guilty of this gross mistake as to think when he hath preached he hath done all his work let us shew him to his face by our practice of the rest that there is much more to be done and that taking heed to all the Flock is another business then careless lazy Ministers do consider of If a man have the least apprehension that duty and the chiefest duty is no duty he is like to neglect it and be impenitent in the neglect 9. ANother singular Benefit which we may hope for from the faithful performance of this work is that It will help our people better to understand the nature of their duty towards their Overseers and consequently to discharge it better Which were no matter if it were only for our sakes but their own salvation is very much concerned in it I am confident by sad experience that it is none of the least impediments to their happiness and to a true Reformation of the Church that the people understand not what the work and power of a Minister is and what their own duty towards them is They commonly think that a Minister hath no more to do with them but to preach to them and visit them in sickness and administer Sacraments and that if they hear him and receive the Sacrament from him they owe no further obedience nor can he require any more at their hands Little do they know that the Minister is in the Church as the Schoolmaster in his School to teach and take an account of every one in particular and that all Christians ordinarily must be Disciples or Scholars in some such School They think not that a Minister is in the Church as a Physician in a Town for all people to resort to for personal advice for the curing of all those diseases that are fit to be brought to a Physician and that the Priests lips must preserve knowledge and the people must ask the Law at their mouths because he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts And that every soul in the Congregation is bound for their own safety to have personal recourse to him for the resolving of their doubts and for help against their sins and for direction in duty and for increase of knowledge and all saving grace and that Ministers are purposely settled in Congregations to this end to be still ready to advise and help the Flock If our people did but know their duty they would readily come to us when they are desired to be instructed and to give an account of their knowledge faith and lives and they would come themselves without sending for and knock oftner at our doors and call for advice and help for their souls and ask What shall we do to be saved Whereas now the matter is come to that sad pass that they think a Minister hath nothing to do with them and if he admonish them they will bid him look to himself he shall not answer for them and if he call them to be Catechized or instructed or to be prepared for the Lords Supper or other holy Ordinance or would take an account of their faith and profiting they will ask him By what authority he doth these things and think that he is a busie pragmatical fellow that loves to be medling where he hath nothing to do or a proud fellow that would bear rule over their consciences When they may as well ask him By what authority he preacheth or prayeth for them or giveth them the Sacrament or they may as well ask a School-master By what authority he cals his Scholars to learn or say their lesson Or a Physitian By what authority he enjoyment them to take his Medicine people consider not that all our authority is but for our work even a Power to do our duty and our work is for them so that it is but an authority to do them good And the silly wretches do talk no wiselyer then if they should thus quarrel with a man that would held to quench the fire in their thatch and ask him By what authority he doth it Or that would give his money to relieve the poor and they should ask him By what authority do you require us to take this money Or as if I offered my hand to one that is fallen to help him up or to one that is in the water to save him from drowning and he should ask me By what authority I do it Truly we have no wiser nor thankfuller dealing from these men Nay it is worse in that we are doubly obliged both by Christian Charity and the Ministerial office to do them good I know not of any Simile that doth more aptly express the Ministerial power and duty and the peoples duty then these two conjunct viz. even such as a Physician is in an Hospital that hath taken the charge of it and such as a School-master is in his School especially such as the Philosophers or teachers of any science or art whose Schools have the aged and voluntary members as well as children Christs hath all ages even such is a Minister in the Church and such is their work and their authority to do it and the duty of the people to submit thereto allowing such differences as the subject requireth And what is it that hath brought people to this ignorance of their duty but custom It s long of us Brethren to speak truly and plainly its long of us that have not used them nor our selves to any more then the common publike work We see how much custom doth with the people Where it is the custom they stick not among the Papists at the confessing of all their sins to the Priest And because it is not the custom among us they disdain to be questioned catechized or instructed They wonder at it as a strange thing and say such things were never done before And if we can but prevail to make this duty become as usual as other duties they will much more easily submit to it then now What a