to be seduced from the right Faith he may deserve indeed to be pitied now but I fear he will hardly be hereafter excused But it is not sufficient to secure our selves against this danger He that will be constant in his Religion as he ought to be must see 2 dly That he be not too apt to entertain an ill Opinion of it For if it be Obstinacy on the one hand not to admit of any Conviction thò never so clear and reasonable it is certainly a great Weakness on the other to be affrighted at every shadow of an Argument and to put it in the power of every little Disputer to prejudice us against our Religion because one who is its professed Enemy rails against it and pretends it is a very ill One He would I believe be thought a very credulous person indeed who should begin to stagger and fall into a trembling thô he saw himself upon plain and even Ground because a bold and fanciful man is very positive that 't is a precipice And doubtless that Man is no less to be pitied that is frighted for fear he should be in the wrong thô he has the undoubted Authority of Scripture and Antiquity nay and even of Sense and Reason too on his side as often as every Common-place Trifler shall think fit to run over his division upon the Church the Antiquity Succession Infallibility of it and without either Modesty or Proof call us Hereticks If Men have Reason on their side if they have Scripture for what they say let them on God's Name produce it We are always ready to consider and to submit to such convictions But otherwise to think to perswade us that we are in utter darkness when we see the Sun shining in our faces That we must be damned for not believing that what we see and tast and know to be but a bit of Bread is not the Body of a Man That they are not Infallible who are actually involved in the grossest Errors In a word That our Church had no being before Luther every Article of whose Faith is founded upon the Authority of the Holy Scriptures and has been professed in all Ages of the Church from the Apostles to this day this is certainly one of the most unreasonable things in the whole World and what ought not by any means to stagger our stedfastness And now having secured our selves on both these sides it only remains to preserve our Constancy 3 dly That if at any time any Arguments should be offer'd to us that may deserve our regard we then be sure to give them that due and wise Examination that we ought to do It is a very great Weakness and indeed a very great fault in many persons that if at any time they begin to doubt in their belief of any part of their Faith which they have been taught to profess they presently abandon their own Guides and run for satisfaction to those who are the professed Enemies of their Religion From henceforth they hear nothing but what is ill of their Church they are taught more and more to suspect the way that they are in and then 't is odds but a very little examination suffices to make them leave it This is certainly a very great fault and will one day prove of very dangerous consequence What such persons may think of changing their Religion I cannot tell but sure I am our greatest Charity will hardly enable us to entertain any very comfortable Opinion of them Nor are they such as those that we either say or believe may be saved notwithstanding the errors and corruptions of that Church with which they Communicate He that will make a safe change from one Religion to another must not think it enough to enquire into one or two points and having received a satisfaction in them embrace all the rest at a venture for their sakes but he must pass distinctly through every Article in debate He must enquire not only whether the Church of which he is at present a Member be not mistaken in some points it may be there is no Church in the World that is absolutely free from all kind of Error But whether those mistakes be of such a consequence that he cannot communicate any longer with it on the account of them When this is done the greatest difficulty will still remain to examine with the same diligence every Article of that other Church to which he is tempted For else thô he should have reason to forsake his own Church he will yet be but little advantaged if he goes to another that is as bad or it may be worse than that If there he should find the most part well yet so that there are but any One or Two things so Erroneous as to oblige him to profess what he thinks to be false or to practice what is unlawful even this will be sufficient to hinder him from reconciling himself to it And in all this there must be a serious and diligent and impartial search There must be no prejudice in favour of the One or against the Other no desire that the Truth should be on this side rather than on that In short nothing must be omitted whereby he might reasonably have got a better Information And to all this Care there must be added fervent Prayer to God for his assistance He who falls away from his first Faith on any lesser convicton than this can never excuse himself from a criminal lightness in a matter of such concern And for him that sincerely does this I shall for my part be content that he should leave the Church of England whenever he can be thus convinced that any other but especially that the Church of Rome is a safer way to Salvation And this may suffice to have been said to the first particular What that stedfastness in Religion is to which our Text exhorts us I go on 2 dly to shew II. Upon what Motives it was that the Apostle here stirred up the Christians to whom he wrote and that I am now in like manner to exhort you to such a stedfastness Now these our Text reduces to this One General Consideration That they both understood their danger and were expresly forewarn'd by his Epistle how careful it would behove them to be to arm themselves against it Ye therefore Beloved seeing ye know these things before Beware And doubtless it is not only a great security but ought to be also a great engagement to such a vigilance to be thus expresly forewarned of our danger And he who either neglecting or despising the Admonition suffers himself to be seduced from his own stedfastness must certainly be utterly inexcusable both in the sight of God and Man for his Inconstancy But that which will aggravate this neglect yet much more is the consideration of those Motives by which the Apostle here cautions them to Beware and which therefore I must lay a little more distinctly before you Now such
would serve to discover even these also and to bring to light the most hidden Mysteries of Iniquity But though there be then nothing more obvious to a sincere and inquisitive Mind than to find out these Artifices of the Devil yet alas A sad experience shews us that there is scarce any thing in the World in which men for the most part seem more to betray either their Ignorance or their Inadvertency Whilst they suffer every the most Ordinary Temptation to overcome them and scarce an assault so weak can be made upon them but what is sure to have its effect and find them altogether unprepared to resist it To correct if it may be this careless and supine Temper so dishonourable to God and so dangerous to our own Souls I shall Endeavour at this time to lay before you some of those Methods whereby the Devil is most wont to lead Men into Sin That so knowing our danger we may be the better able to Arm our Souls against it Lest Satan should get an advantage of us For we are not ignorant of his devices The Occasion of which Words was this St. Paul having in his former Epistle to the Corinthians commanded them to pronounce a Sentence of Excommunication upon a certain incestuous Man amongst them who had married his Fathers Wife had since received an account of a very good effect that this infliction had wrought upon the offending Person so as to bring him to a great sense both of the Sin he had committed and of the Scandal which thereby he had given to the Church Upon this the Apostle in this his Second Epistle commands them to take off the Censure under which he lay and to receive him again into Communion with them lest being swallow'd up of overmuch sorrow he should be driven to despair and so the Devil get an advantage against them and that not only in the ruine of a single Brother but yet much more by turning that Discipline which was designed for the Edification of the Church into the Destruction of it For says he we are not ignorant of his Devices Were I not resolved against entring on any Point of Controversie in this Place I should not here want a very fair Occasion to do it It has been the great Endeavour of those of the Other Communion to establish on this procedure of St. Paul with this Corinthian their new and dangerous Doctrine of Humane Satisfactions to be made for Sin and of the power of the Church to grant Indulgences for the Remission of them But I desire now to have no other Enemy but that of my Text to encounter And the half of whose Devices will be more than enough for our present Consideration without exposing the Artifices of any Others how busie soever they too may be to get an Advantage of us And therefore it shall suffice to remark with reference to the Subject before us That all which can reasonably be concluded from St. Paul's process with this Corinthian is no more than what we readily allow of viz. The Exercise of publick discipline for the correction of Open and Scandalous Offenders and whom the Church has certainly Power both for their Sins to separate from her Society as the Apostle did this Incestuous Man and upon a sincere Repentance to release the Censure and receive them again into Communion as in this Chapter he ordered them to do this Penitent Corinthian But now this is neither the Doctrine nor Practice of those who pretend to argue from this place Their Satisfactions and Indulgences are of another kind than what Canonical Penances and the Relaxation of them will amount to They suppose that after mens Sins by the Sacrament of Penance are Forgiven to them so that there is now no more Guilt remaining nor by consequence any more Obligation to an Eternal Punishment due to it there continues nevertheless an Obligation to Temporal Punishment to be undergone as a true and Proper satisfaction for Sin either here or in Purgatory and that this the Pope has power to dispence with by Applying to them the satisfactions not only of Christ but of all his Saints who having lived severe Lives and suffered a greater Temporal Punishment than was requisite to satisfie for their own Sins have left a Stock in Bank to the Treasure of the Church for the advantage of others and the Remission of these Temporal Pains by such an Application this is that which they properly call an Indulgence And now then we may beg leave to ask In what part of this History do they find any grounds for all this Did St. Paul in his former Epistle command the Church of Corinth to impose a Penance on this Incestuous Man to satisfie for his Sin No But he commanded them to Excommunicate him for his Offence to cut him off from the body of the Faithful to whom he had given so great a scandal by his uncleanness Or here in this Chapter does he send him any kind Bull with a plenary Indulgence for what he had done to set him free of what Temporal Pain might yet be due for his Offence and to acquit him of any further trouble now and of the danger of Purgatory hereafter Not so neither But he orders the Governors of the Church to take off the Censure under which he lay and to receive him again into Communion with them and to confirm their Love towards him Lest he should be swallow'd up of over much Grief and so Satan get an advantage against Him In short That there is here a plain account of the Exercise of Publick Discipline both in the Excommunicating of this Incestuous Corinthian and in the Receiving of him again into Communion this we readily confess But for the new-inventions of Humane Satisfactions to be made for Sin and of the Power of the Pope to apply one Man's Merits to the Forgiveness of another Man's Offences and all this after such a manner and upon such terms as is now Practised in the Church of Rome of all this there is not one word either in this or any other passage of Holy Scripture but much to the contrary as might easily be made appear were I minded to enter on such a Debate But it shall suffice me to have remarked thus much for the clearing of the present place from these Abuses As for those Devices which I am now to consider viz. By what means and motives it is that the Devil after all our Cautions and Engagements to the contrary nevertheless still continues to draw us into Sin many there are and I cannot pretend in this Discourse to comprehend more than a very small proportion of them I will take up those that seem most useful to be remark'd under these two Considerations I st Of those Devices whereby he makes it his business to hinder us in the Discharge of our Duty II dly Of those Devices whereby he leads us into the Commission of Sin I begin with
