Chapter XIII: Part 13

Brethren, the time would fail me to mention all the scriptures, and the various branches of our liturgy, articles, and homilies, that speak of this inestimable blessing, the indwelling of the blessed Spirit, whereby we do indeed become, “the temples of the living GOD.” If you have eyes that see, or ears that hear, you may view it almost in every page of the lively oracles, and every part of those offices, which some of you daily use, and hear read to you, in the public worship of Almighty GOD. In asserting therefore this doctrine, we do not vent the whimsies of a disordered brain, and heated imagination; neither do we broach any new doctrines, or set up the peculiar opinions of any particular sect or denomination of christians whatsoever; but we speak the words of truth and soberness, we shew you the right and good old way, even that, in which the articles of all the reformed churches, and all sincere christians of all parties, however differing in other respects, do universally agree. We are now insisting upon a point, which may properly be termed the christian _shibboleth_, something which is the grand criterion of our most holy religion; and on account of which, the holy _Ignatius_, one of the first fathers of the church, was used to stile himself a _bearer of_ GOD, and the people to whom he wrote, _bearers of_ GOD: For this, as it is recorded of him, he was arraigned before _Trajan_, who imperiously said, Where is this man, that says, he carries GOD about with him. With an humble boldness he answered, I am he, and then quoted the passage in the text “Ye are the temple of the living GOD; as GOD hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them, and I will be their GOD, and they shall be my people.” Upon this, to cure him of his enthusiasm, he was condemned to be devoured by lions.

Blessed be GOD! we are not in danger of being called before such persecuting _Trajans_ now: under our present mild and happy administration, the scourge of the tongue is all that they can legally lash us with. But if permitted to go farther, we need not be ashamed of witnessing this good confession. Suffering grace will be given for suffering times; and if, like _Ignatius_, we are bearers of GOD, we also shall be enabled to say with him, when led to the devouring lions, Now I begin to be a disciple of CHRIST.

But it is time for me,

_Secondly_, To make some practical improvement of what has been delivered. You have heard in what sense it is that real christians are “the temple of the living GOD.” Shall I ask, Believe ye these things? I know and am persuaded that some of you do indeed believe them, not because I have told you, but because you yourselves have experienced the same.

I congratulate you from my inmost soul. O that your hearts may be in tune this day to “magnify the LORD,” and your spirits prepared to “rejoice in GOD your Saviour.” Like the Virgin _Mary_, you are highly favoured, and from henceforth all the generations of GOD’s people shall call you blessed. You can call CHRIST, Lord, by the Holy Ghost, and thereby have an internal, as well as external evidence of the divinity, both of his person, and of his holy word. You can now prove that despised book, emphatically called The Scriptures, doth contain the perfect and acceptable will of GOD. You have found the second _Adam_ to be a quickening spirit; He hath raised you from death to life. And being thus taught, and born of GOD, however unlearned in other respects, you can say, “Is not this the CHRIST?” O ineffable blessing! inconceivable privilege! GOD’s spirit witnesseth with your spirits, that you are the children of GOD. When you think of this, are you not ready to cry out with the beloved disciple, “What manner of love is this, that we should be called the children of GOD!” I believe that holy man was in an extasy when he wrote these words; and tho’ he has been in heaven so long, yet his extatic surprize is but now beginning, and will be but as beginning through the ages of eternity. Thus shall it be with all you likewise, whom the high and lofty One, that inhabiteth eternity, hath made his living temples. For He hath sealed you to the day of redemption, and hath given you the earnest of your future inheritance. His eyes and heart shall therefore be upon you continually: and in spite of all opposition from men or devils, the top-stone of this ♦spiritual building shall be brought forth, and you shall shout Grace, grace unto it: your bodies shall be fashioned like unto the Redeemer’s glorious body, and your souls, in which (O infinite condescension!) He now delights to dwell, shall be filled with all the fulness of GOD. You shall then go no more out; you shall then no more need the light of the sun or the light of the moon, for the LORD himself will be your temple, and the Lamb in the midst thereof shall be your glory. Dearly beloved in the LORD, what say you to these things? Do not your hearts burn within you whilst thinking of these deep, but glorious truths of GOD. Whilst I am musing, and speaking of them, methinks a fire kindles even in this cold, icy heart of mine: O what shall we render unto the LORD for all these mercies! Surely He hath done great things for us: How great is his goodness, and his bounty! O the heighth, the depth, the length, and the breadth of the love of GOD! Surely it passeth knowledge. O for humility! and a soul-abasing, GOD-exalting sense of these things! When the blessed virgin went into the hill country, to pay a visit to her cousin _Elizabeth_, amazed at such a favour, she cried out, “Whence is it that the mother of my LORD vouchsafes to come to me?” And when the great Jehovah filled the temple with his glory, out of the abundance of his heart, king _Solomon_ burst forth into this pathetic exclamation, “But will GOD in very deed dwell with men on the earth?” With how much greater astonishment ought we to say, And will the LORD himself in very deed come to us? Will the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, dwell in, and make our earthly hearts his living temples? My brethren, whence is this? From any fitness in us foreseen? No, I know you disclaim such an unbecoming thought. Was it then from the improvement of our own free-will? No, I am persuaded you will not thus debase the riches of GOD’s free grace. Are you not all ready to say, Not unto us, not unto us, but unto thy free, thy unmerited, thy sovereign, distinguishing love and mercy, O LORD, be all the glory. It is this, and this alone, hath made the difference between us and others. We have nothing but what is freely given us from above: if we love GOD, it is because GOD first loved us. Let us look then unto the rock from whence we have been hewn, and the hole of the pit from whence we have been digged. And if there be any consolation in CHRIST, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the spirit, if any bowels and mercies, let us study and strive to walk as becometh those who are made the temples of the living GOD, or, as the apostle elsewhere expresseth himself, “a holy temple unto the LORD.” What manner of persons ought such to be in all holy conversation and godliness? How holily and how purely should we live! As our apostle argues in another place, “For what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? What communion hath light with darkness? Or what concord hath CHRIST with Belial?” Shall those who are temples of the living GOD, suffer themselves to be dens of thieves and cages of unclean birds? Shall vain unchaste thoughts be suffered to dwell within them? much less shall any thing that is impure be conceived or acted by them? Shall we provoke the LORD to jealousy? GOD forbid! We all know with what distinguished ardor our blessed Redeemer purged an earthly temple; a zeal for his father’s house even eat him up: with what a holy vehemence did he overturn the tables of the money-changers, and scourge the buyers and sellers out before him! Why? They made his father’s house a house of merchandise: they had turned the house of prayer into a den of thieves.

