, curse pronounced upon, i. 404, 1
Adversity, danger of despondency
Advice. See Counsel.
Affections, corrupt, do not suffer
the mind to dwell on truth, i. 380, 2
Affections, iLL-DisrosED, both
naturally and penally the
cause of darkness in the

JUDGMENT, tt Discourse, in two
parts, i. 375, 2
Affections, men's, must be the fore
runner of their persons, i. 420, 2
 composure in the, a principal
element in submission, ii. 378, 2
 of the Jlesh, what is meant
by, ii. 444, 2
Affliction, Joseph's and Job's.
cause of, ii. 223, 2
 will of God sometimes sole
cause of, ii. 235, 2
 no warrant for complaint
against God, ii. 379, 2
 and punishment, distitiction
between, ii. 235, 2
 every, of itself a grievance, ii. 211, 2
 makes graces manifest, ii. 238, 2
 impropriety of impatience
under, ii. 390, 1
 insensibUity under, condem
ned, ii. 376, 1
 not sent in hatred, ii. 233, 1
 never sent but for God's
glory, ii. 237, 2
 submission under, calculated
to afford relief, ii. 389, 2
Afflictions, due and spiritual ¦use
of, conducive to poverty of
spirit, ii. 359, 2
 evihittered by God's anger,
ii. 211,2
 great good may be extracted
out of, ii. 220, 1
 sent by God for good, ii. 132, 1
 examples of, sent in good
ness, ii. 210, 1
 intended to lead their subject
to a sense of sin, ii. 360, 1
 of pardoned, not a punish
ment, but a chastisement, ii. 23, 1
 severe, all not a sign of God's
anger, ii. 209, 2
Affluence, great allurements of,
i. 408, 2
See 'Wealth and Riches.

Age does not alter the nature of
things, i. Ill, 2
 will chill lusts, i. 145, 1
 effect of, upon the sinner, i. 141, 2
 enjoyment in, a poor com
pensation for the misery of the
rest of life, i. 405, 1
 takes away enjoyment, i. 405, 2
 old, hoarding up for, a plea
for covetousness, i. 401, 1
 pleasures of, different from
those of youth, i. 423, 1
 how virtue may be secured
in, i. 423, 1
 the wickedness of the,
ii. 271, 1 ; 285, 2
Ahab, instance of, as to hope of
removal of judgments, when we
humble ourselves, i. 351, 2
 and the false prophet as to'
Ramoth-Gilead, i. 175, 1
Ahaz, impiety of, ii. 132, 1
All meu are to be judged, ii. 547, 2
Alluring objects, presence of, aids
temptation, ii. 29, 2
Almsgiving inculcated, i. 167, 2
Ambition a cause of envy, i. 506, 1
Anabaptists arraign courts of law,
ii. 415, 1
Angel of the church, meaning of,
ii. 302, 2
 import of, a messenger from
God, i. 383, 1
Angels, their employment, ii. 178, 1
 next to God, i. 234, 2
 their habitation, ii. 178, 1
 in heaven, we shall enjoy the
happiness and the perfection of,
i. 256, 1
 their knowledge, ii. 177, 2
 many, remained in innocence, ii. 229, 2
 mediation of, impossible, be
cause they are not omniscient
nor omnipresent, ii. 492, 1

554

SOUTH'S SERMONS.

Angels, their power, ii. 177, 2
 sin of, transcendently great,
i. 229, 2
 sinned against greater light
than man, i. 229, 1
 sinned without temptation, i. 229, 2
— — are spirits, i. 251, 1
Anger, description of, i. 13, 2
 shews vastness of Christ's
lote, ii. 214, 2
 our knowledge cannot com
prehend, ii. 213, 2
 inflicts blows upon the con
science, ii. 210, 2
 and hatred, difference be
tween, ii. 210, 2
 curses our enjoyment, ii. 21 1 , 2
 even exceeds our apprehen
sions, ii. 213, 1
 God's, ii. 211— 215
 how sAewK, ii. 212, 2
 compared with that of men,
ii. 213, 2
 of men, effects of, ii. 214, 1
Angry disposition an occasion of
flattery, ii. 122, 1
 men flattered to keep quiet,
ii. 122, 2
Anguish, a component of death
eternal, ii. 433, 2
Annihilation not so great a punish
ment as etemal misei'y, ii. 222, 2
Antideluvians, perversity of,
ii. 497, 2
Antinomianism, ii. 104, 1
 irapiety of, ii. 105, 2
 commonly terminates in en
thusiasm, i. 453, 2
. Antinomians, doctrine of, i. 146, 2
Antiochus, sin and punishment of,
i. 54, 1
Anxiety,/ear of, ii. 217, 2
 does not prexent the coming
of evil, ii. 220, 1
Appetite, casual power of, ii. 252, 2
 a growing, very troublesome, i. 407, 2
Apostacy, aggravation of, ii. 1 34, 2
Apostles, Christ's instruction
TO, a discourse, ii. 215, 2
 provided with an antidote
against the fear of bodily tor
ments, disgrace, and death, ii. 216, 2
 their power of argument, i. 516, 2
 backwardness of, ii. 87, 2
 not bigotted, i. 520, 2
 calumnies brought against
them, L 516, 2
 commission of, ii. 215, 2
 gifted with superhuman elo
quence, i. 518, 2
 their resolute fidelity, i. 521, 1
 received the Holy Spirit
when they entered on their office,
u. 87, 2

Apostles, their miraculous gifts
temporary, and for a special
purpose, i. 293, 1
 opposition they encountered,
not to be wondered at, i. 514
 two kinds of opposition expe
rienced by them, i. 616, 1
 cruelly persecuted, i. 517, 1
— — three elements of their power
as preachers, i. 6 1 8, 2
 gifted with extraordinary pru
dence, i. 520, 2
 sent forth as soldiers, ii. 216, 1
 warned that they must under
go suffering, ii. 216, 2
 cautioned against the super
fluities and cruelties of the world,
ii. 216, 1
 victory promised to them, i. 518, 1
 two instances of their wisdom,
i. 620, 2
Approximation necessary to per
ception, i. 377, 1
Arian objections to Christ's divi
nity, i. 445, 2 ; 259, 1
Arians and Eunomians deny tbat
Christ had a human soul, ii. 227, 2
 and Socinians, opinions of, re
garding the Trinity, i. 366, 2
 things conceming God denied
by the, i. 251, 2
Aristotle, doctrines of, regarding
the soul, ii. 382, 2
 opinions of, respecting the
etemity of the world, ii. 366, 2
 the opinion of, as to wisdom,i. 249, 2
 took most of his philosophy
from Solomon, i. 326, 2
Arminian and Socinian controter-
sies spoken of, i. 339, 2
Assassination of particular persons
condemned, ii. 459, 2
Assurance, mode in which some
have deceived themselves regard
ing, i. Ill, 2
 danger of trusting to, in ven
turing into temptation, ii. 16, 1
 way to attain, i. 111,2
Astrology, its falsehood and absur
dity, ii. 182, 1
Attributes of justice and mercy
misapprehended by the hypo
crite, ii. 365, 1
Atonement difficult, because due
to infinite justice, ii. 166, 2
 impossible for man, who has
not the requisite compensation, ii. 156, 1
Atheism, men's appetites lead to,
i. 393, 1
 true cause of, i. 60, 1 ; 392, 2
.  discontent, pleasure, and sen
suality, causes of, ii. 286, 1
 grounds of, pitiful and ridicu
lous, i. 393, 1

Atheism and corruption of the
times, ii. 285, 2
 great ains lead to, ib. ¦
 shews great ignorance of na
ture, ii. 284, 2
Atheist, abandons his opinions at
the approach of death, ii. 286, 1
 tries to rid himself of the
belief of a God, ii. 282, 2
— — . conversion of, very difficult, i. 110,2
 is terrified by danger, ii. 285, 1
 an exception from the standmg
rules of nature, ii. 284, 1
 folly of, because he lays aside
a principle suitable to reason, ii. 284, 1
 folly of, shewn from the causes
and motives inducing him to
take up this opinion, and from
those cases in which such per
sons begin to doubt and waver,
ii. 284, 2
 judginent of, lies in his affec
tions, ii. 285, 1
Atheists also hypocrites, ii. 281, 1
 strange philosophy of, ib.
 not wisest men in the world,
i. 110, ?
 wishes of, ii. 281, 2
 existence of, difficult to be
lieve, ii. 280, 2
Atheistic denial of the judgment
to come, considered, ii. 645, 2
Authority required by Churcl'
governors, ii. 97, 2
Avarice, the first plea of, is the
necessity of making a provision
for posterity, i. 401, 1
See Covetousness.
Babylon, power and greatness of,
ii. 466, 1
Barcboeab, a false Messiah, who
called himself the eon of a star,
i. 266, 1
Being, He who gives a, has an
indefeasible claim to what the,
can do, i. 208, 1
Believers, law binding on, as rule
of life, ii. 106, 1
Bellarmine, quotation from,
i. 171,2; 210,2
Benhadad, army of, how over
thrown, ii. 65, 2
Better, some men erroneously
think that they will get, when
they get older, i. 161, 2
Bible times peculiar, i. 491, 2
Bishops, correspondence between,
aud the case of the prophet
Jeremiah, ii. 95, 1
 integrity, best defence ot,
ii. 97, 1
 duties of, i. 38,390
 protect the church, ii. 96, 1
 require three qualificationt, ii. 96, 2
 resolution, very essence of,
ii. 97, 1

I.VDEX OF SUBJECTS.

5-55

Blindness, accidental, mav be
cured, ii. 230, 2
 of the men cured by Clirist,
cause of, ii. 232, 1
 natural, incurable by art,
ii. 230, 2
Bloodgoiltiness, ihe cause of,
a discourse, ii. 453, 1
 curse pronounced against,
because of the direct breach
upon human society, ii. 457, 2
 because of the accompanying
Bin, ii. 458, 2
 ejttfnt of the curse pro
nounced against, ii. 455, 2
 sense of,atomi*»tor,ii. 410, 1
Bloodshed the ground of a curse,
ii. 454, 1
 puUic, i. c. civil war, ii. 459, 1
 punidimeiit of, inliusted to
vicegerents on earth, ii. 454, 2
Bloody men, direct interference
of God to panish, ii. 458, 1
 jealous and suspicious, ii. 456, 1
Body, fhe affliction of the, curbs
the flesh, and makes it service
able to the spirit, i. 34", 1
 cha^isement of, should not
wound the soul, i. 427, 2
 destruction of with sonl, what
makes so formidable, ii. 221, 2
 «i7s of, not to be feared,
ii. 218 — 2-21
 ideatUy of, &t the resurrection,
vindicated, i. 360, 1
 is the soul's instrument in
all its duties, i. 347, 1
 maladies of, thought to he
caused by sin, ii. 230, 2
 its influence on the mind,
i. 444, 1
 m 'i^ri.is of, caimot be removed
by riches, i. 409, 2
 parts of, continually chang
ing, i. 357, 2
 pollutes the soul, ii. 445, 2
 alleged improbability of the
resurrettion of the same, i. 357, 1
'  said by some to be impos-
able, i. 357, 2
 Socinians deny the resurrec
tion of the sam^, i. 358, 1
 resurrection of the same,
impossibility of, disproved, i. 360, 1
 and soul, our comparative
estimation of, as shewn by our
care of each, iL 447, 1
 we may have a thin, pining,
and yet a luxurious sob?, i. 347, 2
 fuhstance of may, in the
course of time, become part of
another man's, i- 357, 2
 human, no evidence tliat the
transmutation of, is total, i. 359, 1
'  just measure of the trans
mutation of, cannot be known
by «q)erience, i. 359, 2

Body, the, an essential constituent
part of the man, i. 360, 2
Books, the most excellent, the
most compendious, i. 130, 1
Brevit}' in addresses to the grandees
of tiiis worid implies modesty,
discretion, and height of respect
to the person addressed, i. 136, 2
Bre^'ity in Prayer, enforced by
five arguments, i. 131, 1
 discountenanced by those
who have renounced the com
munion of the English Church,
i. 136, 2
 combined with fulness, the
perfection of speech, i. 129, 1
 jKjnies given to, i. 130, 1
 most natural way of express
ing outcries of the soul to God,
i. 134, 1
 in Prayer recommejided, i. 129, 1
 recommended by God himself,
i. 129, 1
 recomtiKtided by examples in
Scripture, i. 134, 2
 and by the English Liturgy,
i. 135, 2
Busybodies often mistaken for
men of business, i. 558, 1
Csesar, anecdote of, i. 150, 1
Calamitj', deprecation of, not in
consistent with submission to
tbe divine will, ii. 376, 2
 neither is an endeavour to
I obviate, ii. 277, 1
Calumny, best confutation of, in
! purity of life, ii. 208, 2
 an efi'ect of envj', i. 511, 1
Calvin and Beza, church govem
ment of, ii. 87, 1
; Calvinism opposed to monarchical
right, i. 470, 2
Care, effects of, ii. 211, 2
 one of the greatest miseries
of the mind, i. 407, 1
 the imperial throne a seat
of, i- iOJ, 2
Cares, anxious, about worldly things
forbidden, i. 396, 2
I  a direct reproach to God,
i. 397, 1
 argued doicn by Christ, ib.
 excessiTe, flow from abun
dance, i. •i<'6, 2
 increase with riches, i. 407, 1
Casualties, examples of, i. 64 — 66
Catechising, duty of, i. 428, 1
 evils of the want of, i. 428, 1
Canse, urgency of the, a warrant
for prosecution, ii. 419, 1
Causes, moral, afford but moral
certaintj', ii- 99. '-
 which lead a man to take
nleasure in other men's sins,
^ i. 139, 2
 small, often give rise to great
events, '• 38-*> '

Causes of uncharitable interpreta
tion of God's judgments, ii. 240, 1
Caution, prudential fear of, ii. 217, 2
 s against eternal death given
even to the saints, ii. 224, 2
Censoriousness often mistaken for
piety, i. 555, 2
Challenge, acceptance of, as an
altei-native to judicial condem
nation, judged unlawful, ii. 406, 1, 2
Charity should accompany fasting,
ii. 299, 2
 excuses for neglect of, i. 83, 1
Charles I. anecdote of, ii. 47, 2
 his ac^:omplishments, i. 434, 1
 arlfitrary power not claimed
by him .or his successor, i. 647, 2
 his cond^scens'um, i. 435, 1
 his execution unwarrantable, i. 489, 1
.  political consequences of it,
i. 440, ]
 his injuries and sufferings,
i. 439, 2 ; 478, 2
 judges of, i. 425, 2
 measures adopted against
him, i. 435, 2
 murder of, i. 432, 2
 character of his opponents, i. 437, 1
 his piety, i. 434, 1 ; 478, 2
 the prosperity of his reign,
i. 434, 2
 repuhlican slanders against
him and his son, i. 547, 1
 trial of, illegal, i. 425, 2
Charles II. eulogy of,
i. 232,1; 431, 2
 restoration of, une-xpected, u. 289, 2
 restoration of, ascribed to die
Holy Spirit, ii. 260, 2
Cherubims and seraphims, their
nature superior to ours, i. 345, 2
Children of light, pretended, con
duct of, " >• "0, 1
 English, what they should
be told by their parents, i. 425, 2
 method of instniaing pre
scribed by God, ib.
 principles which should be
infused into, i. 425, 1
 proriding for, sometimes a
plea for covetousness, i. 400, 2
 objections to, being warned
a<Tunst rebellion obviated, i. 426, 1
 should not be pnnished for
the faults of their parents, i. 427, 2
 reasons why they should be
wdl principled, i. 428, 1
 should be confirmed, i. 428, 2
Christ, his ac^i/oiiitance with our
condition,& gmani of confidence
in his mediation, ii. 490, 1

556

SOUTH'S SERMONS.

Christ, his actions threefold, mira
culous, mediatorial, and moral,
ii. 203, 2
 tame friendship found by
adhering to, i. 1 19, 2
 exceUence of his advocacy, ii. 491, 1
 a warm advocate, because the
friend of man, ii. 488, 1
 ¦  because the brother of
man, ii. 488, 2
 the surety of man, ii. 489, 1
 our Lord and Master, ii. 489, 1
 gave his apostles an antidote
against fear of bodily torments,
disgrace, and death, ii. 216, 217,
 's antidote against fear, ii. 39, 1
 warned his apostles of their
danger, ii. 216, 2
 arguments of convincing, i. 46, 2
 ascension of, ii. 81, 2
 ascension of, triumph over sin
and death, ii. 86, 1
 's ascension, end of, ii. 83, 2
 's ascension, great end of,
ii. 85, 2
 's assumption of our NA
TURE, a discourse, ii. 226, 1
 behaviour of, under a
wounded spirit, ii. 263, 2
 measure of our happiness to
be like, ii. 82, 1
 blood of, cau alone purify
the soul, ii. 76, 1
 his body not stolen from the
sepulchre by his disciples, i. 462, 1
 's body, a masterpiece of
nature, i. 280, 1
 's body after resurrection, ii. 83, 1
 's body, opinion of Origen re
garding, ii. 83, 1
 's body impassable, affirmed
by some, ii. 227, 2
 the bright and morning star,
i. 264, 1
 how, resembles a star, shewn
in three ways, i. 264, 2
 causes which induce men to
deny Christ, i. 20, 1
 's voltmtary choice to assume
a low condition, ii. 228, 1
 the relation of the church to,
i. 161, 2
 combination of, grandeur and
lowliness in, ii. 79, 2
 state of world before coming
of, ii. 225, 1
 coining into the world, i. 267, 2
 the condition of his coming, i. 268, 1
^^— to whom did he come, i. 269, 2
.  at his coming, much of

idolatry and superstition driven
foom the world, i. 265, 2
Christ, also the Jewish imperfect
worship, i. 265, 2
 also all pretended messiahs, i. 266, 1
 the purpose of his coming, i. 271, 1
 the time of his coming, i. 270, 1
 's commission to his disciples, ib.
 compassion of, moved by our
min, ii. 230, 1
 compassion of, ii. 74, 1
 his concern in us, a ground
of confidence in his mediation, ii. 490, 2
 a conqueror of death to be
lievers alone, ii. 465, 1
 continual thinking of, a sign
of love to him, ii. 480, 2
 counsels his people, i. 117, 2
 exhortation of, against covet
ousness, i. 395, 1
 v/ho crucify afresh, ii. 136, 1
 cubing a blind man, a dis-
com-se, ii. 230, 2
 danger, apparent, of owning, i. 21, 2
 death o/,.proof of his love for
us, ii. 479, 1
 death of, caused by sin,
ii. 130, 1
 defence of, against Pharisees, ii. 106, 1
 deity of, proved on various
occasions, ii. 461, 2
 denial of, great gospel sin,
i. 17, 1
 same meaning as being
ashamed of him, i. 17, 2
 strong motives and tempta
tions from men to, i. 18, 1
 no terrors or solicitations
can excuse, i. 18, 1
 hls denial of those who deny
him, i. 23, 1
 ways in which, may be de
nied ; by erroneous judgment,
verbally, and in practice, i. 18, 19
 things for which he is denied,
i. 24, 1
 descension and humiliation
of, ii. 80, 1
 's descent from heaven, ii. 80, 1
 's descent, objection against
answered, ii. 82, 1
 his descent into the lower
parts of the earth, ii. 80, 2
 a commanding sovereignty
in his desires, ii. 1.3, 1
 WHY his doctrine WAS DE
SPISED BY IHE JEWS, a discourse, i. 43, 2
 not a destroyer but a, fulfiller
of the law, i. 273,2
 and the devil, as advocate and
accuser, ii. 481, 1

Christ, the infinite d'lgnity of liis
person, i. 282, 1
 sends his disciples as sold'iers,
ii. 216, 1
 's disciples thoughtall maladies
of the body came from sin,
ii. 230, 2
 disciples, privileges of, i. 114,2
 the divine nature of, hid
itself a while from his humanity,
but did not desert it, i. 288, 1
 passa ges of Scripture to prove
tiie divinity of, i. 269, 2
 divinity and humanity of, in
his character of judge, ii. 547, 1
 diviuity of, has been disbe
lieved and spoken against, i. 267, 1
 the adversaries of the divinity
of, must also say that the Scrip
tures are not the 'Word of God,
i. 260, 2
 divinity of, consecrated and
sanctified his humanity, i. 320, 1
 's divine nature, proof of,
ii, 226, 2
 's divinity, proof of, ii. 146, 1
 's diviuity, necessary qualifi
cation for being a Sariour, ii. 227, 1
 reflection on the example of,
conduces to peaceable living, ii. 426, 2
 bis excellence in general seen
more cleariy immediately before
rejection, ii. 196, 2
 excellence of, a cause of love
to him, ii. 477, 2
 ends of his fasting, ii. 293, 1
 ¦ filling all THINGS, dis
course on, ii. 85, 2
 filing all things, meaning of,
ii. 83, 2
 fitness of, as a Mediator, in
respect to God, ii. 487, 1
.  fitness of, as a Mediator, in
respect to man, ii. 488, 1
 fitness of, as a Mediator, in
respect to himself, ii. 489, 2
 it is our privilege and safety
to follow, i. 360, 1
 we should follow him in it,
ii. 293, 1
 what is implied iu being
friends of, i. 114, 1
 friendship of, to disciples, how
exhibited, i. US, 2
 prophecies /aZ/iMed in,
ii. 85, 2 ; 228, 1
 the fulfilling of prophecies in
his person, i. 322, 2
 gifts received by, for raen,
ii. 86, 1
 is tmly God, i. 260, 2
 resurrection of, greatest proof
that he is God, i. 319, 1
 that he is God, is the founda
tion of the Christian religion, i. 361, 1

INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

557

Quist, vrill of men governed by,
ii. 85, 1
 government of, ii. 85, 1
.  has provided governors and
teachers for the church, u. 86, 87
.  grounds upon which the Jews
rejected, i. 271, 2
¦ the weakness of such grounds, i. 272, 2
.  a groimd of submission to,
u. 247, 1
.  will have the whole heart, ii. 473, 1
.  above the heavens, ii. 82, 1
.  the doctrine of his humanity
perverted, i. 446, 2
.  's human nature, reality of,
ii. 227, 1
 that he had a human soul
denied by Arians, ii. 227, 2
 'S HUMILIATION AND EXALTA
TION, discourse on, ii. 79 — 85
 's humiliation in being of the
race of the Je-ws, ii. 228, 2
 bronght immortality to light,
i. 364, 2
.  the prospect of immortality,
carried triumphant through all
his sufferings, i. 350, 1
 ^"s righteousness, imputation
of, ii. 104, 2
.  the incamation of, a means
of keeping man humble, i. 264, 2
 's incamation, purpose of,
ii. 225, 2
 's incarnation, what may be
inferred from, ii. 226,
 perfect innocence required in
him as a proper sacrifice, i. 28-2, 1
 ^"S INSTRUCTIONS TO HIS APOS
TLES, a discourse, ii. 215, 2
 intercession for, afford no
encouragement to venture into
temptation, ii. 14, 1
 intercession of, one motive to
God's delivering the godly out of
temptation, ii. 12, 2
 reasons why he should be
judge at the last day, ii. 547, 1
 as judge, no appeal from his
sentence, ii. 548, 2
 gave jurisdiction to church,
* ¦' ii. 97, 2
 shall reign as King of kings,
and Lord fiords, i. 306, 2
 as a King, destroys death,
^ ii. 466, 1
 kingdom differs from all
others, ii- 247, 1
 kingdom of, means by which
extended, ii- 88, 2
 refused the kingly government
of the Jews, because it would
have frustrated the design of his
religion, ii. ^'2, 2
 refused the kingly government
ofthe Jews, that he might declare

the trae nature of his kingdom, ii. 472, 2
Christ, infinite knowledge and good
ness of, i. 395, 1
 knowledge of, ii. 142, 1
 the knowledge of, etemal life,
i. 331, 1
 law of, how subverted, ii. 107, 2
 his whole life a continued
miracle, ii. 292, 2
 likeness to, ii. 293, 1
 considered as Lord of the
universe, i. 395, 2
 LOVE of, to his DISCIPLES, a
discourse, i. 112, 1
 's love, vastness of shewn
from greatness of God's wrath,
ii. 214, 2
 to be loved, because he is best
able to reward our love, ii. 478, 2
 to be loved, because he has
shewn the greatest love for us,
ii. 479, 1
 the invincible strength of the
love of, i. 271, 1
 manifestation of, in promises,
types, and sacrifices, ii. 461, 1
 the end or purpose of his
m/inifestation, ii. 462, 1
 mernbers of, demands defence, i. 24, 2
 why took on him the nature
of men, and not of angels, ii. '229, 1
 all the signs and marks of the
Messiah appeared in, i. 274, 1
 the course of his conduct
among the Jews, shews that he
was the Messiah, i. 274, 2
^ — the promised Messiah, ii. 227, 2
 being the trae Messiah de
pends upon his being the Son of
David, i._261, 1
 miracles wrought by, i. 43, 1
 his obedience twofold, active
and passive, ii. 203, 2
 's office, trath of, and divinity
of his mission, ii. 227, 2
.  's offices, order of, ii. 444, 1
 the offspring ofDamd, i. 261, 1
 omnipresent ii. 84, 1
 still prays for his people, ii. 13, 1
 as depressed to the lowest
state of poverty, i. 395, 2
 his preaching to spirits in
prison, ii. 81, 1
 preaching of, recommended
by his practice, i. 395, 3
 pre-existence of, ii. 227, 1
 as a priest, destroys sin by
his satisfaction for it, and his
supplies of grace to individual
believers, ii- 465, 2
 the nature of his priesthood,
an argument for his resurrection, it 290, .i

Christ, imitation of, exemplified in
Paul, ii. 449, 1
 's priestly office, the two great
parts of, ii. 12, 2
 HIS PROMISE, THE SUPPORT OP
HIS MINISTERS, a discourse, i. 614, 1
 as a prophet, removes delu
sion, ii. 469, 1
 did not descend into purga
tory, ii. 81, 1
— —purity of his nature, gave
temptations no hold on, ii. 29, 1
— I — pwrity of, in what respects
it may be obtained by men, ii. 71, 2
.  how was, received in the
worid, i. 271, 2
 redemption by, summary of,
ii. 81, 2
 manner in which he refuted
the Sadducees i. 361, 2
 rejected by those who be
lieved things false, i 46, 2
 . — why rejected in opposition to
secret convictions, ii. 189, 2
 THE DELIBERATE REJECTION
OF HIM ATTENDED WITH SECRET
DISSATISFACTION, a discourse, u. 194,2
 rejection of, not caused by
insufficiency of proof, i. 46, 1
 misery attending the final
rejection of him, ii. 202, 2
 his remaining in the grave
rendered impossible by the union
of his human nature to his
divine, i. 287, 2
 by God's immutability, i. 288, 1
 how this was the case, ib.
 mode of rcproo/ presentedby, ii. 114, 1
 argues down a restless temper
of mind, i. 397 1
 's resurrection, cause of,
i. 286, 1
 the manner of it, i. 286, 1
 the ground of it, i. 287, 2
 why he did not appear to the
unbeUeving Jews j^ter his re
surrection, i. 461, 1
 's sitting at God's right hand,
figurative, ii. 84, 1
 the root of David, i. 259, 1
 universal rule of, ii. 84, 2
 's providence ruling the
church, ii. 142, 1
 how far a man may consult
his so/e«v without denying, i. 22, 1
 's satisfaction f err sin, a funda
mental ari;icle of the Christian
religion, i- 251, 2
 's satisfaction of God's justice
denied by some, ii. 242, 1
 is the second person in the
Trinity, i. 268, 1

558

SOUTH'S SERMONS.

Christ has placed the soul of his
religion in self-denial, ii. 294, 1
 why, delivers his disciples
from the name of servants, i. 113,2
 we are unavoidably servants
of, even in our highest state of
sanctity, i. 113, 2
 could not suffer from sin,
ii. 264, 1
 consideration of the phrase,
that, was declared to be the Son
ofGod, i. 319, 1
 . tlie Son of God, i. 322, 1
 now enjoys imiversal soije-
reignty, ii. 86, 1
 sufferings of, shew the evil of
sin, ii. 264, 1
 the sufferings of, i. 278, 1
 their latitude and extent, i. 278, 2
 their grounds and cause, i. 28'2, 2
 their intenseness and sharp
ness, i. 279, 2
 God the cause and author of
them, i. 280, 1
 impossible for us to conceive
their araount, i. 280, 2
 their nature and equahty, i. 281, 1
 the sufferings of, penal and
expiatory, i. 281, 1
 proof that this was the case,
i. 282, 1
 erroneous opinions as to
thera, i. 281, 1
 the Sun of Righteousness, i. 456, 2
 sympathy of, i. 116, 1
.  sympathy of, animating his
people under suff'ering, ii. 13, 2
 impossibility of, being a tem
poral prince, i. 272, 1
 anniversary of his temptation
celebrated by the priraitive
church, ii. 292, 2
.  deraands the defence of the
great, i. 24, 1
 the opinion that, was of the
triie of Levi, groundless, i. 263, 2
 his truth, &c. established by
the fulfilraent of his parting
words since his death,
i. 514, 1 ; 521, 2
.  truth of, demands defence, i. 24, 2
 truths of. Christian's philo
sophy, i. 51, 1
 nature of union between
divine and human nature of,
ii. 84, 2
 unity oftwo natures in, ii. 82, 2
 nature of the views which he
taught, _ i. 322, 1
¦  the head of his people, sym
pathizes with their suff'erings, ii. 489, 2
•  had the weaknesses and infir

mities of human nature, ii. 227, 2
Christ's, what it is to be, ii. 444, 1
 willingness to leave the world
at his call, a proof of love to hira,
ii 481, 1
 the wonderful works he did
on earth, i. 323, 1
 and the world, the opposition
of, tests the sincerity of pro
fessed love to Christ, ii. 476, 1
 world made for and by, i. 396, 1
 zeal for his lionour, a sign of
love to hira, ii. 481, 1
Christian's spiritual calling, ii. 91, 2
 a good, ii. 90, 1
 graces to be planted in his
heart, ii. 92, 1
 the, will feel sufl'ering from
himself, i. 283, 2
 no man a, till his heart has
taken hold of the truths of the
gospel, i. 379, 1
 name of, without the nature,
of uo value, ii. 444, 1
 religion at first strange, ii. 87, 1
 the, who suffers with Chi'ist,
shall also reign with him, i. 284, 2
 why he should not fear
temporal miseries, ii. 218, 1
 's life a warfare,
ii. 1C9, 1 ; 60, 2 ; 33, 2
 warfare, weapons of, ii. 89, 1
— — work of, threefold, ii. 91, 1
 work of, difficult and neces
sary, ii. 93, 94
 the, will feel suffering frora
the world, i. 284, 1
Christians, almost, ii. 134 2
 sliould shun banquetings, ii. 56, 2
 in raysterious matters have
nothing to do but believe, ii. 372, 1
 business of, sobriety and sub
raission, i. 372, 2
 should always be busy, ii. 55, 2
 should take heed of intem
perance, ii. 56, 1
 persecution of, by Nero, ii. 216, 2
 various temperaments of,
i. 295, 1
 that it is unlawful for them
in any case to wage war, affirmed
by Socinus, i. 373, 1
Cliristianity, design of, ii. 89, 1
 not destructible by persecu
tion, _ i. 517, 2
 what is destructive ot, ii. 103, 2
 discrirainating excellence of,
ii. 103, 1
 reason why hated by the
worid, i. 379, 1

Christianity not hostile to courts
of judicature, ii. 419, 1
 we should not tamper with
the mysteries of, i. 258, 2
 THE WISDOM OP QOD IN MAK
ING MYSTERIOUS, u, discoursc, i. 249, 1
 why so mysterious, i. 260, 1
 from the nature and quaUty
of the things treated of in,
i. 250, 1
 from the abstraction of, from
all sensible and corporeal matter,
i. 251, 1
 from the strangeness and
irreducibleness of, to the com
mon methods and observations
of nature, i. 251,2
 from some of the principal
designs of, i. 252, 2
 ends not in negatives, i. 92, 1
 how it enforces precepts, u. 103, 1
 its reasonableness, ii. 197, 1
 a suffering religion, i. 283, 2
 designated the truth, i. 376,1
 truths of, must be taken hold
of by the heart, i. 379, 1
 truth of, seen, and yet hated
because of tlie love of sin, i. 380, '
 variety of, suited to man's
nature, ii. 79, 1
Church, the best, not free from
error and corruption, i. 305, 1 ; 522, 2
 the, not under a process of
degeneracy, ii. 149, 2
 its duty to testify against
political rebellion, i 545, 1
 enclosure and fortification of,
n. 96, 1
 enemies of, have not pre
vailed against it, ii. 100, 1
 enemies of, dread, the inno
cence of its governors, ii. 97, 1
 govermnent of, excellent and
divine, ii. 86, 2
 Governors, Qualification
OF, AND Oppositions to, a dis
course, u. 96, 1
 require courage, inno
cence, integrity, and authority, ii. 96,2
 opposition to, ii. 98, 1
 issue of opposition to,
u. 99, 2
 opposed by open force,
ii. 99, 1
 by railing and Ubels, n. 98, 2
 by seditious preaching
and praying, ii. 98, 1
 •  encouragement to,
ii. 100, 1
 primitive, judaizing spirit in
it, i. 523, 1
 early history of, a continued
martyrology, u. 49, 1

INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

550

Church, to hear the, the general
practice of the Christian world,
ii. 292, 2
 r injunctions of, soraething
more necessary tiian merely to
obey, ii. 298, 2
 instructors provided for, ii. 87, 1
 the Jewish a'nd patriarchal,
may be considered under a
double character, i. .551,2
 judgment of, should be relied
on before our own, i. 266, 1
 jurisdiction of, denied by
some, ii. 97, 2
 lands, purchasers of, judg
ments on, i. 64, 2
 properly belong to
churchraen, i. 57, 1
 membership, no advantages
from, must be the standard by
which we judge ourselves, i. 187, 2
 the possession of, in a
good church, can never make a
good man, L 1 88, 2
 ojice-bearers, strengthened
by upholding its laws, i. 532, 1
 maintenance of its order,
beneficial as regards its oppo
nents, i. 531, 1
 the primitive, solemnized the
anniversary of Clirist's tempta
tion, ii. 292, 2
 God purges with the sword of
his mouth, i. 305, 1
 nders often despised on frivo
lous causes, i. 41, 1
 these causes enumerated, i. 41, 2
 just causes of their being
despised, i. 42, I
 best way of securing it,
i. 524, 1
 state of, during the common
wealth, ii. 96, 1
 its treatment at the hand of
the worid, i. 515, 2
 want of uniformity in it at
tended with evils, i. 527, 2
 the whole system of, advan
tageously framed, ii. 86, 2
 truth and law on the side of,
and should be used, ii. 98, 1
 wonderfully preserved hy
God, ii. 286, 2
Church of England, false
methods of governing and
establishing it exploded, a
discourse, i. 522, 1
 injury done to, i. 354, 2
 persons who should have
been brought under the cen
sures of, i. 365, 2
 discussion in favour of, on
the ground that dissenters only
,plead their conscience in dis
senting, and not the word of
God, i. 197, 2 ; 198, 1 and 2 ;
199, 1 and 2

Church of England, duty of the
ministers of, i. 429, 2
 reason of the cry against the
rites and ceremonies of, i. 130, 1
 pretences of dissenters against
its constitution and ceremonies, i. 524, 2
 experienoe of its serrices, i. 525, I
 alleged insignificance of some
of its rites, does not justify oppo
sition, i. 526, 2
 lawfulness of its ceremonies, i. 524, 2
 temper of its opponents, i. 526, 1
 consequence of yielding to
its opponents, i. 526, 2
 its purity and peacefulness, i. 630, 1
 not popish, i. 535, 2
 treatment which it has re
ceived from the Komish, i. 536, 1
Church of Rome, pretended mir
acles of, i. 385, 1
 errors of, regarding
repentance, ii. 109, 2
 impiety ofthe doctrines
of, u. 106,1
 makes sin venial, ii. 105, 2
 resemblance between,
and the perverted Jewish, ii. 106, 1
 dispenses with oaths,
ii. 108, 1
 advantage of, used aa a
plea for breaking oaths, ii. 108,1
Circumcision, presumptions in
favour of its continued obliga
tion, i. 523, 1
 its permanence pointedly
denied by Pau), i. 623, 1
Circumstances may strengthen
corruptions.
Citizen, a good,
Ci'vil power, surest
strengthen or to rain

384, 2
ii. 90, 1
means to
i. 27, 2

Clergy, the failures and defects of
the, redound upon their func
tion, i. 321, 1
 argument for their attending
the umversity, i. 321, 2
 English, how treated, i. 515, 1
 duty of, to teach the young,
i. 427, 2
 to undeceive the people,
i. 429, 2
Clamour, self-interested, i. 429, 2
 against court pensioners, i. 429, 2
 about the persecution of ten-
tender consciences, i- 429, 2
Corafort conveyed by the Spirit,
consists in enabling the recipient
to understand his interest in
Christ ; and in discovering to

hira the grace that is iu him,
ii. 510, 1 and 2
Comforter, promise of, a dis
course, ii. 256
 what kind of comfort he
ii. 257, 1
the Spirit of troth, ii. 258, 1
Command, a, may be considered
two ways, i. 244, 2
 as descending from a private
person, i. 244, 2
 as descending from a magis
trate, i. 245, 1
 if a magistrate were to make
a, which he knows would be a
direct occasion of sin to the
people, this would be a sin,i. 245, 1
Comraandments, all the, of natural
moral right, the fourth excepted, i. 224, 1
 to break the, is an aberration
from the dictates of rightiy im
proved reason, i, 224, 1
Commission of the apostles, ii. 215, 2
Commonwealth and Crorawell cha
racterized, ii. 459, 2
 English, short-lived, ii. 460, 1
Community, duty which we owe
to, u. 90, 1
Communities, malignity of the dis
position of taking pleasure in
the sins of, i. 152, 1
Company, evil, raust be shunned, i. 54, 1
Coraparison of ourselves with our
fellow men, en'oneous, i. 359, 2
Comparisons, danger of, with
Scripture illustrations, i. 370, 1
Compassion, want of, accompanies
ingratitude, i. 91, 1
Concealment of Sin, no Security
TO the Sinner, a discourse, i. 337, 1
Concupiscence, effects of, ii. 252, 1
 nature of, i. 423, 2
Confession, auricular, repudiated
by the English church, i. 537, 1
Confessions of unworthiness ou the
part of good raen, i. 218, 1
Confidence, corapany causes, i. 332, 2
 the vanity of the, of the sin
ner iu expecting to escape
punishment, i. 342, 1
 the very, itself of secrecy, is
a direct and natural cause of the
sinner's discovery, i. 342, 1
Confidence towards God, a dis
course, ii. 482, 1
 opposed to despair, ii. 482, 2
 ..  opposed to doubts and
scrupulosities, ii. 483, 1
 opposed to rashness and
precipitation, ii. 484, 1
 opposed to ii'reverence, ii. 485, 1

560

SOUTH'S SERMONS.