about whether it be fit to be done by him ought certainly yet much more to carry every good Christian to this farther necessary Reflection Whether it may be done by him And whosoever ventures upon any Action without this he may by accident not do ill but 't is his good Fortune not his Praise that he does not And were it never so good yet for want of doing it with that design and knowing it to be such he must not expect that God should ever impute that to him for Righteousness which he himself did not design or perform with that intent As to the other sort of Consideration That of our State and of our Duty What God requires of us and how we have lived according thereunto Certain it is that 't is absolutely necessary that we should some time or other enter upon it and then I suppose I need not say how very prudent it will be for us not to defer it For since our Life is but a puff of breath every day in our Nostrils and which we can at no time say shall be our own the next moment surely it will very much concern us not to defer considering how we are provided for another World seeing we have so very little Hopes or security in this Repentance is not a Duty that can be discharged in a Moment and I fear the best among us upon the enquiry will find that we stand in need of a very great one Now there is no time no place for Repentance but only in this present Life And should we suffer our Incogitancy so far to prevail upon us as to neglect it here we shall in vain lament our sin and our folly to all Eternity hereafter If there be therefore any one among us that has hitherto omitted so great and necessary a Consideration what shall I say to him Let him no longer defer it Nay but rather in the words of holy David Let him not go back unto his house nor climb up into his bed let him not suffer his eyes to sleep nor his eye-lids to slumber till he has begun to set about it It were no doubt very much to be wish'd that men would not suffer any day to slip without this Consideration There is I believe but seldom a day passes in which we are not guilty of something that may justly call for a particular Repentance to obtain our forgiveness And who can tell if he lies down to sleep e're he has done this whether he shall ever rise up to perform it afterwards But alas This is the greatest Instance of all of our Inconsideration And instead of repassing in this manner every day upon our Actions I fear there are many who go on whole Weeks and Months and Years without ever thinking at all of it as if it were enough to practice this duty by the same proportions which some of our modern Casuists have prescribed for that other of the Love of God some of which have thought it necessary to be done only upon Sundays and Holy-days others not above once a year some once in Five years others at any one time in our whole lives and lastly others never at all either living or dying But thô there be then no time so proper as the present for the doing of that which cannot without the greatest danger be deferr'd the least moment yet some seasons there are which seem more especially to invite us to it Thus 1 st If old Age be crept upon us or any Sickness or Danger threaten us with a speedy appearance before God's Tribunal this ought certainly at the same time that it admonishes us of the shortness of our present life to call us to an immediate providing for the next 2. Thô the hand of God be not just upon us yet if we see his Arm lifted up to strike if we have some just cause to apprehend any evils or afflictions likely to come upon us much more if our Country and our Church be in danger for the iniquity of her Children and People within her this also may be another time that seems on purpose mark'd out to call us to Consideration to think upon our ways and how to prevent both our own and the publick desolation But now 3 dly If these Evils are not merely apprehended but are actually upon us so that we already have begun to bear the punishment of our sins and may have just cause to apprehend yet more dreadful effects of them this certainly ought yet more strongly to engage us to such a Consideration In such circumstances as these the worst of men naturally become Religious God himself could say of the Rebellious Israelites That in their afflictions they would seek him early And the Prophet observed of all men in general That when God's Judgment are in the Earth then the inhabitants of the World will learn Righteousness I will only add 4 thly And with reference to the approaching season That as the time of Lent has in all Ages of the Church been look'd upon as a season proper for the business of Repentance so certainly we cannot better prepare for it than by the practice of this great Preliminary duty of Consideration without which it will be impossible for us ever to discharge it as we ought to do And however the Godly Primitive Discipline of Publick Confession and Penance has for the hardness of our hearts been of late laid aside among us yet ought we not therefore to be ever the less nay rather we should be the more careful to examine our own souls and call our ways to remembrance and by our Private Diligence make some supply of what seems to be acknowledged by our Church as wanting to our Publick Discipline And to the end I may the better enforce this Practice which upon all these accounts seems so very proper for us I will now finally Close all IV thly With some Motives that may serve to stir us up to the fulfilling of our duty in so great and necessary a part of it I have already observed in the beginning of this Discourse That 't is the want of Consideration that is really the last universal Cause of all our Sins And I have just now shewn That till it be removed it will be impossible for us to repent of them And sure then one would think that nothing more need be said to engage any sober man to the practice of it But I must now go yet farther For to compleat our Obligation to so necessary a practice Inconsideration is not only to be charged as the cause of all our evils but the corrupter of our good too It spoils our very vertues insomueh that were it possible for the unthinking man to fulfil every Command and not deviate in the least degree from the rules of his duty all would be in vain his Inconsideration alone would ruin him and his Virtues themselves lose by it not only their Praise but their very Nature
obstinate but he cannot be wisely stedfast in the Faith A good Christian must be able to give some more reasonable account of his Faith than this if ever he means to be securely firm in the Profession of it His Creed must be founded on some better Authority than a bare Credulity And 't will be a very useless Plea at the last day that a man believed as his Church believed when he might have had the opportunity of a better information should he chance by so doing to live and dye in a damnable Heresie unless he can render some tolerable account either wherefore his Church believed so or at least wherefore it was that he submitted himself so servilely to her Authority But he that believes with knowledg because he is clearly and evidently perswaded that it is the Truth need never fear either the danger or imputation of such an Obstinacy for his firmness in adhering to his Faith If for instance a Member of the Church of England reads in his Bible those express words of the Second Commandment Thou shalt not make to thy self any graven Image nor the likeness of any thing that is in Heaven above c. Thou shalt not Bow down to it nor Worship it If he looks forward to the History of the New Testament and there in the Institution of the Blessed Eucharist sees those words Drink ye ALL of this in as plain and legible Characters as those others Take and Eat and thereupon resolves never to be prevailed upon either to Bow down himself before an Image or to give up his Right to the Cup as well as to the Bread in that Holy Sacrament whatever glosses may be made or pretences be used to induce him to either 'T is evident that such a Firmness as this cannot be called Obstinacy unless these Scriptures be no longer the Word of God or that no longer a Principle of Scripture that in matters of plain and undoubted Command we are to obey God rather than man And in these and the like instances where the matter is clear even to demonstration there is no doubt to be made but that such Knowledg will certainly secure us against the charge and danger of Obstinacy But because all points in debate are not thus Evident but on the contrary many are not a little obscure therefore for the securing our selves from danger in our adherence to these too we must to our Knowledg add 2 dly A sincere zeal to discover the truth with an affectionate Charity to those that differ from us In such Cases as this thô we must believe and profess according to what appears to us at present to be the Truth yet since the Evidence is not such as to exclude all possibility of our being mistaken our adherence to it must be qualified with this reserve neither rashly to censure those who are otherwise minded nor obstinately to resolve never to change our Opinion if we should perhaps be hereafter convinced that we ought to do so Now in order hereunto it is not necessary that a Man should either fluctuate in his present Faith or not be firmly persuaded that he shall never see any reason to forsake it It is sufficient to take off the imputation of obstinacy that our stedfastness be such as not to exclude either a readiness of being better informed if that be possible or of making upon all occasions a strict and impartial enquiry into the Grounds and Reason of our Faith or even of hearing freely whatever objections can fairly be brought against it And all this with a