♦ “spirituaul” replaced with “spiritual”

O my brethren, how often have you and I been guilty of this great evil? How often have the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life, insensibly stolen away our hearts from GOD? Once they were indeed houses of prayer; faith, hope, love, peace, joy, and all the other fruits of the blessed Spirit lodged within them; but now, O now, it may be, thieves and robbers. _Hinc illæ lachrymæ._ Hence those hidings of GOD’s face, that dryness, and deadness, and barrenness of soul, those wearisome nights and days, which many of us have felt from time to time, and have been made to groan under. Hence those dolorous and heart-breaking complaints, “O that I knew where I might find him! O that it was with me as in days of old, when the candle of the LORD shone bright upon my soul!” Hence those domestic trials, those personal losses and disappointments: and to this perhaps some of us may add, hence all those public rebukes with which we have been visited: they are all only as so many scourges of small cords in the loving Redeemer’s hands, to scourge the buyers and sellers out of the temple of our hearts. O that we may know the rod and who hath appointed it! He hath chastised us with whips: may we be wise, and by a more close and circumspect walk prevent his chastising us in time to come with scorpions! But who is sufficient for this thing? None but thou, O LORD, to whom alone all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hidden! Cleanse thou therefore the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of thy blessed Spirit, that henceforward we may more perfectly love thee, and more worthily magnify thy holy name!

But are not some of you ready to object, and to fear, that the LORD hath forgotten to be gracious, that he hath shut up his loving kindness in displeasure, and that he will be no more entreated? Thus the psalmist once thought, when visited for his backslidings with GOD’s heavy hand. But he acknowledged this to be his infirmity; and whether you think of it or no, I tell you, this is your infirmity. O ye dejected, desponding, distrustful souls, hear ye the word of the LORD, and call to mind his wonderful declarations of old to his people. “I, even I am He that blotteth out thy transgressions: for a small moment have I forsaken thee, but with everlasting mercies will I gather thee. Can a woman forget her sucking child? Yes she may, but the LORD will not forget you, O ye of little faith, For as a father pitieth his own children, so doth the LORD pity them that fear him. How shall I give thee up, O _Ephraim_? How shall I make thee as _Admah_? How shall I set thee as _Zeboim_?” And what is the result of all these interrogations? “My repentings are kindled together: I will not return to execute the fierceness of my anger against _Ephraim_: for I am GOD, and not man.” And is not the language of all these endearing passages, like that of _Joseph_ to his self-convicted, troubled brethren? “Come near to me.” O that it may be said of you, as it is said of them, “And they came near unto him.” Then should you find by happy experience, that the LORD, the LORD GOD, merciful and gracious, is indeed slow to anger and of great kindness, and repenteth him of the evil. Who knows but he may come down this day, this hour, nay this moment, and suddenly revisit the temple of your hearts? Who knows but he may revive his work in your precious souls, cause you to return to your first love, help you to do your first works, and even exceed your hopes, and cause the glory of this second visitation even to surpass that glory which filled your hearts, in that happy, never to be forgotten day, in which he first vouchsafed to make you his living temples? Even so, Father, let it seem good in thy sight!

