XXXIX. John 15. 5. you, SERM. the great ends for which you use it; for Christ Himself hath told that "without Him you can do nothing." But by Him there is nothing but you may do, as St. Paul long ago Phil. 4. 13. experienced; saying, "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me." And therefore whensoever you fast, as you must pray to God, so you must trust in Christ for His assistance of you, and then you need not fear but it shall most effectually conduce to "the keeping your bodies under, and the bringing them into subjection, so that you shall not be cast-aways, but happy for ever." These are the rules which I judge necessary to be observed in fasting; and therefore whensoever I speak of fasting, I desire to be understood of fasting according to those rules, and no otherwise. Thus now I have done my duty in acquainting you with yours. What effect a sermon of this nature will have upon you, I know not, but fear, it will meet with the same fate that sermons nowadays use to do; some will like one thing, some another, some nothing at all in it, but dislike and censure the whole; and such will be so far from resolving to practise what they have heard, that they are resolved already not to practise it, and such may now go out of the Church, for I have no more to say unto them, but only this, that this sermon will one day rise up in judgment against them, and then they will wish they had observed it better, when it is too late; but as for such amongst you, as seriously mind the concerns of another life, I have a few more words to speak to you, which I desire you to hear with patience and attention. Beloved in the Lord, you cannot but all ascribe it to the infinite goodness and mercy of the Most High God, that you are still alive, and not in Hell, but in a capacity as yet of getting to Heaven, whither, I suppose, you all desire to go when you die: but Heaven, you know, is a place where but few come, nor indeed any but real and true Saints; and therefore as ever you desire to go thither when you die, you must while you live be sanctified wholly, you must mortify all your lusts, and subdue your passions, you must love and fear God above all things, you must serve, honour and obey Him with a perfect heart, and a willing mind, and do all such good works as He hath prepared for you to walk in, which being no easy matter to do, you must lose no time, spare no costs, neglect no means that may be any way helpful to you in it; especially you must be sure to take St. Paul's course, "You must keep your bodies under, and bring them into subjection," otherwise you can expect no other but to be cast-aways, and undone for ever. Hence therefore, I beseech you as your friend, I advise and exhort you as a Minister of Christ, as you tender your eternal Salvation by Him, that you would now set upon this work, this great work, so long neglected by you, even upon fasting, not after a careless, customary, or hypocritical manner, but in good earnest, so as that it may be effectual to the keeping of your bodies in continual subjection to your souls; for which end, I suppose, the strict observation of the days prescribed by our Church, may be sufficient for most people; but if any of you find that that will not do your business, fast oftener, but still observing the rules laid down before, and never leave off till you have brought your bodies to such a temper, as no way to obstruct your passage to Heaven, till you have "mortified all your members that [Col. 3. 5.] are upon the earth;" till you find "no sin reigning in your [Rom. 6. mortal bodies," so as to fulfil the lusts thereof; for till then you may be sure you have not fasted enough, or at least not aright; for God is so ready to assist the constant and conscientious performance of this duty according to the aforesaid rules, that no sin, no devil is able to withstand it. 12.] And do not say or think within yourselves, that this is an hard work, who can bear it? For if you cannot deny yourselves a meal's meat, or a little wine now and then for Christ's sake, how is it possible for you to deny yourselves any thing at all for Him? And then with what face can you call yourselves His disciples, when you have not so [Matt. 16. much as learnt the first part of the first lesson that He hath taught all those that come to Him, even self-denial? And besides, how hard soever this duty may seem at first, by custom it will soon grow easy; when you have been once used to it for a while, you will find that comfort and satisfaction in it, and reap that spiritual benefit and advantage 24.] SERM. from it, that not only itself, but all other duties will be both easy and pleasant to you. XXXIX. How happy therefore should I think myself, would it please Almighty God to make me an instrument in His hand to persuade all you that hear me at this time, to the diligent performance of this duty! For how happy then should we all be! Then our minds being no way disturbed by our bodies, would be always