Confidence towards God, founda
tion of, in the mediation of
Christ, ii, 486, 2
• ¦ baseness of abusing, i. 101, 1
 we shonld beware of a, false,
i. 194,2
 in health, i. 67, 1
 important in the Christian
conflict, i. 518, 1
 in prosperity, danger of, i. 67, 1
 the sincerity of our faith or,
will not secure us against all
vicissitudes of distrust, i. 193, 2
 the silence of our conscience,
not a sufficient argument for,
i. 194, 1
 in wealth and power, i. 67, 2
Confirmation, the duty of the
bishop, ¦ i. 428, 2
 nature and necessity of, ib.
 made a sacrament by the
Church of Rome, i. 428, 2
 reasons why it was instituted, i. 428, 2
 power of, incommunicable, i. 429, 1
Confusions and disturbances, origin
of, i. 423, 2
Conscience ought to be frequently
and impartially accounted with,
i. 192, 2
 an accusing, the horrors of,
ii. 63, 1
 the whispers of an acquitting,
wUl drown the voice of slander,
i. 203, 1
 no artifice has any effect
upon, i. 201, 2
 how its testimony is so
authentic, i. 195, 2
 none, in respect of, bom
blind, i. 216, 2
 how far bound by human
laws, i. 472, 1
 irapossible to put down the
clamours of, i. 201, 2
 comfort frora, in poverty and
sharae, i. 202, 2
 complaints of, not without
cause, i. 200, 2
 the only complete judge
under God, of what the soul
has, and what it has not, done,
i. 188, 2
 the, may be induced to act
counter to its present persuasion, i. 244, 1
 from what it derives the
credit nf its testimony, i. 200, 1
 darkened by what defiles it,
i. 216, 2
 and by what puts a bias
upon it, i. 217, 2
 by every act of sin, i. 218, 1
 by frequent and repeated
sins, i. 218, 2
 by every cormpt passion of
the mind, i. 219, 1

Conscience, depraved, contented
with a shew of duty, ii. 67, 2
 the dictates of, should not be
resisted, i. 191, 1
 a long and bold course of
sinning, may dim and darken
the discerning faculty of, i. 200, 2
 disquiet of, the result of the
Atheist's principles, ii. 284, 2
 when enraged, keeps us
miserable, i. 202, 2
 man responsible for its errors,
i. 468, 1
 powers of an evU, ii. 2'2, 1
 the e^e of the soul,
i. 200, 2 ; 242, 1
 false plea of, i. 430, 1
 blows inflicted by God's anger
upon, ii. 210, 2
 God's interpreter, ii. 1 33, 2
 God's vicegerent, and can
never be deposed, i. 196, 2; ii. 275, 2
 a good, better than all the
world, ii. 27, 1
 a defence, ii. 216, 2
 cleared by truth, from guilt
and doubting, ii. 258, 2
 the, may be grieved or affiic
ted, i. 244, 1
 its great and vigorous im
partiality, i. 201, 1
 its influence on the internal
peace, ii. 196, 1
 how we may know when it is
rightly informed, i. 189, 1
 how we may get our, informed, i. 190, 1
 becomes insensible by degrees,
ii. 276, 1
 not acting by law, a bound
less, daring, and presuraptuous
thing, i. 201, 1
 let loose upon the Atheist on
a death-bed, ii. 285, 1
 both a light and a law, i. 215, 1
 meaning and derivation of
the terra, i. 189, 2
 mischief in not distinguishing
between mere opinion or per
suasion and, i. 196, 2
 diff'erence between these, i. 197, 1
 An Account of the Nature
AND Measures of, a discourse.
Two Parts, i. 186, 2
 oath sick, resolved by pro
mise of preferment, i. 354, 1
 cannot be kept in order with
out fi«quent examination, i. 193, 1
 how ^acj;f«d by the hypocrite
¦with Scripture illustrations, |
ii. 369, 1, 2 '
 raay he perverted, i. 189, 1
 peace of, lost by yielding to
teraptation, ii, 21, 2
 is iu effect a man's whole
happiness, ii. 63, 1

Conscience, ^eaee of, trusted to tbe
heart, ii. 63, .
 plea of, not always admia-
sible, ii. 427, 2
 pleasure derived from, i. 6, 1
 we ought to pray when our,
is smiting us, i. 202, 1
 Pretence of, no Excuse fob
Rebellion, a discourse, i. 432, 1
 • consideration of those pre.
tences of, which have bome such
a sway in the world, i. 196, 1
 made a pretext for political
rebellion, i. 467, 2
 the extraordinary quickness
and sagacity of, i. 200, 1
 religious, and political, at
tempts to distinguish between, ii. 118, 2
 why it feels remorse in rejec
ting Christ, ii. 196, 1
 ought to be rightly informed
before its testimony can be
authentic, i. 189, ]
 searedness of, the obstinate
sinner given up to, ii. 275, 2
 manner in which it is seared,
ii. 276, 1
 we must attend to the sen
tence of our, i. 201, 2
 sin, in defiance of, ii. 432, "
 sin against, with Scripture
illustrations, ii. 431, 2
 sins against, presuraptuous, ii. 133, 2
 sinning against leads to take
pleasure in other men's sins,
i. 140, 1
 sinning against, caused by
direct infideUty, i. 140, 2
 soothed by the proraise of
repentance, ii. 802, 1
 grounds on which men speak
peace to, in their sins, ii. 301, 2
 flatterers speak against, u. 120, 2
 the spring of all men's ac
tions, i. 146, 1
 A True State and Account
OF the Plea of a Tender, a
discourse, i. 241, 1
 impropriety of the term
Under, i. 242, 1
 tenderness of, destroyed by
presumptuous sin, u. 139, 1
 sins of daily commission wear
away the minute tenderness of
the, i. 331, 2
 the tenderness of the sense of,
i. 200, 2
 weakness of, what is implied
in, i. 242, 1, 2
 should not be contiuued
in, i. 246, 2
 in this sense an imper
fection, i. 246, 2
 plea of, ought not to be
admitted by the civil magis
trate, to the prejudice of any
law ; evil consequences arising

INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

5fil

frora such an admission, i. 247, 1 and 2
Conscience, qualities accompany
ing such pleas, partiality and
hypocrisy, i. 248, I
 Ito control it to forbearance
from things lawful, as improper
as to force it to the performance
ot things unnecessary, . 524, 1
 troubles o/, cannot be removed
by wealth, i. 409, 1
 workings of, in the guilty
mind, i. 406, 2
 what it is to wound or sin
agaiiist, i. 244, 1
Consciousness of inferiority, a cause
of envy, i. 606, 2
 of rectitude, its beneficial
, effects, i. 482, 2
Consequences, danger of drawing
fiilse, from right principles, i. 103, 2
Consolation, preaching of, i. 247, 1
Constancy, the crowning privilege
of, i. 118, 1
Consubstantiation, doctrine of,
ii. 84, 1
Contempt caused by flattery, ii. 125, 1
— - fatal eff'ects of, npon govem
ment, i. 40, 1
Content necessary to happiness, i. 407, 2
¦  the chief happiness of life,
i. 410, 2
 is the gift of heaven, i. 411, 1
CoNTINGEKaES, ALL UNDER THE
direction of God's Provi
dence, a discourse, i. 59, 2
 impUed in the lot, i. 60, 1
 are not to be the rule of
men's actions, i. 401, 2
Contradictions, apparent, of Scrip
ture, ii. 217, 1
 two sorts of, distinguished, i. 362, I
Conventicles, danger of, 1. 430, 2
Conversion, deceit of the heart
regarding, ii. 68, 2
 habit of purity received in,
ii. 70, 2
 nature of, i. 164, I
 instramentality of the
preacher in, i. 3) 6, 1
 vague confession of sin not
always a sign of, ii. 367, 1
 means used by God for
effecting, ii. 369, 2
Conriction, ways in which it is
often produced, ii. 274, 2
 personal judgments intended
to produce, ii. 274, 2
 unexpected deliverances one
of the ways of, ii. 275, 1
Convocation, the, why omitted, i. 366, 1
Cornelius, the example of, as to
fasting and prayer, i. 168, 1
VOL. II.

Corrupt principle, a, may be strong
though still, ii. 32, 1
 helped by occasion, ii. 3'2, 1
Corruption inherent, ii. 2, 1
 first motions of, should be
resisted, ii. 72, 1
 prayer efficacious against, ii. 74, 1
Cottage, the, contains as much
happiness as the palace, i. 411, 1
Counsel, one of the privileges of
friendship, i. 117, 2
Counsellors, evil, clamour against
thera, used as a weapon against
governraent, i. 548, 1
 reason why complained
against, i. 548, 2
Coui'age required by church-go
vernors, ii. 96, 2
 needed to reprove a pas
sionate man, ii. 122, 2
 of raartyrs, whence derived, ii. 38, 1
Court, nature of, as justifying or
conderaning going to law, by
Christians, ii. 416, 2
Covenant, Solemn League and, its
character and tendencies, i. 435, 2
 improper use made of it,
i. 643, 2
 an etemal, made between the
Father and the Son, for the
salvation of Christ's people, i. 282, 2
 this made Christ a King, a
mystical Head, and also a
surety, i. 283, 2
Covetousness, proved no less an
Absurdity in Reason, than a
Contradiction to Religion,
NOR A more unsure WAY TO
riches, THAN RICHESTHEMSELVES
TO HAPPINESS, a discourse. Two
Parts, i. 394, 1
 ways by which we are
brought to avoid, i. 400, 1
 caution of Christ against, for
what purpose intended, i. 394, 2
 consists in an anxious carking
care about the things of this
world, i. 396, 2
 evil of, heightened by im
patience, i. 398, 1
 author of the exhortation
against, i. 395, 1
 a vice too hard for mere
moral arguments, i. 394, 1
 implies a rapacity in getting, i. 39, 2
 all sinister and illegal
ways of getting, i. 398, 2
 a tenacionsness in keep
ing, V 399, 1
 general influence of, i. 398, 2
 meaning of, shewn nega
tively and positively, i. 396, 1
 gains upon us by its near
resemblance to virtue, i. 400, 2

Covetousness, proof of its peculiar
baseness, i. 399, 1
 exceedingly apt to prevail
upon us, i. 400, 1
 even keeps sorae back from
relig'ious ordinances, i. 399, 2
 very difficult to be removed, i. 400, 1
 root of all evil, i. 398, 2
 selfishness of, i. 399, 2
 puts on all shapes, and com
mands all vices, i. 399, 1
 voracity of, i. 397, 2
Covetous man, selfish and unjust, i. 399, 2
 even neglects the sacra
ment, i. 400, 1
 pleas under which he
shelters himself, i. 400, 1
 prayers of, worth nothing, i. 84, 1
 no person thinks thathe is so,
i. 221, 2
Covetousness is a blinding vice,
i. 338, 2
 shelters itself under the name
of economy, i. 400, 2
 the earliest and the latest
vice, i. 402, 1
 excuses itself, by the necessity
of providing for posterity, for
old age, and for times of cala
mity, i. 401, 1
 increased by riches, i. 407, 2
 almost incurable, i. 402, 1
 irrational, i. 412, 1
.  means which it uses,i. 411, 2
¦  the causes which originate,
contribute to its continuance, i. 402, 2
 plausib'ility of its pleas, i. 400, 2
 the cause of rebellion, i. 296, 1
 not tlie certain way fo get
rich, i. 411, 2
 has ruined vast multitudes, i. 403, 1
 founded upon the predomi
nant principle of human nature,
self-preservation, i. 402, 2
 strength of, wherein it lies,
i. 403, 1
 necessity of vigilance against,
i. 403, 1
Creation, discovery of, by natural
reason, difficult, i. 9, 1
 ..  opinions of the ancients
respecting, . . '' ®' ^
 discordance of opinions re
garding, ii. 462, 2
Creator, God capable of being
honoured, or dishonoured as
our, ii. 61, 2
 the creature has been de
pending on the bounty of his,
i. 208, 2
Creature, the Ufe of the, ought,
when necessity calb, to be sacri
ficed to the glory of Him who
gave if, i. 225, 2
2n

.'562

SOUTH'S SERMONS.

Credulity, renders a man ridicu
lous, ii. 123, 2
CreUius, absurdity of the opinion
entertained by, i. 373, 1
 book of, de Attributis Dei,
ii. 84, 1 ; 209, 1
Crimes should not be jested at,
ii. 116, 2
Crorawell, a despot, i. 547, 2
Cross, taking up of, ii. 93, 2
Cmcifixion, of the fiesh, propriety
of the expression, ii. 448, 2
 ¦  imports the death of it,
ii. 449, 2
 a violent death,
ii. 450, 1
 a painful, bitter,
and vexatious death, ii. 450, 2
 a shameful and
cursed death, ii. 451, 1
 means conducive there
to, ii. 451, 2
Crucifying the affections, necessity
of, ii. 452, 1
 a test of true piety, ii. 452, 1
Cruel and bloody men, sad end of,
ii. 457, 1
Ci'uelty, detestation of, ii. 465, 2
Curiosity, the cause of uncharit
able interpretations of God's
judgments, ii. 240, 1
 prying, an effect of envy, i. 541, 1
Custora, not easily overcome, ii. 112, 1
 in sin, breeds famiUarity
with, ii. 139, 1
Damnation, terrors of God can
antedate, ii. 262, 1
Danger, apparent, of owning
Christ, i. 21, 2
 of confidence in prosperity, i. 67, 1
 of cowardice in defence of
Clirist, i. 25, 1
 of deceit in sin, i. 99, 1
 deliverance from, enhanced
by the tirae of deliverance, ii. 27, 2
 of despondency in adversity, i. 67, 2
 of disjoining the ciril and
ecclesiastical interest, i. 30, 1
 duties of, want of power
pleaded in, i. 81, 1
Danger often encountered in the
pursuit of wealth, i. 204, 2
 of lay'mg false principles, i. 103, 2
 of spealdng freely to the
great, ii. 122, 1
.  greatness of, sole justification
of infliction of death in self-
defence, ii. 413, 2
 hour of, pets a price on the
hour of deliverance, ii. 27, 2
 imminent, makes the atheist
waver, ii. 285, 1

Danger of frequent innovation in
religion, i. 31, 1
 raind should be intent on
that danger which is before it,
i. 54, 2
 no man can be happy in the
midst of, i. 405, 2
 of those who are at peace in
sin, ii. 214, 2
 of returning to sin, ii. 1 35, 1
 sense of, first step to safety, i. 51, 1
 of venturing into temptation,
trusting to assurance, ii. 16, 1
 of drawing wrong conclusions
from right principles, i. 103, 2
 distance from, the strongest
fence against, i. 124, 2
Daniel's manner of reproving
Belshazzar, u. 116, 1
David's holy admiration ot God's
knowledge, ii. 141, 1
 beloved of his subjects, and
so preserved, i. 303, 2
 's chastisement for sin, i. 26, 1
 comfort lost by, from yielding
to temptation, i. 21, 2
 a jting and public parent, i. 331, 1
 Christ, the offspring of,
i. 251, 1
 Christ, the root of, i. 269, 1
 manner of his reproof by
Nathan, i. 116, 1
 resistance ot temptation, i. 7, I
 sin of, i. 17, 1
 sin of, gave occasion to blas
pheme, i. 26, 1 ; 116, 1
 sinful conduct of, in feigning
madness, i. 224, 1
 sinned against God's good
ness, i. 131, I
 sins of, how punished, i. 140, 1
 's trouble of mind for sin,
i. 264, 2
Day, Ufe compared to, ii. 92, 1
 frequent meaning of in
Scripture, ii. 89, 2
Death of the body, why not to be
feared, n. 217, 1
 of Charles I. and of Crom
weU contrasted, ii. 239, 2
 what is comprised in, ii. 432, 1
 will put an eud to the de
bauches of the intemperate, i. 145, 1
 a work of the devil, destroyed
by the manifestation of the Son
of God, ii. 464, 2
 dread of, upon the part of
worldlings, ii. 481, 1
 error of the wicked in regard
to, ii. 551, 2
 eternal, cautions against,
given even to the saints, ii. 224, 2
 eternal, horrors of, u. 433, 1

Death and the grave, the only
things that always carry off, and
never restore, i. 397, 2
 exhortation to meditate on,
ii. 35, 2
 merited by sin, ii. 435, 1
 The 'Wages op Sin, a dis
course, ii. 429, 2
 in what respect it raay be
called the wages of sin, n. 436, 1
Deceit, danger of, in sin, i. Sd, 1
 brings upon the deceiver
the hatred of the deceived, i. 100, 1
 annihilates all pretences of
friendship, i. 100, 1
 methods of, u. 47, 2
Deceivers, religious, characterized, i. 387, 2
Deception, injury done by, i. 387, 2
Decrees, the secrecy of God's, gives
occasion to human hope, ii. 363, 2
Defence, objects of justifying
resistance, ii, 411, 2
Dejection and self-abasement of
the poor in spirit, ii. 356, 2
Deliverance, no mim antecedently
assured of, i. 19, 1
 examples ot, from temptation, ii.6,2
 when the expectation ot, may
be entertained, ii. 17, 1
 given to the godly who have
not entered into temptation, ii.6,2
 given to the godly, who have
been in some measure prevailed
upon by temptation, i. 7, 2
 how far God gives, out of
teraptation, i. 9, 2
 of the Israelites at the Bed
Sea, great, unexpected, season
able, and undeserved, ii. 288—290
 aggravated their offence, ib.
 methods ot, very various, ii.9,2
 motives of, ii. H, 2
 not caused by a man's piety,
ii. 12i 1
 ways of, not sanctioned by
God, ii. ¦le, 2
 from temptation, manner of,
in the case of Paul, and of the
martyrs, ii. 38, 1
¦  modes of, from temptation, ii. .37, 1
 sometimes given by change
of Ufe, ii. 39, 2
 of those unavoidably en
tangled in teraptation, ii. 17, 2
DeUverances, unexpected and sig
nal, God often speaks convinc
ingly by, ii. 275, 1
 nuraerous, which we do not
see, ii. 6, 2
Delusion, danger of, i. 389, 1
 of loving a lie destroys tiie

INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

5(53

eonscience, and seals up to per
dition, i. 388, 389
Delusion, a work of the devil, de
stroyed by Christ, ii. 462, 1
Demas, character and progress of,
ii. 9, 1
Demon, it is not in the power of a,
good or bad, to inspire a new
life, i. 286, 1
Demureness often mistaken for
piety, i. 665, 2
Depraved men may have a devo
tional appearance outwardly, and
yet be inwardly impure and vile,
i. 186, 1
Deprarity of our nature called
, flesh, because of its situation, ii. 445, 1
 because of its insepa
rable nearness to the soul, ii. 446, 1
 because of its dearness
to us, ii. 447, 1
 of the understanding and
will, ii. 356, 2
Descent, the Lineal, of Jesus
OF Nazareth from David, by
HIS Blessed Mother, the
¦yiRGiN Mary, a discourse, i. 358, 2
Descartes, attacks upon, ii. 330, 2
Designs of the flatterer, ii. 124, 1
 of men overruled by God,
ii. 142, 2
Desire will make a man forego what
he used to delight in, i. 414, 2
 of man for good, how tumed
aside, i. 413, 2
 sometimes overcome by ne
cessity, i. 415, 1
 nature of, a test of purity, ii. 440, 2
 stupendous results of, i. 4 14, 2
— — is to the soul, what blood is
to the body, i. 413, 2
 the spring of diUgence, i. 414, 1
 of superiority, natural to men,
ii. 162, 2
Desires, sins of, u. 431, 1
Despair, in whom produced, ii. 187, 2
 characterized, i. 482, 2
 produced by sin, ii. 240, 1
 no man need, of salvation on
tills side death, i. 316, 2
Despondency in adversity, danger
of,- i. 67, 2
Detractors, conduct of, ii. 121, 1
Devil blinds the minds of sinners,
i. 383, 2
Devil's advantages over men, aris
ing from their corrupt nature,
ii. 60, 1
¦  advantages of, in being a
spirit, ib.
 the assaults of the, sudden
and unexpected, i. 237, 2
 furious and importu
nate, i. 238, 1

Devils chiefly busy in presumptuous
sins, ii. 138, 1
 dominion ot, what has en
larged, ii. 49, 2
 engin.es planted by, ii. 53, 2
 policy of, ii. 76, 1
 beaten off by watchfulness
and prayer, ii. 50, 2
 the ¦wiles of the, i. 233, 1
 working day, always soul's
play day, ii. 55, I
See Satan and Tempter.
Devotion and affection indispen
sable in prayer, i. 127, 1
Devotions should be heightened by
fasting, i. 167, 2
Diff'erence, both in soul and body,
between young and old, i. 141, 2
Difficult, what disables frora doing
any thing, ii. 45, 1
Difficulty of rooting out vices, ii. 92, I
 of planting good habits, ii. 92, 2
 of any work, a reason for
diUgence, ii. 93, 2
Difficulties connected with the
doctrine of the resurrection, u. 367, 1, 2
 enhance the belief of the
resurrection when a sufficiency
of reason for it is given, ii. 363, 2
Diligence enforced by shortness of
time, u. 93, 2
 influence of, in discovering
truth, i. 48, 2
Diogenes, anecdote of, i. 3, 2
Disciples, courage of, after the
diffusion of the Holy Spirit, ii. 260, 1
 the pride of the, i. 206, 1
 best witnesses of the truth,
ii. 260, 1
Disease cannot be cured by money,
i. 410, I
Diseases the harbinger of death,
temporal, and the anticipative
wages of sin, ii. 432, 2
Discipline most effectual in youth,
i. 424, 1
Discontent, cause of, to be found
in ourselves, ii. 152, 2
 three considerations proving
it irrational, ii. 1 5 1 , 2
Dissimulation, i. 69, 1
 praised by men of the world,
i. 69, 2
 insufficient to gain its end,
i. 74, 1
 folly of, i. 76, t
 an accorapaniraent of cruelty,
u. 468, 2
Dissolution of society consequent
on non-prosecution at law, ii. 418, 2
Disteraper, deep, how to cure, i. 422, 2
Distinction an object of envy, i. 508, 1
 vvhere tiiere is no sense ot

things there can be no, i. 215, 2
Distinction, where there is uo,
there can be no choice, i. 215, 2
Divine, we must not judge onr
selves, from the opinion of any
casuist or learned, i. 186, 2
Divinity, the, of Christ, sanctified
and consecrated his human'Ui/, i. 320, 1
Doctrine of Christ proved by suf
ficient argument, i. 44, 1
 what it was, i. 44, 2
 respecting his person
and offices, i. 44, 2
 ¦ — in raatters of practice, i. 44, 2
 contrary to prevailing
not'ions, i. 45, 1
 unbelief of, caused by
defect of arguments, i. 45, 2
 proved by prophecies
and miracUs, i. 45, 2
Doctrines, the, which we believe, it
highly concems us to try, ii. 110, 2
 of Church of Rome raake
sin venial, ii. 105, 2
 . impious, ii. 106, 1
 • which concern a good life,
ii. 103, 2
 how may they be destroyed, ii. 104, 1
 dispensing power of pope, ii. 107,2
 of the heathen, /oiuttoMS, i. 364, 2
— . — that relate to life and man

ners.

ii. 103, 1

marks by which we may try,
ii. Ill, 1
 not true because pleasing, nor
because comraon, ii. Ill, 1
 nor because of long continu
ance, ii. Ul, 2
 of repentance, how perverted, ii. 108, 2
 of the reswrrection and eter
nal Ufe can only be proved by a
divine revelation, i. 364, 2
 of works of supererogation, ii. 106, 2
Doubting taken away by truth,
ii. 259, 1
 torment of, ii. 259, 1
Doubts of God displeasing to hira,
ii. 483, 1
Duelling condemned, i. 554, 2
 not countenanced by a sense
of honour, i. 554, 2
Duels, lawfulness of, considered, ii. 406, 1
.  cases of lawful, ii. 406, 1
 when undertaken from osten
tation condemned as unlawful, n. 406, 2
 when undertaken as purga
tion of crirae, ii. 407, 1
 when undertaken for decision
of possessing rights, U. 407, 1

504

SOUTH'S SERMONS.

Duels, when undertaken for re
venge of injury, or vindication
of honour, ii. 407, 2
¦^— judicial discountenance of,
ii. 408, 2
 ¦wretched consequences ot,
U. 408, 2
 to the conquered, ii. 408, 2
 conqueror, u. 409, 1, 2
Duty carries with it a grave and a
severe aspect, i. 346, 2
 not to be determined by the
presumed event, i. 481, 1
 he who does his, has no rea
son to fear, i. 190, 1
 greatest and most sacred ties
of, founded on gratitude, i. 87, 2
 how men are drawn to,
ii. 240, 2
 of a tempted person, ii. 48, 1
 he who takes away the in
citements to, dashes the per
formance of, i. 349, 2
 a complacency and serenity
of mind, at the^ej/orniance of, or
remorse at the non-performance
of it, is not enough to enforce it,
i. 351, 1
— ' — performance of, deceit of the
heart in, ii. 67, 2
 never rightly performed by
thoso who have not right prin
ciples, ii. 68, 1
 in the actions of, considered
merely as duty, or as morally
good, and fit to be done, there
is not a sufficient motive to en
gage the will of man in a constant
practice of them, i. 346, 2
 reasons for this statement, i. 346, 2
 whosoever shall faithfully do
his, mth hopes of the promised
recompense, shall find God faith
ful, i. 352, 2
 Christ always accompanied
the promise of reward, vnth the
performance of, i. 349, 2
 manifest reason of this, i. 360, 2
 to do one's, only for a re
ward, and not to be wilUng to
do it without one, very different
things, i. .352, 1
 Aversion to, the First
Step in Evil, a discourse, ii. 185, 1
 Scripture examples not an
absolute rule of, i. 491, 2
Duties which we owe to God and
to our neighbour, ii. 297, 2
.  ¦ which we owe to the com-
mun'ity, ii. 90, 1
 hoiD hindered, ii. 1 06, 2
 measure of, ii. 106, 2
 mortifying, should be per
formed, ii. 73, 1

Duties, performance of, cannot ex
piate guilt, ii. 75, 1
 some, absolutely necessary, ii. 297, 1
 these specified, and the man
ner of promoting progress in
them shewn, ii. 297, 2
— . — made successful by God's ap
pointment, ii. 300, 2
 plea of want of power to per
form, i. 81—85
See Power.
 of great and hard Labour, i. 81, 1
 of great and appiirent dan
ger, i. 81,2
 of cost and expense, i. 8.3, 1
Easter, exhortation as to, i. 163, 2
 there should be a habitual,
and actual preparation tor,i. 163,2
Economy, is not covetousness, i. 396, 1 ; 400, 2
Education, eff'ects of the exor
bitant license of, i. 422, 1
 virtuous, absolute necessity
of, i. 423, 2
 persons to whom committed, i. 424, 2
 stripes and blows, the basest
remedy in, i. 427, 1
 of the dissenters, nature of,
i. 430, 2
Ehud's kilUng of Eglon vindi
cated, i. 494, 2
Election, not a ground of accusa
tion against God, ii. 606, 2
EUjah, exaraple of, no Wiirrant for
indiscreet zeal, ii. 114, 2
 's slaughter of flie priests of
Baal justified, i. 495, 1
Elizabeth, Queen, anecdote of an
incident in her reign, i. 228, 2
Enemy, internal, most dangerous, ii. 52, 2
 potent, difficulty of appeasing, ii. 91, 1
 may be a truce with, when
there is no peace, ii. 69, 1
 the heart the worst, ii. 52, 2
Enemies, death of Christ for his,
a proof of raatchless love, ii. 480, 1
Enemies, on Loving our, a dis
course, ii. 223, 2
 Cliarles II. loved his, i. 232 1, 2
 Christ loved, and still loves
his, i. 231, 2
 when we love our, we are not
to he fond of their enmity, i. 230, 1
 to love our, is the highest and
hardest duty, i. 232, 2
 motives adduced, why we
should love our, i. 230, 2
 the pardon of our, the indis
pensable condition of our own
pardon, j. 232, 2

England, its jurenimcnt uot arbi
trary, i. 506, 2 ; 547, 2
 its constitution the envy of
sun'ounding nations, i. 547, 1
 ita judgments, i. 501, 1
 power of its subjects iu the
framing of its laws, i. 647, 1
 mildness of its laws, i. 647, 1
 its mercies, i. 600, 1
 its respomibilities, i. 500, 1
EngUsh nation, sins of, ii. 288, 1
.  del'iverance vouchsafed
to, ii. 288, 1 ; 290
  state of before the
Restoration, ii. 289, 290
 deUverance of, parallel
between, and the deliverance of
the Israelites, U. 288—292
See Israelites.
 mischiefs under which
they groaned, li. 291, 1
 their provocation of
God, ii. 291, 1
Enjoyment of God expressed by
seeing hira, reasons why, ii. 441,2
 because sight gives (Jie
cleai'est discovery of objects, ii. 441, 2
 because sense of seeing
is most universally employed, ii. 442, 1
 because tiiis sense
affords chief delight, ii. 442, 1
.  because this sense is
the raost comprehensive, ii. 442, 1
Enjoyments oiore, unchangeable
and eternal, i. 418,2
 leorhlly, triinsitory and per
ishing, i. 418,2
 worldly, not secured to the
best of men, i. 419, 1
 our, cra'sed by God's an^er,
ii. 211,2
Enticement to sin, nature of, ii. 8, 2
 should be avoided, ii. 54, 1
Enthusiasm, its occasion and
effects, i. 450, 2
 worse than popery, its source,
i. 461,2
 in reference to supernatui'.al
revelations, i. 486, 1
Enthusiasts not led by the
Spirit of God, a discourse in
two parts, i. 483, 1 ; 491, 1
 pernicious to ciril society, i. 496, 2
 a reproach to religion, i. 496, 1
Envy, its Nature, Causes and
Consequences, a discourse, i. 604, 2
 its component principles,
hatred and grief, i. 604, 2
 four causes of it, i. 505,2
 three effects of it, i. 51 1, 1
 'itainsatiahUness, i. 512, 1
 four objects of it, i. 508, 1

INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

565

I

Envy, reflex injurious influence on
the envious, i. 504, 2 ; 510, 1
 intrinsically sinful, i. 505, 1
.  and malice, which foUow the
possession of wealth, i. 408, 2
 examples of persons ruined
hy, . i. 409, 1
Epicureans, opinions of, i. 171, 2
Episcopal Functio.n, Duties op,
a discourse, i. 36 — 43
 proved from the con
duct of Titus, i. 36, I
 teaching and mling,
i. 38, 1,2
 government, what it
consists in, i- 39, 1
 means assigned for dis
charge of the duties, i. 40, 1
Erastus, opinion of, ii. 97, 2
Error, a dangerous, ii. 76, I ; 110, 1
 often fair as well as deceitful, ii. 110,2
 gradations in, i. 375 2,
 progressive, i. 375, 2
 decks itself with false orna
ments, i. 388, 1
 s of Romish Church, u. 108, 109,
 s proceed from incUnation, i. 50, I
 s of Origen respecting pun
ishment, i. 105, 1
Escape from temptation, what is
implied in, jj. 36, 1
 modes of, ii. 37, 1
Estate, loss of, ii. 218, 2
Kternity depends on the hour of
temptation, ii- 34, 1
 of punishment, ii. 221, 2
- — false foundations reraoved,
and true ones laid, for such wise
builders as design to build for,
i. 233, 1
Evil, covetousness the root of all,
i. 398, 2
 company should be avoided, ii. 64, 1
 opinions of Manes regarding, i. 382, 1
 speaking, not to be indulged
in, even against injurers,
 sorae men have perverted the
standard of, i. 148, 1
 'is to he avoided, i. 169, 2
 the nature of, i. 170, 2
 absurdity of the opinion that
it is not inherent in itself, i. 171, 1
 also, of the opinion that it is
oHgvnally founded in the laws
and constitution of the sovereign
or civil power, by three reasons,
i. 171, 2
 generally operates upon the
mind of man, by the name by
which it is notified or conveyed
to it, i. 173, 2
- — mischief of misapplying the
name of, ' i. 173, 2

Evil, false representation of, i. 170, 1
 unspeakable, of sin, ii. 136, 1
Exaraination, self, duty of, i. 166, 2
 '  necessity of, i. 166, 1
Exaraple, the, of sinners injures
others, ii. 24, 2
 this shewn in the cases of
Samson and David ii. 25, 1
 power of, i. 244, 1
Examples of the endurance of the
greatest evils, ii . 22 1 , 1
 of deUverance from tempta
tion, ii. 7, 1
Excellency of a thing does not
draw adrairation, but the strange
ness of it, i. 253, 2
Excuse, what an, imports, i. 158, 2
 1. the supposition of a sin,
2. the extenuation of its guilt, i. 168, 2
ExempUfication shews the truth
of a future state of happiness
and misery, i. 285, 1
Exhortation against sinning under
aggravating circumstances, u. 279, 2
Experience proves that happiness
does not depend on abundance, i. 410,2
— — gives knowledge in the Chris
tian profession, i. 61, 1
Expression, power of, should be
cultivated by the minister of the
gospel, i. 314, 2
faction complains against minis
ters of state to get into their
place, i. 548, 2
 strengthened by pulpit re
straint, i. 651, 2
 tools which it uses against
government, i. 646, 1
Faculties, habitual exercise of the
mental, quaUfies for the office of
the ministry, i. 313, 1
Faith, nothing can be an article
of, which ia untrue or irrational, i. 367, 2
 high achievements ascribed to,
i. 414, 2
 how these were accomplished, i. 415, 1
 why Scripture ascribes so
much to, i. 378, 2
 confidence of,on what founded, ii. 35, 2
 surest way of confirming, i. 391, 2
 easy and safe, i. 372, 1
 distinguished from knowledge, i. 463, 1
 its nature, ii. 168, 2
 ultimate object of, i. 368, 1
 its practical power and ex
cellency, '• 66, 2
 and practice, mutual corro
boration of, i. 392, 2
 supports the Christian iii his
spiritual warfare, ii. 168, 1

Faith, three influences by which it
promotes the Christian triumph,
il. 176, 1
 its triumpli over sense and
sight, i. 466, 1
 • tests of, u. 367, 2
 a false view ot, taken by the
hypocrite, ii. 367, 1
Fallacious, tears, sighs, and other
expressions of terror, often are,
i. 318, 1
Fallen man, deplorable coudition
of, ii. 448, 1
False person, a, ought to be looked
on as a public eneray, i. 98, 1
 the object of just abhorrence, i. 101, 1
 shall be finally and eternally
separated from God, i. 101, 2
Falsehood and Lying, on the
base Sins op, a discourse, i. 93, 2
 may be conveyed by actions
and qestures, as weU as by words,
i. 94, 2
 very common, i. 94, )
 tends to the destruction of
common life by destroying that
trust and mutual confidence
men should have in one another, i. 38, 2
 tends to dissolve society, _ i. 97, 2
 the grand epocli of, i. 101, 1
 carries with it an act of in
justice, i. 96, 2
 brands a man with lasting
ignominy, _ i. 100, 1
.  paradox to say it is lawful,
'^ i. 99, 1
 mark set by God on those
v/ho practise, i. 101-, 1
 examples of mischief ot, i. 97, I
 mischief it has caused iu
families, towns, &c., i. 98, 1
 cause of all the misery and
calamitv that befalls raankind,
" i. 96, 2
 perverts and ruins the rela
tions of life, i. 98, 2
 indisposes hearts of men to
religion, i* '^^j ^
 reward or punishment of,
i. 99, 2
 introduced sin into the
worid, >• 96, 1
 still propagating and pro
moting sin, 1. ^*^i 2
 tyrants full of, j. 97, 2
 why unlawful, i- 95, 2
Familiarity with sin, lessens the
abhorrence of it, ii. 31, 1
Familists, their views respecting
tiie Spirit's indwelling, i. 484, 2
Fast, the true nature of a, especi
ally consists in a real sincere
separation from sin, _i. 347, 2
Fasting and prayer, ii. 392, 2
See Prayer.

