But let us confirm it. Compare the provisions of the word with your own necessities. What ! would you have a rule ? Then see if
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you have it not in the holy scriptures : Titus ii. 11, 12, ' For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world/ By ' the grace of God ' is meant the gospel ; and what doth the gospel teach us ? To ' live soberly, righteously, and godly ;' to enjoy God, to live with man, and the government of ourselves. We have enough if we have all this. But we have all this in as ample manner as heart can wish for, and therefore he that cometh from the dead must either preach the same doctrine, and then it is needless and supeirfluous, or contrary things, and then how shall we believe him, who are forewarned ? Gal. i. 8, ' But though we or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.* Christ enters a caution against them.
2. Better arguments cannot be urged, nor more persuasively. The gospel is ' the wisdom of God/ 1 Cor. i. 24; and surely God knoweth all the wards of the lock, and what kind of keys will fit the heart of man. He hath laid forth the riches of wisdom and grace upon this blessed design, and hence it is that we have such mysterious doctrines, such dreadful threatenings, such sweet promises, such .strong obligations from the death and incarnation of the Son of God, from the example of Christ, which doth secure our direction and encourage our practice. Out of what rock was man hewn if all this will not work upon him ? What must God do ? provide a better heaven, a hotter hell, another Son to die for us ? or a more forcible and encouraging example than that of Jesus Christ ? What is the matter that the wicked sinner will not be allured and made tame, charm the charmer never so wisely ? What do we need more to move us ? Shall God pipe to you in a sweeter strain than that of gospel grace or gospel promises ? Is the giving himself and his Christ a price too cheap to purchase your hearts ? or must he thunder to you in a more dreadful accent than the horrors of everlasting darkness ? Are these but poor and mean scarecrows to tell you of a pit without a bottom, of a worm that never dieth, of a fire that shall never be quenched ? Or what is the matter that the sinner stirreth not ? Is the scripture a dead letter ? and needeth it to be actuated and enforced by a living voice ? God hath provided us apostles and prophets to write scriptures, so pastors and teachers to explain and apply scriptures : Eph. iv. ].l, ' He gave some apostles, and some prophets, and some evangelists, and some pas- tors and teachers ; ' men who are concerned as well as ourselves, the value of whose credit we know by their faithfulness in other things, that have the same temptations, affections, and necessities as we have ; men with whom we may more familiarly converse, and with less fright, than with one from the dead. Oh ! but one that cometh from the dead is supposed to testify his own sight and knowledge, and so to speak more feelingly. And have not God's messengers some exper- ience ? Cannot they say, We declare to you the things which we have seen and heard and felt ? Have they not been scorched by the spirit of conviction, tasted comfort, felt a change in their own hearts ? What can any messenger from the dead say that hath not been told you over again and again a thousand times ? Would he say that all
356 SERMONS UPON LUKE XVI. 30, 31.
shall die ? — that you see with your eyes. That presently after death Cometh judgment ? — that you pretend to believe already. That the torments of hell are terrible and insupportable ? — this Grod hath told you over and over ; and * if we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater,' 1 John v. 9. That you must repent and be con- verted ? — this is that that is sounded in your ears every day. Therefore we are better provided already than to need the horror of an apparition or a warning from one among the dead.
3. It is not because he could propound these truths with more cer- tainty, for these things are already propounded to our understandings, and we have sensible confirmation.
[1.] They are propounded to our understandings with a fair and full credibility. The holy scriptures have in themselves a self-evidencing light, by which they make it out to the consciences of men that they are of God. Everything that hath passed the hand of God discovereth its author ; all God's works have his signature and impression upon them, which is legible and visible to every attentive beholder : Rom. i. 20, ' For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and godhead ; so that they are without excuse ; ' Ps. xix. 1, * The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handiwork.' Not a pile of grass but showeth its maker — Frcescntem refert qucelihet lierha Deum ; and surely his word, which he ' hath magnified above all his name,' Ps. cxxxviii, 2, is not altogether without such an impress and stamp of God upon it, therein being revealed things most worthy of the truth, wisdom, goodness, and holi- ness of God, and suitable to that wisdom and truth that is in us, so far as there is any in us. What shall I speak of the most satisfactory way of reconciliation with God, the fairest draught of moral perfection, far beyond all that which is of mere human recommendation ? Here is no dead fly in this box of ointment, but all pure and holy, without mix- ture ; nothing so accommodate to the necessities of man, and fit to bring us to the enjoyment of that which the reasonable nature aimeth at. What shall I speak of the majesty of the style, the genuine simplicity of the narrations, the harmony of the parts, the sublimity of the doctrines, the impartiality and purity of the precepts, the overflow of God's love in the promises, the glorious rewards, the certainty of the prophecies ? — all which are so many innate characters and evidences of the divine authority of these writings, by which they clearly insinuate themselves with wonderful force and power into the consciences of men : 2 Cor. iv. 2, ' But have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walk- ing in craftiness, not handling the word of God deceitfully ; but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God,' There was an evidence in the truth itself preached by the apostles, so there is in the word written by the apostle, for the voice could add nothing to it, and the writing take nothing from it. A man of art and judgment discovereth himself in every book he writeth. Aristotle's writings show him a person of great knowledge. Can a book have God for its author, and have nothing to discover its author ? It is unreasonable. Masters in writing or paint- ing show their hand ; the scripture doth not stand or fall to the