you dare to fay that God, who is Serm. 7. fo exact a Searcher and Tryer of our 'Lives, has only threatned Hell, but 'that there is really no fuch thing? 'Do not, I beseech you do not, destroy your felf, and all that shall be perfwaded by you, by such vain hopes. "If you will not believe us: Ask the Jews, the Greeks, all forts of 'Heretics; and they will all, with one mouth, make answer, that there 'fhall be a future Judgment, and state 'of Retribution. Or, if the evidence ' of Men be not fufficient, ask the ve'ry Devils themselves, and you fhall hear them crying out, Why art thou 'come to torment us, before our time? Wherefore, putting all these things together, perfwade your felf not to trifle any longer, leaft you should be at laft convinc'd by experience, that there is an Hell. But learn from hence to be fober, that fo thou mayeft both avoid the Torments of that 'place, and obtain the Happiness of Heaven. Thro' the grace and mercy of our Lord Jefus Chrift: to whom, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, be all honour, power and glory, for "ever and ever. Amen. SERM. SERMON VIII. Preach'd before Her MAJESTY, when she was Princess of Denmark, at St. James's. The Nature and Blessedness of Matthew 5. 3. Blessed are the poor in Spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven. 257 Serm. 8. HUS doth, that Divine Preacher of Righteoufnefs, Chrift Jefus begin, that best of Sermons that ever was or ever will be preach'd in this World, his Sermon on the Mount. He had just before enter'd upon his Prophetical Office of revealing and R expoun Serm. 8. expounding to Men the will of God, as we read in the 17th verfe of the foregoing Chapter, from that time began Jefus to preach. And behold! no fooner had he undertaken this important Office, but he dischargeth it Joh. 7. 46. to a miracle, Speaking so as never Man, before him fpake, and comprizing in few words more than all the wife Men of old had amafs'd together, in their vaft Volumes of Philofophy. 25. Having withdrawn himself from the noife and tumult of the multitude, which flock'd to him from all parts Matt. 4. about Jerufalem, he retires to a private Mountain, and there instructs his Difciples, and in them all Chriftians that fhould ever come into the World, in a fhort, but fure, way to true and everlasting Happiness. But, instead of propounding fuch ways to Happinefs, as were agreeable to thofe notions which Mankind had of it; he goes a quite contrary way to work, and pronounceth that to be the direct road to happiness, which both Jews and Gentiles look'd upon, juft on the contrary, as the certain road i road to mifery. But fo it was, the m wifdom of this world was foolishness Serm. 8. with God: What Men thought their 2 Cor. 3. happiness, was indeed their greatest 19. mifery; and those things which they avoided, as the main hindrances of their Happiness, were the only means, by which it could be obtain'd. Their high thoughts and great defires, their mirth and jollity, their freedom from pain and trouble, in which they placed fo confiderable a part of their Happiness, must now be chang'd into poverty of Spirit, weeping and mourn- ver. 3, 4, ing, afflictions and perfecutions; or 10,11. elle, divine Wisdom it felf has declar'd, they cannot be truly happy. Now that this Doctrine, which was not like to take much with a fenJual World, might not be wholely flighted and neglected, our Saviour wifely fets a Blessing before it: well knowing how fond Men naturally are of any thing that looks like happiness, and-how likely they would be to give entertainment to his Doctrine, if not for its own, yet for the Blessings fake. Nay, he recommends it, by annexing to it the very greatest of Bleffings R 2 even even nothing less than, the kingdom Serm. 8. of Heaven it felf. The first thing neceffary, in order to our obtaining this Evangelical Happiness, is poverty of Spirit; for this our Lord himself placeth first, beginning his Sermon with these words of my Text, Blessed are the poor in Spirit. What this poverty of Spirit is,which our Blessed Lord had in fuch great efteem, that be thought it not too much thus to dignify it with the first place amongst his Beatitudes, is a little difputed by Learned Men. Some taking the word poor to be us'd here, in a borrow'd and metaphorical fenfe, to fignify the humble and lowly Man; others earnestly contending for the ftrict and proper fenfe of it, as it fignifieth an indigent, needy perfon, one who is deftitute of Riches, and in mean Circumftances, as to his outward condition in this World. If we take the word poor in the first fenfe, then to be poor in fpirit, or in mind (for fo we are to understand the word Spirit here, and in many other places of Scripture |