happy thing would it be if you might live to see the day that it should be as ordinary for people of all ages to come in course to their Teachers for personal advice and help for their salvation as it is now usual for them to come to Church or as it is for them to send their children thither to be Catechized Our diligence in this work is the way to do this 10. MOreover our practice will give the Governors of the Nation some better information about the nature and burden of the Ministery and so may procure their further assistance It is a lamentable impediment to the Reformation of the Church and the saving of souls that in most populous Congregations there is but one or two men to over-see many thousand souls and so there are not labourers in any measure answerable to the work but it becomes an impossible thing to them to do any considerable measure of that personal duty which should be done
Luke he telleth us that he is as the Shepherd that leaveth the ninety and nine sheep in the Wilderness to seek after one that was lost or as the woman that lighteth a Candle and sweepeth the house and searcheth diligently to find the one groat that was lost and having found it doth rejoyce and call her friends and neighbours to rejoyce And Christ telleth us that even in heaven there is Ioy over one sinner that repenteth The Prophets are oft sent to single men Ezekiel is made a watch man over individuals and must say to the wicked Thou shalt surely dye Ezek. 3. 18 19. and 18 And Paul taught them publikely and from house to house which was meant of his teaching particular families for even the publike teaching was then in houses and publikely and from house to house signifie not the same thing The same Paul warned every man and taught every man in all wisdom that he might present every man perfect in Christ Iesus Col. 1. 18. Christ expounded his publike parables to the twelve a part Mark 4. 34. Every man must seek the Law at the mouth of the Priest Mâ—l 2 7. We must give an account of our watching for the souls of all that are bound to obey us Heb. 13. 7. Many more passages in Scripture assure us that it is our duty to Take heed to every individual person in our Flock And many passages in the antient Councils do plainly tell us it was the practice of those times till Churches began to be crowded and to swell so big that they could not be guided as Churches should be when they should rather have been multiplyed as the Converts did increase But I will pass over all these and mention only one passage in Ignatius or whoever it was I matter not much seeing it is but to prove what was then the custom of the Church ad Polycarp 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. Let Assemblies be often gathered seek after or enquire of all by name despise not servant-men or maids You see it was then taken for a duty to look after every member of the flock by name though it were the meanest servant-man or maid The Reasons of the necessity of this I shall pass over now because some of them will fall in when we come to the duty of Catechizing and personal instruction in the end Obj. But the Congregation that I am set over is so great that it is not possible for me to know them all much less to take heed of all individuals Answ 1. Is it necessity or not that hath cast you upon such a charge If it be not you excuse one sin with another How durst you undertake that which you knew your self unable to perform when you were not forced to it It seems then you had some other ends in your undertaking and never intended to make it good and be faithful to your trust But if you think that you were necessitated to it I must ask you 1. Might not you possibly have procured assistance for so great a charge Have you done all that you could with your friends and neighbours to get maintenance for another to help you 2. Have you not so much maintenance yourself as might serve your self and another What though it will not serve to maintain you in fulness Is it not more reason that you should pinch your flesh and family then undertake a work that you cannot do and neglect the souls of so many men I know it will seem hard to some that I say But to me it seems an unquestionable thing That if you have but an hundred pounds a year it is your duty to live upon part of it and allow the rest to a competent assistant rather then the Flock that you are over should be neglected If you say That this is hard measure your wife and children cannot so live I answer 1. Do not many families in your Parish live on less 2. Have not many able Ministers in the Prelates daies been glad of less with liberty to preach the Gospel There are some yet living as I have heard that have offered the Bishops to enter into bond to preach for nothing so they might but have had liberty to preach 3. If still you say that you cannot live so neerly as poor people do I further ask Can your Parishoners better endure damnation then you can endure want and poverty What do you call your selves Ministers of the Gospel and yet are the souls of men so base in your eyes that you had rather they did eternally perish then your selves and family should live in a low and poor condition Nay should you not rather beg your bread then put such a thing as mens salvation upon a hazard or disadvantage Yea or hazard the damnation but of one soul O Sirs it is a miserable thing when men study and talk of Heaven and Hell and the fewness of the saved and the difficulty of salvation and be not all this while in good sadness If you were you could