III.

is thy sting? O Grave, then where is thy victory? They SERMON shrink in their heads, and pull in their stings, and cannot hurt us while we with joy and gladness lift up our heads.

What are all the signs and forerunners of the day of judgment, that they should trouble us, when we know the day of judgment is our day of redemption, our day of glory? What are the darkness of sun and moon, the falling of the stars, the very totterings of heaven itself, to us, who even thereby expect new heavens? where there is neither need of sun, nor moon, nor star to give us light; for the "glory of God shall Rev. xxi. lighten it, and the Lamb," this Son of man that is coming in 23. his cloud, "is the light of it." What are the quakings of the earth and roarings of the sea, to them who neither need land nor sea in their journey to heaven? What are wars and rumours of wars, famines, and plagues, and pestilences, and false brethren? what are persecutions and delivering up to rulers, to death and torments? what are those perplexities and fears that rob men of their hearts and courage "for looking after those things which shall come upon the earth?" what are all these together, to them who are thus by those very things redeemed out of all their troubles? S. Paul is bold to set up a challenge: "Who shall separate us from the Rom. viii. love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Nay, in all these we are more than conquerors through him" (this Him in the text) "that loved us." And he goes on yet higher, "For I am persuaded," says he, "that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus."

35-39.

9.

And if thus nothing can ever separate us from Christ's love, what should trouble us at his coming, whose coming is but to draw us nearer to himself? "Be not troubled, be not Luke xxi. terrified," says he, but "in patience possess your souls," for there "shall not a hair of your heads perish." Others may Ver. 18. fall, and sink, and perish; but do they what they can against Ver. 17. you those that hate you, yet care not for it; "look up," look Ver. 28. up to me, I am coming to redeem you; "lift up your heads," and behold the glory into which I am at hand to lift you up.

SERMON

III.

The sum of all now is, that in the midst of all your troubles, all your amazements, all your fears and dangers, you, first, still lift up your heads, and look to heaven for comfort, and fetch it thence by prayers and petitions.

2. That in the midst of all calamities you yet remember your redemption is a-coming, and so lift up your heads with joy in the heat and fury of them all, knowing that they are nothing else but so many forerunners of your glory.

Lastly. That you "look up and lift up your heads" with thankfulness, that he has thus accounted you worthy to see him in his glory, and that your redemption is no further off. That having thus begun to look up and lift up your voices in praises and thanksgiving upon earth, he may lift you up into heaven in soul and body, at his coming there, to sing Allelujahs with the saints and angels, and the fourand-twenty elders, to Him that sits upon the throne, and to the Lamb for evermore: there to be partakers of all his glory.

A SERMON

ON THE

FOURTH SUNDAY IN ADVENT.

PHILIPPIANS iv. 5.

Let your moderation be known unto all men. The Lord is at

hand.

IV.

THE text is a part of the Epistle for the day, chosen, you SERMON may conceive, because "the Lord," that is, the time of his coming, "is at hand." A fit preparation, thought by the Church, for Christmas now so near, to prepare us how to entertain the happy day, the joyful news of our Lord Christ's coming in the flesh. To entertain it, I say, not with excess and riot, but moderation; not with rude tricks and gambols, but softness and meekness; not in vanity of clothes, but modesty; not in iniquity, but equity, somewhat departing from our own right, and seeking occasions to do others right; that all men may see and know we behave ourselves like servants expecting their Lord's coming, according to all the several senses of the πieikès, translated "moderation" in the text, but stretching further than any one English word can express it.

A word chosen by the Apostle to comprehend the whole duty (if it might be) of a Christian preparing for his Lord, in the midst of much affliction, and long-wearied expectation, backed with an assurance that the Lord was now hard by a-coming to deliver them. The poor Philippians were somewhat sad, or sad-like, by the persecutions they suffered from the unbelieving Jews and Gnostic heretics that were among

IV.

SERMON them; many were daily falling off by reason of them; and much hurt those "dogs," as the Apostle calls them, "the Phil. iii. 2. concision," that is, those heretics, had done or were likely to Phil. iv. 4. do them. But for all that, says he, "Rejoice," and again, "Rejoice," in the verse before the text; rejoice, too, that all men may see it, see your joy in the Lord, and in your sufferings for him, yet so that they may see your "moderation" in it too that as you are not sad, like men without hope, so you are not merry, like men out of their wits, but as men that know their Lord is nigh at hand, as well to behold their actions as to free them from their sufferings, to see their patience and moderation as well as their trouble and persecution.

A persuasion it is, or exhortation to patience and meekness, and some other Christian virtues (which, by examining the word, you will see anon) from the forementioned consideration. A persuasion to moderation, from a comfortable assurance of a reward" the Lord at hand" to give it. A persuasion to prepare ourselves, because our Lord is coming: a persuasion so to do it that all may know what we are a-doing, and what we are expecting; that they may see we are neither ashamed of our religion nor of our Lord; that we neither fear men's malice nor our Lord's mercy; that we are confident he is at hand, ready to succour and rescue all that patiently and faithfully suffer for him, to take vengeance on his enemies, and deliver his servants out of all. The time is now approaching, even at the doors.

And if we apply this, as we do all other Scriptures, to ourselves, to teach us moderation, and whatever else is contained under the word which is so rendered, and draw down the Lord's being at hand in the text to all Christ's comings in flesh, in grace, in glory, it will no way disadvantage the text, but advance it rather, improve the Apostle's sense and meaning to all Churches and times, to prepare them all to go out to meet the Lord, when or howsoever he shall come unto them.

And "moderation" must be it we must meet him with, be the times what they will, come the Lord how or when he please, know we the time or know it not be what will unknown, our moderation must be known. And yet his coming, as

unknown as it may be, must be considered: always in our minds it must be, that the Lord is, one way or other, continually at hand.

Indeed I must confess the times were troublesome and dangerous when the Apostle thus exhorted and comforted the Philippians: but the best times are dangerous; danger there is as much of forgetting Christ in prosperity, as of falling from him in adversity: and as much need there is of moderation when all happinesses flow in upon us, as when all afflictions fall upon us: so the advice cannot be unseasonable. And though we called the text S. Paul's advice, or the Christian's duty in sad times, and his comfort in them; and so divide the words, yet they will reach any times, ours to be sure, which, call we them what we will, much danger there is in them of falling away from the true faith of Christ, and so as much need of the Apostle's counsel and comfort in them.

Yet take the division of the words in the most proper

sense.

I. S. Paul's counsel, or the Christian's duty in sad times. In the first words, "Let your moderation be known unto all men;" that it be, is the Christian's duty; that it should be, is S. Paul's counsel.

II. The Christian's comfort in such times; or S. Paul's comforting them with it, in the following, "The Lord is at hand." With this they are to cheer up their spirits, and S. Paul tells it unto that purpose; which will afford us a third point to be considered.

III. The connexion of them; that our moderation is therefore to be known to all men, because our Lord and the Lord of all men is at hand to see what we do, and do to us according to our doings: therefore set down here indefinitely, only "The Lord is at hand," without determining how, or where, or when, or to what purpose, that we might be the more careful in our duty, more universal in our moderation.

And the Apostle dealing thus indefinitely, and but silently pointing at the sad condition of the times they saw, we shall take leave to be as general, and not bind the counsel or the comfort to sad times, though so they would fit us too, as well as the Philippians. The advice is good, and the comfort

SERMON

IV.