kept in so fine, so delicate a temper, that we should think ourselves in another world; then we should despise the pleasures of this world, and leave them for brute beasts, and such men as live as if they were all body and no soul; then we should not be affrighted at the approach of any evil, as knowing that all things shall work together for our good; nay, death itself would then be no terror to us, for we should not fear, but "desire to be dissolved, and to be with Christ." And when that blessed time shall once come, being freed from these lumps of clay, which now put us to all this trouble, we shall be made like to the glorious Angels themselves, and then we shall never be troubled with eating or drinking more, but yet shall feast continually upon glory, goodness, all-sufficiency, pleasure itself; always enjoying, praising, adoring and magnifying the Eternal God, and our dear and ever blessed Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath purchased this grace and glory for us: to whom therefore with the Father and the Holy Spirit, three persons, one glorious and Eternal God, be all honour, praise, and glory from this time forth, and for evermore. Amen. 1 SERMON XL. THE SUFFICIENCY OF GRACE. 2 COR. xii. 9. And He said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee; for ALTHOUGH We all desire to go to Heaven when we die, yet if we look no farther than ourselves, we can see no ground to hope for it; for Heaven is a place where none but real Saints can come, such as have clean and pure hearts; and so are fit to live with the holy Angels, and "the spirits of just men made perfect," and to join with [Heb. 12. them in praising and enjoying the Most High God, the 23.] chiefest, the only good; but which of us can say, "I have Prov. 20. 9. made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin?" If any of us say it, "We do but deceive ourselves, and the truth is 1 John 1. 8. not in us." For if we deal truly and faithfully with ourselves, we cannot but find by our own experience, that we are not sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of our- 2 Cor. 3. 5. selves, much less to do any thing that is truly good. But after all our attempts and endeavours after goodness and virtue, we still come far short of it. Though we "delight in Rom. 7. 22, the Law of God after the inward man," yet we see “another law in our members warring against the law of our minds, and bringing us into captivity to the law of sin, which is in our members." We all see it, or at least we may see it if we will, that our whole frame is out of order, so that we are naturally indisposed to every thing that is good, and 23. XL. Rom. 7. 18. ver. 21. SERM. inclined to sin and wickedness, although we know it to be so: "We know that in us, (that is in our flesh) dwelleth no good thing, for though to will is present with us, yet how to perform that which is good we find not." "But we find a law, that when we would do good, evil is present with us." It is always present, and sticks to every thing we do, so as to corrupt and spoil it: neither are we only unable of ourselves to do any thing that is good, but such is our natural weakness, that do what we can, we are always falling into sin and mischief; we stumble at every stone that lies before us, nothing can befall us but we are apt to make some ill use or other of it. [Matt. 7. 14.] How much soever some may flatter themselves, this is plainly the case of all mankind by nature; and theirs most who are least sensible of it. How then can we ever expect to be saved? How is it possible for any of us to walk upright in the narrow path that leads to life? And to do all things necessary in order to it? No way certainly, unless we have more strength than our own to walk and to act by; but our comfort is, that what is wanting in us we may have it abundantly supplied by Omnipotence itself; for we have an Almighty Saviour, ready upon all occasions to assist us, and to carry us through the whole work of our Salvation, if we do but apply ourselves unto Him for it, as St. Paul here did, and therefore received this gracious answer from Him; "My grace is sufficient for thee; for My strength is made perfect in weakness." But that we may see into the true meaning of this answer of God, it will be necessary to look back upon the occasion [2 Cor. 12. of it. St. Paul, above fourteen years before he wrote this 2.] Epistle, had been caught up into the third Heavens or Paradise, whether in the body or out of the body he could not tell, but there he was, and heard unspeakable words, which it was not lawful, or rather not possible for a man to utter; which was such an extraordinary favour vouchsafed to him from his Lord and Master Christ, that it was likely to have bred in him too high an opinion of himself, and so it would have done if He that granted it had not at the same time taken care to prevent so great an abuse of it; but lest he should be exalted above measure through the abundance of |