566

SOUTH'S SERMONS.

Fasting not binding on all, ii. 296, I
 must be attended with alms,
ii. 299, 2
 eminent saints combine, with
prayer, u. 299, 1
 destroys that disposition on
which the tempter works, ii. 300, 2
 derives its virtue frora divine
institution, ii. 300, 2
•  should be enlivened with
prayer, ii. 299, 1
 should be done with a liearty
detestation of the body of sin,
u. 298, I
 impious, if the love of sin is
cherished in the heart, ii. 298, 2
 signal influence of, ii. 293, 1
 must be used merely as an
instrument, ii. 297, 1 ; 298, 1
 has no virtue in itself, ii. 300, 1
 kinds of, ii. 293, 2
 does not help us by way of
merit, ii. 300, 1
 how it subdues our corrup
tions, shewn negatively and
positively, ii. 300, 1
 object 'ions to, removed, ii. 295, 2
 of tiie Pharisees, ii. 299, 2
 promotes progress in our
duties, ii. 297, 2
 separation from sin is the
proper kind of, i. 348, 1
 for wliat purpose it must be
undertaken, ii. 299, 1
 qualifications which render
the duty acceptable to God, ii. 296, 2
 recommended hy tiie fathers,
ii. 296, 2
 is an act of self-abasement, ii. 300, 2
 is a noble act of self-revenge, ii. 300, 2
 a spiritual duty, i. 247, 2
 for a time, enforced, ii. 295, 1
 required, not as a virtue, but
as a hel2J to virtue, ii. 297, 2
Father and mother, explanation
of, as in Matt. x. 37, ii. 473, 1
Faults, a proud person adores his
own, ii. 123, 1
 person who commits, last to
hear of, ii. 114, 1
 defending, is fiattery, ii. 117, 1
 dissembling of, ii. 112, 2
 imitation ot, by flatterers, ii. 120, 1
 who ought to reprove, ii. U.3, 1
.  should be reproved with
meekness, ii. 115, 2
Fear, antidote against, given to
apostles, ii. 216, 2
 of sin ought to be cherished, ii. 219, 1

Fear of damnation, ought to be
the greatest, ii. 218, 1
 of God's power to destroy,
has deterred from sin, ii. 224, 1
 cannot enlarge God's wrath,
n. 212, 2
 filial and reverential, re
quired by God, u. 246, 1
 how God's forgiveness should
enforce /KaZ, ii. 247, 2
. — — description of, i. 1 4, 2
 of raen leading to sin, ex
amples of, ii. 224, 1
 of temporal miseries, how
lessened, ii. 218, 219
 nature of, ii. 212, 2
 of evils, neither prevents
their coming, nor lessens their
weight, ii. 220, 1
 all religious acts commenced
from, are rejected by God, i. 318, 1
 servile, i. 245, 2
 a twofold, distinguished, ii. 217, 2 ; 245, 2
Fears, he who, as he should do in
this world, shall have nothing
either to fear or feel in the next,
i. 360, 2
FeUcity. See Happiness.
Fervency in prayer, ii. 58, 1
 cannot be preserved in a long
prayer, i. 1 33, 2
Fii'e and wind on the day of Pen
tecost, raeaning of, ii. 89, 1
Flattered, the, an object of pity,
ii. 126, 1
Flatterer designs his own advan
tage, ii. 124, 1
 brings to shame whora he
flatters, ii. 126, 1
 detested, ii. 126, 1
 ends of, ii. 124, 1
 deserts the fallen, n. 124, 2
 perverts thejudgment, ii. 125, 1
 reproved, n. 224, 2
 seeks to ruin whom he flat
ters, ii. 126, 2
 vain person, the broadest
mark for, ii. 123, 2
 variation in the conduct of,
ii. 124, 2
 confirms TOC, ii. 126, 1
Flatterers of Alexander, u. 120, 2
 speak against their con
sciences, ii. 120, 2
 iraitation of faults by, ii. 120, 1
 seldom imitate the virtues of
those whom they flatter, ii. 120, 1
Flattery, a discoui'se, in Three
Parts, ii. 112, 1
 agreeable to human nature, ii. 119, 2
 baseness of, H. 112, 2 ; 117, 2
 both blind and dumb, ii. 112,2
 of Cato, ii. 123, I

Flattery, example of, in Plato's
scholars, ii. 120, 2
 irapatience of reproof, a
ground of, ii. 123, 1
 vain-glorious disposition, a
ground of, ii. 123, 1
 grounds and occasions of,
ii. 121,2
 used as an instrument, ii. 126, 2
.  Romish casuists chargeable
with a most dangerous species of,
li. 119,1
 nature ot, ii. 1 1 2, 1
 high rank an occasion of,
ii. 121,2
 hearts of men open to, ii. 120, 1
 seals a man's ruin, u. 126, 2
 consists in praising vices,
ii. 117, 1
 of overvaluing virtues and
perfections, ii. 121., I
Flesh, Crucifying the, a dis
course, ii. 444, 1
 what is meant by the, ii. 444, 2
 we should be fearful of
pleasing, ii. 73, 1
 and spirit, Uke two mighty
princes, whose territories join,
i. 220, 1
Folly of the atheist's principles, ii. 284, 1
 of denying God's existence,
wherein it consists, ii. 283, 2
 of trusting in our own hearts,
ii. 60, 2
 imputation of, mankind im
patient of, ii. 69, 2
 of venturing on a suspicious
practice, ii. 26, 2
Fool's saying in his heart there
IS NO God, a discourse, ii. 280 — 286
 's manner of denying God's
existence, ii. 281, 1
 wishes there were no God,
ii. 281, 2
 wish of, punished by God,
ii. 281, 2
 seeks arguments to persuade
himself there is no God, u. 282, 1
 is ready to acquiesce in any
thing that seems to support his
opinion, ii, 282, 2
 contradicts the general judg
ment of mankind, ii. 283, 2
 thought of, always too late,
ii.64, 2
 mankind hnpatient of being
considered, ii. 69, 2
Force employed against church
governors, ii- 99, 1
Forgiveness, God's, principle of,
ii.241,2
 greatness of, ii. 244, 1, 2
 design of, ii. 245, 2

INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

567

Forgiveness, God's, conferred on
the vilest sinners, u. 245, 1
.  how it should enforce filial
fear, ii. 246, 2
FonNDATIONS,FAI.SE,REMOVED, AND
IRUE ONES LAID, FOR SUCH WISE
BUILDERS AS DESIGN TO BUILD
FOR ETERNITY, a discourse, i. 233, 1
,  one of these false, is au im
perative faith, i. 235, 2
.  another, is a fond reUance
upon the goodness of our hearts
and the honesty of our inten
tions, i. 236, 1
 such bad, sure tofall, i.237, 2
 other false and sinking, are
built upon by many, i. 239, 2
 another, is party and singu-
larUy, i. 236, 2
 Paul built upon the founda
tion of party, before his conver
sion, i. 236, 2
 practice and obedience, foun
ded on Christ's merits, the surest
to build for heaven on, i. 234, I
Freedom of the wiU, with power
to choose things spiritually good,
denied, ii. 356, 1
FreewiU, question of, ii. 102, 1
 extremes regarding, ii. 102, 1
Friends of Christ, what is implied
in being, i. 114, 1
 should reprove faults, ii. 113,2
Friendship, constancy, the crown
ing privilege of, i. 118, 1
 can only be certainly main
tained by a reUgious person, i. 119,1
 a kind of covenant, i. 1 18, 2
 destroyed by certain injuries,i. 118, 1
 excellence and value of, i. 119, 1
 obtained by adherence to
Christ, i. 119, 2
.  privileges of, i. 114 — 117
 reproof, a sign ot, ii. 123, 2
Future chiefly esteemed by man,
ii. 362, 2
 hopes of tiie, the cause of
present action, ii. 263, 1
Gainsaying,importof the Scripture
• term, i. 616, 1
Galatine, Peter, statements of, re
specting the 'Trinity, i. 370, 1, 2
Galileo and Copernicus, persecution
of, i. 330, 2
General things always faint, i. 379, I
Generosity often rewarded with
envy, i. 406, 2
Gentiles, for what truths did they
stand accountable, i. 155, 1
1. That there is a God, i. 156, 1
2. That he made and governs
the world, i. 165, 1

3. That he waa to be wor
shipped, i. 155, 2
4. This to be done by virtuous
practices, i. 156, 2
5. Sorry for a deriation frora
good, i. 155, 2
6. That those deriations ren
dered them Uable to punish
ment, i. 155,2
GentileSjhow did the,hold the truth
in unrighteousness, i. 156, 1
I. By not acting up to what
they knew, i. 166, 1
2. By not improving their
knowledge, i. 156, 2
3. By conceaUng what they
knew, i. 157, 1
 what is the judgment upon
tiie, i. 158, 1
Gerraans, raany of the, account
drunkenness not a sin, i. 35 1 , 1
Glory, future hope of, an incite
ment to purity of lile, ii. 09, 2
— — how the hope of, purifies, u. 76, 2
 no man is heir of, unless
pure, ii. 78, 2
Gifts, variety of, in the church, i. 294, 2
 variety of, intended for the
ornament of the church, i. 296, 1
 affords a test of then-
reality, i. 298, 1
Gnostick, spoken of, i. 154, 2
God's ability, and man's inabiUty,
to destroy the soul, an argument
against sin, ii. 223, 1
.  every absolute declaration of
something to be done, does not
always infer God's absolute pur
pose to do that thing, ii. 278, 1
 's decree absolute, ii. 218, 1
 accepts the wiU where there
is no power to perform, i. 77, 1
 our best actions nothing in
the sight of, i. 213, 2
 affections, in what way as
cribed to, ii. 209, 2
 's afflicting hand, sins com
mitted under, ii. 131, 2
— _ measures out aid according
to need, ii. 38, 2
 aid of, when lost, the sinner
becomes bold, ii. 1 38, 2
 is aU-knowing, i. 339, 2
 alone could have planned the
scheme of redemption, ii. 243, 1
 alone has power to destroy
the soul, ii. 218, 1
 infinitely amiable in himself,
ii. 240, 2
 anoer of, imbitters afflictions, ii. 211, 1
 's Anger, a discourse, u. 209—216
 's anger curses our enjoy
ments, ii. 211, 2
 commensurate with our
utmost fears ii. 212, 2

God's anger exceeds our apprehen
sions, ii. 212, 2
 transcends our know
ledge, ii. 213, 1
 • compared with that of
raen, n. 213, 2
 not every severe dis
pensation, an eff'ect of, ii. 209, 2
 greatness of, how shewn,
U. 212, 2
 has been angry with sorae of
his choicest saints, but does not
hate them, U. 210, 2
.  terms on which he answers
prayer, i. 122, 1
.  his approbation necessary to
vindicate actions not warranted
by his word, i. 493, 1
— — arguments to prove that Christ
is the Sou of, i. 322, 1
 pecuUarly hates arrogance, ii. 116,2
¦ — — ¦ arrows of, ii. 211, 1
 infinite distance between us
and him should create in us awe
in addressing, i. 120, 2
 cou templation of his attri
butes, i. 3, 1
 gives pecuUar privileges to
beginners in piety, ii. 134, 1
 a being infinitely perfect,
happy, and self-sufficient, i. 209, 2
 secret things belong to, i. 376, 1
 calls for our best and utmost,
ii. 486, 1
 his blessing bestowed on hu
man race at large, ii. 177, 1
 his bounty to the inferior
animals, ii. 176, 2
 directs casualties to certain
ends, i. 61, I
  oftentimes to great
ends, i. 62, 1
— — never inflicts causelesspunisli-
ment, ii. 387, 2
 's providence certain to hira,
but uncertain to us, ii. 233, 2
 two characters in which he
deals with men, i. 477, 1
 not chargeable with tiie hard
ness of the heart, ij. 253, 2
 Christ is tmly, ^ i. 261, 2
 soraetiraes commissions temp
ter to try men, ii. 30, 2
 compassion of, the motive of
free grace, ii- 249, 1
 why he permits sins to be
concealed here, ii. 143, 2
 instances of confidence to
wards, i. 202, 1
 confidence towards, in prayer,
i. 202, 1
 in trial or affliction, i. 202, 2
 in deatii, i. 203, 2
 mgn apt to confine, to their
own thoughts, ii. 257, 2
 sometimes lets loose the sin-

:668

SOUTH'S SERMONS.

ner's conscience upon him, i. 343, 2
God, the immoveable veracity of
the couTiael of , i. 271, 1
 counsels of, unalterable, ii. 210, 2
 the creator of all things, i. 338, 2
 the obligation impUed in his
character of Creator, ii. 187, 2
 our Creator, Governor, and
Saviour, ii. 61, 2 ; 6"2, 1
. — . — crosses the covetous in inuu-
merable ways, i. 412, 1
— . — makes misery the cure of
temptation, ii. 49, 2
 dangerous dallying with, ii. 280, 1
 righteous dealing ot, with
Atiieists, u. 285, 1
 's deeding with the wicked
and the just, reasonableness of,
ii. 282, 2
.  consideration of the phrase,
that Christ was " declared to be
Son of," i. 319, 1
 's decrees, the result of his
will, i. 378, 2
— — defended the IsraeUtes while
worshipping in Jerusalem, i. 59, 1
 sometiraes gives del'ir erance
from temptation by a change of
Ufe, ii. 39, 2
 how far he gives dcl'irerance
out of temptation, ii. 9, 2
 how delivers over a sinner to
farther sins, i. 391, 1
 deUvers from temptation, by
rebuking tempter, ii. 36, 2
.  deUvers only those who try
to deliver themselves, ii. 43, 1
 how he can be properly said
to send men delusions, i. 382, 1
 by withdrawing his enlight
ening influence from the under
standing, i. 382, 1
 by giring coramission to the
great deceiver to seduce sin
ners, i. 383, 2
 by placing them in circum
stances which raay have a
strange efficacy to impose on
thera,' i. 384, 1
 by permitting lying wonders
to be done before thera, i. 384, 2
 design ot, in casting men in
to trouble, ii. 269, 2
 in the sight of, desires axe
actions, ii. 129, 2
 's anger and hatred, difcrejice
between, ii. 210, 2
.  ¦ disciplines those whora he
loves, ii. 214, 1
 dishonoured when disobeyed, ii. 61,2
 dishonoured by anxious care
about worldly things, i. 397, 1
 dispensation of, soraetiraes

cannot cure propensities to sin,
ii. 40, 1
God, tendencies of his dispensa
tions above our estimate, i. 479, 2
 our duty towards, i. 172, 2
 's end in wounding the spirit,
ii. 270, 1
 man naturally tiie enemy of,
ii. 91, 1
 enjoyment of, lost in death
etemal, U. 433, 2
 's nature, essential equity of,
ii. 236, 2
 every law of, commands the
obedience of the whole man, i. 78, 1
 complains of evil thoughts, ii. 129, 2
 's power, extent of, how to be
determined, i. 361, 2
— — may extend to some things
which men think contradictions, i. 36'2, 1
 his position as Father diffe
rent from that of an eartlily
parent, U. 193, 1
 ^plea of Christ before him as
a, Father, ii. 487, 1
 as a, judge, ii. 487, 2
 's favour, sins against, pre
sumptuous, ii. 134, 1
 'sfear, neglect of, dangerous, U. 247, 1
 inflicts fiercest judgments on
presuraptuous sins, ii. 140, 1
 fear of, a filial and reveren
tial, ii. 246, 1
 's forgiveness, how, should
enforce filial fear, ii. 246, 2
 's Forgiveness, a discourse,
ii. 240—247
 /or^ueness with, ii. 241, 1
 the truth, that there is a, is
thefouudation of the Christian
religion, i. 261, 1
 the fountain of all true wis
dora and understanding,!. 331, 1
 's frown poisons prosperity, n. 221, 1
 happiness the gift ot, i. 411, 1
 a tme friend the gift of,
i. 119,2
 accepts of gift ot places of
worship, i. 66, 2
.  prefers worship paid in, i. 67, 2
 reasons why, i. 58, 1, 2
 his glory the only proper
end, u. 189, 1; 167, 1
 's glory, the object of afflic
tion, ii. 237, 2
 explanation of the phrase of
God in Coloss. ii. 2, i. 367, I
 afiUction sent by, for good,
U. 132, 1
 bis Goodness Unlimited
AND Universal, a discourse, ii. 176, 1

God, his goodness visible in iiiain
mate creation, ii. 175, '2
 his goodness manifested in
the vegetable world, ii. 175, 2
 sins against goodness of,
ii. 131, 1
 's goodness to the Jews, ii. 248, 1
 the gospel is the wisdom of,
in a mystery, i. 249, 2
 governs raost secret projects
of raen, ii. 142, 1
 discovers, ii. M'l, 1
 prevents, n. 142, 1
 directs them to otiier ends
thau they intended, ii. 142, 2
 grace of, ii. 249, 1
 's grace manifested in aftlic-
tion, ii. 238, 2
 withholding grace, difficulties
connected with, ii. 264, 1
— . — witiiholds grace from tiie ob
stinate sinuer, u. 277, 2
 grandeur and comprehensive
ness of his scheraes, i. 479, 1
 hard thoughts of him un
reasonable and dangerous, ii. 179, 1
 raay be said to harden the
heart, in three ways, u. 254, I
 sinner's hardening himself
against, u. 132, 1
 's part, liatred on, falsely al
leged to be the cause of judg
ments, i. 233, 1
 whatever coramands a man's
aff'ections is his, u. 283, 2
 reasonable homage required
by, i. 397, 1
 must be honoured before the
worid, i. 234, 2
 sometimes honoured his ser
vants of old, by admitting them
to a kuowledge of his counsels, i. 116,2
.  still we may have hope to
wards, i. 214, 1
 man under sin, lives in a state
of actual hostility with, i. 180, 2
 how, delivers from tempta
tion, ii. 36, 1
 ignorance of, the fomiJation
of the hypocrite's hope, ii. 364,1
 image of, in raan, in what it
consists, i. 10, 1
 shewn negatively and
positively, i. 10,2
 now reraoved, i. 13, 2
 in the creature destroy
ed by sin, ii. 190, I
 stamped on the wiU,
i. 12, 2
 on the affec
tions, i. 13, 14
 on the body, i. 14, 1
 's immutability rendered
Christ's remaning in tiie grave
irapossible, i. 288, 1

INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

509

God, our conceptions of, imperfect, ii. 864, 1
 does not require of any man
auy thing impossible, i. 79, 1
 inadequaoy of reasons man
imputes to hira, i. 479, 1
 his incomprehensibility, ii. 175, 1 ; i. 474, 2
 an infinite being, i. 250, 2
 direct influence of, with refe
rence to privileged persons, i. 64, 2
 has a great influence upon all
our actions, i. 211, 2
 his interference for deliver
ance, no encouragement to sin,
ii. 14, 1
 effects of dying i^rrcconciled
to, i. 420, 2
 \n\l judge secret sins of men,
U. 143, 1
 judgment of, in violation of
consecrated things, i. 53, 1
.  the term " God's coming,"
refers to his coming in the way
of judgment, i. 303, 2
 's judgments, men prone to
charge upon false causes, ii. 232, 1
 adds judgments to mercies
for his people's good, i. 501, 1
 's judgments, causes of mis
understanding, ii. 234, 1, 2
 the justice of, an encourage
ment to confidence in Christ's
mediation, because Christ ap
pears as a surety, ii. 487, 2
 and as appointed by God
hunself, u. 488, 1
.  justice and equality of, some
times questioned even by saints,
ii. 282, 1
 's justice, satisfaction of^ by
Christ, denied by some, ii. 242, 1
 's justice, effects of, reflections
upon, ii. 267, 2
 infinite justice of, ii. 254, 1
 justice of, disarraed by the
sat&faction of Christ, i. 289, 2
 's justice, reflections on a pre
ventive of sin, ii. 136, 2
 his kindness to the angels, ii. 177, 2
 proof that, knoweth all things,
i. 340, 1
 the excellency of God's know
ledge above that of either men
or angels, i. 341, 1
 knowledge of, in reference to
futurity, i. 60, 2
 knowledge of, how wonderful, ii. 141, 1
 the properties of the know
ledge of, i. 341, 1
 knowledge of, ii. 141, 1
 nature of knowledge of,
ii. 114, 1
 whence he knows secret ac
tions, ii. 144, 1

God, law of, how subverted, ii. 107, 2
 's laws must not be broken
to escape evils, ii. 46, 1
— — has limited our days, ii. 93, I
 meaning of lot in reference
to, i. 60, 2
 irapossible to love, and deviate
frora law of, u. 106, 2
 love of, how shewn, ii. 69, 2
¦  's love and hatred not to be
known from his providential
deaUngs, ii. 233, 2
 's gracious love to man, ii. 261, 2
 mode aU things, i. 208, 2
 manner in which, gives
blessings, u. 59, 1
 the master and mafer of raan,
i. 209, 1
 means chosen by, for extend
ing Christ's kingdom, ii. 89, 1
 that he is merciful, no secu
rity to the impenitent, i. 105, 1
 's mercy, object of presurap
tuous sins, ii. 138, 1
 causes to differ, ii. 116, 2
 what it is, ii. 175, 1
  glorified in the par
don of sin, ii. 242, 2
  . proper object of, to
save men, ii. 230, 1
 freedora of, ii. 243, 2
 longness of, ii. 244, 1, 2
 greatness of, how shewn,
ii. 21, 2
  one irapulsive cause
of God's actings, U. 11, 2
 his general mercy an insuf
ficient basis for a sinner's trust,
ii. 191, 1
 impossibility of a man merit
ing ot, i. 205, 1
 methods ot, different from
those of raen, ii. 49, 1
 mind of, equivalent to the
law of nature, i. 87, 1
 danger of misconstruing the
providences of, ii. 46 1, 1
 pronounces mise'ries of this
life not to be feared, ii. 220, 1
 dependence of all thiugs upon
a moral dependence, i. 122, 2
 grand motive ot, to deUver
godly out of temptation, ii. 11,2
 looks at the motive rather
than at the outward act, ii. 298, 1
 his nature and beatitude ad
mit of no addition, i. 209, 2
 has not placed mankind un
der a necessity either of sin or
misery, i. 330, 2
 never accepts a good incUna
tion instead of an action where
that action may be done, i. 80, 2
 saying of the fool th.at there
is no, ii. 280, 3

God, fool wishes there were no,
ii. 281, 2
 two ways in which it raay be
. understood, ii. 280, 2
 that there is no, virtually
said by every raan who places
his chief good on any thing be
sides God, ii. 283, 1
 none but, can deliver from
teraptation, ii. 36, 1
 right notion of, foundation of
piety, ii. 101, 2
 objection to, what he has
affirraed, must necessarily fall
to the ground, i. 362, 2
 places obstacles in way of
sinners, ii. 133, 1
 's omnipresence, nature of,
according to the Socinians, U. 84, 2
 omnipresence of, ii. 144, 2
 omniscience of,
i. 61, 1 ; ii. 144, 1
 his omniscience a source of
comfort to his people, ii. 147, 2
 the omniscience of, is a strong
raotive to bring us to confess all
our sins to, i. 344, I
 should enforce us to an
humble submission to all his com
mands, i. 344, 2
 takes away opportunities of
sin, ii. 6, 1
 is the God of order, and will
have it observed, i. 125, 1
 ordinary ways iu which he
imparts the knowledge of his
wiU, ii. 278, 1
 overrules teraporal evils, ii. 219, 2
 overruling power, examples
of, i. 62, 63
 course pursued by, with his
own people, u. 40, 2
 's part, proposal of a reward
on, is necessary to engage men
in a coui'se of duty, i. 353, 1
 passions and affections said
by Socinians to be really in,
ii. 209, 1
 peace with, the raaking of,
ii. 91, 1
 peace with, lost by sin, ii. 21, 2
 's Sealing up a Sinner to
Perdition, a discoui'se, ii. 271—280
 ways by which he seals up a
sinner to perdition, ii. 273, 1
 by withholding the virtue
.and power ofhis ordinances — by
restraining the convincing power
ofhis providences— by delivering
up the sinner to a searedness of
conscience, ii. 273 — 275
 peculiar regard to Places,
SET APART for DiVIHE WOR
SHIP, a discourse, i. 61- — 59
 how shewn, i. 52, 1
 reasons of, i. 55, 2

570

SOUTH'S SERMONS.

God, extraordinary raanifestations
of his presence iu the sanctuary, i. 53, 1
 principles of huraan foresight
inapplicable to hisplans, i. 479, 2
 's power cannot be fully un
derstood by us, i. 361, 2
 's power glorified in affliction, i. 238, 1
 power of destroying has kept
many from sin, ii. 221, 1
 all-disposing power of, i. 397, 2
 's power, masterpiece of,
ii. 41,2
— — prerogative of, some lessen in
discussing questions of free will,
ii. 102, 1
 's presence, total deprivation
of, misery of the wicked, ii. 222, 1
 withdrawing of his presence
wounds the spirit, ii. 268, 2
 also giring the tempter a
mission more than usually to
trouble it, ii. 269, 1
¦  prescriptions of, against terap
tation, ii. 11, 1
 how prevailed upon by prayer,
i. 121, 2
 procession of spirit frora, ii. 256, 2
 both promises and threaten
ings ot, often run in absolute
terms, when really they imply a
condition, ii. 278, 2
 is able to lay the proudest
sinner in the dust, i. 305, 1
 's Providence, all Contin
gencies UNDER. the Direction
OF, a discourse, i. 69 — 68
 providence ot, denied by some,
ii. 282, 1
 often speaks convincingly in
his providence, ii. 273, 2
 's proridence offers things
which the corrupt heart raakes
use of for evil, ii. 254, 1
 providence of, is extra
ordinary, when an occurrence is
unusually produced, i. 300, 2
 when a thing happens
contrary to huraan design, i. 301, 1
 when a thing happens
beyond the power of the cause
iramediately employed, i. 301, 1
 danger of misconsti'uing the
providences of, ii. 461, 1
 's proridences, uncharitable
interpretation of, reproved, ii. 239, 2
 errors respecting causes of
his providential dispensations, i. 475, 1
 his word not a primary proof
of his being, i. 450, 1
'  provoking, affronts his power,
his goodness, and patience, ii. 287, 1

God, will punish many things
overlooked by raen, i. 393, 2
 may either punish or forgive
sin, U. 242, I
 may punish one sin with
another, i. 390, 1
 objections to this obviated, i. 390, 2
 sin the most terrible punish
ment io&icteihy, i. 391, 1
 purpose of, upon the obstinate
sinner, irrevocaJile, ii. 277, 2
 purpose of, different frora de
cree of reprobation, ii. 279, 1
 what, does in tira?, he pur
posed to do from all eternity, i. 288, 2
 recognition ot, in affliction,
how produced, ii. 380, 2
 recognition of, in affliction,
produced by secondary causes,
ii. 330, 2
 rebukes tempter, ii. 37, 1
 if regarded as raan's enemy,
will be hated by him, ii. 240, 2
— , — may remit the punishment of
sin, ii. 241, 2
 will render to every one ac
cording to his work, i. 249, 1
 a deferred repentance a con-
ti'adiction to the word of, i. 311, 2
 the cause of Christ's resurrec
tion, i. 286, 1
 if raan will return to, he has
proraised to return to man, i. 352, 2
 reverence to, in our addresses,
how shewn, i. 123, 1
 governs the world by re
wards and punishments, i. 355, 2
 what he does by second causes,
he can do immediately by him
self, ii. 257, 2
 sentence which he passed on
Adara universal, ii. 90, 2
 when in the house of God, we
are more especially in his sight
ani presence, i. 120, 2
 all created beings necessarily
servants of, i. 118, 1
 accounts himself served hy
each mau's diligence in his own
calling, ii. 90, 1
 soraetiraes raakes one sin the
raeans of discovering another, i. 342, 2
 cannot be said to persuade to
sin, ii. 254, 2
 meets every sinner face to
face, i. 304, 2
 fear of, a slamsh, ii. 245, 2
 may smite, and yet love, ii. 233, 1
 'S giving to THE SoUL A PER
CEIVING HEART, a discourse, ii. 248—256
 's absolute sovereignty, ii. 235, 2
 when he speaks to man, is

often pleased to speak after the
maimer of raan, i. 323, 1
God, aU circumstances under the
special disposal ot, i. 384, 2
 Christians under special ca/re
of, ii. 217, 1
 is a Spirit, i. 251, 1
 ¦ is the, of the spints of aU
flesh, ii. 162, 1
 the word of, has the force
and efficacy of a spiritual word,
i. 305, 1
 spoken of, after the manner
of men, i. 122, 2
 relation of raan to, as subjects,
cannot be dispensed with, i. 118, 1
 the cause and author of the
sufferings of Christ, i. 'J80, 1
 metliods in which, supports
under teraptation, ii. 37, 2
 wishes to see his people
taught as well as fed, i. 324, 1
 deUvers his people from
temptation, ii. 4, 2
 delivers frora temptation by
the operation of Holy Spirit, ii. 40, 2
 things of, cannot be perceived
by the natural man, ii. 251, 2
 's threatenings frequent signi
fications of, ii. 278, 2
 his unity eraployed to set
aside tiie divinity of Christ, i. 446, 2
 belief of tho existence of,
universal, ii. 283, 2
 and man, natural unlikeness
of, u. 442, 2
 utmost, can do to the wicked,
ii. 22'2, 1
 sometiraes take the work of
vengeance upon himself, and re
pays the sinner by sorae notable
judgraent from Iieaven, i. 344, 1
— ¦ — will have raen wait his
leisure, ii. 46, 2
 ways in which, does not de
Uver frora temptation, ii. 46, 2
 what God is, i. 209, 2
 why incoinprehensible to
man, i. 377, 1
 vnU of, absolute, ii. 229, 1
 's will, sometimes tiie sole
cause of affliction, ii. 236, 2
 's will, tho supreme power, ii. 236,1
 's own will the reason of his
procedure, i. 270, 1
 what, .wills, he also knows, i. 339, 2
 THE 'Wisdom of, in Making
Christianity mysterious, a dis
course, i. 249, 1
 's unerring wisdom, ii. 237, 1
 's wisdom shewn in redemp
tion, ii. 243, 1
 wisdom of, ii. 227, 1
 wisdom and goodness of,
U. 10, 1

INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

571

God, wondrous works of, in Egypt,
u. 286, 1
 we should attend to the mind
of, as uttered in his umrd, i. 191,2
 's word, sin presumptuous
when committed against, ii. 132, 2
 power of flie word of, i. 192, I
 's word, our great rule, i. 361, 2
 calls on all his servants to
work, ii. 90, 2
 both the reasons and results
of his working in a great mea
sure imknown, i. 475, 1
 two great works of, the crea-
?ion of man, and their rederap
tion, i. 249, 1
 's ¦wrath against sin, proof of,
ii, 264, 1
 wrath of, shews the vastness
of Christ's love, ii. 214, 2
GodUness, dirine and unchange
able, . ii. 2, 2
 not the cause of deliverance, ii. 12, 1
 effects of, produced by the
gospel, n. 101, 2
 errors destructive of,
ii. 108—110
 makes no man infallible, U. 111,2
Godly, character and principles ot,
ii. 14, 1
 not those who arrogate this
character to themselves, ii. 2, 1
 may soraetiraes be drawn
into teraptation, ii. 6, 2
 prevailed upon by it,
u. 7, 2
 not delivered from terapta
tion because of piety, ii. 12, 1
 no positive assurance of
deUverance if they venture
iuto teraptation, U. 14, 2
 who axe the, ii. 2, 1, 2
Good, raan's chief, what, i. 412, 2
.  deified and adored by
hun, i. 415, 2
 ¦ our chief, must be something
in our own power, i. 419, 1
 the heart cannot perceive or
choose, ii. 64, 1
 deflnition of, i. 170, 2
 not even originally founded
in, nor derived from a dimne
law, i. 172, 2
 no man above the labour of
doing, ii. 90, 2
 earthly, its vanity when com
pared with the heavenly, n. 198, 1
 absurdity of the opinion, that
it is not'inlierent in itself, i. 171, 1
 the less to he given up for
the greater, ii- 198, 1
may be extracted

from miseries of this life, ii. 229, I
Good, mischief of misapplying the
name of, i. 173, 2
 the nature of, i. 170, 2
 generally operates upon the
mind of man by the name by
which it is notified or conveyed
to it, i. 173, 2
 also of the opinion, that it is
origincdly founded in the laws
and constitution of the sovereign
or civil power, by three reasons,
i. 171,2
 the natural and proper object
of pursuit, i. 169, 2
 false representat'ion of, i. 169,1
—  every action of man is in
order to obtain some, i. 412, 2
 some men have perverted the
standard of, i. 148, 1
Good-nature, what is terraed by
the world, i. 557, 2
 raeaning of, i. 90, 1
Goodness, essential property of,
i. 399, 1
 and truth, coincidence be
tween, ii. 100, 1
 influence of great raen upon,
i. 15-2,1
Gospel, design of, ii. 103, 1
 two evidences of its truth,
U. 199, I
 produces the effects of god
liness, . ii. 101, 2
 hatred ot, how produced, i 379,2
 that " Jesus is the Son of
God," the foundation and sura
of the, i. 321, 1
 a full knowledge of the, a
principal part of our happiness
hereafter, i. 255,2
 qualifications required by a
minister ot the, i. 312, I
 minister, quaUfications . of
the, why necessary, i. 316, 2
 minister, necessity of mental
quaUfications in the, proved
frora tiie miraculous endow
ments of the apostles, i. 317, 1
 Nature of, a discourse.
Two Parts, u. 100 — 1 1 1
 obedience to the, the way to
eternal happiness, i. 325, 2
 the, is the power of God, i. 250, 1
 preacher ofthe, a moral agent
alone, i. 315, 2
 precepts of, manner in which
they are to be appUed, ii. 296, 1
 the spirituality of the truths,
i. 251, 1
 the surpassing greatness of
the truths of flie, i. 250, 1
 is a truth, ii. 100, 1
 the, truth the great charac
teristic of, i. 376, 1
 nothing can be drawn frora,
but what is trae, u. 101, 1

Gospel is an operative truth, ii. 100, 1
 is operative to the best of
purposes, ii. 101, 1
 reproof to those who treat
its truths with levity, i. 318, 1
¦  reproof to those who handle
its sacred tmths in a heavy,
careless way, i. 318, 2
 great mercy of God in be
stowing the, upon us, i. 159, 2
 the wretched and deplorable
condition of sinners under the,
i. 160, 2
 the, damns nobody for being
ignorant of that which he is not
obUged to know, i. 190, 1
 the, is the wisdom of God,
i. 249, 2
Govemment, great business of,
i. 27, 2
 springs of, i. 28, 1
 safety of, founded on reUgion, i. 30, 2
 episcopal, nature of, i. 38, 2
 J. — ill effects of conterapt
upon, i. 40, 1
 of others, those intmsted
with, should speak of then'
faults,' u. 113,1
 destroyed by corruption of
manners, i. 424, 1
 civil, Cliristians not exempt
frora, i. 467, 1
 private character of the
governors no warrant for dis
obedience to, i. 467, 1
 disobedience to it contracts
spiritual guilt, i. 472, 2
 its foundation in the dirine
law, _ i. 472, 2
 ¦ injured by misapplication of
terras, i. 646, 1 ; 544, 2
 kingly, evils attending the
want of, i. 432, 1
 not limited by subjects' views,
however conscientious, i. 468, 2
 obedience to it enforced by
apostles, i. 545, 1
_:  resistance to it by Christians
brines scandal on reUgion, i. 475, 2
 supposed to be restricted by
spirituaUty of Christ's kingdom, i. 454, 2
 grounds of subjection to,
i. 467, 2
 unlawfulness of resisting i. 468, 2
Govemor, God may be honoured
or dishonoured as our, ii. 61, 2
 s, conscience of, ii. 118, 1
 sin of those who try to per
suade, that breaches in the
divine law are allowable in,
ii. 118, 2
Grace, divine, in Jesus our only
foundation, ii. 194, 1
 scheme of, its general refe
rence, i. 484, 1

572

SOUTH'S SERMONS.