But the improvement of our subject must not end here. Hitherto I have been giving bread to the children; and it is my meat and drink so to do: but must nothing be said to those of you who are without? I mean to such who cannot yet say, that they are “the temple of the living GOD.” And O how great, put you all together, may the number of you be: by far, in all probability, the greatest part of this auditory. Say not I am uncharitable; the GOD of truth, hath said it, “Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.” Suffer me to speak plainly to you, my brethren; you have heard what has been said upon the words of our text, and what must be wrought in us, ere we can truly say that we are “the temple of the living GOD.” Is it so with you? Are ye separated from the world and worldly tempers? Are your hearts become houses of prayer? Doth the Spirit of GOD dwell in your souls? and whether you eat or drink, or whatsoever you do, as to the habitual bent of your minds, do you do all to the glory of GOD? These are short, but plain, and let me tell you very important questions. What answer can you make to them? Say not, “Go thy way, and at a more convenient season I will call for thee.” I will not, I must not suffer you to put me off so; I demand an answer in the name of the LORD of Hosts. What say ye? Methinks, I hear you say, “We have been dedicated to GOD in baptism, we go to church or meeting, we say our prayers, repeat our creeds, or have subscribed the articles, and the confession of faith; we are quite orthodox, and great friends to the doctrines of grace; we do no body any harm, we are honest moral people, we are ♦church-members, we keep up family-prayer, and constantly go to the table of the LORD.” All these things are good in their places. But thus far, nay much farther may you go, and yet be far from the kingdom of GOD. The unprofitable servant did no one any harm; and the foolish virgins had a lamp of an outward profession, and went up even to heaven’s gate, calling CHRIST, “Lord, Lord.” These things may make you whited sepulchres, but not “the temples of the living GOD.” Alas! Alas! one thing you yet lack, the one chief thing, and without which all is nothing; I mean the indwelling of GOD’s blessed Spirit, without which you can never become “the temples of the living GOD.”

♦ “churc-hmembers” replaced with “church-members”

Awake therefore, ye deceived formalists, awake; who, vainly puffed up with your model of performances, boastingly cry out, “The temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD are we.” Awake, ye outward-court worshippers: ye are building on a sandy foundation: take heed lest you also go to hell by the very door of heaven. Behold, and remember, I have told you before.

And as for you who have done none of these things, who instead of making an outward profession of religion, have as it were renounced your baptism, proclaim your sin like _Sodom_, and wilfully and daringly live as without GOD in the world; I ask you, how can you think to escape, if you persist in neglecting such a great salvation. Verily, I should utterly despair of your ever attaining the blessed privilege of being temples of the living GOD, did I not hear of thousands, who through the grace of GOD have been translated from a like state of darkness into his marvellous light. Such, says the apostle _Paul_, writing to these very _Corinthians_ who were now GOD’s living temples, (drunkards, whoremongers, adulterers, and such like) “such were some of you. But ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the LORD JESUS, and by the Spirit of our GOD.” O that the same blessed Spirit may this day vouchsafe to come and pluck you also as brands out of the burning! Behold, I warn you to flee from the wrath to come. Go home, and meditate on these things; and think whether it is not infinitely better, even here, to be temples of the living GOD, than to be bond-slaves to every brutish lust, and to be led captive by the devil at his will. The LORD JESUS can, and if you fly to him for refuge, he will set your souls at liberty. He hath led captivity captive, he hath ascended up on high, on purpose to receive this gift of the blessed Spirit of GOD for men, “even for the rebellious,” that he might dwell in your hearts by faith here, and thereby prepare you to dwell with Him and all the heavenly host in his kingdom hereafter.

That this may be the happy lot of you all, may GOD of his infinite mercy grant, for the sake of his dear Son CHRIST JESUS our LORD; to whom with the Father, and the blessed Spirit, three persons, but one GOD, be ascribed all power, might, majesty, and dominion, now and for evermore. Amen! and Amen!

SERMON LI.

CHRIST the only Preservative against a Reprobate Spirit.

2 CORINTHIANS xiii. 5.

_Know ye not your ownselves, how that JESUS CHRIST is in you,
except ye be Reprobates._

THE doctrines of the gospel are doctrines of peace, and they bring comfort to all who believe in them; they are not like the law given by _Moses_, which consisted of troublesome and painful ceremonies; neither do they carry with them that terror which the law did; as, “cursed is every one who continueth not to do all things which are written in the book of the law:” If you were to keep the whole law, and break but in one point, you are guilty of the breach of all. The law denounces threatnings against all who do not conform to her strict commands; but the gospel is a declaration of grace, peace and mercy; here you have an account of the blood of CHRIST, blood which speaketh better things than that of _Abel_; for _Abel_’s blood cried aloud for vengeance, vengeance: But JESUS CHRIST’s crieth mercy, mercy, mercy upon the guilty sinner. If he comes to CHRIST, confesses and forsakes his sin, then JESUS will have mercy upon him: And if, my brethren, you are but sensible of your sins, convinced of your iniquities, and feel yourselves lost, undone sinners, and come and tell CHRIST of your lost condition, you will soon find how ready he is to help you; he will give you his spirit; and if you have his spirit you cannot be reprobates: you will find his spirit to be quickening and refreshing; not like the spirit of the world, a spirit of reproach, envy, and all uncharitableness.

