being able to answer his challenge, no uncircumcised Phi- SER M. listine of confidence to meet him, μοῦνος ἀνὴρ συλῇσεν ὅλον στρατὸν, the Christian is the only victor, he conquers the whole world about him, yea, and those glittering courtiers of the superior world, outvies and conquers angels in that one dignity of suffering for Christ, and so becomes the renownedest champion under heaven. II. To this I should add again, if I had not said so much of it already, and if it were not a baser earthier consideration, the profit and secular advantage of which the Christian life, let the insensate worldling think what he will, hath the peculiar only promise from Him which hath the sole disposing of it. Some mistakes there are in judging what worldly prosperity is; let it be rescued from these mistakes, as particularly from that of signifying a present few months vicissitude of power and wealth,-so sure to be paid (and confuted from deserving that title) by that of the prophet, "When thou ceasest to spoil thou shalt be spoiled,”—let it [Is. xxxiii. signify, as alone it doth truly signify, that competency, not 1.] that superfluity, which hath all the advantages, and none of the pains of wealth in it, and no question the doing our duty, though it be the present leaving of all for Christ's sake, is that which doth not use to fail of the liberalest sort of harvest, the hundred-fold more in this life, i. e. all the true advantages of those possessions, without that addition which would be bare profitless encumbrance; and which, if it were added, would prove a most disadvantageous diminution. I shall venture the brand and punishment that belongs to the most infamous cheat, whenever any disciple of Christ shall think fit to call me his underminer or enemy for this doctrine, when he shall think fit to tell me really that honesty is not the only prudence, the surest foundation and treasure of worldly bliss. I have done with the particulars I promised: and now put all together, and you will never think the preacher a tyrant more, never pity the melancholic, but envy the ravishments of him that hath taken up this yoke,—yea though it have a cross annexed to it,-to follow Christ; you will never put in II. SERM. for your part in Mahomet's paradise, exchange your purer gospel for a grosser Alcoran, having in this very yoke of Christ a satisfaction to all your longings, a richer harvest of joys in the present possession, than all the false prophets and false Christs could feign for their clients in the latest reversion. And having thus fortified you, I shall now challenge the rival Satan to come out to thee, to bring forth his pleas and pretensions for thee, to interpose his exceptions if he have any, why this hour should not be the solemn era, the date of thy long farewell to the kilns and fleshpots of Egypt, why this minute should not be that of the blessed shrill trumpet's sound, that of proclaiming a jubilee, a manumission for thee,-and all thy fellow-captives,-never to return to his galleys again, who art offered so far a more gainful, more easy, more pleasant, and more liberal service. Satan, I am confident, dare not say his wages are comparable to those that here I have tendered thee from Christ; let him shew me in all his kingdoms of the earth, in his treasury of gold, or gynæceum of beauty, any thing fit to be a rival with the graces, not which the poets feign, but which the sermon on the mount prescribes,-ingredient and constitutive of a Christian, both for the gain and pleasure, the commodity and the delight of them even to flesh and blood,-when the one bedlam heat of youth or lethargic custom of sin is over, -and I shall no longer pretend to get any proselyte out of his hands. And if after all this I must be content with the fate of [1 Cor. ix. other sermons, to have played a vain-glorious prize, ȧépa dé26.] pov, wounding none but the air this whole hour together; if I must miscarry in this so charitable undertaking, and may not be heard when I come but to comply with you in all your interests, to direct you through one Canaan to another, to lay you out a paradise here for your road to an eternal heaven, I confess I am fallen upon a peevish auditory, a company of sick fancies and crest-fallen souls. For whose cure, I might yet further set off all this, and improve it into little less than a demonstration, by the view of the contrary not only unpleasant and unprofitable, but even painful tormenting trade of sin; those so many limbos in passage to the deeper hell; that Sodom of filth and burning in the way to II. a Tophet of worms and flames. But I had rather fancy you SER M. the sheep in Aristotle which the green bough would lead, than the goats in the same philosopher, that the nettles must sting, whom the cords of a man might draw, than the whips of scorpions drive into paradise, into Canaan; being confident that I have at this time revealed such precious truths unto you, that he whom they do not melt and charm, and win to enter into this so necessary, so feasible, so gainful a service, father