never sure stick at such matters as these and let your people go to damnation that you might live at higher rates in the world Remember this the next time you are preaching to them that they cannot be saved without knowledge and hearken whether conscience do not conclude It s likely they might be brought to knowledge if they had but diligent instruction and exhortation privately man by man and then were there another minister to assist me this might be done and then if I would live neerly and deny my flesh I might have an assistant and then it must conclude Dare I let my people live in that Ignorance which I my self have told them is damning rather then put my self and family to a little want And I must further say that indeed this poverty is not so sad dangerous a business as it is pretended to be So you have but food and rayment must you not therewith be content and what would you have more then that which may enable you for the work of God And it is not purple and fine linnen and faring deliciously every day that you must expect as that which must content you A mans life consisteth not in the abundance of the things that he possesseth So your cloathing be warm and your food be wholsom you may as well be supported by it to do God service as if you had the fullest satisfaction to your flesh A patcht coat may be warm and bread and drink is wholsom food He that wanteth not these hath but a cold excuse to make for hazarding mens souls that he may live on a fuller dyet in the world Obj. If this Doctrine be received then it will discourage men from medling with great places and so all Cities Market-Towns and other great Parishes will be left desolate Answ It will discourage none but the carnal and self-seeking and not those that thirst after the winning of souls are wholly devoted to the
And who knows not how many of these men are yet alive and how high the same spirit yet is and busily contriving the accomplishment of the same design Shall we think that they have ceased their enterprise because they are working more subtilly in the dark What are the swarms of Railers at the Ministry sent abroad the Land for but to delude exasperate and dis-affect the peeple and turn the hearts of the children from their Fathers that they may be ready to promote the main design And is it not then our wisest course to see that God be our friend and to do that which tendeth most to engage him in our defence I think it is no time now to stand upon our credit so far as to neglect our duty and befriend our sins and so provoke the Lord against us It rather beseems us to fall down at the feet of our offended Lord and to justifie him in his Iudgements and freely and penitently to confess our transgressions and to resolve upon a speedy and through reformation before wrath break out upon us which will leave us no remedy It s time to make up all breaches between us and Heaven when we stand in such necessity of the Divine Protection For how can an impenitent unreformed people expect to be sheltered by Holiness it self It is a stubborn child that under the rod will refuse to confess his faults When it is not the least use of the rod to extort confession We feel much we fear more and all 's for sin and yet are we so hardly drawn to a Confession 9. The world already knows that we are sinners As none can suppose us perfect so our particular sins are too apparent to the world And is it not meet then that they should see that we are Penitent sinners It is sure a greater credit to us to be Penitent sinners then impenitent sinners and one of the two we shall be while we are on earth Certainly as Repentance is necessary to the recovery of our Peace with God so is it also to the reparation of our credit with wise and godly men It is befriending and excusing our sin that is our shame indeed and leadeth towards everlasting shame which the shame of Penitent confession would prevent 10. Our Penitent Confession and speedy Reformation are the means that must silence the reproaching adversaries He is impudently inhumane that will reproach men with their sins that bewail them and penitently charge them upon themselves Such men have a promise of pardon from God and shall men take us by the throat when God forgiveth us Who dare condemn us when God shall justifie us Who shall lay that to our charge which God hath declared that he will not charge us with When sin is truly Repented of by Gospel indulgence it ceaseth to be ours What readyer way then can we imagine to free us from the shame of it then to shame our selves for it in Penitent Confessions and to break off from it by speedy reformation 11. The Leaders of the Flock must be exemplary to the rest and therefore in this duty as well as in any other It is not our part only to teach them Repentance but to go before them in the exercise of it our selves As far as we excell them in Knowledge and other Gifts so far should we also excell them in this and other Graces 12. Too many that have set their hand to this sacred work do so obstinately proceed in Self-seeking Negligence Pride Division and other sins that it is become our necessary duty to admonish them If we could see that such would reform without reproof we could gladly forbear the publishing of their faults But when reproofs themselves do prove so uneffectual that they are more offended at the reproof then at the sin and had rather that we should cease reproving then themselves should cease sinning I think it is time to sharpen the remedy For what else should we do To give up our Brethren as uncureable were cruelty as long as there are further means to be used We must not hate them but plainly rebuke them and not suffer sin upon them Lev. 19. 