Most of your own experiences will confirm the truth hereof; for are not you reproached and slandered, and does not the world say all manner of evil against you, merely because you follow JESUS CHRIST; because you will not go to the same excess of riot with them? While they are singing the songs of the drunkard, you are singing psalms and hymns: while they are at a playhouse, you are hearing a sermon: while they are drinking, revelling and mispending their precious time, and hastening on their own destruction, you are reading, praying, meditating, and working out your salvation with fear and trembling. This is matter enough for a world to reproach you; you are not polite and fashionable enough for them. If you will live godly, you must suffer persecution; you must not expect to go through this world without being persecuted and reviled. If you were of the world, the world would love you; for it always loves its own; but if you are not of the world, it will hate you; it has done so in all ages, it never loved any but those who were pleased with its vanities and allurements. It has been the death of many a lover of JESUS, merely because they have loved him: And, therefore, my brethren, do not be surprized if you meet with a fiery trial, for all those things will be a means of sending you to your master the sooner.

The spirit of the world is hatred; that of CHRIST is love: the spirit of the world is vexation; that of CHRIST is pleasure: the spirit of the world is sorrow; that of CHRIST is joy: the spirit of the world is evil, and that of CHRIST is good: the spirit of the world will never satisfy us, but CHRIST’s spirit is all satisfaction: the spirit of the world is misery; that of CHRIST is ease. In one word, the spirit of the world has nothing lasting; but the spirit of CHRIST is durable, and will last through an eternity of ages: the spirit of CHRIST will remove every difficulty, satisfy every doubt, and be a means of bringing you to himself, to live with him for ever and ever.

From the words of my text, I shall shew you,

I. The necessity of receiving the spirit of CHRIST.

II. Who CHRIST is, whose spirit you are to receive, And then

Shall conclude with an exhortation to all of you, high and low, rich and poor, to come unto the LORD JESUS CHRIST, and to beg that you may receive his spirit, so that you may not be reprobates.

_First_, I am to shew you the necessity there is of receiving the spirit of CHRIST.

And here, my brethren, it will be necessary to consider you as in your first state; that is, when GOD first created _Adam_, and placed him in the garden of _Eden_, and gave him a privilege of eating of all the trees in the garden, except the tree of knowledge of good and evil, which stood in the midst thereof. Our first parents had not been long in this state of innocence, before they fell from it, they broke the divine commands, and involved all their posterity in guilt; for as _Adam_ was our representative, so we were to stand or fall in him; and as he was our fœderal head, his falling involved all our race under the power of death, for death came into the world by sin; and we all became liable to the eternal punishment due from GOD, for man’s disobedience to the divine command.

Now as man had sinned, and a satisfaction was demanded, it was impossible for a finite creature to satisfy him, who was a GOD of so strict purity as not to behold iniquity: And man by the justice of GOD would have been sent down into the pit, which was prepared of old for the devil and his angels; but when justice was going to pass the irrevocable sentence, then the LORD JESUS CHRIST came and offered himself a ransom for poor sinners. Here was admirable condescension of the LORD JESUS CHRIST! that he who was in the bosom of his father, should come down from all that glory, to die for such rebels as you and I are, who if it lay in our power, would pull the Almighty from his throne: Now can you think that if there was no need of CHRIST’s death, can you think that if there could have been any other ransom found, whereby poor sinners might have been saved, GOD would not have spared his only begotten Son, and not have delivered him up for all that believe in him?

This, my brethren, I think proves to a demonstration, that it was necessary for CHRIST to die: But consider, it will be of no service to know that CHRIST died for sinners, if you do not accept of his spirit, that you may be sanctified, and fitted for the reception of that JESUS, who died for all those who believe in him. The sin of your nature, your original sin, is sufficient to sink you into torments, of which there will be no end; therefore unless you receive the spirit of CHRIST you are reprobates, and you cannot be saved: Nothing short of the blood of JESUS applied to your souls, will make you happy to all eternity: Then, seeing this is so absolutely necessary, that you cannot be saved without having received the spirit of CHRIST, but that ye are reprobates, do not rest contented ’till you have good hopes, through grace, that the good work is begun in your souls; that you have received a pardon for your sins; that CHRIST came down from heaven, died, and made satisfaction for your sins. Don’t flatter yourselves that a little morality will be sufficient to save you; that going to church, or prayers, and sacrament, and doing all the duties of religion in an external manner, will ever carry you to heaven; no, you must have grace in your hearts; there must be a change of the whole man.

You must be born again, and become new creatures, and have the spirit of CHRIST within you: And until you have that spirit of CHRIST, however you may think to the contrary, and please yourselves in your own imagination, I say, you are no better than reprobates. You may content yourselves with leading civil, outward decent lives, but what will that avail you, unless you have the spirit of the LORD JESUS CHRIST in your hearts: His kingdom must be set up in your souls; there must be the life of GOD in the soul of man, else you belong not to the LORD JESUS CHRIST; and until you belong to him, you are reprobates.