Abraham's divinity would prejudge and conclude against him, that "neither will that man convert, [Luke xvi. though one should rise from the dead and preach unto him." If there be any here of this unhappy temper, the only reserve I have to rescue him is my prayer, that God would touch his heart, that he would say Ephphatha, that if [Mark vii. there be any consolation in Christ, any comfort of love, any [Phil. iv. virtue, any praise, any such thing as paradise here, or heaven 8.] hereafter, we may every of us think of these things, and having entered into the blessed family of this good master, we may all serve Him acceptably here, fight under His banner, overcome by His conduct, and reign with Him triumphantly hereafter. Now to Him which hath elected, created, redeemed, called, justified us, will consummate us in His good time, will prosper this His ordinance to that end, will lead us by His grace to His glory; to Him, &c. 34.] SERMON III. EPHRAIM'S COMPLAINT. SERM. JER. xxxi. 18. I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself thus; Thou hast chastised me, and I was chastised, as a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke: turn Thou me, and I shall be turned. THIS text is a sad soliloquy of a provoking afflicted people. Ephraim transmigrantem, reads the Vulgar; and sure, which we read "bemoaning," would be better rendered thus, "the ten tribes sealed up in a black night, a fatal last captivity." To parallel our state with Israel in the transmigrantem, is not my design, much less in the bemoaning; that is but a piece of unseasonable pusillanimity that our English hath imposed upon the text, and our Saviour hath inspirited us into a more cheerful guise in suffering, the xaípeтe Kai [Matt. v. ayaâole, “rejoice and be exceeding glad," the most blissful joyous condition of any. 12.] The parallel, I fear, will prove too perfect in the words themselves, which Ephraim then was overheard to utter, and perhaps some infidel hearts may be a whispering now; and that I may prevent this parallel I have pitched upon these words, "I have surely heard Ephraim," &c. The sense of Ephraim's povodía thus sadly muttered, it is possible you may not articulately understand: I shall briefly be his interpreter, by giving you a plain paraphrase of the verse. 'I heard the ten tribes in a melancholic reflection on their state, thus whispering within themselves; We have long been punished by God, and no more wrought on by those punish III. ments than a wild unmanaged bullock,' i. e. not reformed or SERM. mended at all by this discipline,-the Targum hath cleared the rendering, “We have not been taught,” and the Septuagint's ovê édɩdáx¤ŋva hath done so too,—but then, ‘turn Thou me, return my captivity, restore us to our liberty and our Canaan again, and then no doubt we shall be turned, reformed and mortified by that change". Having thus laid bare the words before you, you will presently discern the sum of them, a people unreformed under God's rod, petitioning to be released from that smart, because it did not mend them, pretending that prosperity would work wonders on them. And this you will dissolve into these three specials, each worth our stay and pondering. 1. God's judgment, what course is fittest to reform sinners, not the delicate, but the sharp, that of smiting, Tu percussisti, "Thou hast smitten." 2. Man's judgment, or the sinner's flattering persuasion of himself, quite contrary to God's; a conceit, that roses are more wholesome than wormwood, that prosperity will do it better, and a bribing God with a promise that it shall do it, a And accordingly St. Chrysostome's Greek copy must be corrected, and read thus, ἐπαιδευσάς με Κύριε καὶ οὐκ ἐπαιδεύθην, ἀλλ ̓ ἐγενόμην ὡς μοσχὸς adidaктos. "Thou hast instructed me, Lord, and I was not instructed, but I became as an untaught, unmanaged ox or heifer."-Tom. vi. [p. 413.] Serm. Eundem esse Deum Vet. et Nov. Test. [This is the reading in the edition of Ducæus, as well as in that of Savile and the Benedictine editors, who all agree in considering this homily spurious. It occurs in each of these editions in the sixth volume.] That this is the meaning of the words will appear by the consequents, when they are once rendered and understood aright, which now seem to resist this interpretation, and that is caused by the ill rendering of them. They are to be read thus, verse 19. Surely when Thou shalt have turned me (or brought me back) I shall repent, when Thou shalt shew me (Thy mercies) I shall strike my thigh,"ceremony which was used by the Jews in the days of atonement or expiation, diebus D,-" I am ashamed, yea and confounded, because I bear," HAMMOND. -a E &c.-i. e. I am so troubled at my pun- tion. "Can I in any wise have mercy on him?"-when all My chastisements work not upon him, when he will not amend without prosperity. That this is the sense, and not that which our English inclines to believe, appears by this, that these ten tribes returned not, and therefore the next verse, 21, must be applied to the twelve tribes, not the ten. |