Sermons preached

1. Let us bless God for the Christian Religion; Where this Privilege is discovered to us in all its Glory, and that upon very commodious terms, fit to gain the Heart of Man, and to reduce him to God. Mic. 7. 18. Who is a God like unto thee among all the Gods, pardoning the Transgressions of thine Heritage? The Business of Religion is to provide sufficiently for two things, which have much troubled the considering Part of the World, a suitable Happiness for Mankind, and suitable means for the expiation of Sin. Happiness is our great desire; and Sin is our great burden and trouble. Now these are fully made known and discovered to us by the Christian Faith. The last is that we are upon, The Way how the grand Scruple of the World may be satisfied, and their guilty Fears ⟨p. 19⟩appeased. And that we may see the Excellency of the Christian Religion above all Religions in the World, it offers Pardon upon such terms as are most commodious to the Honour of God, and most satisfactory to our Souls; that is upon the account of Christ's Satisfaction, and our own Repentance, without which our Case is not compassionable. The first I will chiefly insist on. The Heathens were mightily perplexed about the way, how God could dispense with the Honour of his Justice in the Pardon of Sin. That Man is God's Creature, and therefore his Subject, that he hath exceedingly failed and faulted in his Duty and Subjection to him, and is therefore obnoxious to God's just Wrath and Vengeance, are Truths evident in the light of Nature, and common Experience. And therefore the Heathens had some Convictions of this, and saw a need that God should be atoned and propitiated by some Sacrifices of Expiation; and the nearer they lived to the Original of this Tradition and Institution, the more burdened and pressing were their Conceits and Apprehensions thereof. But in all their cruel Superstitions there was no rest of Soul, they knew not the true God, nor the proper Ransom, nor had any sure way to convey Pardon to them, but were still left to the Puzzle and Distraction of their own Thoughts, and could not make God merciful without some diminution of his Holiness and Justice, nor make him just without some diminution of his Mercy. Somewhat they conceived of the Goodness of God by his continuing forfeited Benefits so long, God left them not without a Witness;