V. wanting, never left out in our thrivingest, sparingest vows, I SERM. mean that pure crystal breast of Jacob's that God so delighted to dwell in,-as He was by the poet supposed to do in poor Pyramus' cottage,-that plain, honest, well-natured, undisguised heart both toward men and God, emblematically expressed by those smooth hands of Jacob, the fair open Campania of even, clear, unintricated designs, far from the groves and meanders, the dark depths, the intrigues, the dexterities and subtleties and falsenesses of the merchant worldling. Might but this judgment that hath preyed and gnawed so long upon the bowels of the kingdom but pare the heart of the Englishman into such a plain equable figure, leave never an angle or involution in it, make us but those direct-dealing honest fools that we are reproached to be,— but God knows are not guilty of that gracious Jacob-like quality;-might it but have that benign influence upon us here present; might it return us home with this one vow in every of our mouths and hearts, to be for the rest of our lives the English Nathanaels, the true Israelites, in whom there is no guile; might but this last minute of my hour make this one impression, I shall not hope on a rude multitude, but I say on my present auditory, to be content to live and die with downright honest Jacob, thrive or perish on clear direct Israelitish principles,—which will, I doubt not, one day have the turn of thriving in this world, when every thing else hath the reproach of imprudent and improsperous, as well as unchristian, the dove advanced when the serpent is licking the dust,—and with Drusus in Paterculus, instead of the artificer that would provide for the deep privacy, that sævi animi indicium in the orator,-send for him that could design the diaphanous house, wherein there might be all evidence, every man thought fit to behold that without an optic or perspective, which will never be disguised or concealed from the eye of heaven; might we by the help of a fast vow now stricken, and with the blessing of God prac • [Cum ædificaret domum in palatio in eo loco ubi est quæ quondam Ciceronis, mox Censorini fuit, nunc Statilii Sisennæ est, promitteretque ei architectus, ita se eam ædificaturum, uti libera a conspectu, immunis ab omni bus arbitris esset, neque quisquam in V. SERM. tised every hour of our lives after, come home to our father's house, old honest Jacob's plain tent, with peace and simplicity, cleanness, uncompoundedness of spirit,-a quality that would be able to commend and improve, christianize and bless that peace to us, and make it like that of God, a true and durable one;-I should then with all cheerfulness dismiss you with old Jacob into the hands of this God of Bethel, the God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob, that owned and blessed the simplicity and fidelity, the plainness and the trustiness of those three patriarchs, before all the glorious wisdom and politics of the world; whose sincerity and whose reward, whose uprightness and acceptation, integrity and crown, God of His infinite mercy grant us all. To whom with the Son, &c. SERMON VI. THE NECESSITY OF THE CHRISTIAN'S CLEANSING. 2 COR. vii. 1. Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves. VI. THERE is not, I conceive, any piece of divinity more un- SERM. luckily mistaken, more inconveniently corrupted and debauched by the passions and lusts of men, made more instrumental to their foulest purposes, than that of the promises of Christ; whether by giving them the inclosure and monopoly of our faith, the commands of Christ and the threats of Christ, which have as much right to be believed as they, His kingly and prophetic office, to which He was as particularly anointed as to that of our priest, being for the most part set aside as unnecessary, and by many steps and degrees at last not only left quite out of our faith, but withal fallen under our envy, become matter of quarrel against any that shall endeavour to obtrude them not only so impertinently, but so dangerously, either on our gospel, or on our practice,—or whether again by persuading ourselves and others that the promises of Christ are particular and absolute, confined to some few, and to those howsoever they be qualified; when the whole harmony and contexture of Christian doctrine proclaims directly the contrary, that they are general and conditional, a picture that looks every man in the face that comes into the room, but cannot be imagined to eye any man else, unrestrained to all so they shall perform the condition, and an éoppáɣioтaι тaμieîa, those diffusive store-houses sealed up against all who do not perform it. SERM. VI. [2 Cor. vi. 17, 18.] Shall we therefore have the patience, and the justice, and the piety awhile to resist these strong prejudices, to rescue this sacred theme from such misprisions, to set up the promises of Christ in such a posture as may have the safest and kindest influence, the benignest and most auspicious aspect upon our lives, not to swell and puff up our fancies any longer with an opinion that we are the special favourites to whom those promises are unconditionally consigned, but to engage and oblige our souls to that universal cleansing that may really enstate us in those promises, either of deliverance here or salvation eternally; that may, like the angel to St. Peter in prison, even to God Himself, shake off those gyves and manacles which have even encumbered His omnipotence, made it impossible for Him to make good His promises, temporal or spiritual, to such unclean uncapables as we? To this purpose there is one short word in the text which hath a mighty importance in it, the Taúras, the 'these' annexed to the promises. What is the interpretation of that you must enquire of the close of the former chapter; and that will tell you, that upon coming out from the pollutions and villanies of an impure profane heathen world,-and such is our unregenerate estate, I would I could not say, such is the condition of many of us that most depend on God's promises,-on our going out of this tainted region, our strict separation from all the provoking sins of it, all the mercies of heaven and (which some have a greater gust and appetite to) of earth also, are become our portion, a most liberal hospitable reception; "I will receive you, and I will be a Father" to all such proselyte guests, "and you shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty;" as if His almightiness, which is here pawned for the discharge of these promises, could not bring them down upon us, unless by this coming out of Sodom,-to which this angelical exhortation was sent to rouse us—we should render ourselves capable of them. In a word, the promises here, as all other in the Gospel, are not absolute, but conditional promises, on condition of "cleansing from all impurity," and not otherwise; and if there be in the whole world an engagement to cleansing, an obligation to the practice of the most defamed purity that a profane age can scoff or rail at, this certainly may be SERM. allowed to pass for it. "Having therefore," &c. The words are an exhortation to cleansing, and in them you may please to observe these three particulars : 1. The ground. 2. The address. 3. The exhortation itself. The ground the fittest in the world for this turn when you shall consider it thoroughly; ἐπαγγελίας ταύτας, “ these promises." The address, adding somewhat of sweetness to that of rational advice, "Having these promises, dearly beloved." And the exhortation itself, in the remainder of the words at large in the whole verse. We shall content ourselves with the contraction of it, καθαρίζωμεν ἑαυτοὺς, “let us cleanse ourselves." I begin with the first, the ground or foundation of the Apostle's exhortatory to cleansing, èñayyeλías тaúτas, “these promises." 1. Promises. 2. And particularly, conditional promises. And yet 3. more particularly, the conditional promises of this text, the "these promises" as they are set down in the end of the former chapter, are the most competent, most engaging, effectual arguments or impellents to set any Christian upon the work of Christian practice, that especially of impartial universal cleansing. It will be best demonstrated if we take them asunder, and view them in the several gradations. 1. Promises are a very competent argument to that purpose, a bait to the most generous passion about us, our emulation or ambition, drawing us with the cords of a man, the most rational masculine allectives, I shall add,-to an ingenuous Christian man, as that signifies neither saint in heaven, nor beast on earth, but that middle imperfect state of a Christian here, the most agreeable proper argument imaginable to set us a cleansing. Two other arguments there are, both very considerable, I confess. 1. The love (in the moralist of virtue, but in the Chris VI. |