This may seem as enthusiasm to some of you, but if it is so, it is what the apostle _Paul_ taught; and therefore, my brethren, they are the words of truth. I beseech you, in the mercies of GOD in CHRIST JESUS, not to despise these words, as if they do not concern you, but were only calculated for the first ages of christianity, and, therefore, of no signification: If you think thus, you are wronging your own souls; for whatever is written, was written for you in these times, as well as for the christians in the first ages of the church.

For the case stands thus between GOD and man: GOD, at first, made man upright, or, as the sacred penman expresses it, “In the image of GOD made he man;” his soul was the very copy, the transcript of the divine nature. He who had, by his almighty power, spoken the world into being, breathed into man the breath of spiritual life; and his soul became adorned with purity and perfection. This was the finishing stroke of the creation; the perfection both of the moral and material world; and it so resembled the divine Original, that GOD could not but rejoice and take pleasure in his own likeness: Therefore, we read, that when GOD had finished the inanimate and brutish part of the creation, “he looked, and behold it was good.” But when that lovely, god-like creature man was made, “behold it was very good.”

Happy, unspeakably happy, to be thus partaker of a divine Nature; and thus man might have continued still, had he continued holy; but GOD placed him in a state of probation, with a free grant to eat of every tree in the garden, except the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The day he did eat thereof he was not only to become subject to temporal, but spiritual death; and so lose that divine image, that spiritual life which GOD had breathed into him, and which was as much his happiness as his glory.

But man, unhappy man, being seduced by the devil, did eat of the forbidden fruit, and thereby became liable to that curse which the eternal GOD had pronounced on him for his disobedience. And we read, that soon after _Adam_ was fallen, he complained that he was naked; naked, not only as to his body, but naked and destitute of those divine graces which before beautified his soul.

An unhappy mutiny and disorder then fell upon this world; those briars and thorns which now spring up and overspread the earth, were but poor emblems, lifeless representations of that confusion and rebellion which sprung up in, and overwhelmed, the soul of man, immediately after the fall. He now sunk into the temper of a beast and devil.

In this dreadful and disordered condition are all of us brought into the world: We are told, my brethren, that “_Adam_ had a son in his own likeness,” or with the same corrupt nature which he himself had sunk into, after eating the forbidden fruit: And experience, as well as scripture, proves, that we are altogether born in sin, and, therefore, uncapable, whilst in such a state, to have communion with GOD.

For as light cannot have communion with darkness, so GOD can have no communion with such polluted sons of _Belial_. Here, here, appears the great and glorious end, why CHRIST was manifest in the flesh, to put an end to these disorders, and to restore us unto the favour of GOD. He came down from heaven and shed his precious blood upon the cross, to satisfy the divine justice of his Father, for our sins; and so, he purchased this Holy Ghost, who must once more re-stamp the divine image on our hearts, and make us capable of living with, and enjoying of GOD. We must be renewed by the spirit of GOD; he must dwell in us before we can be new creatures, and be freed from a reprobate spirit: the spirit of CHRIST must bring us home unto that fold where all his sheep are, and implant his grace in our hearts, and take from us that spirit of sin which reigns in us: And till this is rooted out of our hearts, however we may flatter ourselves with being good christians, because we are good moralists, and lead civil, moral, decent lives, yet if we live and die, my brethren, in this way, we are only flattering ourselves into hell.

I think I have proved, to a demonstration, the necessity there is of receiving the spirit of CHRIST. I now come to shew you,

_Secondly_, Who CHRIST is, whose spirit you are to receive.

My brethren, JESUS CHRIST is co-equal, co-essential, co-eternal, and consubstantial with the Father, very GOD of very GOD; and as there was not a moment of time in which GOD the Father was not, so there was not a moment of time in which GOD the Son was not.

_Arians_ and _Socinians_ deny this godhead of CHRIST, and esteem him only as a creature: The _Arians_ look on him as a titular Deity, as a created and subordinate God; but, if they would humbly search the scriptures they would find divine homage paid to CHRIST. He is called GOD in scripture, particularly when the great evangelical Prophet says, “He shall be called the mighty GOD, the everlasting Father, and the government shall be upon his shoulders:” And JESUS CHRIST himself says, that he is “the Alpha and Omega;” and that “the world was made by him:” But though this be ever so plain, our gay airy sparks of this age will not believe the LORD JESUS CHRIST to be equal with his Father, and that for no other reason, but because it is a fashionable and polite doctrine to deny his divinity, and esteem him only as a created God.

Our _Socinians_ do not go so far; they look upon CHRIST only to be a good man sent from GOD, to shew the people the way they should go, on their forsaking of Judaism; that he was to be also an example to the world, and that his death was only to prove the truth of his doctrines.