Grace, unspeakable advantage of,
u. 5, 2
 joy and comfort are con
veyed by, i. 183,
 never deficient to men in
spiritual wants, ii. 39, 2
— — effects of, ii. 6, I
 of God, u. 249, 1
 how known, ii. 251, 1
 means of, how expressed, ii. 260, 1
 we should not rest in the
means of, ii. 266, 1
 mercy ot, ii. 4, 1
 used by some to express
nature, ii. 255, 2
 preventing, God does not
deal forth the same measure to
all, i. 182,
 never purifies but where it
pardons, ii 244, 2
•  how represented, ii. 249, 2
 resisted, by the sinfulness of
the heart, ii. 253, 2
 what requires, nature is not
averse to, i. 166, 1
 safety of, ii. 5, 2
 restrains frora sin, ii. 14, 1
 doctrines subversive of,
ii, 256, 2
.  not a sufficiency ot, in the
bare stateraent of truth, ii. 256, 1
 not placed against the under
standing, ii. 249, 2
 universal, doctrine of, uot
trae, ii. 265, 2
 true, restrains frora exposing
to teraptation, ii. 19, 2
Graces often made manifest, by
afflictions, ii. 238, 2
Gratitude should lead to purity of
heart, u. 78, 1
 our, should be quickened by
Christ's humiUation, ii. 230, 1
 what it is, and on what obU
gation grounded, i. 86, 1
 the band that holds together
the whole creation, ii. 89, 2
 not enforced by cirif taw,
U. 88, 1
 consists in two tilings — 1. A
debt, and 2. A debt left to every
man's ingenuity, whether to
pay or no, ii. 88, 2
 most secret ties of duty
founded on, ii. 87, 2
 rare excellence ot, how shewn,
ii. 88, 2
 taught by external nature, ii. 89, 2
 includes taking notice of
kindness received, i. 86, 2
  acknowledgment of
benefit done, and an endeavour
to recompense our benefactor,
why obUgatory on man, i. 87, 2
•  enjoined in Scripture, ii. 88, 1

Grave, the impossibility of Christ's
remaining in the, i. 287, 2
Great persons, why often miser
able, ii. 122, 1
 danger of speaking
freely to, u. 122, 1
 unfond of reproof, ii, 122, 1
Greatness of God, meditation ou
will conduce to poverty of
spirit, ii. 367, 1
 of God's pardoning raercy,
u. 244, 1, 2
 of God's anger transcends
our knowledge, ii. 213, 2
 raeasured by compari
son with the anger of men, ii. 213, 2
Greek Church, doctrme of, regard
ing tiie Spirit, ii. 266, 2
Greeks and Romans, suicide
araong, i. 171, 1
Grief, inward and outward, com
parison between, ii. 262, 1
 of David on account of siu,
ii. 264, 2
 on account of sin, proofs of its
greatness, ii. 265, 1
 outward manifestations of,
ii. 266, I
— - — effects of, on those not upheld
under it by divine grace, ii. 267, 1
 sent to imbitter sin, ii. 269, 2
 either bodily or mental, can
not be reraoved by riches, i. 409, 2
Grotius, arguraents of, for the law
fulness of resistance to raagis
trates, considered, ii. 403, 2
Guide, a, what he raust be, ii. 61, 2
Guilt, Heinous, of Taking Plea
sure IN OTHER Men's Sins, a
discourse, i. 137, 2
 reasons ot, i. 143, 2
 the meanness that accora
panies, causes taking pleasure in
the sius of others, i. 141, 2
 of those who represent bad
things as good, i. 146, 2
 defiles and consumes the con
science, ii. 139, 2
 of representing sins to be much
less sinful than they are, i. 147, 1
 aggravated by privilege, ii. 103,2
 cleared away by trath, n. 258, 2
 growing upon the nation, i. 354, 2
 universal, universal despair
would foUow, but for the hope of
pardon, i. 392, 1
 suspicious, ii. 247, 1
Guilty, the, wiU hate God, if they
have no hope of pardon, ii. 241, 1
Habakkuk, double complaint of,
regarding the wickedness of the

Jews, and the instruments of
their punishraent, ii. 453, 2
Habit, ill, raakes men plead want
of power, i. 84, 2
 may continue when it is no
longer able to act, i. 161, 1
Haman, pride and misery of,
i. 409, 2
 speech of, ii. 212, 1
Happiness is the gift of God, i. 411, 1
— — not procured by riches, i. 404, 1
 teraporal, cannot be recon
ciled with perpetual toil, i. 404, 2
 nor with great danger, i. 405, 2
 nor with the commission of
great sins, i. 406, 1
 relieved by excessive care,
i. 406, 2
 not the lot of princes, i. 407, 1
 content necessary to, i. 407, 2
 shewn not to depend ou
abundance, i. 410, 2
 or misery, an estate of,
allotted fo every man after this
life, i. 103,2
 and misery, the interest of
man to keep in mind the future
state of, i. 284, 2
 tills belief has long stood
upon very uncertain grounds, i. 288, 1
 how it may be settled upon
better, i 285, 1
 obedience to the gospel the
way to etemal, i. 326, 2
 is fruition, i. 329, 2
Hardheartedness, example of,
i. 91,2
Hardness of heart, tho proper
effect of, resistance to tiie Spirit,
ii. 511, 1
 a curse from God for
resistance to the Spirit, ii. 611, 1
Haste to be rich, evil of, i. 397, 2
Hatred generally begins in con
tempt, i. 378, 1
 description of, i. 13, 2
 God's, and anger, difference
between, U. 210, 2
HeaUng, gift of, not perraanentiy
inherent in the apostles, i. 292, 2
Hear, what it is properly to,
ii. 250, 1
Heart, hardness of, very despe
rate and dangerous, ii. 276, 1
 ON God's giving to the
Soul a perceiving, a discourse,
ii. 248—266
 efforts of men to attain what
their hearts are set on, i. 414, 2
 most hkely to betray us,
u. 64, I
 cannot choose what is good,
U. 64, 2

INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

573

Heart cannot perceive what is good,
ii. 64, 1
 camal corruptions ot, u. 252, 2
 camal wisdom of, ii. 253, 1
 what pleases, commands, i, 415, 2
 by natm'6 contrary to divine
things, ii. 252, 1
 deceitfulness of, ii. 65, 1
 delusions of, relating to the
coramission of sin in the perfor
mance of duty, and to raan's
conversion, ii. 65, 1
 why, must be kept with all
diligence, ii. 63, 2
 cannot be fixed upon both
God and the world, i. 416, 2
.  duty to examine the, ii. 443, 1
 must not rest in general
complaints of, ii. 76, 1
 a hard, ruins many, ii. 63, 2
— - hardened by presumptuous
sin, ii. 139, 1
 hardness of, cannot be
charged on God, ii. 253, 2
 hardness of, consequence of
Adam's sin, ii. 255, 1
 never seeks enjoyment here
without regret, ii. 418, 1
 hostility of, to means of grace,
ii. 252, 1
 impostures of, infinite, ii. 69, I
 betrays by lessening and
extenuating sin, ii. 66, 2
 lust of, how interpreted by
Christ, ii. 143, 1
 of men, deplorably unable
to conquer the difficulties of a
spiritual course, i. 353, 2
 combat in, when clear
truths meet strong corruptions, i. 379, 2
 open to flattery, ii. 120, 1
 can only be moved by the
thing that holds, i. 415, 2
 overcome by the affections, ii. 64, 2
 every thing parted with, to
preserve what the, is set on,
i. 416, I
 a perceiving, the gift of God,
ii. 249, 1
 effects of the want of,
n. 251, 1
 indicates the possession
of spiritual Ught, ii. 260, 2
 meaning of, ii. 260, 1
 man's, placed where his
treasure is, i. 414, 1
 folly of placing it upon an
unworthy object, i. 416, 2
 the absurdity of placing tt
upon the world, i. 417, 2
,,  plagues ofour own, all know,
ii. 53, 1
.  eraces to be planted in,
^ ii. 92, 1

Heai't, effect of prayer on, ii. 74, 1
 pure in, alone fit for heaven,
U. 77, 2
 vain attempts at purification
o , ii. 74, 2
 purification of, ii. 71, 1
 purity of the, proof of true
religion, ii. 78, 2
 the seat of purity, ii. 440, 1
 without purity of, heaven no
place of happiness, ii. 77, 2
 first risings of, to sin must
be watched, ii. 72, 2
 sinful frame of, ii. 74, 2
 sinful, requires sinful plea
sures, ii. 77, 2
 sinfulness of, resists gi'ace,
ii. 263, 2
 the, is the stage in which
men exhibit themselves /ree/y.
ii. 281, 1
 whence suggestions sent into,
ii. 183, 1
 if taken, you have the man,
i. 416, 1
 ¦ treachery of, requires watch
fulness, ii. 52, 2
 treachery of, rains many, U. 63, 1
 OUR OWN, THE Folly of
Trusting to, a discourse, ii. 60—69
 trusting, what is meant bj',
ii. 61, 1
 who trusts, must resign the
guidance oflife to, ii. 61, 1
 commits to it the ho
nour of God, and his own happi
ness, both here and hereafter, ii. 61,2
 may reraain unaffected in the
midst of convincing means, ii. 249, 1
 may be unaffected by great
knowledge, ' ii- 260, 2
 unconverted, cannot appre
hend divine things, ii. 261, 1
 watchfulness necessary to
purification of, ii. 72, 1
 weakness of, ii- 64, 1
 whole given to what is count
ed the chief good, i. 415, 2
 a wish properly the language
of, ii. 281,2
 tke placing of, on any worldly
thing, a virtual denial of God's
being, ii- 283, 1
 compared witii tiie world, is
of superlative value, ii 417,2
Heathen world under the deceits
of Satan, i- 384, 1
 philosophers, why so indus
trious in the quest of knowledge, i. 387, 2
 idolatry of the ancient, U. 462, 2
 wickedness of the, before
the coraing of Christ, ii. 463, 2
 had they knowledge enough
to save them ? i- 48, 2

Heathen, state of, before Christ's
coming, ii. 225, 1
 sum of religion of, ii. 225, 2
 attempts of, to expiate sin,
ii. 225, 2
 had no corapetent knowledge
of a future state, i. 364, 2
 s prepax-ations araong, befure
sacrifices, i. 162, 2
Heaven, citizens ot, qualifications
of, n. 78, 1
 why difficult of attainment, ii. 436, 2
 hope ot, how it purifies, ii. 76, 2
 cannot give happiness witii
out holiness, ii. 77, 2
 kingdom of, explained, i. 310, 2
 , — kingdom of, who are least in,
i. 106, 1
 NO MAN EVER WENT TO,
WHOSE HEART WAS NOT THERE,
a discourse, i. 412, 2
 unsuitable to the impure, ii. 277, 2
Heavenly things solid and sub
stantial, ii. 70, 1
Herod, cruelty of, ji. 470, 2
 magnificence of, ii. 471, 1
 usurpation of, ii. 470, 2
 his trouble ot raind in regard
to the wise raen, ii. 471, 2
.  influence of his conduct on
his subjects, ii. 472, 1
Hell, hopeless despair, ii. 433, 2
 torraents of, characterized, ii. 548, 2
Heresies, cause of, i. 384, 1
 rose gradually, i. 389, 2
 damnable origin of, ib.
High places, what is me.ant by,
i. -27, 1
History necessarily p.irtial, ii. 151,2
HoUness, how produced, i. 234, 1
 meaning of the phrase, " ac
cording to the Spirit of," i. 319, 2
 , love of, indispensable to real
excellence, ii. 167, 1
Holy Spirit, the author of spiritual
Ught, ii. 260, 2
 the Comforter, ii. 257, 1
 his being a Comforter
depends on his being the Spirit
of tmth, ii. 258 1
 conviction ascribed to,
u. 258, i
 double giving ot, n. 88, 2
 most eminent gifts of,
were the gift of miracles, of
tongues, and of a supernatural
courage, ii. 259, 2
 employment ot, n. 257, 1
  end of his being sent,
n. 269, I
 infallible rule by which

574

SOUTH'S SERMONS.

to try men's pretences of,
ii. 260, 2
Holy Spirit, ¦mauTier of giving, ii. 89, 2
 necessary to enable the
heart to believe, ii. 255, 1
.  the person sending hira,
u. 261, I
¦•  the person from whom
he is said to proceed, ii. 261, 1
 his procession from the
Father, u. 256, 2
 — sent when aposties
acted in their full office, ii. 87, 2
 proraise of sending, ii. 256, 2
 what he testified of
Clirist, ii. 259, 2
.  time when confeii-ed,
remarkable, ii. 89, 1
 the Spirit of truth, ii. 258, 1
 .  -ways and means by
which he testified of Christ, ii. 259, 2
Homage to Christ at his Birth,
WITH the Conduct of Herod
thereupon, a discom'se, u. 466, 1
Honour, sense of, does not counte
nance dueUing, i. 554, 2
 term misapplied, i. 564, I
¦  not a vindictive impatience of
injury, i. 534, 2
 inseparable from virtue, i. 564, 2
 loss of, not involved in re
fusing a challenge, ii. 408, 1
 the reward of peace-makers, ii. 429, 1, 2
Hope, description of, i. 14, 1
 caution against /aZse, ii. 366, 2
 of heaven, purifying influence
of, ii. 76, 2
 one of the principal graces of
the Spirit, ii. 76, 2
 should not be easily given up,
ii. 46, I
 of the profane, a mockery, u. 78, 2
Hopes and fears, next to God,
govern all things, i. 365, 1
 men's, governed by their ap
prehensions, ii. 35, 2
Hour of teraptation, when come,
ii. 31, 2
 etemity depends ou,
ii. 34, I
See Temptation.
Huraanity, the di'vin'ity ot Christ
sanctified aud consecrated byhis,
i. 320, 1
Humiliation, the affiiction of the
body a good preparation for the,
of the soul, I. .146, 2
•  nationid sins deserve national, i. 348, 2

Humiliation, God, in this way, at
tains the end of his judgraents, i. 352, 1
 a general, tends raost to solve
the breach of God's honour, i. 349, 1
 generality gives strength and
force to, i. 349, 1
 the consideration of a judg
ment approaching, or actually
upon, a people, is a sufficient
argument for fasting and, i. 346, 1
 a, should be personal and par
ticular, i. 350, 2
 God has often removed judg
ments upon a sincere, i. 351, 2
 upon a serious, there is good
reason to hope for a removal of
the severest judgment, i. 361, 1
 reasons for this stated, i. 361, 1
 God has proraised it, i. 351, 1
Humility, Clirist inculcates, 1.210, 1
 a chiii-acteristic of the Chris
tian, U. 356, 1
 taught by the variety of the
Spirit's gifts, i. 297, 2
Hypocrite becomes worse by the
enjoyment of external privi
leges, u. 194, 2
 Perishableness of bis
Hope, a discourse, ii. 361, 2
 instability of, ii. 439, 1
 mistakes the spiritual strict
ness of the gospel, ii. 365, 2
 wilfully misunderstands sin,
ii. 365, 1
 attains hope by mistaking re
pentance, faith, and conversion, U. 366, 2
 sustains his hope by external
obedience, &c. ii. 369, 1
 by comparing himself
with others, ii. 370, 1
 by neglecting self-trial,ii. 370, 2
 that the hope of, wiU perish,
proved frora Scripture, ii. 371, 1, 2
 . — — from the weakuess of
its foundation, ii. 372, 1
 hope of, fails under God's
judgments, u. 372, 2
 upheld by worldly jiros
perity, ii. 372, 2
 fails at the time of
death, ii. 373, 2
 unmasked at death, u. 373, 2
 etemal misery of, ii. 374, I
 hope of, to hiraself, an aggra
vation of his final raisery, ii. 374, 2
 the, may collect the unsuc
cessfulness of all his prayers
from his want of integrity, i. 332, 1

Hypocrites, two classes of, distinc
tion between them, ii. 362, 1
 folly of, ii. 649, 2
 hope of, consists in a persua
sion of safety, ii. 362, 1
 hope of this different in de
gree ; in sorae, a probable opi
nion ; in others, a peremptory
pei-suasion, Ii. 362, 1
 portion of, at the day of judg
ment, ii. 551, 1
 peace and security of, with
Scriptural illustrations, ii. 26.3, 1
 not disturbed by a contem
plation of God's justice, U. 364, 2

Idleness, a cause of envy, i. 507, 1
 creates irapossibilities, i. 81, 1
 danger and mischief of,
ii. 65, 1
 and intemperance, gates
through which many sins enter,
n. 67, 1
Idolatry, person charged witii the
sin of, i. 154, 2
 reasons of men's falling iuto
this sin, i. 156, 1
 the sin of the Gentiles in
not glorifying God as he is,
i. 153, 2
 what is, i. 1 63, 2
Ignorance of God's decrees, an
arguraeutfor closing with Christ,
as we know not when the Spirit
will cease to strive, ii. 505, 2
 a ground of the hypocrite's
hope, ii. 372, 1
 kinds of, ii. 187, 1
 is soraetiraes sinful, i. 242, 1
 is sometiraes necessary, i. 243, 1
 mischief of, i. 387, 2
 one person raay be sooner
Inexcusable for, than anotiier, I. 243, 1
 the dishonour of our nature,
I. 340, 2
 eannot be pleaded by pre
sumptuous sinners, U. 127, 1
 plea of, used by Paul, n. 127, 2
Ignorant men are very fit to praise
and admire, but very uufit to
judge, i. 326, 1
Ill-nature, proper sense of, i. 90, 1
 the origin of ingratitude, i. 89, 2
— . — what is termed by the world,
ii. 656, 1
Illumination, divine, pretenders
to, i. 43-2, 2
Imaginiition, influenced by Satan,
i. 444, 2
 cannot realize God's anger,
ii. 21.3, 1
Impartiality favourable to the dis
covery of truth, i. 49, 1

INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

575

Impalaence of affront, the charac
teristic of a Uttle mind, ii. 208, 2
.  of the tongue offensive to
God, ii. 379, 2
 against God, rebuked by tlie
conduct of the inanimate and
brute creation, i. 390, 1, 2
Impenitence, final, the issue of
high handed sinning, ii. 432, 1
Impiety, great, the consequence of
the atheist's principles, n. 284, 1
ImplacablUty often mistaken for
, constancy, i. 556, 1
Importunity, all, does violence to
the mind, ii. 37, 1
ImpossiblUty, alleged, of endur
ing danger for duty disproved
by exaraples, i. 86, 1
 raistaken for difficulty, i. 85, 1
Impotence of the unconverted
heart, u. 251, 2
mprobable, not every strange
event to be accounted, i. 358, 2
 uot, that God should, for some
groat end, step out of the ordi
nary course of his providence, i. 358, 2
Impurity, how it unfits the soul
for the enjoyment of God, u. 443, 1
Imputation of Clirist's righteous
ness, u. 104, 2
InabiUty of men to judge exactiy
of a thing, i. 176, 1
 to discern when they
are deceived, i. 177, 1
Inclination to a thing not properly
a willing of it, i. 80, 1
Industry needed in spiritual as in
temporal matters, ii. 69, 1
InfaUibility, modern claims to, an
Insolent pretence, i. 622, 1
Infirmity, sius of, i. 147, I
 what are not, ii. 129, 1, 2
 derived &om the prin
ciple that produces thera, i. 130, 1
 inadvertency makes, i. 130,1
 far from, to count any sin
Uttle, i. 130, 1
Ingratitude of the Jews, i. 86, 1
 aggra/tated by the pecuUarity
of their circumstances, i. 499, 1
 ca'n'not be altered by acts of
kindness, i. 92, 2
 heinous, as against God, i. 499, 1
 its indignity, i. 498, 2
 its strangeness, i. 498, I
 On the Odious sin of, a
discourse, i- 36, 2
 forbidden in Scripture, i. 88, 1
 most detestable in the sight
of man, j* ^^> 1
 the nature of, i. 89, 1
-.  principle from which it pro
ceeds, •• 89, 2

Ingratitude corabined with pride
and ha/rd-hea/rtedness, i. 90, 2
 exemphfied in the devil,
i. 91, 1
 superlative malignity of this
vice, i. 90—92 ; u. 479, 1
 some useful consequences
drawn respecting, i. 92, 1
 selfishness of, i. 92, 2
 a sign of want o/ religion, I. 93, 1
Injuries, forgiveness of, an argu
ment against going to law, ii. 417, 2
 distinction between forgive
ness of, and submission to,
ii.417,2
Injury committed by others, aggra
vating thoughts of, ii. 421, 2
 personal, not to be avenged, ii. 426, 1
 prevention of, necessary to
wards peaceable Uving, ii. 393, 2
 non-retaliation of, necessary
towards peaceable living, n. 394, 1, 2
Inheritance secured to the Chris
tian, i. 419, 2
Injustice, full punishment of, never
reaches a man in this life, i. 406, 1
Innate light in every man, i. 189, 2
Innocence, loss of, loses corafort, ii. 21, 2
 how set forth and expressed
in Scripture, i. 216, 2
Innocent person, an, Uves not
under the continual torment of
doubts and fears, i. 346, 1
 what things are required
to render it just to inflict punish
ment upon, in the room of
another, i. 28,3, 1
Insincerity defeats ifs own end,
i. 76, 1
Inspiration, ifs subjects distin
guished from impostors, i. 492, 2
 two tests of it, i. 495, 2
Instances of want of power falsely
pleaded, i. 81, 1
Instructed, explanation of the
term as applied to a scribe, i. 310, 2
Instraments of God's chastisement
to be viewed submissively by the
subject, ii. 380, 1
Integrity requu^ed by ehurch
governors, ii. 97, 1
Intellect ruined by ignorance and
deception, i. 387, 1
Intelligible, many things which are
not, are yet believed, i. 372, 373
Intemperance, danger and mis
chief of, .ii- 56, 1
 aud luxury, evils of, i. 221, 1
Intentions, Good, no Excuse for
Bad Actions, a discourse, i. 76, 1

Intentions, good, plea of, used to
sanction the worst actions, i. 77, 1
Intercession of the saints, what is
necessary to confidence In,
11.496, 1,2
Interest Deposed and Truth
Restored, a discourse, i. 16, 2
 ofteu outweighs truth, i. 21, 1
 the great motive of men, i. 21, 2
Invention requisite In a minister
of the gospel, i. 310, 2
Invocation of saints repudiated by
the Church of England, i. 537,2
 an affront to Christ, U. 491, 2
 argument for, from the
pr.actice In the courts of princes,
refuted, u. 496, 2
,  our gift of, ii. 495, 2
Israelites, provoking sin of, ii. 272,1
 degeneracy and rebellion of,
n. 228, 1, 2
See Jews.
 deliverance of, great, unex
pected, seasonable, and unde
served, ii. 288 — 290
 intent and end of their deli
verance, ii. 292, 1
 their deliverable, author of,
n. 291, 2
 nature of the rest denied to,
u. 272, 2
 many of, did not ascribe
their mercies to God, ii. 291, 2
 abused God's goodness, ii. 287, 2
 indeed, character of, i. 99, 2
 murmuring of, against Moses,
U. 288, 2
 offence of, aggravated by the
deliverance vouchsafed thera,
n. 288, 1
 affronted God's patience, Ii. 287, 2
 provoked God's power,
" U. 287, 1
 sentence pronounced upon,
n. 272, 1
 sins of, reserable the sins of
our nation, ii- 288, 1
 spoiling the Egyptians justi
fied, i- 494, 1
 unarateful deportraent of the,
^ ii. 286,2
 Unworthy and Ungrateful
Treatment of God, a discourse,
U. 286—292
Jacob's supplanting Esau sinful,
i. 493, 2
Jael's killing Sisera justified, i. 495, 1
Jeremiah, God's qualification of,
to be an overseer in his church,
ii. 96, 1
 opposition to, ii. 98, 1
Jeroboam, character and conduct
of, i.26,26

.576

SOUTH'S SERMONS.

Jesuits, the, and Sodnians, ac
counted an officious Ue no sin,
i. 361, 1
Jesus of Nazareth, the Lineal
Descent of, prom David, by
his Blessed Mother, the
Virgin Mary, a discourse, i. 258, 2
 OF Nazareth, Proved the
only True and Promised
Messiah, a discourse, i. 267, 1
 the great Mediator of the
new covenant, i. 278, 1
Jews, greatest abusers of raercy,
II. 248, 1
 degeneratii character of,
ii. 228, 1
 relentless cliaracter ot, U. 416, 1
 God's charges against them,
i. 501, 2
 the, think that Christ was to
descend naturally from Solo
mon, i. 262, 2
 Christ came when the, were
in their lowest condition, i. 270, 1
 the, Christ's own by a fra
ternal right of consanguinity, i. 269, 2
 also by the right of church-
ship, i. 269, 2
 customs of the, when they
returned frora raarkets, i. 163, 1
 those, who were contempo
raries with the Evangelists,
never disputed the descent of
Christ frora David, i. 264, 1
 God's dealings with the, i. 499, 2
 grounds upon which the, re
jected Christ, i. 271, 2
 hatred and contempt of,
n. 228, 2
 wliole history full of wicked
ness, II. 228, 2
—  a continued miracle, ii. 248, 1
 tiieir injustice and oppression, I. 601, 2
 statements of Latin writers
regarding, II. 228, 2
 destruction of their law, i. 603, 2
 their luxury and sensuaUty, i. 602, 2
 dissolution of their military
power, i. 503, 2
 modern, reject the doctrine
of the Trinity, i. 370, 2
 being of tjie race of, an in
stance of Christ's humiliation, u. 228, 2
 their rapacity and covetous
ness, i. 502, 1
 rebellion of, ii. 228, 1
 God's rejection of the, and
calling of the Gentiles, i. 161, 1
 sacred oracles committed tu
the, i. 499, 2

Jews, the, thought that the Messiah
was to be a temporal prince, i. 271,2
 unbeHef ot, U. 248, 1
 inexcusable, ii. 461, 2
 wickedness of, before the
coming of Clirist, ii. 464, 1
Job's affliction, cause of, ii. 238, 2
 trial of his faitii, i. 203, 1
Joseph, husband of Mary, true
descent of, from David, I. 261, 2
 's deliverance from tempta
tion, ii. 17, 2
 's faith, trial of, i. 203, 2
Josephus, silence of, regarding the
birth of Christ aud die conduct
of Herod, ii. 471, 2
Joy, description of, i. 13, 2
 of the Christian cannot be
taken away, I. 419, ]
 experienced by Christians in
poverty and persecution, i 410,2
Judge, who is to be, at the last
day, ii. 546, 2
Judgment blinded by flatterers, U. 125, 1
 requisite in a minister of the
gospel, i. 312, 1
 matter of, U. 547, 2
 manner of proceeding in,
il. 547, 2
 preaching of, i. 296, 2
 to come, acknowledged by all
nations, ii. 545, 1
.  disbelievers in, sadly
deceived, ii. 549, 1
 seat, absence of disguise be
fore, ii. 560, 2
 day of, secret sins will be
judged at, Ii. 143, 2
Judgments, all of God, destructive, I. 386, 2
 under all, God calls for hu
miliation, i. 346, 2
 denounced on those who do
not receive the tmth, i. 375, 2
 forebodings ot, I. 366, 1
 which God inflicts, of several
sorts, i. 386, 2
 harden obstinate sinners, ii. 274, 2
 upon hating the truth, i. 380, 1
 of being given over to believe
a lie, greatness of, i. 386, 1
 misapprehended in conse
quence of ignorance, and con
fidence, and malice, i. 234, 2
 God's, False Causes to
WHICH Men refer, a discourse, ii. 230, 2
 national, how averted, i. 441,2
 personal, sent to convince
men of sin, II. 274, 2
 on purcliasers of church pro
perty, i. 44, 2
 on sacrilegious persons, i. 54, 1, 2

Judgments on separatists, i. 393, 2
 we should beware of sinning
against, ii. 279, 2
 spiritual, very dreadful, i. 386, 1
 temporal, exeraplified in the
case of the Israelites, ii. 23, 1
 in the case of David,
ii.23,2; 140,1
 exaraples of on sin,
ii. 140, 1
 false cry of, ii. 21 0, 1
.  fiercest, inflicted on pre
sumptuous sins, ii. 140, 1
 cannot render a man
wholly miserable, i. 387, 1
 falsehood of the asser
tion that sin must be punished
by, ii. 23, 1
 may however be sent
on tiiose who have sinned, ii. 23, 2
 uncharitable appUcation of,
ii. 234, 1
 on Wolsey and Lord Brooke, i. 66, 1
Julius Africanus, a story of, as to
Uie divinity of Christ, i. 261, 2
Jus naturale antecedent to the
jus positi'vum, i. 172, 2
Justice, divine, as provoked,
effects of, reflections upon, ii. 267, 2
 of God, ii. 186, 2
 an argument for the
resurrection of Christ, i. 289, 1
 finds out the sinner, not with
its eyes, but its hands, I. 344, 1
 to endeavour the execution
of, allowable, ii. 418, 1
Justification of the sinner, ii. 103, 2
 how it may be subverted, ii. 104, 1
 destroyed by Papists, ii. 104,2
KilUng, circumstances mnst be
taken Into account in deciding
whether It be good or evil, i. 171, 1
Kingdora of heaven, as promised
to the poor in spirit, elucidation
of, ii. 360, 2
 of heaven signifies the
Christian dispensation, ii. 612, 2
   the kingdom of
grace, ii. 612, 1
 who are least in, n. 106, 1
 Christ's spiritual, differs from
all others, Ii. 247, 1
 tme grievance under which
it groans, i. 422, I
King and country, not terms of
opposition or distinction, i. 649, 1
Kings, supremacy of, an arguraent
for their immunity, ii. 404, 2

INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

577

Kings best fitted to be intrusted
vrith pubUc weal, i. 549, 1
•~— courage and presence of mind
in danger, a means of their pre
servation, i. 302, 1
.'—preservation of, by providen
tial disposal of events, i. 302, 2
.  by God's inclining the
hearts of men to love them, i. 303, 1
,— by God's rescue of them from
unknown dangers, i. 304, 1
 by God's irapressing on the
minds of their subjects awe of
then: persons and authority, i. 304, 2
—^  by God's disposing
their hearts to virtue and piety,
i. 305, 1
 extraordinary sagacity of, a
means of their preservation, i. 301, 2
 the greatest instraments in
the hand of Proridence for the
support of government and ciril
society, i. 306, 1
 have the greatest influence
on the concems cS religion, i. 307, 1
 preservers of the church, i. 307, 2
 duty of, to God, i. 307, 2
 wisdom of, able to detect
flattery, i. 302, 1
Knowledge, generality of, required
ina divine, i. 313, 2
 divine nature of, ii. 5, 1
— . — the laborious and trouble
some acquisition of, i. 328, 1
 the bottomless appetite of,
i. 329, 2
 is there true, in the world ?
i. 327, 2
 If it he true, it must be certain
and infalUble, i. 327, 2
 Op God, a discourse, ii. 141, 1
 in what respects won
derful, ii. 141, 1
 the, of Christ is etemal Ufe,
i. 331, 2
 the effects and consequents of,
i. 329, 2
 makes its possessor the butt
of envy, i. 330, 1
 k'uman, character of,Ii. 100, 1
•  our cannot comprehend God's
anger, ii. 212, 1
 of Scripture, truth infused
by the Spirit, ii. 502, 2
— — the ground and reason of
' most, i. 200, 2
-^ — is far inferior to nature, i. 328, 1
 liow, rewards Its followers, i. 330, 1
 inordinate desire of, the cause
of the first transgression, i. 474, 1
- — the exceUency of God's,
VOL. II.

above that of men or angels, i. 341' 1
Knowledge, the properties of God's,
i. 341, 1
 the objects of God's, i. 342, 1
 what properly is, i. 327, 2
 what it is to have, i. 327, 2
 the parent of sorrow from its
very nature, i. 327, 1
 worldly, does not constitute
or alter the condition of things,
i. 382, 1
Labour, every man called on to,
Ii. 90, 1
 no, Uke that of the brain, i. 328, 2
 tile price of money, i. 404, 2
 perpetual, cannot be recon
ciled with temporal happiness, i. 404, 2
 3, the result of, wiU be suitable
to the end which directed them,
i. 404, 2
Latin and Greek church, contro
versy between, regarding the
precession of the Spirit, ii. 256, 2
Law, works done against and be
side, atterapt to distinguish be
tween, ii. 10S,'2
 manner In which brought in,
h. 87, 2
— — . destroyed by the dispensing
power of pope, II. 107, 2
 impossible to deviate from,
and yet love God, ii. 105, 2
 of God, contemplation of, Its
exactness, perfection, and spiri
tuality, conducive to poverty of
spirit, ii. 369, 1
 necessary, raen should be
governed by, i. 1 04, 1
 meaning of in the wTltings of
Paul, n. 105, 1
 of men dispensable, but not
God's, ii. 107, 2
 of nature, what it is, i. 87, 1
 annexation of a penalty, not
essential to its authority, i. 628, 2
 no, strong enough to force
its own obUgation, i. 354, 1
 the obliging power of the, Is
neither founded in, nor to be
measured by, the rewards and
punishments annexed to it,
i. 225, 2
 impiety of Romish doctrines
regarding, ii. 106, 1
 binding as a rule of life,
Ii."l05, 1
 rejected by antinomians, ii. 105,2
 subverted by perverting the
doctrine of repentance, ii. 103, 2
 abrogation of its penalties
not the abrogation of itself, i. 628, 2
 s obligatory on man, may be

reduced to three, — the law of
nature ; the positive law of God
revealed in his word ; and the
law of man, enacted by civil
power, i. 87, 1
Lawful enjoyraents sometiraes un
spiritualize the mind, ii. 31, 2
 ways of securing ourselves in
times of persecution, i. 22, 2
¦  things, liberty in, sometimes
leads to things unlawful, u. 06, 1
 how they may become
a snare, ii. 66, 2
Lawgiver, our, wisdom and good
ness of, ii. 10, 1
Lawsuits to be conducted In a
charitable spirit, ii. 419, 2
Lawyer, rebel advice of,
i. 460, 2, note
League, Solemn. See Covenant.
Learning, necessity of, for minis
terial office, ii. 88, 1
 folly of those who decry, ii. 88, 1
 and grace not necessarily
incompatible, i. 299, 1
 valuable in a divine, I. 314, 1
Legal protection, absence of, a
ground of self-defence, u. 414, 1
 redress not allowable, as
argued frora Matt. v. 40, refu
tation of the opinion that, ii. 415, 2
i. Cor. ri. 7. U. 416, 2

Levi, the opinion that Christ was
of the tribe of, groundless, i. 263, 2
Lerites, the consecration and
ministry of the, i. 321, 2
Liberty, plea of, used by republi
cans In England to destroy
Uberty, i. 551, 1
 boundless, grievance spring
ing frora, i. 422, 2
- — — to continue in sin a fearful
penalty, ii. 608, 1
Liars, the great receptacle of,
i. 101,2
Lie, how the mind of man can
believe, i. 376, 2
 cannot be believed but under
the appearance of truth, i. 377, 1
 naturally appears what it is,
i. 377, 1
 indisposition of the intellec
tual faculty leads to the belief of,
i. 377, 2
 delusion qf believing leads to
final perdition, I. 389, 2
Lies, bring upon the liar the
hatred of those he has deceived, i. 100, 1
 paradox to say they are law
ful, i. 99, 1
 accounted lawful by certain
philosophers and doctors, i. 95, 1
 mischief of, i. 94, 1
2a

SOUTH'S SERMONS.