sincere desire and stedfast resolution to discover and embrace the Truth wheresoever it lies Whether it be that which we now suppose to be so or whether it shall be found to be on the contrary side He who is thus disposed in his mind at all times to receive instruction and never presumes rashly to condemn any one that is thus in like manner disposed however otherwise disagreeing in Opinion from Him need never fear that his firmness is any other than that Wise and Christian stedfastness which our Text requires not such an obstinacy as both that and we most justly detest and condemn But here then we must look to the other extreme and take heed lest for fear of being perversly constant to our Faith we fall into a weak and criminal Instability To prevent this these three things may be consider'd 1 st That we carefully avoid all Vnworthy Motives of changing our Religion 2 dly That we be not too apt to entertain an ill Opinion of it 3 dly That if any Arguments shall at any time be brought against it that may deserve our considering we then be sure to give Them that due and diligent Examination that we ought to do I st He that will be stedfast in the Faith must above all things take heed to arm himself against all unworthy Motives of changing his Religion It is very sad to consider what unchristian means are made use of by some persons to propagate their Religion And a Man need almost no other assurance that it cannot be from God than to see the Professors of it pursue such methods for the promoting of its Interest as most certainly never came down from above Thus if a Man's fortunes be mean or his ambition great If Religion has not taken so deep root in his Soul as to enable him to overcome the flatteries and temptations of a present Interest and Advantage then there shall not be wanting a seducer presently to shew him that he must needs be out of the right way because it is not that which leads to preferment And 't is great odds but a good Place or an Honourable Title will quickly appear a more infallible mark of the true Church than any that Scripture or Antiquity can furnish to the contrary If this will not do and Interest cannot prevail then the other governing passion of our Minds mens fears are tried Instead of these allurements the False Teacher now thunders out Hell and Damnation against us Nothing but Curses and Anathema's to be expected by us if we continue firm in our Faith And it shall be none of the Prophets nor his Churches fault if all the Horrors and Miseries of this present life be not employ'd against us in charity to prevent our falling into the Everlasting Punishments of the next The Truth is I am ashamed to recount what unworthy means some have not been ashamed to make use of to promote their Religion and draw us away from our stedfastness France and Savoy Hungary and Germany The Old World and the New have all and that but very lately been witnesses what ways it is that Popery has and does and if ever it means effectually to prevail must take to propagate its interest Animus meminisse horret luctúque refugit Now he that shall be so unhappy as to suffer himself by any of these motives which a constant Man might and ought to have overcome
we ought not to rely either upon the one or upon the other It remains therefore that unless we will overthrow all the measures of Christian Charity towards our Neighbour and the common Truth I do not say both of their Faith and of our own but even of Christianity it self nay and of all Religion and Reason in general We must conclude That good Christians may differ from one another in matters of lesser moment without any just Reflection either upon themselves or their Religion But here therefore I must desire not to be misunderstood For when I say that Christians may without any danger to themselves or disparagement to the Truth of their Religion differ with one another I mean only as the Terms of my Proposition expresly shew in lesser matters such as do not concern the Fundamentals of Faith nor destroy the Worship of God nor are otherwise so clearly revealed but that Wise and Good Men after all their Enquiries may still continue to differ in their Opinions concerning them For otherwise if Interest and Prejudice blind men's Eyes and they err because they resolve they will not be convinced and so by their own Fault continue in Mistakes contrary to the Foundation of Faith and destructive of Piety If for instance Men will profess to believe but in One God and yet worship Thousands If they will read over the second Commandment and nevertheless both make and bow down before Graven Images in despite of it If whilst they acknowledge Christ to have instituted the Blessed Eucharist in both kinds they command it to be administred but in One and pray in an unknown Tongue tho' S. Paul has spent almost a whole Chapter to shew the Folly and Unreasonableness of it These are Errors in which I am not concerned and tho I should be unwilling even here at all adventures to pronounce any Sentence against the Men yet I must needs say That Religion cannot be very sound which stands corrupted with so many and such fundamental Abuses And this makes the difference between those Errors for which we separate from the Church of Rome and those Controversies which sometimes arise among Protestants themselves The former are in matters of the greatest consequence such as tend directly to overthrow the Integrity of Faith and the Purity of our Worship and therefore such as are in their own nature destructive of the very Essentials of Christianity Whereas our Differences do not at all concern the Foundations either of Faith or Worship and are therefore such in which Good Men if they be otherwise diligent and sincere in their Enquiry may differ without any Prejudice to themselves or any just Reflection upon the Truth of their common Profession Which being thus cleared in answer to the little Endeavours of one of the latest of our Adversaries against us upon this Account I go on Secondly to shew Secondly That such differences as these ought not to hinder such persons from agreeing together not only in a common Charity but if it be possible in a common Worship of God too This is what S. Paul here expresly exhorts these dissenting Christians to and earnestly praies to God that he might see accomplished in them That when they came together to the publick Offices of the Church to offer up their common Prayers and Thanksgivings to Him they might do it not only in the same Form of Words but with the same Affection of Mind too both towards God and towards one another Now the God of patience and consolation grant you to be like-minded one towards another according to Christ Jesus that ye may with one Mind and one Mouth glorifie God even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Such was their Duty to one another then and we ought certainly no less to esteem the same to be our Duty towards one another now And 1. As to the business of Charity God forbid that any Differences in Religion whatsoever much less such little ones as those we are now speaking of should ever make us deny that to our fellow Christians 'T is true indeed our Saviour Christ once foretold to his Disciples That there should rise up Men from among their Brethren who should upon this account not only put them out of their Synagogues but even think that it was a matter of Religion to kill them But they were Jews not Christians who were to do this and He expresly adds That 't was their ignorance of Him and his Religion that should carry them on to so furious and intemperate a Zeal For these things saies he shall they do unto you because they have not known the Father nor Me. And we must confess it to the scandal of our Holy Religion that there are a sort of Men who call themselves Christians now that still continue to fulfil this Prophecy in the very Letter of it who not only cast us out of their Synagogues that we should not much complain of and as far as in them lies cut us off from all the Hopes of Salvation too but to compleat the parallel openly arm the whole World against us and teach Men to believe that 't is a Work of Piety to root us out of it and therefore that whosoever killeth us does do God service But in this as well as in the rest of their Errors they give us but the more effectually to understand how little they have in them of the true Spirit of Christianity for sure such things as these they could never do but only that as our Saviour in that other case before said they have not known the Father nor Him And I hope I shall need no Argument to perswade you not to be mis-led by that which we all of us so justly lament as one of the most deplorable Corruptions even of Popery it self Christianity commands us to love our Enemies and sure then we cannot but think it very highly reasonable not to hate our Brethren but especially on such an account as if it be once admitted will in this divided state of the Church utterly drive the very name of brotherly Love and Charity out of it seeing by whatsoever Arguments we shall go about to justifie our uncharitableness to any Others they will all equally warrant them to with-hold in like manner their Charity from us There is no honest sincere Christian how erroneous soever he may be but what at least is perswaded that he is in the right and looks upon Us to be as far from the Truth by differing from him as We esteem Him for not agreeing with us Now if upon the sole account of such Differences it be lawful for us to hate Another we must for the very same Reason allow it to be as lawful for Him also to hate Us. Thus shall we at once invert the Characteristick of our Religion By this shall all men know that ye are my Disciples if ye have love one to another and turn it into the quite contrary Note