17. And to bear with the vices of the Ministers is to promote the ruine of the Church For what speedyer way is there for the depraving and undoing of the people then the pravity of their Guides And how can we more effectually further a Reformation which we are so much obliged to do then by endeavouring the Reforming of the Leaders of the Church Surely Brethren if it be our duty to endeavour to cast out those Ministers that are Negligent Scandalous and Unfit for the work and if we think this so necessary to the reformation of the Church as no doubt it is it must needs be our Duty to endeavour to heal the sins of others and to use a much gentler remedy to them that are guilty of a less degree of sin If other mens sin deserveth an ejection sure ours deserve and require plain reproof For my part I have done as I would be done by and it is for God and the safety of the Church and in tender Love to the Brethren whom I do adventure to reprehend Not as others to make them contemptible and odious but to heal the evils that would make them so That so no enemy may find this matter of reproach among us But especially because our faithful endeavours are of so great necessity to the welfare of the Church and the saving of mens souls that it will not consist with a love to either in a predominant sort to be negligent our selves or silently to connive at and comply with the negligent If thousands of you were in a leaking ship and those that should pump out the water and stop the leaks should be sporting or asleep yea or but favour themselves in their labours to the hazarding of you all would you not awake them to their work and call out on them to labour as for your lives and if you used some sharpness and importunity with the sloathful would you think that man were well in his wits that would take it ill of you and accuse you of pride self-conceitedness or unmannerlyness to presume to talk so sawcily to your fellow workmen or should tell you that you wrong them by diminishing their reputation Would you not say The work must be done or we are all dead men is the ship ready to sink and do you talk of Reputation or had you rather hazard your self and us then hear of your sloathfulness This is our case Brethren The work of God must needs be done souls must not perish while you mind your worldly business or observe the tide and times and take your ease or quarrel with your Brethren nor must we be silent while men are hastened by you to perdition and the Church to greater danger and confusion for fear of seeming too uncivil and unmannerly with you or displeasing your impatient souls
alwaies approved in the end And the time is at hand when you shall confess that those were your truest friends He that will deal plainly against your sins in uprightness and honesty will deal as plainly for you against the sins of any that would injure you For he speaks not against sin because it is yours but because it is sin It is an observable passage that is reported by many and Printed by one how the late King Charls who by the Bishops instigation had kept Mr. Prin so long in prison and twice cropt his ears for writing against their Masks and Plaies and the high and hard proceedings of the Prelates when he read his notable voluminous speech for an acceptance of the Kings Concessions and an agreement with him thereupon did not long before his death deliver the Book to a friend that stood by him saying Take this Book I give it thee as a Legacy and believe it this Gentleman is the Cato of the Age. The time will come when plain dealing will have a better Construction then it hath while prejudice doth turn the heart against it I shall stand no longer on the Apologetical part I think the foregoing Objections being answered there is no great need of more of this The Title of the Book it self is Apologetical which if I tell you not I may well expect that some of my old ingenuous Interpreter should put another sense upon it I pretend not to the Sapience of Gildas nor to the Sanctity of Salvian as to the degree but by their names I offer you an excuse for plain dealing If it was used in a much greater measure by men so wise and holy as these why should it in a lower measure be dis-allowed in another At least from hence I have this encouragement that the plain dealing of Gildas and Salvian being so much approved by us now they are dead how much soever they might be despised or hated while they were living by them whom they did reprove at the worst I may expect some such success in times to come But my principal business is yet behind I must now take the boldness Brethren to become your Monitor concerning some of the necessary duties of which I have spoken in the ensuing discourse If any of you should charge me with arrogancy or immodesty for this attempt as if hereby I accused you of negligence or judged my self sufficient to admonish you I crave your candid interpretation of my boldness assuring you that I obey not the counsel of my flesh herein but displease my self as much as some of you and had rather have the ease and peace of silence if it would stand with duty and the Churches good But it is the meer necessity of the souls of men and my desire of their salvation and the prosperity of the Church which forceth me to this Arrogancy and Immodesty if so it must be called For who that hath a tongue can be silent when it is