wrote this history, could not be ignorant of a reward in the other life, for them that walk with God in this life.

Now we know that Moses was the penman of this historical book. Moses therefore certainly had an apprehension of that reward which awaits good and pious men in the other world. To this reward he had respect in all the great things which he did or suffered for the people of God: i. e. he believed and hoped for it, and was thereby animated and encouraged in the way of virtue which he had made choice of.

The text being thus explained, very naturally yields us these two observations.

1. That the doctrine of the recompense of reward, to be bestowed on the righteous after this life, was understood and believed by the people of God, before the Law was given. 2. That it is lawful to serve God with respect to, or in hope of, the future heavenly reward.

I begin with the first proposition, viz. that the doctrine of the recompense of reward to be bestowed on the righteous after this life, was understood and believed by the people of God before the Law was given.

Such a knowledge and belief the divine author assures us Moses had, when he first renounced the glories, treasures, and pleasures of Pharaoh's court, and chose his portion among the afflicted, oppressed people of God; and that was long before the Law was revealed to him. And whence learned he this doctrine? We have no ground to say that he received it by immediate divine revelation, seeing we read not of any appearance of God to him, before that in the bush; and an easy and clear account may be given of the original of this his faith, without supposing any such revelation.

He had it therefore by tradition from his religious parents, being nursed by his own mother, and trained up in his father's house till he arrived to some years, and not till then delivered to Pharaoh's daughter, as we read Exod. ii. 10. By them he was taught the true religion, the religion of the holy Patriarchs, and this article as a chief branch of it; which religion he still faithfully retained, after he was taken into the palace of that idolatrous prince. Nor is it to be doubted, but that the same religion in the substance of it, was preserved in all other

pious families of the Hebrews, even under the Egyptian bondage; and that the hope and consolation which their religion ministered to them, was their chief support under that miserable servitude.

The article of a future life, as I have already suggested, was part of the creed of the holy Patriarchs long before the time of Moses. Enoch, the seventh from Adam, was, by a miraculous translation to the heavenly bliss, made an example, and given as an illustrious proof and demonstration to the succeeding generations, of the glorious reward reserved in the other world for them that walk with God in this life. Nor could they that lived nearer the times of Enoch be ignorant of that mighty work of God, which Moses so many ages after had knowledge of, and delivered down to the generations after him in his writings. Nay, Enoch himself, in his time, was an open asserter and preacher of this doctrine of a life to come; St. Jude assuring us, that he spake and prophesied of God's "coming with thousands of His saints," or holy angels, "to judge the world"." So that Enoch's after-translation was a plain seal and confirmation of that faith, which he had formerly professed and taught, and was undoubtedly designed by God as such. And the author of this Epistle to the Hebrews, in this very chapter out of which my text is taken, professedly and expressly teaches, that the Patriarchs and holy men, who lived before Moses, had the same apprehension of the future reward that Moses had.

The truth is this. God, after the fall of our first parents, and His sentence pronounced on them for their sin, again revealed Himself to them; teaching them both what they should do to recover His lost favour, and what they were to expect from Him upon so doing; their duty, and their reward: though in the history of the Old Testament there is no more mention of this revelation, than of the revelation of God to Enoch, and the prophecies he uttered from that revelation. But unless we grant this, we must necessarily run into the error of those of old, who denied the salvation of our first parents.

From this first institution to fallen man proceeded the law of

n Jude 14, 15.

expiatory sacrifices, (as types and shadows of the great Sacrifice in due time to be offered by Christ, the second Adam, for the sin of the first,) practised by the immediate sons of Adam, and from thence derived into the practice of all mankind. For the conceit of those who think the light of nature directed the first men to this rite, must needs appear strange to him that more attentively considers the matter. And from the same original (I question not) it is, that the notion of a life to come hath been always found among the heathen nations, even some of the most barbarous nations, of whom neither we nor our forefathers, for many ages past, had any knowledge, till the latter discoveries of a new world. And accordingly St. Paul, in the first chapter of his Epistle to Titus, expressly tells us, that "God, who cannot lie, promised eternal life," πpò xpóvwv aiwvíwv, i. e. (not "before the foundation of the world," as our translators render the words; for then there were no men to whom such promise might be made; but) "before ancient times," as the words otherwhere in Scripture signify", i. e. in the most early age the world, or in the world's infancy.

of

Now if the primitive revelation of the future life be not yet to this day utterly lost and forgotten among the heathen, yea barbarous nations; what an unreasonable thing is it to imagine, that the tradition of it should so soon perish among God's own people, as that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the other holy Patriarchs, should have no knowledge of it?