the Morning and our righteousness as the Noon-day God shall come and shall not keep silence He shall save us from our Enemies and put them to shame that hate us He shall arise and all our Adversaries shall be scatter'd they also that hate us shall flee before us Like as the smoak vanisheth so shall we drive them away terror and dread shall fall upon them Thus shall all our Mourning be turned into Laughter and our Heaviness into Joy and we shall yet sing the Song of Moses and of the Lamb when he shall have given us rest from all our Enemies round about us Salvation and Glory and Power and Praise and Thanksgiving be to him that sitteth upon the Throne and to the Lamb for Ever and Ever Amen OF Contending Earnestly for the Faith Which was once delivered to The SAINTS A SERMON Preached at MERCERS-CHAPEL January 8. 1687 8. JUDE iii. Beloved when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the Common Salvation it was needful for me to write unto you and exhort you that you should earnestly contend for the Faith which was once deliver'd to the Saints IT is generally agreed by Learned Men that this Epistle was written by St. Jude upon the same Occasion and to the same Persons to whom St. Peter had not long before address'd his Second whose Thoughts he pursues and whose very Words he seems in some places to have transcribed And the Subject and Design of both we have here express'd to us in the words of my Text viz. to exhort the Christians dispersed abroad among the Jews neither to sink under those Persecutions that were brought upon them for their Faith nor to suffer that holy Doctrine which had been so fully and purely deliver'd to them by the Apostles to be corrupted by the Errors of those pernicious Hereticks who even already began to creep in among them Great was the danger of these Christians and great the concern of our Apostle for them To persevere constantly in the Faith at a time when the severest Tryals were made use of to affright them from it and to preserve it in its Purity when so many subtile Hereticks made it their whole business by any means to corrupt the Truth of it And no wonder if St. Jude thought it not only becoming that Character our Blessed Lord had honour'd him with in his Church to write unto them but even necessary for him so to do and to exhort them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to strive with all their might and as our Translation has very well rendred it To contend earnestly for the Faith which was once deliver'd to the Saints For the due prosecution of which words as they lye before us in the Context I shall consider these Four things I. What that Faith is which the Apostle exhorted them to contend for II. How they were to contend for it III. The great reason they had at that time more especially so to do IV. By what means he advised them to contend for it that so they might secure their Faith in those dangerous times I. What that Faith is which the Apostle here exhorted them to contend for Now this the Character here given of it in our Text will clearly shew 'T is the Faith which was once deliver'd to the Saints That Faith which the Holy Apostles had once for all instructed them in and which therefore both they and all succeeding Ages in the Church were both faithfully to retain and earnestly to contend for for ever So that here then we have a plain account what the true Christian Faith we are to profess is and where we are to seek it 'T is not the Faith of this or that Church or Party 'T is not the Faith of this or that Country or Century Let Men and Times make what Changes and Alterations they please in it The Faith that was once delivered to the Saints is what we are to contend for not for any Inventions or Additions of Men that have since been brought into it I shall not need to tell you whither you are to go for this Faith The Spirit of God by providing us a rule of it and assisting and directing those holy Men who first preach'd the Gospel to the Saints that then lived to send it down in writing to all the other Disciples that were to follow after to the end of the World has sufficiently directed us both whither we are to go for it and indeed where it is that we can alone be sure to find it And however Interest has made some of late the better to defend their Errors and to maintain an usurped Authority over Mens Consciences to pretend to some other Directions Yet since it is confess'd that the Holy Scriptures were written for that very purpose that they might be the Rule of our Faith and St. Paul has expresly told us That they are able to make the Man of God wise unto Salvation and throughly furnished to every good work we shall have little reason to seek to any other Rule till some good Account can be given why this is not sufficient or by what Authority it is that they pretend to impose any other of their own inventing upon us and who gave them this Authority But however be the Rule of this Faith what it will that is not my business at present to dispute Let it only be resolved that the Faith it self must be no other than what was once delivered to the Saints and then I am sure it will be our duty not only readily to receive it but earnestly to contend for it be the means of its conveyance what they will This is the next thing to be considered by us II. How we are to contend for this Faith And here if the Question be concerning the manner of the Contention I have already observed that the Original Expression is very emphatical and implies a great vigour and earnestness in the doing of it To teach us with what zeal we ought to adhere to the Truth and defend it against all such as would endeavour either to affright or to seduce us from it Indeed whosoever shall consider the great value of that Faith which was once delivered to the Saints and what our concern is in the preserving of it will be forced to confess that we can never be too earnest in our contending for it Truth is in all things so worthy and desirable that a generous Spirit will think he can never prize it enough We see the greatest Men have made it the whole business of their Lives to pursue it even in the smallest instances and have thought their labours worthily rewarded if with the greatest Application and it may be with some danger and loss too they have but been able to find it out at the last Much more certainly ought that Truth which the Son of God himself came down from Heaven to discover and which had he not revealed it to us
Charity to think they do not themselves know them to be so I fear the best Account we should be able to give of this matter would be That Interest and Prejudice blind their Eyes and that their Errors are as Useful and Beneficial as they are otherwise Gross and Unreasonable But would Men indeed lay aside all Humane Considerations as in things wherein Eternity is at stake they ought to do Would they with Charity and Humility seek the Truth and be as willing to discover their own as they are but too forward to censure other Mens faults In plain terms would they be Christians indeed seek nothing but the Glory of God the Peace and Unity of his Church and the Salvation of their own Souls I cannot but think that most of our Controversies would presently vanish and we should yet recover that Truth which I fear some Men have too long detain'd in Unrighteousness and been deprived of by their own fault But especially would they to this Honesty and Integrity add 4 thly The Apostle's next Direction Of fervent Prayer to God for his Assistance For certainly the Truth and Purity of Religion is so great a Good and so pleasing and acceptable to God Almighty to be implored of him that a pious and upright Man earnestly praying and heartily seeking after it shall hardly be deny'd the Happiness of being constant to the Faith if he be already in the right way or of being brought to it if he is not He who has promised the true Votary not to refuse him in any thing that is necessary or but expedient for him if he asks as he ought to do will never fail to answer him in a matter of such moment And if he does not neglect himself while he prays to God but uses such Care and Caution as St. Jude here directs us to do for our Security he need not be afraid though he were encompassed with Seducers on every side but be confident that he shall either still go on in the right way or obtain God's Pardon if after all this he should chance to be mistaken in it There is yet one means more whereby St. Jude exhorts the Christians earnestly to contend for their Faith And that is 5 thly By a serious Consideration of their future state Keep your selves says he in the love of God looking for the Mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto Eternal Life ver 21. And indeed it cannot be doubted but that this great Consideration which so highly influences all the other parts of a Christian Life must here also prove of a singular advantage to keep us firm and stedfast in our Faith This will make us diligent in all the rest will awaken our Care will perfect our Piety and enflame our Devotion By this we shall be secure that no worldly Considerations shall be able to prevail upon us to forsake our Religion We shall neither be moved for any Terrors to renounce it nor be cajolled by any Interests or Persuasions to give it up But we shall resolve as we ought to enquire diligently into the Grounds of our Profession to judge impartially and stedfastly follow what we are persuaded to be the right Faith that so we may be able to give a comfortable Account of our selves to God when we shall appear at his Tribunal No matter how severely we may be censured by Men for our so doing We know that Truth very often meets with and makes Enemies to the best Men. Christianity it self was once every where spoken against and St. Paul arraign'd as a Heretick But whilst with that Apostle we know wherefore we believe we shall be so far from being afraid of their Censures or ashamed of our Profession that should we for the sake of Christ as he was be brought even before the Tribunals of our Enemies we shall be able with assurance to answer for our selves as he did That after the way which they call Heresie so worship we the God of our Fathers believing all things that are written in the Law and the Prophets Such a power will this great Consideration of Eternal Life have over us to secure us in our Religion that it will actuate all the other means that have before been offer'd to establish our Faith and it self become a new defence and such as all the Sophistry and Malice of our Enemies shall not be able ever to overcome And thus have I given you as full an Account as the time would permit of the several things I proposed to consider And however I have not so closely confined my Reflections to the particular concern of those Christians to whom St. Jude wrote as not to have observed somewhat in general the use that all others ought to make of this Caution yet I will now in the close crave leave to offer two or three Reflections more which may serve to shew our own more immediate concern in it And First Let us from hence learn with what Zeal and Constancy we ought to contend for our Religion which I will be bold to say does if any in the whole World the best deserve the Character of the Text of being the Faith that was once delivered to the Saints and that without mixture of any thing corruptive of or contrary thereunto We pretend not to impose any thing either upon your Belief or Practice but what the Rule of this Faith the Holy Scriptures themselves prescribe or at least allow us to do We give no other Interpretation of Scripture than what is either so apparently the meaning of it that no impartial Person can doubt of it or else has been so universally received by the best and purest Antiquity and is otherwise so agreeable with the rest of our Faith that there can be no just cause to suspect it The Articles of our Creed are the same now which the Church has received and profess'd from the beginning and so evidently founded on the Authority of God's Word that they neither can nor do admit of any Dispute among Christians Those who the most pretend us to be defective in our Faith yet dare not say we are erroneous in what we do profess They acknowledge that what we believe is right only they think we do not believe all that we ought because not all that they would have us to do And certainly then such a Faith as this cannot but deserve to be earnestly contended for as being without all Controversie truly that Faith which was once delivered to the Saints And that so much the rather Secondly At this time when so many Seducers for I shall spare the rest of St. Jude's Character ver 4. are crept in among us and make it their great Endeavour by any means to draw us away from it I shall not repeat either the manner how I have shewn we ought to contend for our Faith against them or the Directions which from the Apostle I have before offered for the doing of it Let us only resolve