Lies, cause of all the miseiy that
befals man, i. 97, 1
 Tiature of, i. 94, 2
 dirided iuto three kinds, the
pernicious, officious, and ludi
crous, i. 94, 1
 attempts made to paUiate, i. 95, 2
 pernicious effects ot, i. 96, 1
 tend to rain society, i. 97, 2
 followed by an utter loss of
credit, i. &9, 2
.  punishment of those who
make, i. 101, 2
 unlawfulness of, i. 96, 1
 unlawfulness of, whence it
springs, i. 95, 2
Life, the Season of Preparation
FOR Judgment, a funeral dis
course, u. 153, 1
 a very high perfection of
be'mg, i. 288, 1
 change ot, i. 4, 2
 of the Christian, a warfare, Ii. 33, 2
 best condition of, most free
from temptation, u. 26, 1
 compared to a day, U. 92, 2
 an object of defence against
attack, ii. 411, 1
 eternal, the gift of God, i. 236, 1
 eoHs of, not to be feared,
u. 218—220
 'mill be given for what Is loved
better than Ufe, i. 416, 1
 good, doctiines which con
cem, u. 103, 2
 destroyed by doctrine of works
of supererogation, ii. 106, 2
 by redlspensing power
of the pope, ii. 1 07, 2
 subverted by declaring sin
venial, II. 106, 2
 folly of hazarding. In pursuit
of wealth, i. 405, 2
 an ill, will send a man to the
deril, ii. 35, 1
 -will he judged by God, u. 143, 1
 loss of, what lessens the fear
of, U. 218, 2
 and manners, rule of, u. 105, 1
 man's strictly noticed by God,
ii. 143, 1
 proved by various reasons, u. 142, 1
 meaning of, in Luke, xii. 16,
i. 404, 1
 no particular state ot, should
be importunately asked in
prayer, ii. 26, 2
 purity ot, proraoted by hope
of future glory, il. 69, 2
 what is implied in,
ii. 71, 1
 all the relations of, injured
by the civil war, L 422, 1
— ^ — God gives rules to regulate the

most secret passages of, ii. 142, 2
Life, its shortness, ii. 155, 1
 shortness, sufficiency, and
limitation of, ii. 93, 1
— — ithat state o/, which Providence
allots, should be thankfully re
ceived, ii. 27, 1
¦ raiddle station in, the most
desirable, i. 512, 2
 val'ue of, ii. 468, 1
.  difficulty of work to be per
forraed in, ii. 162, 2
 necessity of work to be per
formed in, ii. 157, 2
 its uncertainty, ii. 157, 1
 season for working, ii. 92, 2
Light, op the, within us, a dis
course, i. 214, 2
 one of the most glorious and
useful creatures of God, i. 214, 2
 expressed by conscience, i. 215, 1
 capable of being tumed into
darkness, i. 215, 1
 caution against this, i. 216, 2
 without this, we are at the
mercy of tiie devil, i. 216, 1
 dreadful evils which result
from the want of distinguishing,
and directing light within, i. 216, 1
 the gift of God for the
guidance ot our actions, i. 216, 1
 nature of, i. 214, 2
 how called the light of na
ture, i. 215, 1
 of nature, the, of the spirit,
u. 503, I
 of nature, not to be resisted,
n. 502, 1
 the, of nature, precedes the
law of nature, i. 216, 1
 how it may be understood, i. 214, 2
Litigiousness condemned, Ii. 419, 2
Lives, difference between the
former and latter part of some
men's, i. 168, 1
Lot, proper meaning of, i. 60, I
 the result of, in reference to
raen, i. 60, 1
 to God, i. 60, 1
Love of Glory in Religion, a
sermon, ii. 159, 2
 dependent on the
opinion of the world, ii. 164, 2
 insufficient as a rule of
conduct apart from religion, u. 164, 1
 strongest principle in
human nature, ii. 166, 2
 three sources of its prac
tical power, ii. 161, 2
 itsresuits valueless in the
sight of God, ii. 166, 2
 ascent and progress of, i. 112, 2
 description of, i. 13, 2

Love, greatest of human affectiom, i. 112, 1
 self, ii. 218, 1
 fallacy of this shewn, i. 226, 2
 dwells only in the heart, i. 226, 2
 is infinite, i. 220, 1
 ofany thing, cannot rise above
our esteem for it, i. 378, 1
 ceases when we despise
it, i. 378, 1
 infallible test ot, i. 4 1 6, 2
 folly of placing supremely
npon worldly things, i. 416, 2
 our God sets no other price
upon heaven than, i. 417, 2
 design, and for which given
us, j. 417,2
 op Christ, to his Disciples,
a discourse, i. 110, 1
 unparalleled, ii. 214, 2
 superlative greatness of,
how shewn, i. 1 12, 2
 TO Christ, as in Matt. x.
37, a discourse, ii. 473, 1
 includes an esteem of
Christ above aU worldly enjoy
ments, ii. 474, 1
 —  a preference of
him to aU other enjoyments, u. 474, 1
 serrice and obe
dience to hira, II. 474, 1
-— — •  an acting for him
in opposition to aU things else,
ii. 247, 6
 full acquiescence
in him alone, ii. 476, 2
 evidenced by the aban
donment of temporal enjoyments
for his sake, ii. 477, 1
 signs of, ii. 480, 1
 to Ood, incompatible with re
sistance to the Spirit, u. 610, 2
 with aU our heart, how
explained, i. 265, 1
 ofreligion, for its purity, the
surest way of confirming our
faitii in, i.391,2
 to enemies, nature of^ ii. 400, 1
 to our neighbour, extent of,
u. 413, 1,2
 calls for exertions in his
defence, ii. 413, 2
Loving, on, our Enemies, a dis
course, i. 223, 2
 what ie not the, of our ene
mies, i. 226, 2
 not with fair deportment and
amiable language only, i. 226, 2
 not with fair promises only,
i. 227, 2
 not with a performance of
one or two kind offices merely, i. 227, 1
 what is the love to be shewn
to our enemies, L 228, 2
 a discharging the mind of alt
rancour and virulence towards
them, i. 228, 2

INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

579

Iioving, on, our enemies, perform
ing all kind offices to them in our
way, i. 229, 1
.  praying for them, i. 229, 2
Lucullus, mind of, destroyed by
ease and luxury, i. 381, 2
Lust, the true Parent of Sin, a
discourse, ii. 180, 2
.  will never die of want, ii. 30, 1
 made the basis of Satan's
temptations, ii. 171, 2
 denial of, induces to cruci
fixion of the flesh, ii. 431, 2
Luther, anecdote of, ii. 83, I
Macedonians, heresy of, in regard
to the Spirit, i. 297, 1
Magistrates, inferior, not associates
bnt instruments of the supreme, ii. 404, 2
Mahomet's mode of planting im
posture, ii. 287, 2
Malice a cause of misapprehending
God's judgments, ii. 234, 2
 may distort the best of things,
u. 235, 1
 disqualifies for forming a
right judgment, ii. 235, 1
MaUcious reports, the guilt of the
teUer and hearer equal, ii. 424, 1
Malignity of siu, ii. 136, 1
 a certain unaccountable, in
some natures, makes them take
pleasure in sin, i. 142, 2
Man of an active nature, i. 422, 2
 resfless activity in the soul
of, i. 103, 1
¦ most desirous to advance
himself, i. 206, 2
 Satan the adversary of, u. 30, 1
 affections of, can never be
satisfied with woridly enjoy
ments, i. 417, 2
 affections of, God and the
world rivals for, i. 416, 2
— — would be always doing what
he delights to do, ii. 415, 1
 ambiti^ms,cowtons,andvolup-
tuous, how to move, ii. 415, 2
 not to be his own avenger, i. 380, 2
^-^ will bear up nnder many
trials if his treasm^ is left, ii. 415, 2
 's body, original beauty of,
i. 16, 1
 chiefest good of, i. 1
 the comprehension of, no
rule for things possible, i. 267, 1
 universal corruption of, by
natmre, a temptation to sin, ii. 29, 1
 the Creation of, in the
Image of God, a discourse, i. 9, 10
 as God's creature the object
of his love, ii. 188, 1

Man of all creatures prone to dis
obey, i. 356, 2
 his corruption, crisis ot,
ii. 32, 1
 deifies his chief good, u. 415, 2
 his dependence, a motive with
God to love him, ii. 188, 2
 a right notion of what con
cerns the duty of, at the founda
tion of piety, u. 101, 2
 every, naturaUy has a sense
of what is honest and dis
honest, i. 138, 2
 has a satisfaction or dissatis
faction after he has done good
or evil, i. 138, 2
 this principle not easily ex
tinguished, i. 138, 2
 weakened by sensual appe
tites, i. 139, 1
 every, hour of temptation
comes on, ii. 33, 2
 every, sustains a double ca
pacity, U. 90, 1
 in every, by nature there Is a
corrupt principle, i. 423, 2
 every, has his principal object
habitually in view, i. 414, 1
 duty owed by etiery, to the
public, ii. 90, 1
 every, has something which
he accounts his treasure, i. 41 3, 1
 eeery, must seek his own
salvation, ii. 90, 1
 this shewn from the activity
of man's mind, and the raethod
of his acting, u. 90, 1
 every, has some besetting sin,
U. 29, 3
 serves God by diUgence in
his own calUng, ii. 90, 1
 tlie excellency of, to know any
thing aright, i. 345, 2
 desires good because he wants
it, i. 412,2
 his primeval goodness accep
table m God's sight, U. 188, 2
 greater fear of, than of God,
has led many to sin, i. 224, 1
 happiness ot, whence derived,
i. 411, 2
 cannot place his happiness
where he does not place his
i. 419, 2

 principle of pride naturaUy
in the heart of, i. 426, 2
 if he believes a Ue, it must
be from something in himself, i. 377, 1
 's inability, and God's ability,
to destroy, should be thought of
in teraptation, i. 223, 1
 his inability to find out
God's judgments, a discourse, i. 474, 1
 ineapahle of comprehending
God, i. 377, 1
 moral maxims inliercnt in,
i. 12, 1

Man, his liability to be deceived, i. 636, 1
 life of, God stricfly notices, ii. 141, 2
 ¦ his original likeness to God,
endeared him to his Maker, u. 188, 1
 may not know what he loves
best tUl tried, i. 416, 1
 is at the mercy of every
thing in nature, i. 209, 2
 mi'nd of, must be employed, n. 30, 1
 's mind, even in spirituals,
affected by outward things, i. 57, 2
.  mind ot, general maxiras in
wliich are the basis of all philo
sophy, i. 11, 1
 mind ot, but Umited in its
working, i. 126, 2
 two things natural to, i. 257, 1
 natural ability of, i. 12,2
 natural enemy of God, il. 91, 1
 natural state of, different
from state of grace, i. 1, 2
 natural state described, i. 11, 2 ; 12, 1
 naturaUy sensible of spiritual
want and inability, i. 483, 2
 his natural state hopeless in
itself, ii. 172, 1
 natural want and ¦weakness
of, and desire to supply that
want, i. 412,2
 nature of, renders him soli
citous about the event of his
actions, i. 103, 1
 nature ot, renders presump
tuous sins very dangerous, u. 137, 2
 no, forced to sin against his
wUl, i. 36, 2
See IViU.
 no ivise, ever loved banquet
ings, ii. 56, 2
 must obey or suffer, i. 355, 2
 the most perfect work of
God, i. 10, 1
 pleasure ot, altered by the
alteration of his condition, i. 3, 1
 practices of, directed towards
a certain end, i. 413, 2
.  his present experience not
decisive of his future state, i. 475, 1
.  produced and created by
God, i. 208, 1
 most secret projects oi, go-
vemed by God, u. 142, 1
 prevented by God, n. 142, 1
 directed by God, u. 142, 1
 's proper perfections not taken
away by temporal miseries, i. 218, 2
 purpose tor which sent into
the worid, L418,l;u. 90, 1

680

SOUTH'S SERMONS.

Man cannot make both
aud the world his business,
~— principles which a religious
man proposes to himself, and
the deductions he makes frora
them, i. 103, 2
 the result of his work will be
suitable to its object, i. 417, 1
¦ glorious even in ruins, 1.11, 2
 how he may be deceived in
the rule which he proposes for
the measure of his actions, i. 103, 2
 love of Christ, how shewn to,
i. 112, 2
 man is not easily brought to
take pleasure in his own sins,
i. 139, 1
 ¦ much less In the sins of
others, i. 139, 1
 designs himself satisfaction
by every thing he does, i. 413, 1
 cannot secure himself against
temptation, ii. 57, 2
 summum bonum of , 1.412,2
 his temporal condition, no
true test of his spiritual cha
racter, I, 476, 2
 whatsoever he places his
treasure in, on that he places
his heart, ii. 414, 1
 untiring labours of to acquire
what he wishes, u. 414, 1
 often, by necessity, goes one
way, and his desires another, n. 415, 1
 what, is, i. 209, 2
 the whole, is but the appendix
of his own heart, ii. 416, 1
 a wicked old, odious and des
picable, I. 423, 1
Manasseh, sin and repentance of,
ii. 140, 1
¦  judgraents on, because of his
sins, ii. 140, 1
 case of, gives us hope of the
reraoval of judgraent when we
hurable ourselves, i. 841, 2
Maniche.ans, heresy of, i. 382, 1
Mankind, generality of, imposed
on by words and names, i. 546, 1, 2
Marcionites, heresy of, ii. 227, 1
Marcus Antonius made foolish by
vice, I. 381, 2
Marriage, raanner of celebrating
iu the East, i. 162, 1
Martyrs, manner in which de
livered from temptation, u. 38, 1
 courage of, whence derived, u. 38, 1
 diffident often raost steadfast
In trial, u. 38, 2
 strength derived from divine
aid, il. 38, 2
 fortitude of, how accounted
for, U. 38, 2

Mary, the Lineal Descent op
Jesus of Nazareth from
David, by his Blessed Mother
the Virgin, a discourse, i. 258, 2
 came from David by trae
descent, and this Is recited by
Luke, i. 261, 2
Matter of sins does not render
them sins of infirmity, II. 129, 1
Mediation of angels, arguraents
for, considered, ii. 492, 2
 as grounded on Luke,
XV. 10, refuted, ii. 492, 2
 . and on Rev. viii.
3, refuted, ii. 493, 1
  as argued from their
beholding the face of God, re
futed, ii. 493, 2
 of saints, as grounded on
Luke, xvi. 19 — 31, refuted, ii. 494, 2
 as argued from their
prayers for one another on earth,
refuted, Ii. 495, 1
Melancholy teraper, a, ii. 137, 2
Meraory requisite in a minister of
thegospel, i. 312,2
 of base usage, not easily lost,
i. 427, 1
Men govern their hopes and fears
by their apprehensions, ii. 35, 2
 ctctions and principles ot,
i. 71, 1
 all, raust labour, ii. 90, 2
 can any, purify theraselves, u. 70, 1
 anger of, compared with that
OfGod, il.213, 2
 natural aptness in, to form
their apprehensions of God by
what they observe and appre
hend of the princes of this world,
i. 207, 1
 arrogance and blindness of,
u. 234, 1, 2
 ridiculous censures of, .
ii. 234, 2
 how they may become like
Christ, ii. 70, 2
 often countenance what God
wIU punish, u. 393, 2
 deceive themselves, ii. 61, 1
 devices of, how disappointed, i. 66, 2
 mistake difficulties for impos
sibilities, i. 85, 1
 even, would be exasperated
by presuraptuous sins, Ii. 137, 1
 sorae, du nees in the midst of
Ubraries, i. 328, 1
 folly of, in choosing raeans
unsuitable to the end, I. 73, 1
 often approve of the good,
aud follow the bad, i. 79, 2
 grateful, fuU of overruling
generosity, i. 88, 2
 great, starap a kind of autho
rity upon what they do, i. 332, 2

Men, great, appeal to, in .behalf Cjl
legal graramar schools, i. 143, 1
 servile pleasers of, hateful
to God, ii. 224, 2
 the world is ignorant of,
i. 323, 1
 reckon many things impos
sible which are not so, i. 79, 1
 's lives, health, reputation,
friends, employments, of God's
direct influence with reference
to, i. 64 — 66
 means used by, often defeat
their own ends, i. 73, 2
 mind of, how to be prevailed
upou, ii. 87, 2
 Tiature of, why Christ took on
him, ii. 229, 1,2
 nature of inbred malice of, a
cause of misplacing God's judg
ments, u. 234, 2
 obligations ot, to shew grati
tude, i. 87, 2
 patience of, exhausted by re
peated offences, il. 137, 1
 all, would have perished had
not Christ taken on him their
nature, u. 229, 2
 HEINOUS GUILT OF TAKING
pleasure in THE SINS OF OTHER,
a discourse, I. 146, 2
 pleasers, reproof of, ii. 224, 2
 cannot enter heaven without
purity, ii. 77, 2
 public, wicked example of,
tempts to sin, u. 42, 2
 what is impUed ra purifying
tiiemselves, ii. 71, I
 only revealed things belong
to, u. 376, 1
 cannot be satisfied with
worldly things, i. 72, 1
 must wait God's leisure, ii. 45, 2
 cannot destroy tlie soul, u. 218, 1
 all law that they are capable
of being obUged by, reducible to
one of three, i. 87, 1
See Law.
 may divest us of temporal
enjoyments, ii. 217,2
 what, are generally fondest
of, that they are unfit tor, i. 322, 2
 falsely plead want of power, i. 80, 1
 whole obedience ot, demanded
by God, i. 78, 1
See God.
 wicked, look no farther than
theraselves, i. 324, 1
 often take that to be an act
of the will which is not so, I. 79, 1
 iciU of, governed by Christ, u. 85, 1
 inclined to place too high a
value upon their works, i. 206, 2

INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

581

Mercy of God, one motive to
deUver the godly out of tempta-
. tion, ii. 11, 2
.   greatuess of, how
. shewn, il. 27, 2
 will not prevent the
fulfilment of his threatenings, i. 105, 1
 declaration of, u. 24 1 , 1
 Gcod's, glorified in the pardon
of siu, ii. 242, 2
.  freedom of, u. 243, 2
 pardoning, greatness of, how
shewn, u. 244, 1,2
 persons on whom conferred,
U. 244, 1, 2
 retuming enhanced by a
wounded Spirit, II. 270, 1
.  dirine, apprehensions of as
abused, terrify the smner, u. 267, 2
 predominant, through the
whole economy of the gospel,u. 296, 1
Mereri and mer'Uum, how used
by flie fathers, i. 211, 1
Merit, no ground of our confidence
towards God, because the crea
ture caunot benefit the Creator,
U. 491, 2
  because raan can do
nothing beyond his duty, n. 492, 1
 THE DOCTRINE OF, STATED,
AND impossibility OF MAN's
MERITING OF GoD, a discourse, i. 205, 1
 man inclined to think that
he wiU obtain, i. 206, 2
 what can make an action to
have, I. 207, 2
 the coramand of God, cuts
man off frora aU, i. 209, 1
 definition of, by papists, i. 210, 2
 the persnaaon of raan's being
able to, of God, the source of
two great corruptions, pela-
jftanism ani popery, i. 212, 2
Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth
proved the true and only
PROMISED, a discourse i. 267, 1
 aU the signs and marks of
the, appeared in Christ, i. 274, 1
 the whole course of Christ's
behaviour among the Jews shews
that he was the, i. 274, 2
 THE SUFFERINGS OP THE, FOR
THE SIN OF THE PEOPLE, a dis
course, i. 276, 1
 the opinion of the ancients,
that Christ was the trae, i. 276, 2
¦  the opinion of the later
writers as to the, i. 277, I
Metempsychosis, ii. 231, 1
Mind of man, even in spirituals,
affected by outward things, i. 67, 2

Mind of man but limited in its
workings, i. 126, 2
 how it can believe a
Ue, i. 376, 2
See Lie.
 why incapable of per
ceiving ahnost any thing of God,
i. 377, 1
 darkened and besotted
rice, i. 381, 2
 this testified bv Arls-
totie, i'. 381, 2
 actirity of, i. 41 3, 1
 mistaken notions of ^ristoiZe
respecting, i. 11, 1
 notioTis in which, could not
be infused by observation, i. 11, 1
 all-wise, infinite, and eternal,
governs the affairs of this world,
i. 103, 2
 misery to a well-disposed, to
be tempted, Ii. 36, 2
 should be intent on the
danger before it, il. 64, 1
 one and tlie same, beiug un
derstanding and wiUing, reflec
tion ou raay help us to forra
Sorae Idea of the Ti'initv, i. 369, 2
 miseries of, cannot be re
moved by wealth, i. 409, 2
.  • though it possessed all it
could enjoy, would yet desire
more, I. 413, 2
 nothing has so strong a hold
on us as what It delights in,
I. 415, 1
 last support ot, in troubles, i. 415, 2
 superlative worth ot, com
pared with the world, i. 417, 2
 designed by God for his own
peculiar use, i. 417, 2
 best worldly enjoyraents
' cannot satisfy, j. 417, 2
 perpetuaUy at work, i. 413, 2
Ministers should reproze the rices
of others, u. 113, 1
 should not reprove with in
discreet zeal, ii. 114, 2
 should take care, reproof
does not fail through their fault,
i. 115, 2
Ministry needs leaming, i. 83, 1
 ways in which it may be
debased, i. 31 — 33
 embasing ot, tends to destmc
tion of reUgion, I. 33, 2
 contempt, how brought upon,
i. 33, 2
 men of abUities discouraged
frora undertaking, i. 34, 2
Miracle, history of the Jews a
continued, ji- 248, 1
Miracles, a gift of the Spirit, Ii. 259, 2
 a ¦proof of Christ's doctrine, i. 45, 2
 cont'muance of, for a certain

tirae in the Christian church, i. 293, 2
Miracles rendered common by con
tinuance, i. 293, 2
 two primary elements of their
eridence, ii. 199, 1
 evidence ot, restricted by the
character of the truth to be esta
blished, i. 489, 1.
 it is difficult to know whether
or not, performed by a person,
proves the truth of his doctrine, I. .324, 1
 sorae, so greatly transcend
nature that it Is evident they
proceed from a divine hand, I. 325, I
 lying, may be permitted by
God to deceive sinners, I. 384, 2
 power of working, falsely,
claimed by the Church of Rome,
i. 385, 1
 pretended, may be the work
of Satan, i. 385, 1
Mischief, all, that sin can do, de
signed by teraptation, u. 20, 1
 love of, for its own sake, a
cause of envy, i. 506, 2
 of evil exaraple, ii. 26, 1
 of trusting the heart, u. 63, 1
Miser, the, compared to the needy
debtor, i. 408, 2
Miser.5, their excuses for not giring
to the cause of God, i. 85, 2
Miseries should not be laughed at,
U. 115, 2
 men's, sometimes falsely
charged ou their personal sins,
ii. 233, 1
 of this Ufe, trium-vlrate of, loss
of reputation, estate, and Ufe,
u. 218, 1
 are soon over, u. 218, 2
 do not take away man's pro
per perfection, ii. 2 1 8, 2
 are limited by God's over-
raUng hand, ii- 219, 2
 great good may be extracted
out of them, ii. 220, 1
 never lessened by fear, ii. 220, 1
 God has said they are not to
be feared, "• '-20, "-
 the greatest have been en
dured, ii- 221, 1
 of UU, ii- 222, I
Misery of fliose under convnetions, ii. 214, 1
 temporal cDnsIderationswhlch
lessen the fear of, u. 218, 1
 which unjust gains bring, i. 406, 1
 bodilv or mental, cannot be
reraoved by wealth, i. 409, 2
 the wages of sin, u. 432, 2
Misrepresentation, cruelty ot,
i. 178, 1
Monarchy, the most excellent form
of govemment, i. 306, 1

582

SOUTH'S SERMONS.

Monarchy, strength of, chiefly de
pendent on the personal qualifi
cations of the king, i. 306, 2
Money, love of, reprobated, i. 223, 2
— . — evil of eagerness to get, i. 398, 1
.  sinister ways of getting, i. 398, 2
 sway ot, even in rehgion, i. .398, 2
 tenacity in keeping, i. 399, 1
 gives a man reputation In the
world, i. 401, 2
 he who loves, is not satisfied
with it, i. 407, 2
Monk, a, story of, ii. 46, 2
Moral law of no use to justify, i. 225, 1
Morality, some men have poisoned
the fountain of, i, 148, 1
 we should attend to the voice
of reasou and the dictates of
natural, i. 190, 2
Moses, preservation of, from
temptation, ii. 17, 2
 's manner of bringing in the
law, ii. 87, 2
 's kllUng the Egyptian, vindi
cated, i. 493, 2
 's afiUction, reason of, u. 239, 1
Motives to good life, how subverted, ii. 104, 1
Mover, first, necessary there
should be one, and necessary he
should be unUralted, i. 104, 1
Murmurs, suppression of, a prin
cipal eleraent of submission, U. 379, 1
Mystery, the Trinity a great, i. 367, 2
 conditions required to consti
tute a, i. 367, 2
 a, must be really true, i. 367, 2
 a, above the reach of reason to
fiud out, i. 369, 1
• a, over anxious scrutiny into
i. 375, 1
Nabal, character of, u. 223, 1
Naraes, their proper application
essential to the peace of the
coraraunity, i. 651, 1
 misapplied, instances of their
civil effects, i. 534, 2
 of their fatal influence
on civil govemment, i. 546, 1
 of their eril influence
on the private interests of indi
viduals, i. 664 — 557
Nathan's manner of reproving
Darid, u. 116,1 ; 1.218, 1
Nation, depraved condition ot the,
i. 422, 1
 ruined by corruption of man
ners, j. 421, 1
-- — state of the, i. 421, 2
National sins deserve national
humiUation, i. 348, 2

National judgment, to remove or
arrest, every one shonld inquire
into and araend his own sins,
i. 349, 1
Natural religion, without revela
tion, sufficient to render a sin
ner inexcusable, 1. 153, 1
Nature, in itself, contented with
Uttie, i. 407, 2
 the ends of, answered by a
bare competence, i. 410, 2
 makes man desirous to sup
ply his wants, i. 412, 2
 passage from a state of, to a
state of virtue, laborious, but
very desirable, i. 3, 2
 nothing but practice can
change our corrupt, i. 234, 1
 a universal staha upon man's,
i. 234, 1
— — a man in a state of, cannot,
by his performances only, ac
quire a habit of true grace and
hoUness, i. 234, 1
 action is the highest perfec
tion and drawing forth of the
utraost power, vigour, and ac
tivity of raan's, i. 234, 2
 conversion of a raan's sinful,
wonderful, i. 252, 1
 as the soul is united to the
body, so may the divine, be
united to the human, i. 260, 2
 good, what the world terms,
i. 567, 2
 ill, what is commonly called,
i. 566, 2
Natures, disparity of, one cause of
misapprehension, i. 377, 1
Nebuchadnezzar, sad effect of
sacrilege in, i. 54, 1
Necessary, when a thing may be
said to be, i. 353, 1
 some things absolutely, others
only with respect to a particular
state, i. 353, 1
Necessity, absolute and condi
tional, i. 353, 1
 causal and consequential, dis
tinction between, i. 289, 1
 of rewards to engage men to
obedience, i. 353, 2
 this proved from Scripture
and experience, i. 353, 2
Neighbour, our duty to our, incul
cated, i. 173, 1
 the eternal good of onr, or of
our brother, should be preferred
before the highest temporal good
of ourselves, i. 225, 2
 a Christian is not only a
better raan but a better, i. 236, 1
Nero, instance of, in regard to
the power of conscience, i. 196, 1
New birth, or regeneration, won
derful, i. 252, 1
Nice, opinion of the council of, as
to Christ's dirinity, i. 269, 2

Nicolaitanes, mention of the sect of
the, i. 303, 1
 the rise and opinions of the,
i. 303, 1
— — this heresy caUed " the way
of Balaam," i. 303, 2
Night, frequent meaning of in
Scripture, ii. 89, 2
Nineveh, instance of the men of,
as to hope of removal of judg
ments, when we humble our
selves, i. 361, 2
Nothing, doing, ends in being, i. 166, 2
Numa's manner of settling reUgion
among the Romans, ii. 87,2
Oaths dispensed with by Roman
ists, n. 108, 1
Obedieuce of the whole man com
manded by God, i. 78, 1
 of the will, is obedience of
the whole man, i. 78, 1
 a principal proof of affection, u. 475, 1
 every new instance ot, does
not of necessity infer a new pre
cept, i. 224, 2
ObUgation, the, of gratitude, should
lead to purity of soul, ii. 78, 1
 to obey God's law, unchange
able, ii. 107, 1
 to tell truth, whence it arises,
i. 96, 1
Offenders, clemency towards, u. 422, 1
 how they are to be treated,U. 116,2
Office of Itself raises man's ability,
u. 88, 1
 of the ministry require?
leaming, ii. 88, 1
Operation of the Spirit, time of,
not a specific period, u. 499, 2
Opinion, no reaUy good, can be
false, i. 391, 2
 no, can go beyond its com
mission, ii. 43, 2
Oppressions cause men to sin, u. 43, 1
Ordinances, divine, power of, with
held from the sinner, ii. 272, 2
 ineffectual without God's
blessing, ii. 273, 1
Origen introduced the invocation
of saints, u. 496, 1
Original sin, existence and nature
of, ii. 430, 1
 condemning nature of,
ii. 430,2
Papacy, corrupt practices of, weak
ened Italy, i. 29, 2
Papists, absolution of, is absurd
and blasphemous, i. 187, 2
¦  absurdity of their distinction
between precepts and counsels, ii. 195, 1
 errors of, ii. 76, 2
 purgatory of, u. 81, 1

INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

583

Papists, doctrine of transubstan tia
tion held by, ii. 84, 1
.  heresy of, in regard to the
continuance of miracles, i. 293, 2
— — pretended miracles of, a
Btumblingblock to the faith of
some, i. 294, 1
Parables, two things to be con
sidered in, i. 161, 1
1st, Their scope and design ;
2d, The circumstantial passages, i. 161, 1
Paradox, the greatest, in nature
to say it is la\vful to equivocate
or Ue, i. 99, 1
Paraeus, arguments of, considered, ii. 404, 1
 assertion of, regarding the
evils of non-resistance to magis
trates refuted, ii. 405, 2
ParaUel between the war among
the IsraeUtes and the civil war
in England, i. 432, 2
Pardon should be accompanied
withoblirion, u. 117, 1
— ^ greatuess of, how shewn, ii. 243, 2
 on what ground the persua
sion of, should be built, u 247, 1
Parents sometimes falsely blamed
for the misfortunes of their
children, ii. 232, 2
.  sometimes excuse their covet
ousness under the plea of pro
viding for their children, i. 400, 2
 not lawful, in any case, to
kia, i. 414, 2
 duties of, i. 424, 2
 exhorted to faithfulness and
diligence, i. 424, 2
 Jewisk, conduct of, i. 424, 2
 responsibility of, i. 425, 1
 guilt contracted by wicked, i. 425, 1
 principles they should teach
their children, i. 425, 1
.  English, what they should
teU their children, i. 425, 2
.  should train their cluldren
to a hatred of rebeUion, i. 426, 1
— — stBS of, should not be visited
on the children, i. 427, 2
 sometimes avenged on
their children, ii. 231, 1
Parsimony commended, i. 396 1, 2
 covetousness assumes the
garb of, i. 400, 2
Particular ains often bring down
general judgmenta, ii. 349, 1
 reasons for this, ii. 349, 2
 punishing a multitude,
does not make God overlook, ii. 350, 1
.  no humiliation can be weU
and eincere, unless it be, ii. 350, 2

Party, the piety of a, cannot
sanctify its proselytes, i. 237, 1
 spiritual pride in an adhesion
to a, i. 237, 1
Passion, a man in a, can receive
no succour from his judgment
or reason, i. 179, 2
 is the drunkenness of the
mind, i. 180, 1
Passionate, disposition, a, an occa
sion of flattery, U. 122, 1
Passions described, i. 13, 14
Passive obedience, doctrine of,
u. 36, 2
Past, its plea of superiority over
the present, i. 160, I
Patience,commended from Christ's
example, i. 203, 1
 under persecution, its two
eleraents, i. 204, 2
 how to be obtained, i. 207, 1
 often issues in victory, i. 381, 2
 under affliction, recompeuse
of, i. 388, 1
 under injury enjoined by
Christ, i. 416, 1
Paul and Barnabas resist tempta
tion, i. 17, 2
 manner of his deliverance
from teraptation, i. 37, 2
 moral suasion of, an example
to the gospel rainister, i. 516, 2
 opposition encountered by,
in the Church of Galatia, i. 523, 2
 before FeUx on the judg
ment to corae, i. 549, 1
Peace of conscience, lost by sin,
ii. 21, 2
 with God, making of, ii. 9 1, 1
 how estabUshed, u. 91, 2
 false grounds of, ii. 301, 2
 in sin, produced by bUndness,
unbeUef, and hardihood, ii. 301, 2
 actual enjoyment of, irapos
sible, i. 392, 1
Peaceable behaviour towards
ALL MEN, THE DUTY OF, a dis
course, ii. 391,2
 Uving, two kinds of, distinc
tion between, ii. 392, 1
 Uving, consists in a forbear
ance of hostile actions, ii. 393, 1
 provoking words,
u. 396, 1
 Uring, its measure and pro
portion, ii. 396, 2
 .  means conducible there-
to, ii. 420, 1
,  arguments to enforce
the duty of, ii. 427, 2
 excellence of, an argu
ment for, with Scripture quota
tion, ii. 428, 1
 blessing promised to,
and consequent encouragement, ii. 428, 1

Peaceraakers, blessing of, consists
in quiet enjoyraent, ii. 428, 2
 in an excellent re
putation, ii. 429, 1
Peasant ofteu feeds as cheerfully
as his landlord, i. 401, 1
Pelagius, the opinion of, as to
repentance, i. 341, 2
 doctrine of, i. 423, 2
 refutation of, in regard to
original sin, I. 430, 2
Pelagianisra and Popery, the re
sult of the persuasion of men's
being able to merit of Gud, i. 212, 2
 origin and description of,
I. 212, 2
Penitence, God is ready to accept
an early, even as a gift, i. 310, 1
Penitent, a death-bed, cannot cer
tainly conclude that his repent
ance is sound and effectual, i. 317, 2
Pensioners, court, clamour against,
i. 429, 2
Pentecost, the Christian, a dis
course, i. 291,2
Perception, approximation neces
sary to, i. 377, 1
Perdition, final, the result of delu
sion, i. 389, 2
 way to, is the way of error,
i. 389, 2
Perfect, we should strive to be, as
our Faflier in heaven is, i. 345, 1
Performances rarely keep pace
with promises, true both of per
sons and things, ii. 26, 1
Pergamos, the Church of, sinful
abuse charged upon, ii. 303, 1
 repentance urged upon,
Ii. 303, 2
Peripatetic school, the opinion of
the, as to the light of conscience, i. 216, 2
Persecution, the term ralsappUed,
to injure tiie Church of Enghmd, i. 640, 2
Perseverance in prayer, ii. 58, 1
Person, integrity of, to be defended
against attack, u. 411, 2
Persons, the maUgnity of the dis
position of taking pleasure in
the sins of particular, i. 150, 1
 plurality of, in the Godhead,
denied by Socinians, i. 367, I
 — a great mystery, i. 367, 2
 against what, the wo of
blood-guiltiness is pronounced, ii. 455, 1
Peter's denial of Christ, causes of,
U. 17, 1 ; 224, 1
Pharisees, modern, u. 106, 2
 character and conduct of,
i. 381, 1
 who they were, ii. 512, 1
Phenomena, appearance of, to
signaUze great events, U. 466, I

•584

SOUTH'S SERMONS.