for the honour of God the welfare of his Church and the everlasting happiness of so many persons 1. And the first and main matter which I have to propound to you is Whether it be not the unquestionable duty of the generality of Ministers in these three Nations to set themselves presently to the work of Catechizing and Personal Instructing all that are to be taught by them who will be perswaded to submit thereunto I need not here stand to prove it having sufficiently done it in the following discourse Can you think that holy wisdom will gain-say it Will zeal for God will delight in his service or love to the souls of men gain-say it 1. That people must be taught the Principles of Religion and matters of greatest necessity to salvation is past doubt among us 2. And that they must be taught it in the most edifying advantagious way I hope we are agreed 3. And that personal Conference and Examination and Instruction hath many excellent advantages for their good is beyond dispute and afterward manifested 4. As also that personal Instruction is commended to us by Scripture and the practices of the servants of Christ and approved by the godly of all ages so far as I can find without contradiction 5. It is past doubt that we should perform this great duty to all the people or as many as we can For our love and care of their souls must extend to all If there be a 1000. or 500. ignorant people in your Parish it is a poor discharge of your duty now and then occasionally to speak to some few of them and let the rest alone in their ignorance if you are able to afford them help 6. And it is as certain that so great a work as this is should take up a considerable part of our time 7. And as certain is it that all duties should be done in order as far as may be and therefore should have their appointed times And if we are agreed to practise according to these commonly acknowledged truths we need not differ upon any doubtful circumstances Obj. We teach them in publike and how then are we bound to teach them man by man besides Answ You pray for them in Publike Must you not also pray for them in private Paul taught every man and exhorted every man and that both publikely and from house to house night and day with tears The necessity and benefits afterward mentioned prove it to be your duty But what need we add more when experience speaks so loud I am daily forced to admire how lamentably ignorant many of our people are that have seemed diligent hearers of me this ten or twelve years while I spoke as plainly as I was able to speak Some know not that each person in the Trinity is God Nor that Christ is God and man Nor that he took his humane nature into heaven Nor many the like necessary principles of our faith Yea some that come constantly to private meetings are found grosly ignorant Whereas in one hours familiar instruction of them in private they seem to understand more and better entertain it then they did in all their lives before Obj. But what obligation lyeth on us to tye our selves to certain daies for the performance of this work Answ This is like the Libertines plea against family prayer They ask where are we bound to pray morning and evening Doth not the nature and end of the duty plainly tell you that an appointed time conduceth to the orderly successful performance of it How can people tell when to come if the time be not made known You will have a fixed day for a Lecture because people cannot else tell when to come without a particular notice for each day And it is as necessary here because this must be a constant duty as well as that Obj. But we have many other businesses that sometimes may interrupt the course Answ Weightyer business may put by our preaching even on the Lords day but we must
the name of the Lord e. g. to avoid a notorious obstinate offender and so to obey the command of God that is though we may charge them in the name of the Lord to consent and obey and do their duty yet if their Iudgements remain unconvinced in a case which is to them obscure we have no more to do but satisfie our selves that we have done our duty So that when we have quarrelled never so long what is it but the Peoples consent that the moderate men on one side do require and consent the other side requireth also Call it what else you will whether a Government or an Authority or a Liberty Consent is the thing which both require And are we not then in the matter agreed Peruse for this Mr. Lyfords words before cited See also what the leading men for Presbyterian Government do not only acknowledge but maintain as effectually as others as Dav. Blondellus de Jure plebis in Regim Eccles Calvin Institut l. 4. c. 12. sect 4. Ne quis tale judicium spernat aut parvi aestimet se Fidelium suffragiis damnatum testatus est Dominus c. Ita Zanchius ubi sup and many more Indeed this Consent of the people is not sine qua non to the Pastors performance of his own part viz. Charging the Church in Christs name to avoid the Communion of such a notorious obstinate offender and suspending his own acts towards him and so charging them to receive the innocent or penitent For if the people consent not to avoid such and so would exclude all Discipline yet the Pastor must charge it on them and do his part But it is sine qua non to their actual rejecting and avoiding that offender In a word we must Teach them their duty and require it and they and we must obey and do it and neither they nor we may oblige any to sin Obj. But we are not agreed about the matter of the Church that must be