on that one most just and reasonable Method never to leave our own Faith till we can be clearly and evidently convinced that we have a better offer'd to us in the stead of it and then we shall either free our selves altogether from the Attacks of our Adversaries who seldom care to meddle with honest and understanding Men or I am sure we shall not run any great Hazzard by their Attempts But above all Thirdly Whilst we thus contend for the Faith that was once delivered to the Saints let us be Followers of their Lives as well as of their Doctrine This is that which must save us when all our Disputes will otherwise stand us in no stead To believe aright will do us but small service if we do not live so too And I am persuaded would we but be prevailed with to do this as we ought it would not only most effectually secure us in the Truth but be the most likely means in the World to draw over others to it And indeed what pity is it that a Chureh which has in all other respects so many admirable Advantages above its Adversaries that it is defective in no other mark of being truly Primitive and even in this is less defective than others should not be blessed with this too Consider I beseech you that we rely upon none of those broken Reeds which others lay so much stress upon to make you happy in another Life though you are not upright and holy in this If there be then any concern for your own or your Church's honour if any value for your Immortal Souls if you desire the Blessing of God now and the benefit of his Promises in the World to come if these Motives which one would think should be of all others the most considerable may be allowed to have any influence at all upon you think then upon these things and fulfil ye our Joy in the practice of that Piety whereunto ye are called Be as Good as ye are Orthodox as free from all Corruption in your Manners as God be thanked you are from Error in your Belief Accomplish that great Work which Heaven seems at last to have begun among us And as we are now apparently more concern'd for our Religion than we have perhaps any of us heretofore been so let us go on in well-doing more and more Let us grow in Grace and then we shall also grow in the Knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ till finally we all come in the Vnity of the Faith and of the Knowledge of the Son of God to a perfect Man to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ. OF THE Nature and End OF THE HOLY SACRAMENT OF THE Lord's Supper A SERMON Preach'd at St. PAVL's COVENT-GARDEN Decemb. 30. 1688. 1 COR. xi 24 This do in Remembrance of Me. THese Words are part of that Solemn Form in which our Blessed Saviour first celebrated the Holy Sacrament of his Body and Blood anâ— establish'd it as a sacred Institution to be continued for ever in his Church in remembrance of that Death and Passion which he was just then about to undergo for it Whether our Apostle recounted the History of this great Institution according to what some of those who were present at the first Celebration of it had delivered it unto him or whether as seems most probable he had received the manner of it by some extraordinary Revelation from our Saviour Christ himself This is plain that what he here reports to them of this matter was no idle Story no vain Account of his own Invention but a true and exact Relation of what the Blessed Jesus then did when in the same night in which he was betray'd he took Bread and when he had given thanks brake it and gave it to his Disciples saying Take Eat this is my Body which is broken for you This do in Remembrance of Me. So that our Text then you see contains a positive Command of our Saviour Christ himself of something which he ordered his Apostles to do with reference to this Holy Sacrament And my business at this time shall be to consider what that was and how far we at this day are to look upon our selves to be concerned in it I shall reduce what I have to offer upon this occasion to these two general Considerations I. Of the false Construction and Application which those of the Church of Rome make of these words Which having done so far as may be necessary to the following Discourse I will then II. Shew what indeed it was that our Blessed Saviour here commanded his Apostles and in them All of us to Do in Remembrance of Him And by that time I have clearly examin'd these Two Points I presume I shall in some measure have laid open the whole Nature and Design of this Holy Sacrament and in that have answer'd the End of these Solemn and Extraordinary Assemblies And first I am to consider I. That false Construction and Application which those of the Church of Rome make of these words It is the Opinion of those of the other Communion That our Saviour Christ here spoke to his Apostles not as the Representatives of the whole Body of the Church but as those whom he was now about to consecrate to the peculiar Office of the Ministry in it And therefore that commanding these To Do This He did at once both command them to continue this Holy Sacrament for ever in his Church and also at the same time invest them with a Power to Consecrate and Take and Distribute it to others as he had done to them To which if we did add their other Notion of this Sacrament viz. that in the Celebration of it there is a true and proper Offering made for the Sins and Satisfactions both of the Dead and the Living we shall then find the full import of our Text according to their sense to be this DO THIS that is Receive the power which I hereby give you of consecrating i. e. of converting these Elements of Bread and Wine into the true and proper Substance of my Body and Blood and having so done Offer them up to my Father as a true and real propitiatory Sacrifice for the Sins and Satisfactions for the Punishments and all other the Necessities of all my faithful Disciples whether they be alive or dead whether they be yet on Earth or gone to Purgatory Such is the Account which those of the Church of Rome give us of these words And in this they are so very confident that they not only Anathematize all those who shall say either that Christ in this Command did not institute his Apostles Priests or that he did not Command that they and other Priests should in like manner offer up his Body and Blood but have also made it the very Form of Ordaining Priests at this day in their Church having delivered the Patin and Chalice into
their hands to bid them Receive Power to offer Sacrifice to God and to celebrate Mass for the Living and for the Dead I shall need say very little to shew the falseness of this Interpretation which many of their own Doctors notwithstanding all their Definitions concerning it yet are not themselves very well satisfied withal They freely allow that this Command of our Saviour when he bids them Do this cannot be so restrain'd to his own Act of Consecrating the Holy Eucharist as not to have an equal respect to the Peoples Act of Receiving it And by consequence that all that can hence be gathered is that our Saviour has hereby obliged his Church to the continuance of this great Memorial of his Death both by the Consecrating and Distributing of the Priests and by the Receiving and Eating and Drinking of the People and which is no other Account than we our selves give of the Words before us 'T is from hence that Aquinas concludes that all Christians are obliged as far as they have opportunity to communicate in this Holy Sacrament not only in Obedience to the Commands of the Church but as a thing which our Saviour Christ himself required when he said in our Text This do in Remembrance of Me. But Estius is more express He tells us that by Do this our Saviour plainly intended the whole Action both of his Consecrating and Distributing and of their Receiving these sacred Elements As if he had said What you have seen now done by me and you that do you and your Successors henceforth in Remembrance of Me. And that this is clearly the meaning he shews from the Context of St. Paul in the following Verses where repeating the very same Command after the Distribution of the Cup that he had mentioned in my Text upon the delivery of the Bread he expresses himself in this plain manner This do ye says he as oft not as ye shall Consecrate or Offer but as ye shall drink it in Remembrance of Me. And then immediately subjoins a Reason which clearly refers to the Peoples Eating and Drinking and not to the Priest's offering any pretended Sacrifice in this Celebration For as often as ye eat this Bread and drink this Cup ye do shew the Lord's Death till he come that is ye do by this Action of yours fulfil the Command before us ye set forth the Memory of Christ's Death and Passion and do this in Remembrance of Him And even Bellarmin himself tho' he supposes these words to have been spoke in a peculiar manner to the Apostles as those who were hereby to be consecrated to the Priestly Office yet cannot but own that they must refer as well to the Action of their Eating as to those of our Saviour's Blessing and Distributing the Holy Elements Nay he says yet more that it is most agreeable both to the Context of St. Paul and to his Design of repeating the History of this Institution to apply them rather to the Disciples action of Eating and Drinking than to our Saviour's of Consecrating and Offering the Error of the Corinthians which he design'd to correct consisting not in their Consecrating but in their Receiving of the Holy Eucharist in that they did not do it with that due reverence which they ought to do Tho' how to reconcile this not only with the Opinion of his Church before mention'd but even with his own Interpretation of Aquinas's Argument from this place to prove the necessity of all Mens Receiving this Holy Sacrament where it may conveniently be had viz. that St. Thomas did did not intend to collect this immediately from this Command as if it had been given to All but only by consequence as our Lord must be understood to have commanded the People to Receive what he commanded the Priests to Consecrate and Distribute I cannot easily understand The truth is both the Opinion of our Saviour's making his Apostles Priests by these words and the Paraphrase which they now give of them in order thereunto are a meer Invention of these later Ages sought out to support that other great Corruption of this Holy Institution the Communicating of the Laity only in One Kind When being pressed both with the Example of our Blessed Lord in his Institution of this Holy Sacrament who gave the Cup as well as Bread to his Disciples and with his positive Command to do that to Others which Himself had done to Them The nice Masters of the Schools Men who never wanted a subtilty to elude what they could not otherwise fairly answer first found out this admirable Secret unknown to the Church for above a Thousand Years before viz. That our Saviour here Consecrating the Holy Eucharist and giving a Command to his Apostles to Do likewise did invest them thereby in their Priestly Office and so intitule them to a Right of Receiving the Cup from him which neither they therefore had any Right to before nor have the People by consequence any more Right to at this very day But however such an Evasion as this might well enough become the School-Errantry and serve to amuze a barbarous Age wherein it was first invented yet was it certainly too great a presumption in the Council of Trent in such inquisitive Times as these to impose it upon Mens Consciences as an Article of Faith and to think by the vain Terror of an ungrounded Anathema to secure it against all Opposition For not to insist First On the many gross Absurdities and even blasphemous Consequences of the very Doctrine of the Mass it self That there should be a true and proper Sacrifice and yet nothing truly and properly sacrificed A Propitiatory Offering and yet no Propitiation made by it That Christ was but once offered for our Sins and yet that he should be offered again ten thousand times every day That by that One offering of Himself he should have perfected for Ever them that are sanctified and yet that those that are sanctified should not be perfected without many of these New-Mass-Offerings made for them To say nothing Secondly Of the inconsistency there is in the very Supposition That our Saviour Christ should ordain Priests of the New-Covenant in his Church before he had yet so much as sealed that Covenant by his Death or establish'd his Church To pass by Thirdly That we have another plain and evident Account both when and after what manner and with what words our Blessed Saviour did ordain his Apostles to the Ministry of his Church namely in the Twentieth Chapter of St. John where we are told how after his Resurrection he thus gave them their Mission ver 21 22 23. Peace be unto you as my Father hath sent me even so send I you And then he breathed upon them and said Receive ye the Holy Ghost whose soever sins ye remit they are remitted and whose soever sins ye retain they are retained And which are at this day own'd by the