Philosophers, ancient, ideas of,
respecting rewards and punish
ments, u. 433, I
Philosophy identical with reason,
ii. 83, 1
Phineas' killing Zimri and Cosbi
justifiable, i. 494, 1
PhoBnicians, the, and the Baby
lonians, and tbe Greeks had a
peculiar way of writing the re
vered mysteries of their religion,
i. 253, 2
Piety, foundations of, u. 101, 2
 blessings of, i. 305, 1
 affectation of, II. 354, 1
 appearance of, sometimes
caused by circumstances, U. 438, 2
Pilgrimages, and other Romish
austerities, foolish, i. 8, 1
Pious, the advantages of becoming, i. 119, 1
Place, greatness of, an occasion of
flattery, u. 121, 2
Places of worship, God's care of,
i. 52, 54
 fixed for his use, i. 65, 2
 man's gift of, to Grod, i. 66, 2
 gift of, accepted of by God,
i. 56, 2
 worship in, preferred by
God, i. 57, 2
 naturally excite a greater
reverence than other places, i. 57, 2
 how we should enter, i. 59, 1
Plato speaks of the ImmortaUty of
the soul, but says nothing of the
resurrection of the body, i. 356, 2
 's scholars, conduct of, ii. 120, 2
 's opinion respecting the in
tellectus agens, i. 382, 2
Pleasure, true kind of, i. 1
 in its nature relative, i. 2
 arising from contemplation
of divine things, i. 4, 2
 the sources of, I. 5, 1
 of sin and sense, wearisome, i. 7, 1
 bereavement of, in death
etemal, u. 433, 1
PoUticians, dissimulation used by,
i. 69, 1
 insufficient to gain the
end, i. 74, 1
 raaxiras and conduct of,
i. 69, 2
 principles of, often unsuccess
ful, i. 74, 75
Pope, dispensing power of, n. 101, 2
 how defended, ii. 108, 1
 sells Clirist's power and pre
cepts, U. 108, 2
 his supremacy and infalUbl-
Uty denied by Church of Eng
land, i. 536, 2

Popery, pretence of danger from,
i 430, 1
 its general character and
gradual advance, i. 446, 1
 its hostiUty to civil govem
ment, i. 468, 2
Popish austerities, U. 299, 2
 absurdity of, ii. 300, 1
Possessions, great, often obtained
by the commission of great sins,
i. 406, 1
 produce an insatiable
craring for more, i. 407, 2
Poverty and hardship have made
the greatest commanders,!. 324,2
 this iUustrated in the case of
the Romans, L 825, 1
 a great paradox, tbat any,
of any sort, should be desirable, i. 362, 2
 not cowardice, U. 364, 1
 frequentiy the effect of sin,
ii. 363, 2
 • ground on which it is recora
mended, ii. 360, 2
 how, and whence to he ob
tained, u. 367, 1
 consists in an inward sense
of our spiritual wants, Ii. 354, 2
 its possessor laments his sins
and shortoomings, ii. 355, 2
 leads a raan to see that he is
obnoxious to the curse of the
law, ii. 356, 2
 Its nature negatively, it is
not outward indigence, u. 353, 1
 its recompense, the kingdom
of heaven, U. 360, 2
 not always the lot of the
righteous, u. 353, 2
 consists in a sense of our
wretclied condition by reasou of
our wants, ii. 355, 2
 Of Spirit, a discourse, ii. 352, 2
 a temptation to sin, ii. 363, 2
Power, arbitrary, defined, i. 546, 2
 not claimed by the
kings of England, i. 546, 2
  the right to protest
against It is a proof that the
govemraent of England does
not possess it, i. 547, 2
 ¦ more tolerable when
exercised by kings than by re
pubhcans, i. 547, 2
 of godliness pretended, n. 99, 1
 want of, falsely pleaded by
men in duties of very great and
hard labour ; of great and appa
rent danger ; of cost and ex
pense ; and in consequence of
long inveterate Ill-habit or cus
tom, i. 81—85
 weakness Is the absence of,
i. 242, 1
Pray, paucity of things for which
we need to, a recommendation
of brerity in prayer, i. 133, 1

Pray by the Spirit, what it is to,
i. 126, 1
 pretended when
begun in '^Jigland, i, 126, 2
Prayer, what it is to have, accepted
¦with God, i. 334, 2
 who are those who have their,
accepted, i. 335, 1
 and actions of the wicked.
overthrow each other, iL 60, 1
 all should offer, to God, i. 337, 1
 brevity of expression, in re
coraraended, i. 129, 1; 133, 1
 is most natural, i. 134, 1
 recommended by ex
amples in Scripture, i. 134, 2
 Christ, the medium of, i. 335, 1
 coldness in, a sign of dead
ness, ii. 58, 1
 the great conduit of mercy,
i. 202, 1
 effect'ual, qualifications of,
ii. 58, 1
 efficacy of, ii. 74, 1
 before we offer our, to God,
we should strictiy examine our
selves, i. 338, 1
 must be conjoined with exer
tion, u. 60, 1
 extempore, feeds pride and
ostentation, faction and sedition,i. 127, 2
 AND Fasting, on the duty
OF, a discourse, u. 292
 influence of, ii. 293, 1
 dispossesses evil spirits,
U. 293, 2
 extent and latitode of
the duty, ii. 294, 295
 time of the solemnity of,
properly days of fasting, ii. 299, 1
 what is not meant by, ib.
 and preaching seditious,
noticed, ii. 98, 1
 should eniiveu fasting, ii. 299, 1
 fervent power of, ii. 58, 1
 exhortation to frequency and
fervency in, ii. 36, 1
 we should have a sense of
onr fitness for, i. 202, 1
.  in a set form, not a stinting
of the spirit, but extempore
prayers are so, i. 126, 1
 proof of this, i. 126, 2
 influence of, in temptation, U. 67, 2
 by offering insincere, to God,
we cannot be heard, i. 337, 2
 by doing tlus, we incur a
heavy curse, i. 338, 1
 irreverence in, raanifested by
the use of faraiUar expresraons, u. 485, )
.   by unpremeditated
utterance, ii. 485, 2

INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

585

Prayer, iu a long, we cannot keep
. up the same fervour, i. 133, 2
 the matter of, i. 124, 1
 the things which ought to be
; asked in, are either things of
absolute necessity, or of unquali
fied charity, i. 124, 2
 ' objections against this re
moved, i. 336, 2
 the person to whom offered,
i. 123, 2
 perseverance, the crowning
qualification of, ii. 58, 1
,  recommended by Christ,
ii. 58, 2
 those who have a portion in
Christ, can only expect Gfod to
hear their, i. 336, 1
 premeditation of, shews our
reverence to God, ii. 123, 1
 presents a certain guard
against present temptation, ii. 59, 1
 mere, will not deUver from
temptatiou, u. 59, 2
 how it prevails with God, not
by way of Information, nor per
suasion, nor importunity, but
because it is the fulfilraent of
that condition on which God has
promised his blessing, i. 120, 121
 why appointed by God for
this condition, i. 122, I
 calls for serious antecedent
reflection, ii. 484, 1
 request of, sometimes granted
as a punishment, ii. 490, 1
 of saints, fervent, ii. 58, 1
 how the, of a man who re
gards sin in his heart, cannot be
heard, i. 336, 1
 • such a raan cannot offer his,
by the Spirit, i. 336, 1
 nor by faith, i. 336, 2
 . against sin, when to no pur
pose, ii. 59, 2
 spirit ot, helped by set forms,
i. 127, 2
 when success in, need not be
expected, ii. 69, 2
 AND 'Watching, a Security
AGAINST Temptation, a dis
course, ii. 60, 2
Prayers, against Long Extem
pore, a discourse, in Two Parts,
i. 120, 1
Preacher, a, address of, in West
minster Abbey, i. 431, 2
Preaching, two kinds of, charac
terized, i. 319, 1
 discredited by careless
handling of the Word, i. 320, 2
 should be fervent, i. 620, 1
 perspicuous, i. 619, 1
 simple, i. 519, 1
Predestination does not destroy
free agency, ij. 181, 2
Prejudice leads to error, i. 380, 2
^— the cause of the rejection of
, Christ's miracles, i. 381, 1

Prejudice of the Pharisees, i. 381, 1
Premeditation, first ingredient of
a pious and reverential prayer,i. 123, 1
 to what it should have respect,
i. 123, 2
Presbytery, some derive, from the
Old Testament, ii. 96, 1
 nature of, ii. 95, 1
Presence, God's, effects of the
withdrawing of, ii. 268, 2
Present, folly op depreciating
IT in comparison with the
PAST, a discourse, il. 148, 1
 a plea for Its superiority over
the past, ii. 160, 2
Presume, what It is to, ii. 126, 2
Presumption, no limits can be
assigned to, II. 1 39, 1
 very dangerous, ii. 1 37, 2
 object of, God's mercy, u. 138, 1
 never stops in its first attera pt,
ii. 138, 2
 sins of, i. 147, 1
Presuraptuous sins, nature of,
n. 126, 2
 most notable kinds of,
ii. 131, 1
 when committed in pros
perity — in affliction — against the
light of Scripture — the dispen
sations of Providence — the re
monstrances of conscience — the
taste of God's favour, and when
returned to, u. 131 — 134
 sad consequences of,
ii. 138, 2
 waste the conscience
more than other sius, ii. 139, 2
 difficult to be cured, ii. 139, 1
 example of the evil of,
ii. 139, 2
 great danger ot, whence
arises, ii. 137, 2
 marvellously apt to ^roro,
II. 138, 2
 fierce judgments on,
u. 140, 1.
 malice constitutes the
uature of, 'ii. 130, 1
 malignity and unspeak
able evil of, ii. 136, 1
  would provoke even
men, ii. 127, 1
 would not be committed
did we treat God as we treat
men, H- 127, 1
 David prayed against, n. 129, 1
 reasons why he prayed
agaiust, ii. 137,2
 need to be prayed a-
gainst, ii. 140, 2
 reflections on God s
justice, a preventive of, ii. 136, 2
,  remedies against, ii. 135, 2

Presumptuous sins, grand device
of Satan, ii. 138, 2
Pretences put forth to excuse the
neglect of duty, i. 81—86
Prevention, the best way of deli
verance from teraptation, ii. 4, 2
 of sin for the future, u. 71, 2
Pride not easily eradicated, ii. 92, 1
 causes a man to be flattered, ii. 123, 1
 credulity, the inseparable
companion of, ii. 12.3, 2
 the certain companion of folly,
i. 426, 2
 cousin-germau to ambition,
and the forerunner of a fall,
i. 222, 1
 the cause of self-deceit, ii. 123, 2
 united with ingratitude, i. 90, 2
 naturally in man, i. 426, 2
Priests, consecration of, i. 27, 1
 sins of, very pernicious, ii. 42, 2
Prince, relation between, and sub
ject, involves the respective
duties of protection aud obedi
ence, i. 300, 1
Princes, majesty of, a preservative
against danger, i. 304, 2
 sins of, very pernicious ii. 42, 2*
 God the sole judge of, U. 454, 2
Principle, disposing to evil, in
herent in man, i. 423, 2
 if left to itself will proceed to
work, I. 423, 2
 Is to be corrected only by
discipUne, i. 424, 1
 corrupt, may be strong
though still, ii. 82, 1
Principles, good, efficacious, i. 76, 2
 bad, pernicious, i. 76, 2
 on which men pass false
judgraent, II. 232 — 235
 of the atheist, strange and
improbable, ii. 284, 1
 opposite, ImpossiblUty of
uniting, ii. 437, 1
Privileges of Christ's friends, i. 114, 2
 of saints, ii. 69, 2
Probability acted upon by raen in
worldly affairs, i. 106, 2
ProdlgaUty never recoramended
in Scripture, i. 396, 2
 folly and raischief of, i. 396, 2
Profanity, punishment of, at the
judgment day, il. 551, 1
Progress, infinite, the doctrine of,
exploded, i.413,2
ProUxity unnecessary in prayer, I. 131, 1

586

SOUTH'S SERMONS.

Promises are calamities if not
in deeds, i. 228, 1
 divine, appropriated by faith,
u. 164, 1
 OF THE Comforter, a dis
course, ii. 256 — 261
Property to be defended even to
the death of the assailant, Ii. 412, 1,2
Prophecies, the fulfiUing of in
Christ's person, i. 322, 2
 fulfilled in Christ, ii. 228, I
Prophecy, a proof of Christ's doc
trine, i. 46, 1
 an unshaken connection be
tween a, and its accompUshment, i. 288, 2
 gift of, not perraanentiy in
herent in the apostles, i. 293, 1
 double meaning of, ii. 86, 1
 its eridence somewhat diffi
cult to be appreciated, ii. 199, 1
 truth of, how proved, U. 227, 2
Prosecution at law considered, ii. 416, 1
 . — on slight occasions con
demned by 1 Cor. ri. 7, ii. 416, 2
  does not exclude the
forgiveness of injuries, ii. 417, 2
— — .  warrant of, u. 419, 1
 with a riew to the raere
punishment of offenders, a duty,
ii. 418, 1
Prosperity unfits for the trials of
adversity, i. 327, 2
 renders men utterly averse
from receiring counsel and ad
monition, i. 327, 1
 danger of confidence in, i. 67, 1
 ever Dangerous to Virtue,
a discourse, i. 322, 2
.  the way to make, not destruc
tive, 1. 327, 2
 sins under, presumptuous, ii. 131, 1
 the, of fools destroys them,
i. 323, 1
— — how this happens, i. 323, 1
 a design of God in giring, is
to encourage them to be grateful
to their maker, i. 323, 2
 steals away the heart, i. 326, 2
 is meant to make men help
ful to society, i. 324, 1
 increases luxury and un
cleanness, i. 326, I
— a bad nurse to rirtue, i. 325, 2
 increases pride, i. 326, 1
 inclines to great profaneness
and neglect of God in the duties
of religion, i. 326, 2
 as the nature of man now
stands, abates men's virtues, and
heightens their corruption, i. 324, 2

Protestantism degraded in the
lives of its adherents, i. 497, 2
Proverbs shew the wisdom of a
people, i. 129, 2
Proridence, interference ot, for the
preservation of places of wor
ship, i. 52, 1
 God's, directs aU contingen
cies, i. 61, 1
 examples of, i. 62, 1
 God's special, the Christian
under the care of, U. 217, 1
 God's, certain to him but not
to MS, u. 233, 2
 influence of, with reference to
private persons, i. 64, 2
 directing men's Uves, i. 64, 2
 reputation, i. 65, 1
 friendship, i. 65, 2
 employraents, i. 66, 1
 belief in, encouraging, i. 67, 2
 Care of, for the Defence
OP Things, a discourse, i. 300, 1
 Scripture illustrations of an
extraordinary, i. 300, 2
 concemed in the salvation of
kings, reason why, i. 306, 1
 mercy of, in stinting our
worldly fortune, i. 408, 2
— — . tke bounties of, often looked
upon with an evil eye, i. 408, 2
 has innuraerable ways of
crossing the covetous, i. 412, 1
 necessity of unreserved de
pendence upon, i. 613, 1; 482, 1
 ti-ust in, connected with obe
dience, i. 482, 1
 merciful, often takes away
occasions of sin, U. 6, 1
 gives arguments in favour of
the preservation of the ckurch, ii. 99, 2
 goodness of, to the sinner, ag
gravates sin, ii. 131, 1
 sins against, presumptuous, ii. 133, 1
 thwarts the commission of sin,
u. 13.3, 1
 exaraples of, placing obstacles
in way of sin, ii. 133, 1
 does not display his love or
liatred, ii. 233, 2
 sorae things in, above our
understanding, u. 236, 2
 con^vincing powerof, restrained
from sinners, u. 273, 2
 three sorts of, in which God
speaks convincingly, u. 273, 2
— — we should beware of sinning
against, ii, 279, 2
 denied by some, ii. 282, 1
 designs not to leave itself
without a witness, ix. 286, I
 shewn iu the preservation of
the church, u. 286, 2
Psalmist, iraprecation of, on the
church's eneraies, i. 375, 1
Pradence, worldly, ii. 112, 2

Public spirit, a tool to trndermine
government, i. 649, 1
 a cloak to advance
private interest, i. 649, 2
 how laid, i. 649, 2
 how deflned, i. 550, 1
Public, every man owes a duty to,
ii. 90, i
Pulpit, main busiuess of, during the
rebeUion, i. 428, 1
 mischief done, and good
which may be done by, i. 429, 1
 restraint of, the strengthening
of faction, i. 561, 2
Punishraent and reward, springs
of government, i. 28, 1
 eternal, not inconsistent with
God's raercy, i. 105, 1
 eternity of, ii. 221, 2
 denied by Socinians, i. 366, 1
 denial of, very preju
dicial to moraUty, i. 366, 2
 what is properly, ii. 222, 2
 and affliction, distinction be
tween, ii. 236, 2
 repentance not properly a,
ii. 109, 2
Purgatory, absurdity of the doc
trine of, ii. 445, 1
Purification of soul twofold, ii. 70, 1
 can it equal the purity
of Christ ? ii. 70, 2
 .  what is implied in,
ii. 71, 1
 from the guilt and power ot
sin, ii. 71, 1
 how it is to be effected, ii. 72, 2
 watchfulness necessary to,
ii. 72, 1
 assistance needed in,u. 73, 2
 vain attempts at, ii. 74, 2
 can only be accomplished by
the blood of Christ, ii. 76, 1
 chief work of, ii. 72, 1
 our own efforts insufficient
tor, ii. 76, 2
 has a necessary relation to
the attainment of heaven, n. 77, 1
 can alone fit us for heaven, ii. 77, 2
 proraoted by fervent prayer,
u. 73, 2
Purifying himself, meaning of
u. 71, 1
 from power of sin, ii. 71, 1
 how to be effected, ii. 72, 1
 hope of heaven, a means of,
u. 77, 1
Puritan, conforming, his cba
racter and influence, i. 531, 2
Puritanism, inimical to riril
authority, i. 472, 1
Puritans, pretended gifts of, i. 298, 2
 symptoms of their confede
racy with papists, i. 538, 2

INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

587

Purity of Ufe, how promoted, ii. 69, 2
 OP Heart, a discoui'se, U. 436, 1
 opposed to mixture, ii. 436, 2
 exchides pollution, Ii. 437, 1
 of heart does not consist in
external de.cotio'ns, II. 437, 2
 consists In the renovation of
the lieart, ii. 439, 2
 manifests itself in sanctity of
thought, U. 439, 2
 in a sanctified re-
gulation ofthe desires, ii. 440, 1
 in the avoidance
of defilement, n. 440, 2
 of heart, qualifies the soul
for tiie si^t of God, U. 442, 2
 false pretensions to,
condemned, U. 443, 2
Purpose of God regarding obsti
nate sinners, irrevocable ii. 277, 2
See God.
 manner in which he puts it
in execution, ii. 278, 1
 different from the decree of
reprobation, ii. 279, 1
 of God, difference between,
and decree of reprobation, U. 279, 1
Pythagoras taught doctrines in
consistent with the resvurrection, i. 256, 2
 doctrine of, ii. 231, 1

Quarrelsome persons a plague and
nuisance, ii. 429, 1

Sahab's saring the spies, how far
commendable, i. 493, 2
Rational agents, in aU, before
every action, there is presup
posed a knowledge of the re-
suits of that action, i. 340, 2
Reasou, the, why stability of the
state depends on the stability of
God's worship, i- 27, 1
 agreeable to, to suppose that
the diviue nature subsists diffe
rently frora that of created
bemgs, •• 368, 2
 cannot demonstrate the im
mortahty of the soul or the re
surrection of the body, i. 364, 1
 by whom decried, i. 369, 1
 excellencies of, i. 369, 1
 traths of religion cannot be
false in, i- 368, 1
 a diminutive light, corapared
with revelation, i- 198, 2
 the Ught of, should be looked
ou as a rich talent, i. 190, 2
 natural, forbids lying, i. 95, 1
 objections of, against the re
surrection jeraoved, i. 358 — 360
 overcome hy sensOf u. 199, 2

Reason, somepretence of,neces8ary
to quiet the mind, i. 394, 2
 province of, in religion, i. 368, 1
 reluctant to beUeve the doc
trine of the resurrection, i. 356, 1
 this shewn by exaraples, i. 356, 357
 causes why it starts frora the
belief of a resurrection, i. 357, 1
 above the reach of, to find out
a mystery, i. 369, 1
 men not called upon to re
nounce, iu matters of religion, i. 367, 2
 is traduced wheu set up as
an eneray to religion, i. 369, 1
 unable to perceive the things
ofGod, ii. 281,1
 nothing in, unsuitable to re
ligion, i. 377, 2
RebeUion, pretence of conscience
no excuse for, i. 422, 1
 English, injurious effects of,
i. 422, 1
 chai'acterized, i. 426, 2
 children should be wamed
against, i. 426, 1
Rebuke, public, importance of to
the public weal, i. 652, 1
 sanctioned by the apostles, i. 652, I
Recorapense of the reward, i. 345, 1
 every act of obedience has
its, i. 348,1
 ¦ whosoever shall do his duty
with hopes of, shaU find God
faithful, i. 352, 2
Rederaption not a bare imitation
of Christ, ii. 449, 1
 in man's, raercy acts by an
unaccoiratable sovereignty, i. 270, I
Reforraation, misapplication of the
terra, i. 339, 2
Refusal of prayer, plea of, as a
ground of doubting conderaned, Ii. 483, 2
Regenerate, question whether sins
of the, are sins of infirraity, u. 129, 1
 sin against conscience, u. 129, 1
 sons of God, u. 129, 1
 person, what constitutes a,
ii. 14, 1
 assurance of being, ii. 16, 2
Begeneration, the work of the
Spirit alone, ii. 366, 1
 wonderful, i. 252, 1
Religion, the main end of, the
active part of it, i. 234, 2
 the very life ot, consists in
practice, i. 234, 2
 what is the end of, i. 235, 1
 the Christian, a kind of com
ment upon the diviue nature, i. 260, 1

Religion, Christ's satisfaction for
siu, a fundamental article of the
Christiau, i. 251, 2
 the design of, i, 253, 1
 humbles the pride of man's
reason, i. 254, 1
 we should search closely and
diligently into the articles of our,
i. 265, 1
 the vanity and presuraption
of suoh as tend to clear up all
mysteries in, i. 257, 2
 that Clirist is God, is the
foundation of the Christian, i. 261, 1
 Christian, proved by suf-
ficent arguraents, i. 44, .
 aU, except Jewish and Ckris
tian, lies, i. 94, 1
 Ckristian, a suffering religion, U. 34, 2
 design of, ii. 89, I
 doctrines of, at first strange, ii. 87, 1
 foundation ot, ii. 101, 2
 nature and essential design
ot, ii. 10-2, 2
 necessary ends of, how
served, ii. 10'2, 2
 variety ot, suited to man's
nature, u. 79, 1
 Christian, its spirituality
used to set aside forms of wor
ship, i. 454, 1
 raanner iu which the Holy
Spirit advances, i. 370, 1
 will not enter the affections,
but through thejudgment, i. 378,1
 raanner iu which men at
tend to, i. 419, 2
.  necessary dependence of the
principles of governraent on,
1. J7, ^
 most effectual way to destroy, i. 27, 2
 how the dispensers of, are
rendered rile, i. 31, 1
 doctrines of, desirable should
be true, i. 392, 1
 necessiiry to attain the ends
of government, i. 29, 1
 falsehood of the assertion,
that it is au enemy to trae
1 i 1 O
pleasure, i- ij ¦-
 false, the greatest bane to
government, i. 29, 1
 even it false in this world, i. 103, 1
 danger of frequent innova
tion in, i. 31, 1
 its beneficial infiuence on
civil society, ii. 157, 2
 often injured by bad conduct
of its professors, ii. 24, 2
 injured by the misapplication
of naraes, i- 368, 1
 insults against, to be punished
by civil magistrate, i. 432, 2
 best means of growing in
knowledge ot, i. 60, 2

588

SOUTH'S SERMONS.

Religion, sincerity, the very life of,
i. 99, 1
 marks by which love to, raay
be shewn, i. 419, 2
 unless it is made a man's
business, it is in effect nothing, i. 419, 2
 natural insufficient, i. 363, 2 ; 364, 1
 cannot exceed the com
pass of natural reason, I. 364, 1
 neglect ot, by meu, i. 420, 1
 manner In which God recora-
raends a new, i. 43, 1
—  pleasure ot, excellent because
pleasure of the mind, i. 4, 2
 pleasure of, as respects
practice, i. 5, 2
  never satiates or
wearies, i. 6, 1
 perpetual, i. 7, 2
 advautage of possessing, i. 119, 1
 vanity of most men's pre
tences to, i. 419, 2
 Practice of, Enforced by
Reason, a discourse, i. 103, 1
 the Best Reason of State,
a discourse, I. 25, 2
 princijdes of. Improbability
of their falsehood, i. 106, 1
 principles Laid down by the
man who guides his actions by
the rules of, i. 103, 2
 adherence to rules of, sm'est
way of escape from temptatiou, ii. 34, 2
 mode in which it is repre
sented In Scripture, i. 370, 1
 urges self-denial, u. 258, 1
 self-denial the soul of, Ii. 294, 1
 sincerity in, proved by its
occupancy of the thoughts, n. 480, 2
 state of the world as to, when
Christ Uved, i. 44, 2
 strictest precepts of, wise, ii. 10, 1
 subjects of, new to the miud,
i.5, 2
 things which it proposes to
mankind, i. 391, 2
 true, has its seat in the heart,
u. 164, 1
 even If only probably true,
men wise by acting on the
principles of, i. 107, 1
 Turkish, weakness of, i. 29, 2
 vital ingredient ot, II. 103, 2
Religionists, ignorant presumption
of, pertinacity of, ii. 427, 1, 2
ReUgious professors, the love of
glory sufficient to produce aU
their goodness ; two considera
tions, u. 160, 1
 most inexcusable when
they transgress, even reason's
rale of right, ii. 168, 1
Remorse, the effect of guilt, i. 406,2

Repentance, what it is, ii. 305, 2
 is that first act by which man
turns frora sin to God, u. 306, 2
 the sin of delaying peculiarly
aggravated, u. 310, 2
 reasons for this given, n. 311,1, 2
 arguments for the speedy
exercise of, ii. 307, 1
 daily, i\. 71, 2
 to deny the efficacy of a
death-bed, is to restrict God's
mercy, ii. 316, 1
 while a, raan Uves, he raay
have, il. 316, 2
 to buHd upon a death-bed,
highly dangerous, u. 317, 1
 a death-bed, only not Irapos
sible, il. 31 8, 2
 arguments to shew that a
death-bed, is effectual, and ob
jections to this removed, ii. 313, 1
 whether a death-bed, he effec
tual, ii. 312, 1
 the assertion, that it is not,
liarsk and Inhuman, U. 312, 2
 sinners deceive themselves by,
i. 105, 2
 a deferred, is a contradiction
to God's word, ii. 311, 2
 delay of, adds to strength and
guUt of sin, Ii. 1 09, 2
— — delay of, most dangerous, ii. 109, 2
 delaying. Is a counterplotting
ofGod, u. 311, 2
 nothing but, can stand be
tween the sinner and destruction, ii. 310, 2
 needs to be renewed, n. 71, 1
 the difficulty of knowing
what is, u. 305, 2
 the longer, is delayed, the
more difficult does it become, ii. 309, 1
 entirely in God's disposal, ii. 309, 1
 doctrine of, how perverted, ii. 108,2
 duty of, ought not to be con
founded with success of, ii. 109, 1
 some affirm not a duty, but
a punishment, ii. 109, 1
 Is before /ai«/j, II. 306, 1
 future, promise of, great
engine of sin, ii. 302, 1
 absurd and dangerous, u. 302, 2
 immediate duty of, U. 301—318
 measure of, error regarding, ii. 109, 2
— — what is the medium of know
ing that our. Is souud and effec
tual, iL 317, 2
 such an assertion is contrary
to tiio merciful spirit of the
ipel, u. 312, 2
nature ot, i. 3

Repentance not sorrow for sin,
ii. 110,2; i. 166,2
 promise of, used as a plea for
exposure to teraptation, ii. 18, 2
 absurdity and Irapiety of this
conduct, Ii. 18, 2
 promise of future, most ruin
ous, u. 19, 1
 is the abuse of a remedy, u. 310, 2
 what Socinus admits as to,
ii. 306, 1
 the sinner must exercise,
to-day, ii. 307, 1
 distinction between true and
false, ii. 367, 1
 folly of trusting to, i.l 05, 2
 saves not as it is a work, but
as It is the effect of a renewed
nature, and a sanctified heiu't,
u. 315, 2
 is a work that wUl take up the
whole soul, ii. 317, 1
Reprobate, the despairing, happier
than the hoping, ii. 374, 2
Reprobates, under the Gospel,
Inexcusable, II. 506, 2
Reprobation, decree of, difference
between, and the purpose of
God, n. 279,1
 said to commence entirely
upon God's sovereign will, and
to be frora all eternity, II. 279, 1
Reproof an infaUihle sign of real
friendship, ii. 123, 2
 great, unfond of, ii. 12'2, 2
 seldora given to a superior, ii. 121, 2
 ot faults, benefits of, ii. 113,2
 should be given in secret, ii. 113,2
 method of, prescribed by
Chri.-t, ii. 114, 1
 regard should be had In,
to distinction of condition, ii. 114,2
 may do evU if unskilfully
given, Ii. 114, 2
 should be given with meek
ness, II. 115,2
 a _/cmn^, odious, ii. 115,2
 should be managed wit& gentle
ness, ii. 116, 1
— — ought not to be given arro
gantly, u. 116,1
 he who gives, should first
aUay his own spirit, il. 116, 2
 should not be continued after
araendraent, ii. 117, 1
Republicanisra in England, tools
of, in assailing government, I. 654, 1
Reputation, loss of, ii. 218, 1
 a fair, its advantages an ob
ject of envy, i. 509, 2 ; ii. 163, 1
 nationcil, anxiety to preserve, u. 206, 2
 of piety, generally desired
as useful, u. 438, 2

INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

589

¦Resentful feelings, suppression of,
as conducive to liring peaceably,
u. 420, 1, 2
 influence of, a great eril,
with lUustrations, ii. 421, 1,2
Eesistance to holy desires by the
Spu:It, U. 503, 2
.  to the Spirit, as it enables
the soul to perform an imper
fect obedience, u. 504, 1
 after it has en
abled the soul to forsake sorae
sins, ii. 604, 2
 foUowed by with
drawal of his influence, ii. 408, 2
 for self-preservation lawful,
U. 402, 1
 in defence of reUgion, lawful,
ii. 402, 2
 to raagistrates, question of,
u. 402, 2
 quaUfication of, by
David Paraeus, ii. 404, 1, 2
Kespect, self, often confounded
with pride and lU-nature, i. 666, 2
 distance soraetiraes procures, i. 253, 1
Rest denied to the Israelites, ii.27'2,2
Resurrection of Christ, positive
proofs of, i. 463, 1
 certainty of, i. 466, 2
.  testiraony in favour of,
sufficient, I. 459, 1
_  moral character of the
witnesses of, i. 460, 2 ; 464, 1
 justice of God, an argu
raent for, i. 289, 1
 necessary to warrant
faith, i. 289, 2
 a .high consolation a-
galnst death, 1.291, 1
 how Christ's, proves, that the
dust of mankind shaU rise too,
i. 285, 2
 God the cause of Christ's, i. 286, 1
 the manner of Christ's, i. 286, 1
— the ground of Christ's, i. 287, 2
 the, of Christ, the greatest
argument to prove the dirinity
of his person, i. 319, 1
 who was the cause of Christ's,
Christ or God 1 i. 321, 2
 the, transcends aU the rest of
Christ's works, i. 323, 1
 the Jews stIH deny Christ's, i. 323, 2
¦  competency of the witnesses
of, i. 460, 1 ; i. 464, 1
 as being contrary to the
coramon course of nature, no
valid objection, i. 468, 2
 not contrary to universal ex
perience, i' 460, 1
.  graduaUy discovered to the
apostles, •• 456, 2

Resurrection, confirmed by apos-
toUc miracles, i. 464, 2
 difficulties connected with
beUef of, _ i. 457, 2
 improbabUIties in the ac
counts of exarained, 1. 461, 2
 prelirainary considerations
towai'ds refutation of objections
to, 1.458,2
 ON THE General, a discourse, i. 355, 1
 belief of, difficult to reason, i. 356, 1
 has been denied even by some
Christians, i. 357, 1
 discarded by the Sadducees, i. 357, 1
 discredited by many eminent
philosophers, i. 356, 2
 alleged impossibUity of, i. 357, 2
 of the s.arae body denied by
Socinians, i. 358, 1
 objections against, ohriated,
i. 358—366
 not difficult for an oraniscient
and omnipotent agent, i. 359, 1
— ^ — positive proof of, i. 36 1, 1
 belief of, enhanced by difli
culties, when a sufficiency of
reason for it Is given, i. 363, 2
 causes why it ¦is rejected by
natural reason, i. 357, 1
-  can be known only from re
velation, I. 361, 1
 of the same body, improba-
bUIties alleged against, I. 367, 1
 scoffed at, by the Stoics and
Epicureans, j. 356, 2
 a strange work, i. 262, 1
 whole controversy regarding,
should be determined by the
Word of God, i. 363, 1
Retribution, there must be a gene
ral, >• 356, 1
Revelation tells us future events, u. 99, 2
 .- shews the truth of a future
state of happiness and misery, i. 285, 1
Revelations, secret and supema
tural, contrary to Christian ex
perience, 1- 487, y
 generaUy alleged for ques
tionable designs, i. 486, 2
.  ooen a door for immorality,
^ i. 487, 2
 required in the first ages of
Christianity, i- 492, 1
 superseded by fulness of the
gospel Ught, i. 492, 1
 at the best, vague and uncer-
fain, i-. 488,1
Revenge, the affection of, sinful,
 powerless to remove the
previous injury, i- 207, 2
the sinfulness of, pro-ved
from the comraand to forgive
injuries, i'- 394, 2

Revenge, prohibition of, in Rom.
xii. 19, concerns only private
men, ii. 400, 1
 the prerogative of the Al
mighty, i. 179, 1
Reverence of God, in what it should
consist, i. 120, 2
 premeditation of thought, and
brevity of expression, chief in
gredients in, i. 120, 2
 cannot be expressed to God
by auy thiug that would pass for
irreverence towards a great
man, i. 125, 1
RevUing hard to be bome, ii. 206, 1
.  a pitiful mode of revenge, u. 208, 1
Reward, the Recompense of the,
a discourse, i. 345, 1
 ¦ Christ always accorapanied
the proraise of, with the per
forraance of duty, i. 349, 2
 etemal, proraised to Chris
tians, i. 419, 1
 proposal of, necessary to pro
cure obedience, i. 363, 1
 necessity of, shewn frora
Scripture, and the practice of
the raost noted lawgivers, i. 353, 2
 influence of, i. 354, .366, 1, 2
 and punishments, God governs
the world by, i. 356, 2
Rich, why discontented, il. 211,2
 eagerness to become, very
difficult to restrain, i. 397, 2
 raen esteeraed, however their
riches are gotten, i. 401, 2
Riches give men reputation In
the world, i. 401, 2
 not the means of happiness, i. 403, 2
 generally procured with jr«o«
labour, »- 404, 1
 original cause, why obtained
wifli toil, i- 404 2
 seldom corae hy favour or for
tune, i. 404, 2
 often gained with great dan-
ger, i-404,2
 instability ot, i- 40o, 1
 hazardous pursuit of, 1. 405, 1
 often gamed by the commis
sion of great sins, i. 406, 1
 saying, regarding those who
possess great, i. 406, 1
 great, superinduce new neces
sities, i; 406, 2
 sorrows produced by, I. 407, 1
 produce an Insatiable desire
of getting more, i. 407, 2
 bring with them many tempta
tions, i. 408, i
 ruin which they often bring
on their owners, i. 409, 1
 cannot reraove ^niseries, either
mental or bodily, i. 409, 1
 this shewn by examples, i. 409, 2

£)C0

SOUTH'S SERMONS.