Many of those who call themselves members, yea, teachers of the church of _England_, have got into this polite scheme. Good GOD! my very soul shudders at the thoughts of the consequence that will attend such a belief. O my brethren, do not think so dishonourably of the LORD who bought you; of the JESUS who died for you: he must be all in all unto your souls, if ever you are saved by him: CHRIST must be your active, as well as passive obedience; his righteousness must be imputed to you. The doctrine of CHRIST’s righteousness being imputed, is a comfortable, a desirable doctrine to all real christians: And to you, sinners, who are enquiring what you must do to be saved? how uncomfortable would it be to tell you, by your own good works, when, perhaps, you have never done one good work in all your lives: This would be driving you to despair indeed; no, “believe in the LORD JESUS CHRIST and you shall be saved;” come to the LORD JESUS by faith, and he shall receive you. He is able and willing to save you.

This second person in the Trinity, who is God-man, the mediator of the new covenant; he, my brethren, hath virtue enough, in his blood, to atone for the sins of millions of worlds: As man he died, he was crucified, nailed to, and pierced on the accursed tree: This was the love of the LORD JESUS CHRIST for you; and will you then have low and dishonourable thoughts of JESUS CHRIST, after his having done so much for you? O my dear brethren, don’t be so polite as to deny the Deity of CHRIST; though you may be counted fools in the eye of the world, yet in GOD’s account, you shall be esteemed wise, wise for salvation.

You may now be looked upon as fools and madmen, as a parcel of rabble, and, in a short time, fit for Bedlam. They may say you are going to undermine the established church; but GOD, who knows the secrets of all hearts, knows our innocency; and I speak the truth in CHRIST, I lie not, I should rejoice to see all the world adhere to her articles; I should rejoice to see the teachers, the ministers of the church of _England_, preach up those very articles they have subscribed to; but those ministers who do preach them up, they esteem as madmen, and look on them, as the off-scouring of the earth, unfit for company and conversation.

The evil things they say of me, blessed be GOD, are without foundation; I am a friend to the church homilies; I am a friend to her liturgy, and if they did not thrust me out of their churches, I would read it every day.

My brethren, I am not for limiting the spirit of GOD, but am for uniting all in the bonds of love; I love all that love the LORD JESUS CHRIST: This will make more christians, than will the spirit of persecution.

The Pharisees may think it madness to mention persecution in a christian country, but the spirit of persecution resides in many: their will is as great, but blessed be GOD, they want the power; if they had that, my brethren, fire and faggot is what we must expect, for the devil’s temple is shaken. Many are coming unto JESUS, I hope many of you are already come, and many more coming; this must make Satan rage, to see his kingdom weakened; he will stir up all his malice against the people of GOD. We must expect, that a suffering time will certainly come; it is now hastening on, it is ripening a-pace; then it will be proved, to a demonstration, whether you are hypocrites or not; for suffering times are always trying times. O my brethren, do not be afraid of a little reproach, but look on it as a fore-runner of what will be the attendant upon it: Therefore let me, by way of application,

Exhort all of you, high and low, rich and poor, one with another, to come unto the LORD JESUS CHRIST, that he may give you strength to undergo whatsoever he, in his wisdom, calls you to. Come, come, my brethren, to JESUS CHRIST, and he will give you grace, which will make you willing and ready to suffer all things for JESUS CHRIST.

It is not being pointed at; it is not being despised and looked on as mad, and a deluded people: Alas! what does this signify to a soul who has JESUS CHRIST? Do not be afraid to confess the blessed JESUS; dare to be singularly good: Don’t be afraid of singing of hymns, or of meeting together to build each other up in the ways of the LORD: Shine ye as lights in the world amidst a crooked and perverse generation.

It is necessary that offences should come, to try what is in our hearts, and whether we will be faithful soldiers of JESUS CHRIST or not: Be not content with following CHRIST afar off, for then we shall, as _Peter_ did, soon deny him; but let us be altogether christians. Let our speech and all our actions declare to the whole world, whose disciples we are, and that we have determined to know nothing but JESUS CHRIST, and him crucified. O then, then, will it be well with us, happy, unspeakably happy, shall we be, even here; and what is infinitely better, when others that despised us shall be calling for the mountains to fall on them, and the hills to cover them, we shall be exalted to sit down on the right hand of GOD, and shine as the sun in the firmament, and live for ever with our Redeemer. And will not this be a sufficient recompence for all the sufferings you have undergone here? Therefore, do not strive to have the greatness, the riches, the honour, and pleasures of this world, but strive to have JESUS CHRIST.

Your friends and carnal acquaintance, and, above all, your grand adversary the devil, will be persuading you not to have CHRIST until you are grown old; he would have you lay up goods for many years; to see plays, play at cards; go to balls, and masquerades; and to make you the more willing, to draw you in, he calls sinful pleasures, innocent diversions.