Church of Rome as well as by us for one Essential part of the Priestly Mission and accordingly made use of by them in their Ordination So that either this Sacrament may be reiterated or the Character divided and one part conferr'd at one time the other at another all which is contrary to their own Principles or else the Apostles were not ordain'd Priests when they received the Holy Eucharist but when our Saviour here breathed upon them and both by his Action and his Words plainly expressed his Mission of them I say not to insist on any of these things either we must look upon these words to relate to the whole Church to the People as well as to the Priests and then to be sure they cannot have either the Effect or Signification that they herein attribute unto them or else it will remain that there is no Divine Command at all entituling the People to any Right to this Holy Sacrament For if our Saviour spoke to his Apostles as Priests if he not only took the Bread and the Cup and consecrated them as a Priest himself but also distributed them to the Apostles as Priests and bad them Take Eat and Drink as Priests then are not the People no not by Cardinal Bellarmin's consequence at all concerned in any part of this Institution which the Priests only by virtue of this Command are obliged to continue and consecrate offer give receive all by themselves and to one another as Christ and his Apostles here are supposed without the rest of the Disciples and as Priests to have done To pass by therefore this Interpretation both so lately invented and so weakly established set up to support that bold attempt of depriving the People of one half of the Communion and that upon such Principles as in the natural consequence of them rob them of both I go on to the other Point I have proposed and shall now take leave somewhat more largely to insist upon Viz. II. To shew what indeed it was that our Saviour here commanded his Apostles and in them all of us to do in Remembrance of Him And to this end it will be necessary that we distinctly to consider these Two things First What we are to understand by the Phrase Do this Secondly What it is to Do this in Remembrance of Christ First What we are to understand by the Phrase Do this I answer That if we take these words as they lye before us in the first and most obvious Form of a Command they will then imply a Commission hereby given to the Apostles and in them to the whole Church to continue this Holy Sacrament by an Ordinance for ever as a Solemn Memorial of that Death and Passion which he was now about to undergo for us When God was pleased by a wonderful Deliverance to bring up the Children of Israel out of the Land of Egypt we read in the Twelfth Chapter of Exodus That the same Night in which he did it he commanded them to kill a Lamb and eat it after a solemn manner with bitter herbs and unleavened-bread and to continue every Year by a constant repetition of that Sacred Ceremony the Memory of that Deliverance which he had wrought for them In like manner our Saviour Christ being now to fulfil that Redemption wâ—ereof the other was but a Type and Representation takes care for a Solemn Memorial to be continued of it in all Ages of his Church to the End of the World He institutes another and better Supper and the Observation whereof should not only be the Commemoration of his Delivering us but to the worthy Partaker of it the application also of all the Benefits of it He takes Bread blesses it and breaks it He takes the Cup and blesses it and distributes both to his Disciples and then in the words of the Text bids them also do the same in Remembrance of Him That as the Jewish Church had by their Paschal Feast hitherto kept up the Memory of God's once delivering their Fathers from the destroying Angel in the Land of Egypt so should we from henceforth by this Feast of Eucharist continue the remembrance of that infinitely greater and better Redemption which he was just now about to purchase by his own Death upon the Cross for us And this is no doubt the first and most proper design of these words But now Secondly If we consider them not only as a Command but as they are a Direction to inform his Apostles first and then us how we should celebrate this Holy Sacrament they will then add thus much to our former Account namely that we have here not only in general a Command to continue the Memory of the Death of Christ in this Holy Sacrament but moreover an Instruction also after what manner we are to do it That as our Saviour Christ here took the Bread blessed it and brake it and gave it to his Disciples saying Take Eat this is my Body which was given for you As he took the Cup blessed it and gave it to them saying Drink ye All of this so should those who now minister in Holy Things when they stand at the Altar and set forth the Death of Christ in this Sacred Memorial of it after his Example and in Obedience to his Command in like manner take and bless and distribute these Sacred Elements to all those who partake with them in this Sacrament * As the Apostles received first the Bread then the Cup too at his Hands so should all they who supply the place of the Apostles at our Tables receive both the one and the other of these after their Example * And whosoever he be that celebrates this Holy Feast in any other manner than the Blessed Jesus did and has given us a Command to do it he therein both departs from the Example of our Saviour and violates the design of his Precept who not only in that particular manner as so many of the Holy Pen-men have set forth to us establish'd this Sacrament Himself but in the words of my Text has expresly commanded us to continue it for ever in the same manner in which he established it Do this in Remembrance of Me. But here therefore let me not be mis-understood For when I say that our Saviour Christ in my Text commanding his Apostles to do this in Remembrance of him did not only in general command them to perpetuate the Memory of his Death by this Holy Ordinance for ever but did moreover direct them after what Manner they should do it I do not mean to signifie thereby that we ought to look upon our selves to be so tied up to the Example of Christ as not to be at liberty to depart in any the least Circumstances from that first Celebration of it For then we must never administer nor receive this Holy Sacrament but after Supper in a private Chamber or upper Room to Men only and not to Women and those just twelve
neither more nor less and lying along with our Heads in one anothers Bosoms as the Apostles now did and which I suppose no Christian of whatsoever Church or Persuasion he be does at all think himself obliged to do But my meaning herein is this That in those things wherein the Nature of this Holy Sacrament consists and which the Holy Scriptures have recounted to us on purpose to direct us in the Celebration of it in those we are not to depart from our Saviour's Institution nor to presume to set up our own Innovations as the Council of Constance has most presumptuously done in opposition to and even in defiance of our Blessed Lord's Appointment To receive the Holy Sacrament in this or that posture with such or such particular Ceremonies these are things wholly foreign to the Nature and Design of this Blessed Sacrament and therefore such as may in different places and Ages be different And every Christian ought to comply with what is used and prescribed in that Church with which he communicates But for those things in which the very Nature of this Holy Sacrament is concern'd for such parts as constitute the integrity of it and serve the more lively to set it off as a memorial of the Death and Passion of Christ and which therefore we must look upon our Lord and Saviour to have sealed with his express Command Do this In these I say we are to keep close both to the Example of our Saviour and to the Command of the Text and when he has distinctly instituted this Holy Supper in Two Kinds not dare to command Men under the pain of an Anathema to believe that One alone is sufficient And this may suffice for the Explication of the former part of my Text What it is we are to understand by that Phrase of my Text Do this I go on Secondly to enquire Secondly What it is to do this in Remembrance of Christ. It is I think agreed on all hands That the Design of our Saviour in this Command was to set forth the great End of his Instituting this Holy Sacrament viz. That it was to keep up in our own Minds and set forth to others a solemn and lively Remembrance of his dying for us and of the great Benefits and Advantages that accrue to us thereby And however it be pretty hard to reconcile this plain Design of this Institution with what those of the other Communion now make to be the main business of it namely to be a true and proper Propitiatory Sacrifice for the Sins of the Living and of the Dead in nothing differing from that upon the Cross but only in the manner of the Oblation A remembrance being ever of things absent from not present with us and the same Sacrifice very improperly said to be a Type or Memorial of it self yet so clearly is this design of this Holy Sacrament here declared to be for the remembrance of Christ's Death and Passion that they have chosen rather to encounter all these Absurdities than to adventure to deny what our Savior has so very plainly delivered as the End of this Institution But though it is not therefore to be doubted but that the Intention of our Blessed Lord in this Command was to oblige us by such a Solemn Ceremony as this to continue the Memory of his Death yet we are not therefore to think that all we have to do when we come to the Holy Table and attend on this Great Memorial is simply