Riches, happiness shewn notto de
pend on, i. 410, 2
¦ perishable in their nature, i. 418, 2
Right, a, to possess what a man
has, no one can take frora him,
i. 179, 1
¦ duty to waive the prosecution
of a, ii. 424, 2
 when recovery is im
possible, ii. 425, 1
.  when the right is trivial,
ii. 425, 2
.  when an equivalent of another
kind is offered, ii. 426, 2
Rights of subjects, a phrase often
used to overturn governraents, i. 560, 2
 invasion of, not chargeable
on Charles I. and II. i. 560, 2
Righteousness necessary to enter
ing the kingdom of heaveu, ii. 612, 1
 what it denotes, ii. 512, 2
 ot Christ, iraputation of,
ii. 104,2
 no raan's, but Christ's alone,
can be imputed to another, i. 237, 1
Rorae, origin and description of
the Church of, i. 213, 1
 the raaxiras of the Church of,
not only underraine all Chris
tianity, but aU raorality, i. 314,2
Roraan Catholic Church, absurdity
of, i. 188, 1
Roraish casuists chargeable with
worst species of flattery, ii. 1 1 9, 1
 the ascendency of, over
Scripture, reason, aud moraUty, i. 186, 2
 the way that they satisfy
raen's rainds, i. 187, 1
Ruin, effect of envy, i. 511, 2
 caused by flattery, ii. 126, 1
Rule of life and raanners, Ii. 106, 1
 how it raay be subverted, ib.
Rulers, wise, practice of, i. 353, 2
RuUng bishop, duty of, i. 38, 2
 what is implied in, i. 39, 1
Sacrament, benefit of the, i. 161, 2
 cons'iderations before coming
to the, i. 164, 2
 the, is not designed to make
OS Italy, it supposes we are so,
i. 164, 2
 a suitable preparation neces
sary for the right participation, i. 162, 1
 every preparation for the, is
not sufficient, i. 163, 2
 parable of the ten "virgins, in
regard to the, i. 165, 1
 resemblance between the, and
a wedding supper, i. 161, 2
 the, is intended to maintain
spiritual life, i. 164, 2
Sacramental Preparation, a dis
course, i. 161, 1

Sacrilege, evU effects of, i. S3, 64
— never made any rich, 1.411,2
Sadducees, the opinion of the, as to
future rewards and punishments, i. 362, 1
 discarded the doctrine of the
resurrection, i. 367, 1
 mode iu which Christ an
swered the, i. 361, 2
Sadness, difference betweeu a re
Ugious and an affected, i. 347, 2
Safety, how far it may be lawfully
consulted in tirae of persecution, i. 22, 1
Saints, privileges of, ii. 69, 2
 hope of, ii. 70, 1
 their raediation impossible
because of their ignorance of
human affairs, ii. 494, 1, 2
 invocation of the, conderaned, ii. 495, 2
 frequently ignorant of their
own graces, i. 490, 1
Samson's sin injured the cause of
God, ii. 24, 2
 and Delilah, i. 220, 2
 . judgraent which fell upou,
i. 494, 2
 self-destruction of, lawful, i. 387, 1
S.itan, his designs on God's people,
ii. 169, 2
 variety of his devices, i. 443, 2
 why his ex'istence is disbe
lieved, i. 442, 2
 his hatred ot Christians, u. 169, 1
 extent of his infiuence on
man, i. 133, 1
 his influence on flie soul, i. 444, 1
 • the instrumentality of his in
direct operations on man, ii. 170, 2
 sometimes takes complete
possession of a man, i. 444, 2
 his temptations skilfully ac
commodated to existing circura
stances, i. 445, 1
 Himself Transformed into
AN Angel of Light, a dis
course, i. 442, 2
 importance of detecting and
counteracting his wUes, i. 446, 1
 the use which he raakes of
the bodily feelings, i. 444, 1
 ways and means by which he
attempts to deceive, i. 214, 2
See Devil.
Satisfaction for sin necessary to
give the hope of pardon, i. 392, 1
Saul's sin, cause of, ii. 224, 1
.  ignorance of, as to God's
purpose in destroying Amalek, i. 323, 2
Saving, In proper circumstances,
commendable, i. 400, 2
Sariour, God may be honoured or
dishonoured as our, ii. 62, 1

Scepticism, definition of, distino
tion between, and doubting, ii. 368, 1
Schisra, spiritual pride the cause
of, i. 393, 2
 nests of, should be broken up,
i. 431, 1
Schoolmasters, great influence of,
i. 426, 1
 Uttle respect paid to, i. 426, 1
— — - obligations of, to use their
power for the benefit of the
country, i. 426, 2
 rule by which tiiey should
be guided, i. 426, 2
 none fit to be, who under
stands not how to be a raaster, i. 426, 2
 severe, characterized, i. 427, 1
 recoraraendations given to,
i. 427, 1
 should take care to shew tiiat
the person is loved while the
fault is punished, i. 427, 2
Schoolraen, attempts of, to paUiate
a Ue, i. 95, 2
Schools, conventicUng, why they
should be put down, i. 430, 2
 ¦ legal, should be encouraged, i. 431, 1
Scribe, the, instructed, a dis
course, i. 309, 1
 a civil officer, quasi town-
clerk, i. 310, 1
 a church officer, one conver
sant in the law, i. 310, 1
Scribes, who they were, Ii. 512, 1
ScriptM'e, apparent contradictions
in, n. 81, 2
 cannot be self-contradictory, ii. 231, 2
 every thing said in, not to be
understood literally, i. 363, 2
 apparent contradiction of, in
Matt. X. 17, 23, 28, ii. 217, 1
 its sufficiency, i. 486, 1
 mystical Interpretations of,
i. 462, 2
 how proved to be true, I. 367, 2
 narrow-minded exposition of,
ii. 82, 1
Sea, insecurity of merchandise on,
i. 405, 1
Seasons, certain, give peculiar
force to temptation, u. 28, 1
 particular, draw forth the
energy of every agent, ii. 28, 1
Secret sin known to God, ii. 145, 1
Secrets, comraunlcatlon of, one of
the pririleges of friendship, L 116,2
Seduction, nature of, ii. 8, 1
Seeing God, what is, ii. 441, 1, 2
Self-deception, caution against, ii. 368, 1
 defence, conditions of, 11.413,2
 purity of motive in, a
justification, ii. 414, 1, 7

INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

591

Self-denial, the great gospel duty
of, i. 17, 1
 virtue cherished by,
i. 347, 1
Self-examination, exliortatlons to,
ii. 35, 1
 necessity of, U. 370, 2
  unwillingness of the
hypocrite to engage in, il. 370, 1
Self-judgment, duty of, argued from
the certainty of the judgment, u. 562, 2
Self-love, a ground of the hypo
crite's hope, ii. 372, 2
 its fooUsh over-estimate
of personal excellence, ii. 192, 1
 an obstacle to the re
ception of the gospel, ii. 354, 2
Self-righteousness, ii. 76, 2
Sentence at the judgment-day, il. 648, 1
Separafists, evU influence of
yielding to, i. 533, 1
 eharacter and proceedings of,
i. 393, 2
 judgment on, i. 393, 2
Sermons, fast-day, animadverted
on, ii- 98, 2
Servant, what the name implied
among Jews, i. 113, 1
 narae of, dispensed with by
Clirist to his disciples, i. 1 1 3, 1
Sharae, how men come to cast off,
i. 331, 1
1. By the commission of great
sins, i. 331, 2
2. By custom in sinning, i. 332, 1
3. The examples of great per
sons, i. 332, 1
4. The observation of the gene
ral and comraon practice of
auy thing, takes away the
shame of that practice, i. 332, 2
6. From having been greatly
and irrecoverably ashamed, i. 333, I
 Christ despised the, i. 330, 2
 a grief of raind springing
frora the appreheuslon of sorae
disgrace brought upon a man,
i. 329, 2
 fear ot, deters from sin,
'' ii. 114, 1
._  of public, wiU not make
better, ii. 114, 1
 brought hy flattery, ii. 126, 2
 some people glory in their,
'^ i. 334, 2
 has a great infiuence upon
the regulation of the lives and
actions of raen, i. 330, 2
.  aud pain, the inseparable
effects of sin, i. 338, 1
.  also an earnest desire of
other raen's knowledge, or opi
nion of this perfection, aa pos
sessed hy him, •• 330, 1

Sharae presupposes a great esteera
and value of every tiling be
longing to the due perfection of
a man's being, i. 330, 1
 the natural progress ot, i. 331, 2
 where there is no plaoe for,
there is none for repentance, i. 337, 1
 a passion of the most tender
sense, i. 330, 1
 the birthright of vice, i. 335, 2
 what is, and what influence It
has upon the government of
man's manners, i. 329, 3
Shamelessness in Sin, the cer
tain Forerunner of Destruc
tion, a discourse, i. 328, 2
 the several degrees of, iu sin,
i. 333, 2
 one degree is making respect
to wicked persons, i. 333, 2
 auother is to defend sin, i. 334, 1
 the third is to glory in it,
i. 334, 2
 how, brings down judgment
and destruction upon the sinner,
i. 335, 1
 what those judg-ments are by
which, procures the sinner's rain
and destruction, i. 336, 1
1st, Sudden and disastrous
death ; 2d, War and desola
tion ; and 3d, Captivity, i. 336, 1
Shishak, judgment on, I. 63, 2
Sick-bed, the, uses all alike, i. 410, 1
SUence in sorrow, decorous, U. .379, 2
Sin, abolition ot, in design, a
necessary attainment In the
Christian, ii. 452, 2
 every act of, dishonours God,
il. 61, 2
 every act of, casts a kind of
soil upon the intellectual part of
the soul, i. 217, 1
 in the action, Implies sin in
the heart, ii. 501, 2
 Adam's imputed to all raen,
ii. 266, 1
 aggravations of, ii. 279, 2
 mode of avoiding, ii. 47, 1
 a man's besetting, helps
temptation, "- 29, 2
 the besetting, its deceptive
influence, ii- 200, 1
 heart betrays into, by extefi-
uating, ii' 66, 2
 its bitterness unappreciated, ii. 185, 2
 blackest, an account of in
Rom. i. 18-31, i. 1-37, 2
 set forth and expressed by
blackness in Scripture, i. 216, 2
 perpetuates a blot on tbe
narae, •• 27, 1

Sin thought by Christ's disciples
to be the cause of bodily
maladies, u. 230, 2
— — such as are acted by the
body quickly shew theraselves, i. 99, 1
 all men born in, ii. 1, 2
 all calamities Issue frora, n. 345, 2
 the reraote and general cause
of all maladies, ii. 231, 2
 the eterual cause of sorrow,
u. 258, 2
 causes which lead a mau to
take pleasure in otiier men's, i. 139, 2
 cessation from, soraetiraes
raistaken for complete conquest
of, ii. 68, 2
 coramission of, delusions of
heart relating to, ii. 66, 2
 coraraission of, under aggra
vating circumstances, exhorta
tion agaiust, ii. 279, 2
 the comraissiou of, one of the
degrees of teraptation, ii. 8, 2
 a commission of the sarae
sins in his own person, i. 139, 2
 great danger of those who
are at peace after the corarais
sion of, ii. 214, 2
 the commission of, uncon-
troHable in its course, Ii. 308, 1
 every coramission of, hardens
the soul In, i. 181,2
 every commission of, disposes
the soul to proceed farther In,
i. 182, 1
 those who commit, against
clear warnings, sealed to perdi
tion, ii- 276, 2
 if a man would commit a, if
he could, that wIU leave a stain
upon his conscience, i. 145, 1
 committed with greater con
fidence on account of duty per
formed, ii. 68, 1
 if it be not prevented by God,
it vi'iil he committed, i. 181, 1
.  when conceiving, U. 72, 1
 and death, connection of as
antecedent and consequent, u. 429, 2
 sinning against conscience,
^ i. 140, 1
 and continuance in such sins,
i. 141, 1
 why attended with extra
ordinary guilt, i.' 138, 1
 who incur the guilt of taking
pleasure in other men's, i. 138, 1
 men sometiraes converted
frora one, to another, Ii. 68, 2
 cancels the claims of creature
on the Creator, ii. 186, 2
 dispensations of Providence
soraetiraes cannot cure propen
sity to sin, though they have a
natural fitness to do so, ii. 40, 1

592

SOUTH'S SERMONS.

Sin deserves immediate damna
tion, u. 242, 1
 danger of continuing in a
course of, U. 280, 1
 darkens the mind, i. 381, 2
 and death, couuectiou as
antecedent and consequent, ii. 429, 2
— — instances of death In the midst
of, U. 307, 2
 propagated and promoted by
deceit, i. 96, 2
 defence ot, shameful and
raischievous, ii. 117, 2
 whoso draws tt man into,
ddigkts in the same, i. 146, 1
 greatest and safest deliverance
from, ii. 41, 1
 attempts to depose God from
his throne, ii. 62, 1
.  a work of the devil, destroyed
by the manifestation of the Son
of God, il. 463, 2
.  disgrace brought by, on the
Cliristian profession, II. 24, 1
 we must dread every gross
act of, i. 223, 1
 effect of age upou the soul in
the matter of, i. 141, 1
 no religious duty attains its
end, but when it weakens our,
ii. 348, 2
 vanity of its enjoyments, U. 186, 1
 enticements to, should be
shunned, ii. 54, 1
 essence ot, consiste in deceit, i. 96, 2
 evUs of, eveu in this life,
i. 108, 1
¦  ev'd of, shewn from the
sufferings of Christ, ii. 264, 1
 brings upon a man most of
the erUs that befaU hira, Ii. 62, 2
 plea of infirraity, no excuse
tor, ii. 66, 2
 cannot be expiated by the
performance of duty, ii. 75, 2
 extenuation ot, hy the hypo
crite, ii. 366, 2
 not whoUy extirpated in the
beUever, ii. 107, 1
 new face put upon by Romish
casuists, Ii. 119, 1
— — how many would have fallen
into, but for preventing grace, U.6, 1
 may he fallen into by indul
gence in tilings hiwful, n. 66, 1
 introduced into the world by
falsehood, i. 96 1
 familiarity with, dangerous, Ii. 6, 2
 familiarity with, strengthens
temptation, ii. 31, 1
 should be feared, ii. 219, 1
 the first, Its heinousness, ii. 474, 1
 first raorings must be re
sisted, u. 7-2, 1

Sin, the first-born of the soul, and
most beloved, ii. 447, 2
 of flattery, ii. 1 1 8, 2
 has its first situation in the
Jlesh, this proved by the iraper
fect sanctification of good raen,
while on earth, ii. 446, 1
 there is far greater pleasure
in the forbearance than in the
commission of, i. 183, 1
 forgiveness of, the principle
frora which it flows, ii. 241, 2
— frequency ot, and continu
ance in, ii. 9, 1
 fruits and effects of, in this
worid, i. 1 09, 1
 may future, be punished ?
ii. 231, 1
 God's wrath for, misery of
those who labour under a lively
sense of, ii. 214, 1
 an invasion of God's sove
reignty, ii. 435, 2
 strikes at his being, Ii. 435, 2
 whether God can pardon,
without satisfaction, disputed, ii. 241, 2
 great, often committed In the
pursuit of wealth, i. 406, 1
 the greater, the lesser the
temptation, i. 143, 2
 guUt ot, arms conscience
against the sinner, ii. 63, 2
 robs us of happiness, ii. 219, 1
 hatred ot, and remorse for,
i. 166, 2
 instances of, flowing from
hearts, il. 262, 2
 occasions of, heart draws in
to, ii. 66, 1
 a man loving, in his heart,
will hinder his prayers frora
being accepted, ii. 332, 1
 what it Is for a man to re
gard, in his lieart, ii. 332, 1
 an unmortified habit or course
of, is a regarding of it in the
heart, II. 333, 1
 we may regard, In our heart,
by a positive pursuance of It,
i. 334, 1
 an actual intention of the
mind upon, is a regarding of it
in the heart, i. 334, 1
 its heinousness as an offence
against the Creator, ii. 189, 2
 trouble sent to imbitter, ii. 269, 2
 danger of imperfect mortifi
cation of, il. 449, 2
 public impunity to, a great
temptation to It, ii. 42, 1
 inconsistent with the perfec
tion of Christ's satisfaction, il. 2.3, 2
 indisposes the raind to truth,
i. 377, 2
 when indulged in, prayer
against is vain, ii. 59, 2

Sin, its eril influence, ii. 189, 2
 inseparable from guilt, ii. 24, ,
See GuUt.
 nud sorrow inseparable, i. 200, 2
 interests ot, different from
that of the soul, Ii. 73, 2
 inveterate course of, raay sin
away our liberty, ii. 11, 1
 issue ot, should be considered, ii. 280, 1
 considerations which should
keep us frora, Ii. 223, 1
 raen kept from, raerely by
their fears, ii. 262, 1
 sinful thoughts lead to, ii. 65, 2
 all things that lecui to, must
be renounced, ii. 60, 1
 to comrait a lesser, to avoid a
greater, not sanctioned by God,
ii. 46, 2
 little, exceedingly pernicious, ii. 72, 2
 becomes less loathsome when
often seen, u. 6, 2
 love ot, thrusts out the love
of truth, i. 381, 2
 there is a habitual love ol, in
tlie unregenerate soul, i. 332, 1
 full maturity of, ii. 9, 1
 reaches maturUy by degrees,
i. 376, 2
 misery of, the fmit of man's
own choice, ii. 264, 1
 considered as to its moral
irregularity and penal appUca
tion, i. 390, 2
 must not commit, to escape
suffering, Ii. 46, 2
 Uke mustard seed, ii. 139, 1
 coudemning nature of,
u. 370, 1, 2
 alleged disproportion be
tween, and ite punishment,
considered, ii. 436, 1
 occasions ot, fend to commis
sion of, ii. 60, 1
 one, leads to another greater, Ii. 46, 2
 one raay be punished with
another, i. 390, 1
 opportunities of, ofteu taken
away by God, ii. 6, 1
 opportunities and teraptations
to, ii. 6, 2
 hope of glory opposed to,
II. 76, 2
 of others naturaUy no raotive
to take pleasure In, i. 143, 2
 how overcome, ii. 74, 1
 kis own, no raan easily
brought to take full pleasure in,
i. 1.39, 1
 ranch less iu the sins of
otiiers, i. 139, 1
 supplication of God's pardon
fer, aud grace against the power
of, i. 167, 1

INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

593

Sn, greatness of flie pardon of,
how shewn, ii. 243, 2
 if no hope of pardon, pro
duces despair and maUce, ii. 240, 1
 , of the parent sometimes
avenged on flie chUdren, ii. 231, 1
 sometimes taught by parents,i. 143, 1
 passage from less to greater,
easy, ii. 47, 2
 personal, not always the
cause of aman's misery, u. 233, 1
 pleasures of, loathsome, i.6, 1,2
 what brings a man to take
pleasure in, i. 138, 1
 how we are insensibly
brought under the power of,
u. 63, 2
— ^ power of, must be prayed
against, ii. 73, 2
 prevention of, for the future,
ii. 71, 2
 prevention, of, au invaluable
mercy, proved by four things, i. 178,2
 of princes and priests con
tagious, ii. 42, 2
 rirtually sins of a whole com
munity, U. 42, 2
 progressice in its nature, ii.4,2
 how sometimes punisked by
God, i. 26, 1
 the assertion, that it must be
punisked by temporal judgments
false, ii. 23, 1
 brings its own punishment, i. 390, 1
 the most terrible punishment
which God inflicts, i. 391, 1
See God.
 puniskment of may he re
mitted by God, ii. 241, 2
 what can and cannot purify
us from guUt of, ii. 75, 2
— — pu/riflcation from, in what it
consists, ii. 71, 2
 a regenerate person cannot
love or regard, i. 333, 1
 reiqn of, destroyed by grace,
u. 107, 1
— — there is sometiraes relaxes
tion from, ii. 69, 1
 repentance ot, needs to be
repeated, ii. 71, 2
 the, of delaying repentauce
peculiarly aggravating, ii. 310, 2
 should he reproved by gover
nors, ministers, and friends, ii. 113, 1
 a raan may think that he
heartily resolves against a, when
he does not, n- 318, 1
 remorse, the natural resuU
of, ii. 264, 1
-^ cannot be pardoned without
toMsfaetion, •• 392, 1
vol., n.

Sin, no security against, after it
has fixed itself in our affections, U. 10, 2
 not only shameful but weak,
i. 142, 1
 a laborious service, ii. 434, 1
 no, to be accounted smaU, ii. 47, 1
 supposed smallness of, leads
to commission of, ii. 67, 1
 sorrow for, distinguished by
Romanists into two sorts, ii. 110, 1
 sorrow for, i. 4, 2
 and the soul, intimate con
nection of, proved by the power
required to separate them, u. 446, 2
 source of, ii. 29, 1
 spring head of, ii. 74, 2
 irapossible to tell when it
wIU stop, i. 150, 2
 strengthened by delay of re
pentance, ii. 109, 2
 no man's suffering his, ii. 48, 1
 without, the greatest suffer
ing may be endured, ii. 48, 2
 wicked examples of pubUc
men tempt to, ii. 42, 1
 cruel oppression a temptation
to, ii. 42, 2
 different degrees of tempta
tion, ii. 8, 1
 has a natural tendency to
bring men under evils, i. 110, 1
 thoughts of, should be at once
rejected, n. 31, 1
 trouble of mind from, shewn
to be very great, ii. 264, 2
 of hating the truth, judgraent
on, i. 380, 1
 the, of taking pleasure in
other men's, unlimiled, i. 144, 2
 ushered in by self-deceit, ii. 259, 1
 and duty, vicissitude of, U. 79, 2
 nothing can be, but what is
voluntary, ii, 234, 2
 strong teraptations, no wa/r-
rants to, ii- 43, 1
 not the ¦way that God dehvers
frora tenjptation, ii. 46, 2
See Monk.
 question, can it in any way
be good, answered, i. 390, 2
 considered three ways, — 1st,
In the act; 2d, In the habit;
3d, In the affection or produc
tive principle of it, i. 218, 1
 weakened by defrauding Its
desires, ii- 451, 2
 of wicked men injures others,
n. 24, 2
 how God wUkkolds a raan
from, "• f.l' 1
 may wound, but the continu
ance of it kUls, ii. 388, 1

Sins, aggrcmations of, ii. 244, 2
 caused deatii of Christ, ii. 136, 1
 commission of, thwarted by
God, n. 133, 1
 against conscience presuraptu
ous, U. 133, 2
 against conscience, caused
by infideUty, i. 140, 2
 all the raischief they can do
to raan, is designed by tempta
tion, U. 20, 1
 transcendant evil of,
ii. 135, 2; 136, 1
 against God's favour, ii. 134, 1
 frequency in, breeds fami
Uarity with, ii. 139, 1
 great, lead to atheism, n. 285, 2
 great, that have beeu com
mitted for wealth, i. 406, 1
 great engine of, the proraise
of repentance, ii. 302, 1
 greatness of, ii. 244, 1
 loathing again&t, ii. 136, 1
 men often led Into, by the
temptations of wealth, i. 408, 2
 lordly, require lorldly estates
to support them, i. 184, 1
 malignity of, ii. 136, 1
— ¦ — the sufferings of the Messiah
for the, of the people, i. 276, 1
 nature ot, shewn from their
effects, ii. 136, 2
 our, are debts, ii. 242, 1
 our innumerable, ii. 243, 2
 pardon of, grounds of the
persuasion of, ii. 247, 2
 peace in, grounds of, ii. 301, 2
 Heinous Guilt of Taking
^ Pleasure in other Men's, a
discourse. Two Parts, i. 137—163
 a man who takes pleasure in
other men's, must have advanced
to a high state of iniquity, i. 146, 2
 the devU himself can make
men no worse than those who
take pleasure in other raen's, i. 145, 2
 who are accounted ta take
pleasure in other men's, i. 146, 1
 those who allure men to take
pleasure in other men's,
^ i. 148, 1
 such as affect the company of
vicious persons do so, i. 149, 1
.  such as encourage, counte
nance, and support men in their
sins, do so, i. 149, 1
Ist, By commendation ; 2d, By
preferment, i. 149, 1
 many are finaUy lost who
kave no otker, but tkeir oum to
account for, i. 161, 2
.  some men taking pleasure
in other men's, wiU cause many
2p

594

SOUTH'S SERMONS.

f 0 sin to do them pleasure, i. 152, 2
This will appear from, — 1st, The
man who thus takes pleasure
always shews that he does so ;
2d, Few men are so inconsider
able as to have no influence upon
others ; 3d, That the inferior
wIU try to please the superior In
the way he thinks he wiU be
most gratified, i. 151, 1
Sins, Presumptuous, a discourse.
Three Parts, ii. 126, 1
. — presumptuous, danger of,
u. IS, I
 grand remedy against,
U. 136, 2
 would exasperate even
men, u. 137, 1
 would be avoided if we
treated God as we treat men,
U. 137, 1
 danger of, U. 137, 138, 2
 object of, God's mercy,
and therefore very dangerous, ii. 138, 1
 grand engine of Satan,
ii. 138, 2
 sad consequences of,
ii. 138, 2
 growing nature of,
Ii. 138, 2
 difficult to be cured, II. 139, 1
 destroy tenderness of
conscience, II. 139, 1
  always followed by
fiercer judgment than other
sins, ii. 140, 1
 curse which comes on,
U. 140, 2
 reflections on Grod's justice a
prerentire of, il. 136,2
 free remission of, ii. 242, 2
 followed by remorse, i. 406, 2
 repeated commission of, pre
sumptuous, ii. 134, 2
 danger of repeating, ii. 1 35, 1
 miserable results of, u. 1 36, 1
 secret, will he judged by God,
ii. 143, 1
 seasons when they will
be judged, ii. 143, 2
 the sting of affliction, u. 238, 1
 vilest, may be forgiven, ii. 244, 2
Sincerity of will, accepted by God,
in plaoe of the outward action,
explained, ii. 366, 1
 duty of, U. 223, 2
Sinful action, one disposes to
another, i. 375, 2
Sinfulness of man by nature, U. 354, 2
Singularity is not sincerity, i. 236, 2
Sinner, God is able to lay tiie
proudest, in the dust, i. 305, 1

Sinner, sordid employment of,
u. 448, 1
 should not applaud himself
because he finds no trouble in
his spirit for sin, ii. 271, 1
 overlooks the consequences of
liis sin, U. 22, 1
 desperate, the, near destruc
tion, Ii. 274, 1
 how raay be deUvered over
to fartker sins, i. 391, 1
 dreadfulness of being suffered
to go on in sin, i.391, 1
 may be overtaken by venge
auce in tk'is Ufe, ii. 24, I
 misery ot, ii. 22, 1
 obstinate, power of divine
ordinances withheld from, n. 27-2, 2
 old, odious and forlorn cou
dition of, I. 423, 1
 . could have no solid ground
to hope for pardon without
satisfaction, i. 392, 1
 ways by which God seals up
a sinner to perdition, ii. 273 — 275
See God.
 providences produce no
effect on, II. 273, 2
 delivered up to searedness
of conscience, ii. 275, 2
 dangerous condition of, when
deUvered up to hardness of
heart, u. 276, 1
 how kept from truth, i. 380, 2
Sinners blinded by Satan, i. 383, 2
 desire company in sin, i. 142, 1
 how they deceive theraselves, i. 105, 1, 2
 incredible /o??!/ of, ii. 436, 1
 given up to perdition, cannot
repent, ii. 277, 1
 cannot know certainly, in this
life, that they are given up to
perdition, il. 278, 279
 how they obtain peace in sin,
U. 301, 2
 who are men-pleasers, re
proved, ii, 224, 2
 mental disturbance ot, mth
iUustrative cases, u. 434, 2
 those, who neglect clear
warnings, gicen up to their own
eril ways, ii. 276, 2
 obst'mate, the purpose of God
upon, irrevocable, u. 272, 2
 blind, perversity of, ii. 509, 1
 self -condemning sentence ever
sounding in their breast, i. 143, 1
 not sensible that they are
bUnded by hira, i. 384, 1
 what are the sorts of, that
God hardens, U. 276, 2
— concern for the souls of, a
proof of love to Christ, ii. 481, 2
 who sin against special vows.

m a very u. 277,1
Sinners, ways in which God warns,
ii. 276, 2
Slander, duty to forgive on the
retractation of the offender, ii. 426, 1
 how government ought to
pura'sh, i. 566, 1
Slavery of the mind, worst kind of,
i. 388, I
Sloth and idleness to be avoided, ii. 54, 2
 instances of the danger
of, _ ii. 54, 2
Sobriety, enjoined, ii. 56, 1
 indispensable to watehful-
ness, ii. 66, 1
Society, naturally delighted in by
man, i. 414, 2
 yet given up for the sake of
what his heart is set upon, i. 414, 2
 mined by Ues, i. 97, 2
Societies, in what their feUcity
cousists, i. 98, 2
Socinian and Arminian contro
versy spoken of, i. 389, 2
Socinians, absurd opinions held by,
i. 372, 373
 blasphemous expressions of,
regarding the Trinity, i. 372, 1
 deny that meu shall be
raised with the same bod'ies
which they had In this world, i. 368, 1
See Body.
 eternity of punishment denied
by, i. 366, 1
 fallacious reasoning of, i. 368, 2
 impiety of their opinions, i. 365, 1
 admit of nothing mysterious
iu religion, i. 250, 2
 deny there cau be more
persons in the Godhead (/ia»
only one, i. 367, 1
 opinion ot, II. 80, 2 ; 82, 2
 opinion of, as to repentance, i. 386, 1
— — opinions of, respecting the
resurrection, contrary both to
Scripture and phUosophy, i. 360, 2
SocinianIsm,it3 origin from popery,
i. 448, 1
 its tendency to atheism, i. 449, 1
Socinus, opinions of, absurd, i. 376, 1
 impious, i. 366, 1, note
 lieresy of. In regard to the
Spirit, i. 297, 1
 arguments of, against war
considered, II. 398, 1, 2
Socrates, anecdote of, i. 3, 1
 the only martjT for the
testiraony of any truth among
the heathen, I. 157, 1

INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

595

Sodom, the destruction of, for lust,
i. 220, 2
Soldier, dangers encountered by,
i. 405, 2
SoUtude, naturally weary to raen,
i. 414, 2
 encountered frora love of
kuowledge, i. 414, 2
Soloraon could not separate his
wisdom from vexation of spirit,
i. 327, 1
 Aristotie took most of his
philosophy frora, i. 326, 2
Son op God, Manifestation of
the, to Destroy the Works
OF THE Devil, a discourse, u. 460—8
Sons of God, how saints axe, i. 496, 2
Sorrow, spiritual, benefits of, i.4,I
 description of, i. 14, 1
 inseparable from guilt, ii. 24, 1
-. — for sin distinguished into two
sorts, ii. 110, 1
—  false kind of, U. 110, 1
 not repentance, u. 110,2
 imbitters it, ii. 269, 2
 greatness of, ii. 264, 2
 how shewn, u. 265, 1
 and sin inseparable, i. 200, 2
 one, not counterbalanced by
a hundred pleasures, i. 409, 2
 trader affliction not forbid
den, ii. 376, 1
Soul, natural activity of, ii. 244, 1
 opinion of Aristotle regard
ing, i. 382, 2
 must be suppUed with ade
quate motives, i. 364, 1
 the, has originally an averse
ness to duty, i. 346, 2
 how affected by the body un
known, ii. 445, 2
 carnal corruption, and camal
wisdom of, ii. 252, 1
— , — definition of, ii. 262, 2
 what makes destruction ot, so
formidable, ii. 221, 2
 destruction of, utmost God
can do to a sinner, ii. 222, 1
 raade by God that he raight
dwelt in it, i. 417, 2
 the body is the dwelling place,
not any part of the, i. 280, 1
 enemy of, haa his time, ii.27,2
-^ — faculties of, given by God,
i. 292, 1
 the fall of the, into siu, very
great, and the evils resulting
from it very pernicious, i. 239, 1, 2
— — God cdone can, destroy, ii. 218, 1
— — inconstant, i- 239, 1
 in danger from intemperance,
^ u. 56, 2

Soul, interest of, different from
that of sin, u. 73, 2
 loss of, shewn to be worse
than annihilation, U. 222, 2
 loss of, aimed at by the
terapter, ii. 21, 1
 of man, restlessness of the,
i. 413, 2
 cannot be desti'oyed by men,
II. 217, 2
 that it is not mortal, the ut
most reason can prove, i. 364, 2
 as shame mortifies the, so
pain or puuishment harasses the
body, i. 338, 1
.  not clothed wifli a new body
at the resurrection, i. 360, 1
See Body.
 constantly turns from one
object to another, I. 413, 2
 cannot exert its full force on
two contrary objects, i. 416, 2
 the operations of the, do
much follow the disposition and
teraper of the body, i. 347, 1
 the, of man, in all its choices,
determined by pleasure, i. 348, 1
 power and faculty of the,
capable of becoraing stronger
or weaker, i. 214, 2
 some think another principle
necessary to, i. 382, 2
 nothing but wisdom from
above can preserve the, pure,
i. 327, 2
 purification of, twofold, ii. 70, 1
 proraoted by hope of
heaven, u. 76,,.2
-^  ,  chief work of, n. 72, 1
 can be fitted for heaven only
by purity, n. 77, 2
 purity ot, only evidence of
piety, ii- 78, 2
 salvation of, never left to
chance, ii- 261, 2
 sinful, raust have sinful
deUghts, ii- 77, 2
 the, of man a spirit, i. 251, 1
 tenderTiess of, when lost suj-
ner becomes bold, ii. 138, 2
 transmigration ot, u. 231, 1
 unconverted, cannot perceive
the things of God, U. 251, 2
 contrary to divine
things, ii. 252, 1
 frequently unprepared for
the attacks of Satan, i. 238, 2
 roust icatck against assaults, u. 53, 1
 weak and feeble, i. 238, 2
 wken temptations get over it,
U. 8, 2
 the worth of shewn, u._ 261, 2
 . wretcked condition of, in con
sequence of sin, ii. 561, 2
Spaxtans accounted theft no crime,
1. ool, 1

Spirit of holiness, meaning of the
term, T. 319, 2
 the miracles of Christ and
his apostles were ascribed to tke,
i. 320, 1
 assistance ot, reaUzed through
faith, ^ ii. 173, 2
 assistance of, given to those
who use means, ii. 486, 1
 Holy, confirmation of Christ's
doctrine by the, I. 291, 2
 how to distinguish between
motions which proceed from ihe,
and from the conscience, i. 191, 2
 continuance ot, In the church,
i. 522, 1
— — ¦ no contrariety between gifts
of the, i. 297, 1
 departure of the, shews that
God's mercy Is not contrary to
his holiness, Ii. 508, 2
 .  to his justice, U. 508, 2
 divinity qf, proved frora his
diversity of gifts, i. 297, 1
 ¦ enlightening work ot, and re
sistance thereto, ii. 501, 2
 giver of ministerial gifts, I. 521, 2
graces of, ii. 10, 2
 we should be careful and
tender how to grieve the, U. 509, 2
 how he may be said to be in
the church, i. 484, 1
 may immediately infuse
habits into the soul, i. 485, 2
 instruction of tlie, must pre
cede his comforting influences, U. 510, 1
 converting power of, irresis
tible, ii. 506, 1
 two ways In which he leads

man,
 iiecessary
temptation,

i. 485, 2
to assist men in

operation of, in

U. 2, 1
subduing
temptation, ii. 40, 2
_,  operation of, granted to the
Impenitent, that they may be
more inexcusable, u. 507, 1
 his ordinary gracious opera
tions connected with the truth,
i. 486, 1
 ordinary gifts of the, i. 292, 1, 2
 we should be very regardful
of every pious suggestion made by,
i. 191, 1
 a man who regards sin in the
heart, cannot pray by tke, i. 336, 1
 his presence not self-evident, i. 489, 2
 resistance to the, productive
of hardness of heart, ii. 511, 1
—  . leads to the unpardon
able sin, ii. 511, 1
 exhortation against, ii. 511, 1

696

SOUTH'S SERMONS.