A late learned Rabbi of our church, told the people, in a sermon, which I myself heard, that if people went to church of a Sunday, and said the prayers while there, that it was no harm, neither would GOD count it a sin, to take their recreation, after the service of the church was over: But I say, my brethren, and the command of GOD says so too, that the whole sabbath must be kept holy; and that as GOD has allowed you six days for yourselves, to do the duties in those several stations wherein Providence has placed you, he expects you should give him one day to himself; and will you waste that sabbath which should be spent in gathering provisions for your souls? GOD forbid!

You had ten thousand times better be ignorant of all the polite diversions of the age, than to be ignorant of the spirit of CHRIST’s being within you, and that it must be, before you are _new creatures_, and are in CHRIST; and if you have not an interest in CHRIST, you are lost, your damnation is hastening on. “He that believeth shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall be damned.”

If you stand out against CHRIST, you are fighting against yourselves. O come unto him, do not stay to bring good works with you, for they will be of no service; all your works will never carry you to heaven, they will never pardon one sin, nor give you the least comfort in a dying hour; if you have nothing more than your own works to recommend you to GOD, they will not prevent your sinking into that eternal abyss, where there is no bottom.

But come unto CHRIST, and he will give you that righteousness which will stand you in good account at the great day of the LORD, when he shall come to take notice of them that love him, and of those who have the wedding garment on.

Let all your actions spring from the love of JESUS; let him be the Alpha and Omega of all your actions; then, my brethren, our indifferent ones are acceptable sacrifices; but if this principle be wanting, our most pompous services avail nothing; we are only spiritual idolaters: we sacrifice to our own net, and make an idol of ourselves, by making ourselves, and not CHRIST, the spring of our actions; and therefore, my brethren, such actions are so far from being accepted by GOD, that according to the language of one of the articles of our church, “We doubt not but that they have the nature of sin, because they spring not from an experimental faith in, and knowledge of JESUS CHRIST.”

Were we not fallen creatures, we might then act upon other principles; but since we are fallen in _Adam_, and are restored again only by the death of JESUS CHRIST, the face of things is intirely changed, and all we think, speak, or do, is only accepted in and through him,

Therefore, my brethren, I beseech you, in the bowels of love and compassion, that you would come unto JESUS: Do not go away scoffing, offended, or blaspheming. Indeed, all I say is in love to your souls; and if I could be but an instrument of bringing you to JESUS CHRIST, if you were to be never so much exalted, I should not envy, but rejoice in your happiness: If I was to make up the last of the train of the companions of the blessed JESUS, it would rejoice me to see you above me in glory. I do not speak out of a false humility, a pretended sanctity; no, GOD is my judge, I speak the truth in CHRIST, I lie not, I would willingly go to prison, or to death for you, so I could but bring one soul from the devil’s strong holds, into the salvation which is by CHRIST JESUS.

Come then unto CHRIST every one that hears me this night; I offer JESUS CHRIST, pardon, and salvation to all you, who will accept thereof. Come, O ye drunkards, lay aside your cups, drink no more to excess; come and drink of the water which CHRIST will give you, and then you will thirst no more: come, O ye thieves; let him that has stolen, steal no more, but fly unto CHRIST and he will receive you. Come unto him, O ye harlots; lay aside your lusts and turn unto the LORD, and he will have mercy upon you, he will cleanse you of all your sins, and wash you in his blood. Come, all ye liars; come, all ye Pharisees; come, all ye fornicators, adulterers, swearers, and blasphemers, come to CHRIST, and he will take away all your filth, he will cleanse you from your pollution, and your sins shall be done away. Come, come, my guilty brethren; I beseech you for CHRIST’s sake, and for your immortal soul’s sake, to come unto CHRIST: Do not let me knock at the door of your hearts in vain, but open and let the King of Glory in, and he will dwell with you, he will come and sup with you this night; this hour, this moment he is ready to receive you, therefore come unto him.

Do not consult with flesh and blood, let not the world hinder you from coming to the LORD of life: What are a few transitory pleasures of this life worth? They are not worth your having, but JESUS CHRIST is a pearl of great price, he is worth the laying out all you have, to buy.

And if you are under afflictions, fly not to company to divert you, neither read what the world calls harmless books; they only tend to harden the heart, and to keep you from closing with the LORD JESUS CHRIST.

When I was a child, yea, when I came to riper years, GOD knows, it is with grief I speak it, when ignorant of the excellency of the word of GOD, I read as many of these harmless books as any one; but now I have tasted the good word of life, and am come to a more perfect knowledge of CHRIST JESUS my LORD; I put away these childish, trifling things, and am determined to read no other books but what lead me to a knowledge of myself, and JESUS CHRIST.

Methinks I could speak till midnight unto you, my brethren; I am full of love towards you; let me beseech you to fly to CHRIST for succour: “Now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation;” therefore delay not, but strive to enter in at the strait gate; do not go the broad way of the polite world, but choose to suffer affliction with the people of GOD, rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season: You will have a reward afterwards, that will make amends for all the taunts, jeers, and calamities you may undergo here.