to remember or call to mind the Sufferings of our Saviour No this is not sufficient to answer either the meaning of this Command or the design of this Institution The word in the Original which we here render Remembrance is very emphatical and imports not a bare calling to mind but a renew'd Commemoration It regards the Affections of the Heart as well as the Action of the Mind In a word it denotes not so much a private Remembrance as a publick and solemn Commemoration when in our Apostle's Phrase ver 26. we do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 annunciate and shew forth to others at the same time that we thus call to mind our selves the Lord's Death and that with all those pious motions and resentments that befit so excellent and so advantageous a Remembrance To know therefore what it is that our Saviour here requires of us when he bids us to do this in Remembrance of Him two things will be necessary to be considered by us First What it is that we are to remember or shew forth when we come to this Holy Sacrament Secondly In what manner and with what Motions and Affections we are to do it And First let us examine What it is that we are to remember or shew forth when we come to this Holy Sacrament Now this in general St. Paul here tells us is his Death ver 26. that is that bitter Death and Passion which he was just then about to undergo for our sakes when he established this Solemn Memorial of it For says he as often as ye eat this Bread and drink this Cup ye do shew forth the LORD 's Death till his coming But because a bare Remembrance of the Death of Christ without any farther Consideration either of the cause and manner of it or of those infinite Advantages which accrue to us thereby will afford but a very imperfest Memorial to us We must therefore for a full discharge of this duty and to raise up in our Souls those suitable resentments we ought to bring to this Holy Administration take a farther and more particular prospect of it And consider First What our State and Condition was that obliged our Blessed Saviour thus to die for us Secondly What that Death Passion was which he underwent for our sakes and has therefore commanded us to remember in this Holy Sacrament Thirdly What the Benefits are that accrue to us thereby And First To do this in Remembrance of Christ will engage us to call to mind what our State and condition was that obliged our Blessed Saviour thus to die for us For however we were by Baptism wash'd from all the Guilt and delivered from the Punishment of our Original Pollution and admitted into the Covenant of Grace and made Heirs of the Promise of Eternal Glory yet we are not therefore to think our selves ever the less concerned when we come to this Holy Sacrament and shew forth that Death of the Lord by which our very Baptism it self was consecrated into a laver of Regeneration there to call to mind that wretched State in which we once were and must for ever have lain had not the Blessed Jesus given himself up unto Death for us I should indulge too much your Curiosity in an Argument of this moment should I enter on that vain Speculation which the School-men first started and has since been made the Sport and Diversion of our Modern Scepticks in Religion Whether God could not otherwise have provided for
Lights in the Primitive Church and Reason according to the common Condition of Mankind and from which they themselves cannot produce us any Authority of Holy Scripture to exempt her And if some among us have with St. Chrysostom freely supposed That in some cases she did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 yet in the very Instances to which they refer they have at least probable grounds for what they say And for the most part we are contented with St. Austin to suspend our selves and for the honour of our Saviour not to enter into any question at all concerning her as to this matter whether she ever did actually sin or no Or now that God has taken her up into Glory Have we not all that high and worthy Opinion of her Exaltation that we ought to have because indeed we freely profess we cannot believe such extravagant Romances as all sober Men even of their own Church are ashamed of We doubt not but she is at this time in Heaven Do we ever the more debase her because we will not entertain a shameless Legend of her Assumption thither We are persuaded that she is adorn'd with one of the brightest Aureola's in God's Kingdom That her Crown is more Illustrious than any among the Daughters of Eve Is not this sufficient unless we will undertake to tell you what her Crown was made of how many Stars went into her Atchievement what Badges her Servants wore and what Speeches and Complements were made to her upon the occasion and to compleat all set forth in perspective all the Holy Trinity concurring in this Ceremony and all the Powers of Heaven and Earth singing Praises to Her and adoring of Her We make no question but that as she was very highly favour'd by God on Earth so is she now no less beloved by him in Heaven But should we therefore set her up as another Mediatrix that as both Sexes concurr'd to our Ruin so might both concur to our Reparation and so tye up the Hands of God as not to allow any to be saved but according to Her Will Nay make her so far the Queen of Heaven and Earth as to give her a Power of all the Grace that is to be bestowed on Mankind Of saving her Votaries if they do but sufficiently love and worship Her whatever their Affections or their Service be to God Almighty Of fetching Souls not only out of Purgatory but even from Hell it self by her Authority Of ordering all the Events of the Fortunes of Men and Kingdoms insomuch that not a Battel can be fought or a Victory obtain'd but by the favour of this Pallas to whom the Success is due and to whom the Praise and Honour therefore ought to be return'd These indeed are the Extravagancies of some of our Adversaries but God forbid they should ever be the Practice or Opinions of any among us To conclude It is impossible for any to entertain more honourable Sentiments of the Blessed Virgin than we do who will not run out into Blasphemy and Fanaticism and believe such things as neither Scripture nor Antiquity have deliver'd nor will either Piety or common Sense suffer us to receive Let us see Secondly Whether our Actions be not every way suitable to our Opinions Now for this I must observe according to my Foundation before laid down That the Holy Virgin however highly exalted by God being yet still but a meer Creature our Actions towards her must be no other than what a Creature that is at such a vast distance from us and out of all compass of Civil Communication is capable of receiving And so the summ of what may warrantably be paid to her will fall under these Three Generals First To celebrate the Memory of those Blessings and Favours which it has pleased God to bestow upon her Secondly To return Praises to God on the account of them And Thirdly To endeavour what in us lies to imitate her Excellencies This is all the Honour she is capable of receiving from us and it cannot be doubted but that we are as careful as any to fulfil the Prophecy of our Text in every one of these Particulars First We celebrate the Memory of those Blessings and Favours which it has pleased God to bestow upon her Let this day and the other Solemn Festivals we observe to the same End be our Witness how careful we are as to this particular We mark it out in our Rituals as a Day Holy unto the Lord We assemble in our Sacred places solemnly to recount what the Holy Scriptures have recorded of God's Mercies to Her And annually as at this time we encourage one another to bless and praise Him upon the account of them But here the Objection made in the beginning will rise against us 'T is true indeed we do observe some of her Festivals but yet we pass by the greater part of them And for the main thing of all we quite omit it in that we say not AVE MARIA so often and so impertinently as they do nor other Anthems of our Lady as they call her by a new and phantastical Title never given her either in Scripture or by any of the ancient Fathers This we confess is in some measure true We say no AVE MARIE'S i. e. after the manner that they do nor can we imagin what Honour is done to the Blessed Virgin by the nauseous tautologie of a Salutation pertinent in its season when the Angel spoke to her upon her Conception but now as unseasonable in the Application as it is vain and absurd in the Repetition But yet when we recite the History and celebrate the Memory of that surprising Salutation then we read it in our Assemblies that is we do say Ave Maria as often as 't is either pious or to the purpose to do it And if for not doing it as they do we are to be excluded out of the Number of those of whom our Text speaks yet God be thanked we shall run but the same Fortune that the Apostles and the primitive Ages of the Church did before it was first as they tell us revealed to St. Dominick and by him to the Church how they were to recite the Rosary But now for the other Instances objected against us viz. The Feasts and Anthems of our Lady in these we may venture to justifie our selves We celebrate the Memory of all the great Particulars that we know of her Life And if upon the meer Authority of Fables confess'd to be uncertain and disputed by many among themselves as not fit to be credited we cannot be induced to observe more yet in this we hope all sober Christians will acquit us and esteem us to be very excusable in what we do It being certainly to mock not honour both God and Her solemnly to commemorate and seriously to thank God for such Blessings as at the same time we are sure He never bestowed upon Her nor She ever receiv'd