And as to those good men that lived under the law of Moses, (though that in the letter of it had none but carnal and temporal promises,) it is certain they still retained the same faith of a life to come, as also their posterity do to this day. Nor did the Law that came after, evacuate or thrust out the Gospel that was delivered from the beginning.

This I have formerly shewn you by undeniable instances, upon another occasion, and have also given you the full use and improvement of this doctrine, and shall therefore now insist no farther on it, but proceed to the other observation from the text, which is this.

• Verse 2.

p Rom. xvi. 25. [But the expression in Tit. i. 2, is πρὸ χρόνων αἰω·

vlov: in Rom. xvi. 25, it is póvois aiwvlois.]

[ Serm. VIII.]

Observ. 2. It is lawful to serve God with respect to, or in hope of, the future heavenly reward.

For so did Moses, as the text expressly tells us; and he is so far from being blamed, that he is commended for his so doing, and propounded as a pattern for others to do likewise.

This I note, to meet with certain airy fanciful Divines of this latter age, who, pretending to a more spiritual, refined, and sublime theology, above all the Doctors of the Church that have been before them, have among other their subtle doctrines delivered this for a certain truth, That the obedience which is excited by the hope of reward, is not a true, i. e. filial, but a servile mercenary obedience, and so not to be allowed in Christians under the Gospel.

This divinity may be read almost in every page of the writings of Crisp, Saltmarsh, Townsend, Eaton, and the author of the "Marrow of Modern Divinity," and many others of the same herd. Books they are, which, though they highly deserve the flames, are notwithstanding still to be found in many families of schismatics; especially those of the Independent and Anabaptistical sect. These highly admire them, as the most spiritual writings; whilst the very many excellent labours of the orthodox, learned, and pious Divines of our Church, (the wonder of foreigners,) are neglected and despised by them.

Now this doctrine of theirs we utterly reject as a Sadducæan fiction, and an error intolerable, and repugnant to the whole tenor of sacred Scripture. A Sadducæan error I call it, because it was the first occasion of the heresy of the Sadducees. For that heresy arose from a saying of Antigonus, the master of Sadoc, who was the author of it, and lived not long after the time of Ezra. The saying, as the learned Drusius relates it out of good authors, was this; "Be not ye like those servants, who serve their master for reward; but be ye like those servants, who serve indeed their master, but yet not for reward1." This foolish saying of the sublime Doctor, his scholars improved into an execrable heresy; denying that there is any reward to be expected in the life to come of our virtuous actions in this life.

Nolite similes esse servis iis, qui serviunt Domino pro mercede; sed es

M m

tote similes servis iis, qui serviunt quidem Domino, non tamen pro mercede.

It is

Thus enthusiasm commonly leads the way to atheism or infidelity; and a fanatic religion at last ends in no religion. no wonder, that a doctrine designed to banish the future reward out of men's thoughts and consideration, should soon proceed so far as to discard it from their belief, and not to allow it a room in their creed. For it is a very vain thing to make that the object of our faith, which must not be suffered to be the object of our hope and desire. I have said that this error is intolerable, and repugnant to the whole tenor of sacred Scripture; and what I have said will appear most true, from the arguments I shall produce against it; to which arguments I now proceed.

I. In the Holy Scriptures, the future reward is every where promised and propounded, as a motive to excite and stir us up to good works. So our Saviour encourages His disciples to a cheerful suffering for "righteousness sake," by this argument, that their "reward" should be "great in heaven." And by the same motive He exhorts them to secret and private devotions, viz. that "God who seeth in secret shall reward" them "openly." And almost innumerable are the texts of Scripture which speak to the same purpose. Now what an unreasonable conceit is it to think, that where a reward is promised as an encouragement to work, it should be a fault and sin to work with an eye or respect to the reward! Nay, hence it appears, that this error in the consequence of it, is a horrid blasphemy. For if the hope of the future reward be a sinful motive of obedience, it necessarily follows, that the Holy Ghost, by propounding this motive every where to us, and pressing it on us, lays a snare before us, and tempts and urges us to sin; at which impious consequence every good Christian must needs tremble.

II. The Holy Scriptures do not only promise the heavenly reward as an encouragement of our obedience, but also they expressly command and require us, in the way of obedience, to seek after it; i. e. to intend and aim at it, and to make the attaining of it, our great design and business. So our blessed Lord", "Seek ye first" (Tρŵтоv, principally and chiefly) "the kingdom of God and His righteousness;" that is, God's reward, and God's work; the heavenly glory which He

• Matt. v. 12.

+ Matt. vi. 4.

u Matt. vi. 33.