Spirit, resistance to the, in dis
obeying the letter of the word,
ii. 500, 1
 should not be resisted, i. 191,2
 does not convey comfort to
the raan who habitually resists,
ii. 610, 1
 special Ulumination of,
U. 502, 2
 striiiing of the, ii. 497, 2
 strivings of the, hounded by
God's decree, ii. 505, 1
 subjects of his influence, all
raen in sorae degree, i. 484, 1
 loitkdrawal of, upon resis
tance, tends to the rindication
of his honour, ii. 507, 2
 agreeable to the design
of the gospel, u. 506, 1
 a punishraent to the
sinner for dishonouring God,
u. 507, 2
 rindlcates the honour
of God's wisdora, il. 508, I
 rindlcates the honour
of God's raercy, ii. 608, 2
 a forerunner of destruc
tion to the soul, ii. 498, 1
¦ God's withdrawal of, iraplies
his estimation of the Spirit's
workings, ii. 509, I
 fear should he produced by
his withdrawal from others, u. 609, 1
 love should be produced by
his withdrawal from others, n. 509, 2
 work of, on the wUl, ii. 378, 1
 Wounded, a discourse, U. 262, 1
 meaning of, ii. 262, 2
 —  who are under the
trouble of, U. 263, 1
 the good may suffer frora
as well as the bad, ii. 263, 2
— •  greatuess of the trouble
of, how shewn, ii. 263, 2
 behariour of Christ un
der, U. 263, 2
 trouble of, for every siu
shewn to be very great, u. 264, 2
 long continuance of,
u. 266, 2
 outward manifestation
of, ii. 266, 1
 effects of, on those not
upheld by divine grace, u. 267, 1
 those under should not
be spoken scoffingly against, U. 270, 2
— — want of, no ground for self-
gratulation to the sinner, ii.271,1
 and no ground why a man
should exclude himself from the
number of the regenerate, ii.271,2

Spirit, wounded, ways in which it is
brought on the soul, ii. 267, 1, 2
 by reflections on divine
justice as provoked, ii. 267, I
 by apprehensions of
divine mercy as abused, ii. 267, 2
 by God's withdrawing
his presence, ii. 268, 1
 by God's giving a cora
raission to the terapter more
than usuaUy to disquiet It,
ii. 269, 1
 evil, dispossessed by fasting
aud prayer, ii. 293, 2
 eril, the spirit of falsehood, u. 258, 1
 evil, discouragement to think
ing men ai'ising frora the exis
tence of, u. 1, 1
 eril, mode in which it terapts,
ii. 37, 1
 good, necessity of, to assist
men in temptation, ii. 2, 1
 gradual encroaches of flesh
upon, a strong teraptation, u. 3 1, 1
 shewn by instances, U. 31, 1
 weakened by what gratifies
the flesh, U. 31, I
Spiritual judgraents, most severe,
i. 386, 1
 — wherein their raalig
nity consists, i. 387, 1
 blindness, blasts a raan in the
peculiar perfection of his nature
 his understanding, i. 387, 1
 pride, a cause of reUgious
separation, ii. 365, 1
 things, can be discerned only
by the Holy Spirit, U. 250, 2
 neglect of, by raen, i. 420, 1
Star, the nature of the substance
of a, i. 264, 2
— — the raanner ofthe appearance
of a, i. 265, 1
 the quality of the operation
of a, i. 265, 1
 a false Messiah caUed him
self Barochab, the son of a,
i. 266, 2
Statesmen, hazards of, i. 405, 2
Stoics aud Epicureans scoffed at
the resurrection, i. 356, 2
 opinions of the, i. 159, 1
Strafford, consequences ofthe death
of, U. 47, 2
Study, debauchery imflts for, i. 382, 1
Subjects, duty of, to princes, i. 308, 1
Submission, nature of, considered
positively, u. 377, 1
 considered negatively, U. 375, 2
 comprehends acquiescence of
the understanding in the justice
of dirine procedure, ii. 377, 1
 to the divine unit, ii. 375, 1
 riewed as to ite motive, ii. 378, 1, 2

Submission of spirit, the excellence
of, U. 381,1
 difficulty of its attain
ment, u. 381, 2
 natural reluctance to,
ii. 382, 1
 worldly contempt of,
ii. 382, 1
 necessity of earnest en
deavour after, u. 382, 2
 means of acquiring, ii. 383,1
 necessary severity of
discipline towards, ii. 383, 1
  happiness springing
frora, ii. 383, 2
 reasons for, ii. 384, 1
 irresistible power of
God, an arguraent for, n. 384, 1
 sovereignty of God, an
argument for, ii. 386, 1
 God's infinite wisdom,
an argument for, ii. 386, 2
 goodness of God, an
argument for, ii. 386, 2
 justice of God an argu
raent for, ii. 387, 2
 deaUngs of Prori
dence with the submissive, an
argument for, illustrated in the
cases of Darid and Job,
u. 387, 2 ; 388, 1
 necessity of, from the
consideration, that God will
have his wiU, n. 388, 2
 prudence of, ii. 389, 1, 2
Success, confirms a man in the
continuance of any practice, i. 339, 1
Suetonius, calumnies of, against
Christians, ii. 216, 2
Sufferings, greatest may be en
dured without sin, ii. 49, 1
 proved by conduct of
Christian raartyrs, ii. 49, 1
Supererogation, works of, subver
sive of a good life, ii. 106, 2
Superiority of the Levites over the
prieste, U. 95, 2
 shews such, is not unlawful,
nor conti-ary to the power of
godliness, ii. 95, 2
Superiors, deference to the judg
ment of, conduces to peaceable
living, u. 427, 1
Surety, acceptance of, a proof of
God's mercy, ii. 242, 2
Surprise, not a plea of the pre
sumptive sinner, ii. 127, 1
 a plea admitted in human
courts, ii. 178, 1
Sword, the word of God has the
force and efficacy of a spiritual, i. 306, 1
 God reforms religion, or
purges the church with the,
i. 305, 1
 " of my mouth," meaning of
the term, i. 304, 2

INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

597

Sycophants extol faulte, ii. 118, 1
 reUgious, ways in which they
poison the fountains of morality,ii. 119, 2
 ends of, ii. 124, 1
Sympathy, a pririlege of friend
ship, i. n.s, 1
Talebearers, discovery and ex
posure of, ii. 423, 2
Talebearing, duty to discounte
nance, ii. 424, 2
 forbearing from, conducive to
peaceable living, u. 422, 2
 malicious, trae cbaracter of,
ii. 422, 2
 consequences of, to persons
informed against, U. 423, 1
 to persons inforraed, U. 423, 2
Talmudists said to speak plainly
respecting the Trinity, i. 370, 2
 authority of, trifling, ib.
Teachers and spiritual guides, it
is right to rely upon file judg-
raente of, in preference to our
own, i. 256, 1
.^^ too implicit faith in absurd,
u. 266, 2
Teaching, duty of the bishop, i. 37, 1
 motives to the per/brmanee of,
i. 37, 2
 how it may be effected, i. 38, 1
Temper, Ckristian of raind, and
carriage toward all inculcated, i. 168, 1
 the, of every man is to be
judged of from the thing he
most esteems, i. 183, 2
.  unreasonableness of, an ob
stacle to peace, u. 392, 1
 peaceable, the result of a
generous raind, ii. 428, I
Temperance, severe, implied in
watohing, ii. 65, 2
 benefits of, ii. 56, 2
 the great duty of a Christian
life, U. 294, 1
Temperate use of the creature,
one kind of fasting of universal
obligation, n. 293, 2
lemporal jiidgments, consequence
of exposure to sin, ii. 23, 1
 enjoyments, trayisUory, u. 217, 2
 miseries, what should lessen
the fear of, ii. 218, 1
 evUs, soon over, and are
Umited by God's hand, u. 219, 2
See Misery.
 miseries, matter of joy, ii. 221, 1
.  greater, have been en
dured, ii. 221, 1
Temptation aided by the presence
of the alluring- object, ii. 29, 2
 angels sinned without, U. 229, 2

Teraptation assaUs us by the cor
rapt state of huraan nature, U. 1, 2
 best method of deaUng with,
n. 10, 2
 we ought not to be so solici
tous how to get out of, as how to
behave under, ii. 48, I
 Christ's prayer against, ii. 49, 2
 of Clirist, advantages derived
by his people from, ii. 13, 2
 a prevailing, brings disgrace
on the Christian profession, ii. 24, 1
 not permitted to obtain
complete conquest over the Chris
tian, u. 9, 2
 natural course of, ii. 21, 2
 crisis ot, ii. 31, 2
 has its daUy rismgs and fall
ings, ii. 33, 2
 danger threatened in, U. 36, 1
 danger of venturing into, ii. 15, 1
 means provided for defence
against, u. 50, 1
 different degrees of, ii. 8, 1
 Deliverance from, the
Privilege op the Righteous,
a discourse. Three Parts, u. 1, 1
 deliverance frora, ii. 37, 2
 a great raercy, ii. 4, 1
 a special privilege of
the righteous, ii. 3, 2
 no man antecedently
assured of, ii. 19, 1
 .  sometiraes given by
change of Ufe, u. 39, 2
 .  given to those who have
entered into, ii. 6, 2
 when expectation of,
may be entertained, u. 17, 1
 how far given by God,
ii. 9, 2
  necessity of waiting
God's tirae of, U. 48, 2
  not caused by a per
son's own goodness, ii. 1 1, 2
 one of God's greatest
raercies, and enhanced by the
time of vouchsafing it, ii. 27, 2
 greatness of the mercy
of, ii. 26, 2
 greatest and safest, ii. 41, 1
 sometimes by the Holy
Spirit, ii. 40, 2
 instances of, u. 41, 1
 given to tiiose who are
in some raeasure prevailed on
by, ii. 7, 2
  sometiraes given by
God by way of prevention, Ii. 4, 2
 ways of, not sanctioned
by God, 11.46, 2
 sometimes vouchsafed

to the ungodly, but on different
grounds, ii. 4, 1
Temptation, deUverance from, why
so great a mercy and privilege, U. 20, 1
 wonderful instances of,
ii. 6, 2
 How, AND by what WaYS,
God delivers us from, a dis
course, il. 35, 2
 those only delivered out of,
who do their utmost to deliver
themselves, ii. 43, 1
 destroys raore than repent
auce saves, ii. 49, 2
 raode in which the deril
eraploys, u. 10, 2 ; 37, 1
 apt to diffuse itself, ii. 5, 2
 presents itself dressed and
painted, ii. 51, 2
 what it is to enter into, u. 6, 2
 danger of entering into, ii. 6, 2
 escape frora, desirable but
difficult, U. 36, 1
 evU lurking under great, ii. 51, 1
 prayer against, must be
conjoined with exertions, U. 60, 1
 pretences for exposure to,
ii. 18, 1
 the, by which othera fell must
be watched against, n. 54, 1
 the fierceness ot, ii. 33, 1
 men ought to be kept from,
by gratitude and prudence, U. 19, 2
 mode in which it grows and
prevails upon the heart, exem
plification of, iu the character of
Deraas, ii. 9, 1
 helped by our besetting sin,
ii. 29, 2
 Hour of, happiness of being
KEPT FROM, a discourse, ii. 27, 2
 its proper, how it attains,
U. 29, 1
 in the hour of, more fierce
and raging, ii. 28, 1
 this exemplified in the case
of the Jews with Christ, ii. 28, 1
 hour of, Christ prayed against,
u. 28, 2
 signs that it has attained
its hour, u. 31, 2
 a concurrence of opportuni
ties for the commission of sin,
ii. 31, 2
 averseness to duty, ii. 32, 2
 importunity in its instiga
tions, ii. 32, 2
 every time in which we are
tempted, not the proper, u. 33, 2
 comes on every man, ii. 33, 2
 death, one of the greatest
hours of, ii. 36, 1
 the lesser, the greater the
sin i. 143, 2

598

SOUTH'S SERMONS.

Temptation, when it lords over a
man's conscience, ii. 8, 2
 malignity of, how to be
measured, ii. 15, 1
 matter of, taken away by
teraperance, ii. 56, 2
 meaning of, ii. 3, 1
 designs a man all the mischief
sin cau do, ii. 20, 1
 teraporal misery, a remedy
against, Ii. 49, 2
 best condition of life, that
which is most free from, ii. 26, 1
 must needs come, u. 34, 1
 ought to be opposed by
tempted persons, ii. 48, 1
— — ways by which men pass
into, ii. 16, 2
 receives peculiar force frora
certain seasons, ii. 28, 1
 all conditions have their
peculiar, ii. 57, 2
— ¦ — perseverance necessary under,
U, 48, 2
.  examples of persons seduced
by, ii. 3, 2
 mere praying against, will
not deliver from, Ii. 50, 2
 sometimes preoccupies the
affections, so that a luiiu has no
heart to pray, ii. 13, 1
 fall of those who presump
tuously expose theraselves to,
ii. 17, 2
 intolerable evils consequent
on a prera'il'ing, u. 20, 1
 the precedence of, over the
soul, ii. 8, 2
 happiness of those preserved
frora, ii. 5, 1
 from what It proceeds, Ii. 3, 1
 circumstances tending to
promote, ii. 3'2, 1
 abundance, the proper scene
ot, i. 408, 1
 first proposal of, fair, u. 20, 2
 considerations which should
help to resist, u. 5 1 , 2
 man cannot secure himself
against, u. 57, 2
 security against, ii. 2, 2
 if sinful, no way of escape
from, brought about by God, ii. 45, 2
 may sleep while not dead, u. 58, 2
 wins upon us by small and
insensible steps, II. 5, 2
 • strengthened by familiarity
with sin, ii. 31, 1
 by the gradual en
croachments of the flesh on the
Spirit, ii. 31, 1
 ways by which it lias suc
ceeded must be considered, ii. 53, 1
 modes of support uuder, ii. 37, 2
 surest way of escape from, ii. 34, 2

Temptation, the only true estimate
of, ii. 44, 2
 two sorts of, ii. 3, 1
 success of those unavoidably
entangled In, ii. 17, 1
— — danger ot unnecessarily enter
ing Into, ii. 18, 1
 complete victory ot, u. 8, 2
 a seuse of danger excites to
vigilance ag.alnst, u. 51, 1
 Watchfulness and Prayer,
A SECURITY against, a discourse, U. 50, 2
 foUy of walking in tke way of,
n. 22, 2
 wken It comes to be con
sented to hy the wiU, ii. 8, 2
 winds of, rebuked by God,
ii. 37, 1
 tme cause why many worsted
by, ii. 59, 1
 consequences of yielding to,
ii. 21, 2
Temptations which men try to get
rid of by sin, ii. 45, 2
 principal, whicli threaten
souls, ii. 42, 1
 evil tendency of, n. 431, 1
Tempter, /rs* assault ot. Is by sug
gesting eril thoughte, Ii. 55, 1
 last assault of, ii. 32, 2
 fastens on besetting s'm, U. 29, 2
 boldness of, ii. 30, 1
 chiefiy busies himself in pre
sumptuous sins, ii. 138, 1
 had no hold on Chr'ist, Ii. 29, 1
.  a mercy that the, cannot
compel to sin, Ii. 20, 1
 sometiraes commissioned by
God to terapt raen, Ii. 30, 2 ; 38.3, 2
 — — more than usually to
disquiet the mind, ii. 269, 1
 raode iu which he destroys
souls, ii. 10, 2
 deUverance from, ii. 37, 1
 raodes of deliverance frora,
n. 39, 2
 Holy Spirit delivers from, ii. 40, 2
 men go to, for deUverance
frora teraptation, ii. 46, 1
 four things designed by, in
his teraptations, ii. 20, 1
 has a hand In man's destruc
tion, ii. 2, 2
 may be foiled, and yet make
head again, ii. 44, 2
 frequency and force of the
onset,' means by which he usuaUy
conquers, u. 28, 2
 caimot /orce any man to sin,
u. 36, 2
 appeals to hopes and fears, ii. 34, 1
 hour of, ii. 269, 1
 cannot hurt, unless soraething
to fasten on, u. 4 1, 1

Tempter, manner in which Luther
resisted, ii. 33, 1
 malice and actirity of, Ii. 30, 1
 misery of being incessantiy
terapted by, ii. 36, 2
 overcorae by prayer and
fasting, ii. 300, 2
 rebuked by God, ii. 36, 2
 meaning of the exhortation
to "resist, and he wiU fiy," u. 28, 2
 rule we should foUow in our
corabate with, ii. 48, 1
— — . God's servant, ii. 36, 2
 profound skill and cunning ot,
ii. 30, 1
 danger of presumptuous sins
arising from, ii. 138, 1
 suits kis temptations to the
different persous terapted, u. 29, 2
— — tr'icks played by on othera,
should be noticed, ii. 63, 2
 wiles used by, n. 21, 1
See Deril and Satan.
Tender Conscience, a true state
and Account of the Plea of a,
a discourse, 1.241, 1
Ten'ors of God's anger, Ii. 21 1, 1
Thanlifulness for past raercies tiie
way to obtain future blessings, I. 497, 2
Things for which Christ is denied,
appearance of, i. 24, 1
 external, helps to devotion, i. 68, 1
 future, known to us in two
ways, ii. 99, 2
Thoughte, we are able from our
nature to conceal our, i. 343, 2
 eril, suggested by Satan, ii. 33, 1
 sins ot, not sius of infirmity, ii. 129, 2
Tirae, our, short, ii. 92, 2
 sufiicient, ii. 93, 1
 Umited, ii. 93, 1
 shortness ot, an arguraent for
diligence, u. 93, 2
 raost valuable, ii. 94, 1
Toil, perpetual, inconsistent witii
teraporal happiness, i. 404, 2
Toleration, act of, how far it war-
rante separation, i. 528, 1
 causes increase of dis
sent, i. 529, 1
To-raorrow, we have nothing to do
with, ii. 307, 1
 he that is unwilUng to repent
to-day, wiU be raore so, u. 308, 1
Tongues, gift of the, characterized,
 gift of, ii. 89, 1
 a gift of the Spunt, u. 269, 2
Tormente of the wicked, etemal, U. 221, 2
 greatness of, ii. 222, 1
Trade, the connipting the gentry
and nobUity a, i. 148, 2

INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

699

Tradition, its authority denied by
the Church of England, i. 537, 1
Transubstantlation not rejected
merely because difficult to be
understood, i. 371, 1
.  . case of, why different from
that of the Trinity, i. 371, 1
See Trinity.
—  contradictions in the doctrine
of, i. 371, 1
 denied by the Church of
England, i. 536, 1
 doctrine of, U. 84, 1
Treachery ruins friendship, i. 100, 2
 of heart requires watchful
ness, ii. 52, 2
 our worst enemy, n. 52, 2
 ruins many, ii. 63, 1
Treasure, bringing out of, things
new and old, explained, i. 310, 2
 signifies man's ckief good, I. 414, 2
 man's whole delight in what
he accounte his, i. 416, 1
 a resfless desire to obtain, i. 414, 2
 what is accounted, the last
support of the miud in all
troubles, i. 415, 2
 aU other things wiU be parted
with to preserve, i. 416, 1
 folly of raaking our, what can
not be rendered secure, i. 416, 2
 transitory things, aud things
out of our power, unfit for, i. 418, 2
Trial, two great ways of, ii. 34, 1
 day of, how to prepare for,
II. 39, 1
Trinity, answer to the statement,
that if we beUeve the doctrine of
the, we should also beUeve tran-
substautiation, i. 371, 1
 Arians and Socinians, opi
nions of, regarding the, i. .336, 2
 we should rest in the bare
revelation of, i. 374, 2
 belief of, has beeu injured by
the language of the schoolmen, i. 374, 1
— and by building it on texte of
Scripture which do not teach it,
i. 374, 1
 believed hy the great majority
of the Christian Church, i. 372, 2
 raode in which we raay con
ceive of, on the ground of reason,
i. 369, 2
— — not a contradiction, i. 368, 1
 denied by Mahometans, i. 370, 2
— — absurd conduct of those who
i. 372,2

 diMcult to be understood, i. 371, 1
 very difficult, and cannot be
proved to be false, i. 372, 1

Trinity, discovery of, reserved for
the tiraes of Christianity, I. 370, 2
 the doctrine of the, should
keep us humble, i. 254, 2
 doctrine of, has been defended
by bad arte, i. 369, 2
 Doctrine of, asserted and
Proved, not contrary to Rea
son, i. 336, 1
 not expressly held fortli in the
Old Testaraent, I. 370, 1
 equality of the three persons
of, n. 261, 1
 reason cannot /a^Aoift, i. 371, 1
 a fundamental article of the
Christian religion, i. 371, 2
 the " glass" of, commented
on, ii. 494, 1
 kints of, said to be fouud in
some heathen writera, i. 369, 1
 obscurely known to the Jews,
I. 370, 1
 reason assigned for this fact,
i. .370, 1
 we should suppress all over
curious inquiries into, I. 374, 2
 mischievous effects of the
atterapte to paint and represent
iu figure, i. 374, 1
 cannot be disproved by rea
son, i. 368, 1
 causes which have raade
some reject, i. 374, 1
 rejected by raodern Jews, i. 370, 2
 unreasonableness of rejecting, i. 372, 1
 Talmudists sa'd to speak
concerning, very plainly, i. 370, 2
 taught in 1 John, v. 7, the
Socinian gloss of this text refu
ted, i- 366, 2
 texte in the Old Testa^ment
said to teach this doctrine, i. 370, 1
 order and office of, II. 261, 1
Trismegistus supposed to be spu
rious, i- 369, 2
Trust, iraportance of, ii. 60, 2
 wisdom or folly shewn in,
u. 60, 2
Truth, appearance of, the formal
cause ot aU assent, i. 376, 2
 bare assent to, not effectual
hearing, ii- 250, 1
 used to signify the Cliristian
religion, i. 376, 2
 close examination necessary
to attain, i. 380, 2
 how It comes to have a com
forting infi/uence on man's mind,
II. 258, 1
 comforts because it clears the
conscience from guilt and doubt-
ing, ii.258,2
 discerned by dUigence aud
impartiality, ii. 48, 2

Truth, how to be distinguislied, II. Ill, 1
 and error, reason for their
different acceptableness to the
mind, i. 388, 1
 applications of the soul to, at
first weak, but confirmed by fre
quent converse, i. 380, 1
— . — and goodness inseparably
combined, i. 376, 1
 compared in Scripture to
liyht, i. 388, 2
 to receive the love of, i. 376, 2
 why hated by raen, i. 379, 2
 hating judgraent upon, i. 380, 1
 way of, why called way of
holiness, ii. 269, 1
 implies a high esteera of Ite
worth, i. 377, 2
 and the choice of It as a thing
franscendautly good, i. 379, 1
 the not receiving the love of,
disposes to error, by drawing off
the understanding frora the con
templation of truth, i. 380, 1
 by causing prejudice against
it, i. 380, 2
 by darkening and besotting
the raind, i. 381, 2
 refreshing to the soul, u. 268, 2
 best way to obtain a settled
persuasion of, i. 394, 1
 suitable to man's understand
ing, i. 376, 2 ; ii. 258, 1
 Is the supreme autkority, i. 388, 1
Tyrante always perfidious, i. 97, 2

UnbeUef not caused by insuffi
ciency of argument, i. 46, 2
 of the Pharisees, true cause of,
i. 47, 1
 an instruraent of Satan's
working, ii. 270, 2
Unconverted, the, hostUe to God's
law, ii- 252, 2
Understanding, blindness of, to
what It leads, i. 389, 1
 blinded by spiritual judg
ments, i- 387, 1
 darkened by vice, i. 381, 2
 best means to enlighten, i. 48, 1
 God may withdraw his en
lightening influence from, i. 382, 1
 God enlightens by voluntary
communications, i. 383, 1
 is illuminated by the Holy
Spirit, ii; 260, 2
 influence ot, on the will,
¦^ n. 474, I
 of man, original state of,
i. 10, 2
 truth suitable to,
ii. 258, 1

600

SOUTH'S SERMONS.

Understanding, dirided into specu
lative and practick, i. 11, 1
¦  has precedency in holy ac
tions, ii. 249, 2
 submission ot, to God's wUl,
illustrated by the caae of Job,
ii. 377, 2
 influence of the will upon,
i.47, 1;380, 1
Ungrateful persons are selfish, i. 92, 2
 cannot be altered by
kindness, i. 92, 2
 destitute of any true-
sense of rehgion, i. 93, 1
Uniformity, evils arising frora
want.of, i. 627, 2
Union to Christ realized through
faith, U. 173, 1
Unity of God employed to set
aside the divinity of Christ, i. 446, 2
Unjustifiable act, an, consequences
of, ii. 47, 2
Unnatural to take pleasure in
other men's sins, i. 144, 1
Unprofitableness of our services to
God, U. 357, 2
Unregeneracy, a sinful disposition
differs from a state of, i. 334, 2
Unregenerate under the law as a
rule of life, ii. 356, 2
Unworthiness, plea of, as a ground
of doubting, conderaned, ii. 483, 2
Uprightly, he who walks, walks
surely : this principle considered
under a threefold aspect, — as
certainly true, as probably true,
and as false, i. 104, 1
 truth of it deraonstrated, i. 104, 2
 it would be true, even though
religion were false, i. 108, 1
 not untrue, because raen act
as if it were, u. 1 04, 2
Uzzah, punishment of, i. 53, 2
'Valentinians, heresy of, u. 227, 1
¦Vanity, au occasion of flattery, u. 123, 1
¦Variety, advantages of, i. 294, 2
Vice, affinity between, and virtue,
i. 176, 1
Vice captivates and enslaves ii. 126,1
 darkens the mind, i. 381, 2
 never mortified by corporal
discipline, i. 8, 2
 encouraged by the thought of
secrecy, ii. 165, 2
 no great, ever went alone, i. 90, 2
 increase ot, during late years,
i. 162, 2
 of ingratitude, great baseness
and malignity of, i. 90 — 92
 love of, destroys the love of
trath, _ i. 381, 2
 there is in every person by

nature a corrupt propensity to,
i. 423, 2
Vice, natural propensity to, the
origin of all disorder, i. 423, 2
Vices, all, difficult to be eradi
cated, ii. 92, 1
 concealment of, flattery, ii. 112, 1
 of the flesh emasculate the
reason, i. 381, 2
 perverse imitation of, ii. 120, 1
 praises qf, flattery, Ii. 117, 1
 should be reproved by gover
nors, ministers, and friends, ii. 113, 1,2
 — with meekness, U. 115,2
 some, may be taken for vir
tues, ii. 120, 1
Vicious person, a, never enjoys
himself but in the herd, i. 142, 1
Vicissitude of human affairs, i. 178, 1
Virtue ckerisked by self-denial, i. 347, 1
 no great, ever went alone, i. 90, 2
 grows npon no ground but
what is weU tlUcd and cultivated, i. 324, 2
 how ite growtk may be in
sured in old age, i. 422, 2
 honour is the birthright of,
i. 335, 2
 opinions of flie heathen re
garding, ii. 462, 2
 path qf, described, ii. 422, 2
 practice of, recomraended by
ite end, i. 423, 1
 PROSPERITY EVER DANGEROUS
TO, a discourse, i. 322, 2
 and vice, dwell on the con-
flues of each other, i. 176, 1; 400, 7
Virtuous actions, coraraission of,
conducible to the crucifixion of
the flesh, U. 452, 1
Vision, heavenly, nature and ex
tent of, ii. 441, 1
 theories regarding, with
answers thereto, n. 441, 1,2
VolkelUus, irapious opinion of, re
specting raatter, I. 372, 2
Vows ought to be kept, u. 277, 1
 violation of, more than ordi
narily sinful, iL 277, 1

Want, the dread of, one cause of
covetousness, i. 402, 2
War, civil, In England, compared
vrith the war among the
IsraeUtes, i. 432, 2
 effecte of the EngUsh,
i. 421, 1 ; 428, 2
 dissolution of order, caused
by, i. 421, 2
 nature of, described,!. 425, 2

War, business of the pulpit during,
i. 428, 1
 Cliristian, how to be carried
on, ii. 60, 2
 weakness and treachery, the
causes of raiscarriage in, ii. 52, 1
 analogy between, and tem
poral, n. 55, 2
 two kinds of, ii. 396, 1
 lawful, in the case of self-
preservation, u. 396, 2
   of distributive
justice, u. 396, 1
 in defence of ciril
rights, u. 402, 2
 to rindicate the honour
of a nation, ii. 402, 2
 lawfulness of, argued from
the opinion of Johu the Baptist,
ii. 397, 2
 of Christ and his
apostles, ii. 398, 1
 Scriptural argument
against, considered, ii. 399, 2
 unlawfulness of, affirmed by
Socinus, i. 37.3, 1 ; u. 398, 1
 refutation of the arguments
for, drawn from Isaiah, ii. 4,
ii. 400, 2
 from Matthew,
xxri. 62, 401 1
 from James, Iv, 1,
i. 401, 2
 the dictate of self-preserva
tion, Ii. 399, 1
 only desirable as a remedy, ii. 402, 2
 folly of trying to get rickes
by i. 406, 2
Waming, what is impUed in,
i. 215, 2
Watchfulness and Prayer, a
Security Against Temptation,
a discourse, ii. 60, 2
 what Is impUed in, ii. 61- 55
 necessity of, II. 61, 2
 in consequence of the
treachery of our hearte, u. 52, 2
 in consequence of our
weakuess, n. 52, 1
 for the purification of
our hearte, Ii. 72, 1
 against the means by
which we have been already led
into sins, ii. 52, 2
 must be eraployed against
the means by which others fell,
ii. 54, 1
 and fasting, one means of
purification, ii. 73, 1
 instramente in God's
hands, ii. 73, 1
 and prayer, accepted by God
only together, u. 60, 2
 and sobriety, joined together, U. 66, 1
 iraplies severe temperance, ii. 56, 2

INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

601

Way, the broad and narrow, con
trasted, i. 422, 2
Wealth, whatever exceeds a com
petence. Is a superfluity, i. 404, 1
.  envy and malice which foUow
the possession of, i. 508, 2 ; 408, 2
 cannot bringye/i'c!*!/, i. 410, 1
 ill-gotten, of short continu
ance, i. 411, 2
 hoarded up vrith great toil,
I. 404, 1
 — foUy of keeping up, . 404, 2
 attained with great danger, i. 404, 2
 very insecure, i. 405, 1
 brings with it immoderate
cares, i. 406, 2
 miseries of, i. 407, 1
.—  leads men into snares, i. 408, 1
Weakness, our own, and strength
should be compared with those
of om' enemy, ii. 5'2, 1
 requires watchfulness, ii. 52, 1
 of heart, ii. 64, 1
 caused by original sin, ii. 66, 2
 of man to intend and to per
form, ii- 65, 1
Westminster School, commenda
tion of, i. 431, 1
 benefite derived from,
i. 431, 2
Wicked, " h/ing down" of,u. 141, 2
 mischief devised by, ii. 141, 2
 misery of, from want of God's
presence, ii. 222, 1
 encouraged to sin by the
denial of eternal punishment, i. 365, 2
 punishment of, etemal, II. 222, 1
 prosperity of, sometimes stag
gers the righteous, u. 282, 2
WIU, choice of, must be preceded
by an act of the understanding, i. 378, 2
 to choose is the office of the,
i. 379, 1
.  eril things are chosen by the,
i. 170, 1
 when it consents to tempta
tion, ii. 8, 2
 the corrupt, how it causes
sin, ii- 185, 1
 how far God's acceptance of,
for the deed holds good, con
sidered in ite original ground
and reasons — just raeasure
and bounds, and abuse or rais-
application, i. '^j 1
 in excuse for tke deed, never
pleaded by old Church of
England royaliste, __i. 82, 2
 the divine, absolute, u. 229, 1
 follows the understanding,

WIU entirely ^ee in a state of in
nocence, 1.12,2
.  freedom of, u. 102, 1
 generally asserted by
heathen philosophers, i. 168, 2
 difficulty of reconcUing
God's foreknowledge with, i. 257, 2
 greater liberty of, in tiie siu
of angels than of man, Ii. 229, 2
 of man, hope and fear, the
two great means of Influencing, I. 349, 1
 mistakes about, i. 79, 1
 nature ot the, ii. 235, 1
 ite office among the faculties,U. 184, I
 operation upon, by the Holy
Spirit, ii. 503, 1
 overcome ny wnatever per
fectly pleases It, i. 180, 1
 of God, providential and
revealed, distinction between, U. 376, 2
  revealed, our sole
directory, ii. 376, 2
 readiness to obey, the
best means to enlighten the
understanding, i. 48, 1
 eoverns the understanding
^ i. 47, 1
 influence of the understand
ing upou, i. 380, 1
 a vitiated, how It indisposes
to trath, i. 380, 1
_ — never accepted by God but as
the obedience ofthe whole man,
i. 78, 1
 virtually the whole ¦man, i. 78, 2
WUUng of a thing very different
from what men take It to be,
I. 80, 1
 not bare approbation, i. 79, 1
 something more than
mere inclination, i. 80, 1
 not merely wishing, I. 79, 2
Wisdora,earna?,of the unconverted
heart, ii- 253, 1
 ofGod, U.237, 1
 advantage accruing to
man from, ii. 386, 1
 IN MAKING Christia
nity Mysterious, a discourse, i. 249, 1
 the Gospel is the. In a
mystery, i- ?49, 2
 meaning of, i. Ij 1
 true, want of among atheiste,
i. 110, 2
 of a people most shewn In
their Bro«r6s, i. 129, 2
 the Ways of, Ways of
Pleasantness, a discourse, i. 1, 1
 Of this World, a discourse, I. 68, 1

Wisdom, worldly, raeaning of in
Scripture, i. 68, 1
 folly and absurdity of,
i. 72, 1
 neglecte the poor, I. 71, 2
 not restrained by reli
gion or conscience, I. 69, 2
 rules orprlnclples of,
I. 69, 1
 teaches selfishness, i. 70, 2
 — and that favours ought
to be done ouly to the rich, I. 71,1
 looks no farther than
this world, i. 72, 1
Wise meu of the East, who they
were, Ii. 467, 1
.  not kings, n. 467, 2
 place whence they
came, ii. 468, 1
__ — .  time when they
came to Jerusalem, ii. 468, 2
 what the star that
guided them was, u. 469, 1
  — how they gathered
our Sariour's birth from seeing
the star, ii. 469, 2
 not from the prin
ciples of astrology, u. 469, 2
  may have obtained
the assistance of tradition, U. 469, 2
 but this not suffi
cient, ii. 470, 1
Wishes discover the true temper
of the soul, ii. 281, 2
Wishing of a tiling not properiy
wlUIng, i. 79, 2
Wolsey, punishment of, i. 55, 1
Word of God caunot be despised
witiiout guilt, il. 13'2, 2
  disobedience to the,
a method of resisting the Spirit,
Ii. 500, 2
 negUgent hearing of the,
ii. 500, 2
Words, fatal Importance and
Force of, a discourse, i. 169, 2
 the generahty of men are
governed by, i- 173, 2
 anecdote of Caesar's array iu
regard to tlie power of, I. 174, 1
 "all have been captivated and
enlivened by, i. 174, 2
 vanitii is increased by, i. 175, I
 sin of, ii. 430,2
Work allotted to every Man
TO BE Performed in this
World, a discourse, u. 89,2
 caunot he carried on but In
this life, ii. 92, 2
 Christian's, necessity of,
ii. 94, 1
 and duty of a Christian, diffi-
cult, ii. 93, 2
Works of supererogation, ii. 106, 2

IL

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