boldly unto the Throne of Grace that we may obtain Mercy and find Grace to help in time of need And whilst this Saviour liveth continually to make Intercession for us we cannot imagine either what Reason or Piety there can be in seeking to any other If indeed these Votaries of the Blessed VIRGIN can prove to us either that the Holy Scripture has commanded us to joyn the Merits and Intercession of the Mother with those of the Son for our Salvation nay or but produce the least Example or Encouragement to warrant our doing of it If they can give us but any shadow of Reason why the Merits and Intercession of Christ should not be alone sufficient to obtain whatever we stand in need of without the help of any others Merits to make them the more effectual or being so why we should seek to any others Intercession If they can shew that notwithstanding all the Promises before made to us yet really our Saviour Christ does not love us so well as the Virgin MARY nor is so ready to hear us and pity us to accept our Prayers and present them to God as he hath declared himself to be and that the Blessed VIRGIN is more willing and kind and ready to do it for us Then indeed it may be worth our considering how to provide another and better Advocate for our assistance but till then we shall think it enough for us that we have an Advocate whom we know who we are sure does hear us and who has promised to assist and succour us and that therefore we need not seek to any other of whom we can never be sure nay have all the reason in the World to believe that She can neither hear nor help nor will take any notice either of our Prayers or of our Wants For the last thing to be considered Thirdly Those other Expressions of Worship which they allow to the Blessed VIRGIN They are both too many in number and too considerable in their weight to be particularly examined in this Discourse and the same Answer will serve for them all That they are Instances of Worship either in themselves unlawful or not fit to be paid to any but to God only I shall give an Example or two in either kind and so conclude And First It is no small part of their respect to the Blessed VIRGIN to consecrate her Images and set them up in their publick Places of Worship to light up Candles and burn Incense before them to carry them forth in Procession and go on Pilgrimages to them and report strange Miracles that have been wrought by them Now all these are Acts of Worship which the Word of God has expresly and utterly forbid and which therefore we think it to be absolutely unlawful for any Christian to joyn in God having plainly declared that he will not suffer any Image to be set up and honoured by us nor hold them by any means innocent that shall upon any account whatsoever presume so to do Secondly They burn Incense to her They build Chappels and Altars and Oratories to her Service they offer up the Mass i. e. if they are in the right the Body Soul and Divinity of the Son of God to her Veneration They put themselves under her Protection Enter into Orders and Congregations for her more particular Worship They Vow themselves and all they have or hope to have to her They Swear by her Name They Pray Confess Absolve in short apply all the most solemn parts of their Devotion to her And by all these and many other Instances too long to be here particularly enumerated they give that Worship and Honour and Glory to the Holy VIRGIN which the Christian Religion teaches us and the Practice of the best and purest Ages of the Church directs us to give to God only Now if these things be indeed so as we suppose and as I think I may presume to say I have in some measure proved them to be then certainly it cannot be wondered if we refuse to give that Service to the Virgin MARY which we are persuaded belongs to God alone But if we are mistaken in our Opinions and that all this which I have here mentioned these Doctrines and these Practices be no more than what may be ascribed to a meer Creature let this be once evidently made out to us and then they may with some colour of Justice pass that Censure upon us which till then will be nothing but an ungrounded Calumny that for not doing such things as these we are none of those of whom that Blessed VIRGIN prophesied in the Text That behold from thenceforth all Generations should call her Blessed I have now done with the several Points I proposed to speak to and shall perhaps be thought by some to have insisted more than was necessary upon the discovery of these kind of Superstitions But from this Suspicion I doubt not but you will soon clear me if you will please only to go along with me in a few Reflections arising from what has been offered and with which I shall close up this Discourse And the First is of the great Importance of this Subject upon many accounts to us The Errors I have now been encountring are not of any ordinary kind They represent to you one of the greatest of Sins the Worshipping of the Creature with the Service due to the Creator and which I had rather thus describe than 〈◊〉 by its proper Name to you And what the sad Consequence of it â—as been appears in this That while they have thus laboured to set up the Veneration of the Blessed VIRGIN they have but too much debased the Honour of our LORD and lessened His Glory to raise Hers. I need not say how much more Piety is shewn by many of that Communion especially among the vulgar sort to MARY than to CHRIST himself How many more particular Votaries she has and how much more trust and confidence is put in her Intercession than in that of the Blessed JESVS I do not charge the whole Church of Rome as guilty of all this but I must needs say I could heartily wish they were not all too much accessory to it Whilst by such Principles and such Practices as these they not only give occasion to the common sort to run into undue Excesses but permit their more learned Guides even to encourage them in it It is well known how far Father Craesset abroad and one of our own Countrymen nearer home has but very lately revived the almost forgotten Excesses of former Ages And when one of their own Communion afraid and indeed ashamed of these Abuses put forth some Advices for the Correction of them instead of encouraging the Admonition all the Powers of the Church were thought too little to overwhelm him as if he had preach'd some new Gospel or denied the Son of God to be come in the Flesh. And now when this is the Case I do
not well see how they will be able to clear themselves altogether of those Follies which they so readily encourage and not only neglect to correct themselves but will not suffer those who would to do it Nay but we must not stop here They have given a yet greater encouragement to the dishonour of our Saviour than this If we look into their Churches and there view their Pictures and their Images those Books of the Ignorant as they are pleased to call them what can be either more wretched in it self or more apt to seduce unthinking Votaries than every where to see Holy MARY with our Saviour still an Infant in her Arms as if he were never to get out of the state of his Pupillage And this were yet tolerable if they thereby took care to call back their Minds to the condition of his Infancy once when on Earth But alas I must add what exceeds all Extravagances besides that they set him out still as a Child in Heaven Nor is there any thing more common in the Lives of their Saints in the Records of the Miracles of the VIRGIN and even in their Offices and Books of Devotion than to hear of the Son of God brought down in the Arms of his Mother and still behaving himself as a little Child towards her Votaries And what mean and low Opinions such things as these must needs create in Superstitious and Ignorant Minds of the Saviour of the World is very natural to conceive and the Devotion of the People towards the Blessed VIRGIN compared with their Notions and Zeal towards the Holy JESVS does but too fatally demonstrate But Secondly This Consideration is not only thus important in it self but of a more especial concern with regard to us Were the Votaries of the Blessed VIRGIN content with a Speculative Opinion of her Excellencies or would they be satisfied to pay her what Homage they thought fit themselves without forcing others to joyn in it this Matter though very Scandalous to our Religion yet would not so much concern our Practice But now that the very Publick Devotion of the Church is wholly over-run with this Abuse so that 't is impossible to pray to God with them unless you will be content to pray to Holy MARY too it was certainly very necessary for us to understand the danger of such an Error which is thus combined with the most publick and solemn Piety of a whole Body of Christians And then Thirdly This is a Point not only of very great moment in it self and of a particular concern to us but very plain too and easie to be understood In other things though our Arguments are strong to those that comprehend the force of them yet many times the Subject is obscure and the Disputation past the Capacity of the ordinary Christian. Thus in their Doctrines about the Church the Authority Vnity Infallibility and other either real or pretended Privileges of it The Argument is nice and easily perplexes an uninstructed Capacity But here the Advice is evident and the whole Subject easie The only hardship is to bring them to own their Doctrine but afterwards the most Vulgar Christian is able to discern the falseness of it Those first Rudiments of Christianity Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and Him only shalt thou serve How shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed There is one Mediator between God and Man the Man Christ Jesus and the like being abundantly sufficient to shew how impossible it is that those should not have departed from their first Faith who give Religious Honour to the Virgin MARY and set her up as a Mediatrix in Heaven Now this being once proved it will from hence presently follow Fourthly That all the Pretences of the Church of Rome against us are vain and that we not only had sufficient Reason but that it was our Duty to reform as we did from them For to consider this Argument in one word If the Church of Rome be actually and undoubtedly Erroneous in this Point then let her fancy what she please 't is plain she can Err and is not what she says Infallible If she be not Infallible then there can be no Obligation to believe and follow her at all Adventures without examining what she teaches whether it be true or false If we may examine her Doctrine then the End of all Examination being to find out the Truth and to cleave unto it it must follow that when upon the Enquiry we had discovered her to be involved in grievous Errors it was our Duty to abandon her Corruptions and to declare against them And thus this one Point alone being well cleared does in the Consequence of it plainly prove a Vindication of the whole Work of the Reformation and is alone sufficient to satisfie any unprejudiced Mind what just Cause we had for it And let us then Bless God who has opened our Eyes to discover such Abuses as these and which had almost subverted the very chief Principles of Christianity And let us as we ought value nothing so much as that Purity of Religion in which we have the happiness to exceed most Christians in the World Let our Adversaries if they please revile us let them call us Hereticks and Schismaticks Despisers of the Church and Haters of the Blessed Virgin let them fill Heaven and Earth with their Anathema's against us because we will not joyn with them in these and the like Abominations But let us stand fast in the Lord and in the Religion which we have received knowing from whom we have received it and what is the rule and measure of it And that though I do not say They or We or any other Church or Society of Men whatsoever but though an Angel from Heaven though St. Peter himself should come to us and preach any other Gospel he is to be accursed I shall conclude all with those excellent words of an Ancient Father of the Church against some who began in his time to Honour the Blessed VIRGIN though not with any part of that excess that these Men now do yet more than he supposed was fitting for them 'T is true says he MARY was Holy but she was not therefore God She was a Virgin and highly honoured but she was not set forth to us to be worshipp'd And therefore the Holy Gospel has herein arm'd us before hand our Lord himself saying Woman what have I to do with thee Wherefore does he say this But only left some should think of the Blessed VIRGIN more highly than they ought He called her Woman as it were foretelling those Schisms and Heresies that should arise upon her account But God permits us not to worship Angels how much less the Daughter of Anna Let MARY be held in Honour but let the Father Son and Holy Ghost be Worshipped Let no one Worship MARY for though she were most fair and holy and honourable yet she is not therefore to