can, to give themselves the unspeakSerm.11.able comfort and fatisfaction of living without the fear of Death? Why they should leave this most grand and momentous of all concernments, to innumerable hazards and uncertainties, and not instantly secure it? Oh! how much wifer can they be, in matters of infinitely lesser va lue, how feldom do they act thus, in their worldly Affairs? 21, 22. 5.7. I fhall conclude all with the adEccluf. 18. vice of the Son of Sirach- Hum ble thy felf before thou be fick, and 14.13,14. in the time of fins, fhew repentance. 14.12. Let nothing hinder thee to pay thy vow in due time, and defer not till death, to be justify'd. Do good before thou dye, and according to thy ability, stretch forth thy band. Defraud not thy felf of the good day, let not the part of a good defire overpass thee. Make no tarrying to turn to the Lord, and put not off from day to day for fuddenly fhall the wrath of the Lord come forth, and in thy fecurity thou shalt be destroy'd, and perish in the day of vengeance. Remember that death will not be long Serm. 11. in coming, and that the Covenant of A the Grave has not been shew'd unto thee. God grant that we may seriously Serm.12. SERMON XII Preach'd before the QUEEN, in Lent 1704. at St. James's. Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence towards God. A T the 18th. and 19th. verfes of this Chapter, we find the Apostle recommending to Christians a fincere and effectual love of their Brethren, not in word and in tongue only, but in deed and in truth, from this following Confideration; viz. that fuch a love as this would be Serm.12. one fure mark and proof of their being true Chriftians, and, provided they should be deficient in no other part of their duty, would give them an humble truft and confidence of their being in a state of grace and favour with God. Hereby, faith the Apostle, that is by this love, we know that we are of the truth, and shall affure, or rather perfwade, our hearts or confciences before God. And, in order to make this appear to be, as indeed it is, a confideration of the highest moment and importance, and which confequently ought to have a moft powerful influence upon us; he immediately adds, that fuch an affurance or perfuafion of our Confciences, as this, would be a comfortable and hopeful pledge and ernest of a favourable fentence from God, at the day of Judgment. For, as on the one hand, if our heart condemn us, we have all the reason in the world to fear, that God will condemn us too (because, as the Apostle obferves, God is greater than our hearts, and knoweth all things: He knoweth us much Bb 3 much better than we do our felves: and Serm.12. those faults for which we condemn our felves, and many others as bad or worse, which may probably enough have efcap'd us, cannot poffibly be hid from his all-feeing Eye) fo, on the other hand, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence towards God, that he will not condemn us neither. Thus much for the relation which thefe words have to the context; let ús now come to confider them in themfelves, more clofely. And indeed there is very great reafon fo to do: fince, what through the unreafonable fcrupulofity of fome, and the high conceitedness and prefumption of others, there is hardly any one part of these words, but what has been grievously wrefted and mifunderstood. Nay, and which is yet infinitely worse, the very end and defign of the Apostle in them has been utterly defeated and perverted; and, inftead of being, as he no doubt intended them, an encouragement to all manner of virtue and goodness, they have too too of ten been made, on the direct contrary, a co |