And will not the presence of CHRIST be a sufficient reward for all you have suffered for his name’s sake? Why will you not accept of the LORD of glory? Do not say you have not heard of CHRIST, for he is now offered to you, and you will not accept of him; do not blame my master, he is willing to save you, if you will but lay hold on him by faith; and if you do not, your blood will be required of your own heads.

But I hope that you will not let the blood of JESUS be shed in vain, and that you will not let my preaching be of no signification. Would you have me go and tell my master, you will not come, and that I have spent my strength in vain; I cannot bear to carry so unpleasing a message unto him, I would not, indeed, I would not be a swift witness against any of you at the great day of accounts; but if you will refuse these gracious invitations, and not accept of them, I must do it: and will it not move your tender hearts to see your friends taken up into heaven, and you yourselves thrust down into hell? But I hope better things of most of you, even that you will turn unto the LORD of love, the JESUS who died for you, that in the day when he shall come to take his people to the mansions of everlasting rest, you may hear his voice, “Come, ye blessed of my Father, enter into the kingdom prepared for you before the foundation of the world.” And that we may all enter into that glory, do thou, O JESUS, prepare us, by thy grace; give us thy spirit; and may our hearts be united to thee: May the word that has now been spoken, take deep root in thy people’s hearts, that it may spring up and bring forth fruit, in some thirty, in some forty, and in some an hundred fold; do thou preserve them while in this life from all evil, and keep them from falling, and at last present them faultless before thy Father, when thou comest to judge the world, that where thou art, they may be also. Grant this, O LORD JESUS CHRIST, with whatever else thou seest needful for us, both at this time and for evermore.

Now to GOD the Father, GOD the Son, and GOD the Holy Ghost, be
ascribed all honour, power, glory, might, majesty and dominion,
both now and for evermore, Amen.

SERMON LII.

The heinous Sin of Drunkenness.

EPHESIANS v. 18.

_Be not drunk with Wine, wherein is Excess; but be filed with
the Spirit._

THE persons to whom these words were written, were the inhabitants of _Ephesus_, as we are told in the _Acts_, had been ♦worshippers of the great goddess _Diana_, and, in all probability, worshipped the God _Bacchus_ also; at the celebration of whose festivals, it was always customary, nay, part of their religion, to get drunk; as though there was no other way to please their God, but by turning themselves into brutes.

♦ “worshipppers” replaced with “worshippers”

The apostle therefore in this chapter, amongst many other precepts more especially applicable to them, lays down this in the text; and exhorts them, as they had now, by the free grace of GOD, been turned from heathenish darkness to the light of the gospel, to walk as children of light, and no longer make it part of their religion or practice to be “drunk with wine, wherein is excess;” but, on the contrary, strive to “be filled with the Spirit” of that Saviour, after whose name they were called, and whose religion taught them to abstain from a filthy sin, and to live soberly as they ought to live.

The world being now christian, and the doctrines of the gospel every where received, one would imagine, there should be no reason for repeating the precept now before us. But alas, christians! I mean christians falsely so called, are led captive by all sin in general, and by this of drunkenness in particular; that was St. _Paul_ to rise again from the dead, he might be tempted to think most of us were turned back to the worship of dumb idols; had set up temples in honour of _Bacchus_; and made it part of our religion, as the _Ephesians_ did of theirs, “to be drunk with wine, wherein is excess.”

Some of our civil magistrates have not been wanting to use the power given them from above, for the punishment and restraint of such evil doings; and I wish it could be said this plague of drinking, by what they have done, had been stayed amongst us. But alas! though their labour, we trust, has not been altogether in vain in the LORD, yet thousands, and I could almost say ten thousands, fall daily at our right-hand, by this sin of drunkenness, in our streets; nay, men seem to have made a covenant with hell, and though the power of the civil magistrate is exerted against them, nay, though they cannot but daily see the companions of their riot hourly, by this sin, brought to the grave, yet “they will rise up early to follow strong drink, and cry, To-morrow shall be as to-day, and so much the more abundantly; when we awake, we will seek it yet again.”

It is high time therefore, for thy ministers, O GOD, to lift up their voices like a trumpet; and since human threats cannot prevail, to set before them the terrors of the LORD, and try if these will not persuade them to cease from the evil of their doings.

But alas! how shall I address myself to them? I fear excess of drinking has made them such mere _Nabals_, that there is no speaking to them. And many of GOD’s servants have toiled all their life-time in dissuading them from this sin of drunkenness, yet they will not forbear. However, at thy command, I will speak also, though they be a rebellious house. Magnify thy strength, O LORD, in my weakness, and grant that I may speak with such demonstration of the Spirit, and power, that from henceforward they may cease to act so unwisely, and this sin of drunkenness may not be their ruin.

Believe me, ye unhappy men of _Belial_, (for such, alas! this sin has made you) it is not without the strongest reasons, as well as utmost concern for your precious and immortal souls, that I now conjure you, in the Apostle’s words, “Not to be drunk with wine, or any other liquor, wherein is excess.” For,

_First_, Drunkenness is a sin which must be highly displeasing
to GOD; because it is an abuse of his good creatures.