Governed Answ Peruse the qualifications required in Church-members in the writings of the moderate on both sides and see what difference you can find Are not both agreed that Professors of true faith and holiness cohabiting and consenting are a true Church and when they contradict that Profession by wicked actions Doctrine or life they are to be dealt with by Discipline Though I confess in our practise we very much differ most that I know running into one of the extreams of loosness or rigor 3. MY third and last Request is that all the faithful Ministers of Christ would without any more delay Unite and Associate for the furtherance of each other in the work of the Lord and the maintaining of Unity and Concord in his Churches And that they would not neglect their Brotherly meetings to those ends nor yet spend them unprofitably but improve them to their edification and the effectual carrying on the work Read that excellent Letter of Edmond Grindal Arch-Bishop of Canterbury to Q. Elizabeth for Ministerial meetings and exercises such Bishops would have prevented our contentions and wars You may see it in Fullers new History of the Church of England And let none draw back that accord in the substantials of faith and godliness Yea if some should think themselves necessitated I will not say to Schism least I offend them but to separate in publike worship from the rest me thinks if they be indeed Christians they should be willing to hold so much Communion with them as they can and to consult how to manage their differences to the least disadvantage to the common truths and Christian cause which they all profess to own and prefer And here I may not silently pass by an uncharitable slander which some Brethren of the Prelatical Iudgement have divulged of me far and near viz. That while I perswade men to Accommodation it was long of me that the late Proclamation or Ordinance was procured for silencing all Sequestred Ministers viz. by the late Worcestershire Petition which they say was the occasion of it and they falsly report that I altered it after the subscription To which I say 1. It was the Petition of many Iustices and the grand Iury and thousands of the County as well as me 2. There is not a word in it nor ever was against any godly man but only that the notoriously insufficient and scandalous should not be permitted to meddle with the mysteries of Christ specially the Sacraments which we desired should have impartially extended to all parties alike And so much of this as was granted we cannot but be thankful for whoever grudge at it and wish it had been fully granted 3. I desire nothing more then that all able godly faithful Ministers of what side soever in our late State differences may not only have liberty but encouragement For the Church hath not any such to spare were they ten times more In a word I would have those of what party soever to have Liberty to preach the Gospel whose errours or miscarriages are not so great as that probably they will do as much hurt as good Brethren I crave your pardon for the infirmities of this address and earnestly longing for the success of your Labours I shall daily beg of God that he would perswade you to those duties which I have here requested you to perform and would preserve and prosper you therein against all the Serpentine subtilty and rage that is now engaged to oppose and hinder you April 15. 1656. Your unworthy fellow-servant Rich. Baxter TO The Lay-Reader THE reason why I have called this volumn the first Part of the book is because I intend if God enable me and give me time a Second Part containing the duty of the people in relation to their Pastors and therein to shew 1. The Right and Necessity of a Ministry 2. The way to know which is the true Church and Ministry and how we justifie our own calling to this office and how false Prophets and Teachers must be discerned 3. How far the people must assist the Pastors in the work of the Cospel and the Pastors put them on and make use of them to that end And 4. How far the people must submit to their Pastors and what other Duty they must perform in that Relation But because my time and strength is so uncertain that I know not whether I may live to publish my yet-imperfect preparations on this subject I dare not let this first Part come into your hands without a word of caution and advice lest you should misunderstand or misapply it 1. The caution that I must give you is in two parts 1. Entertain not any unworthy thoughts of your Pastors because we here confess our own sins and aggravate them in order to our humiliation and reformation You know it is men and not Angels that are put by God in the office of Church-guides And you know that we are imperfect men Let Papists and Quakers pretend to a sinless perfection we
Gods publike worship and for other mutual assistance in the way to Salvation Exact Definitions we may not now stand on we have more fully made some attempts that way heretofore SECT V. II. LET us next consider What it is to take heed to our selves and wherein it must be done And here I may well for brevity sake adjoyn the Application to the Explication it being about the matter of our Practise that I may be put to go over as little as may be of the same things again Take therefore I beseech you all this Explication as so much Advice and Exhortation to the duty and let your hearts attend it as well as your understandings 1. Take heed to your selves lest you should be void of that saving Grace of God which you offer to others and be strangers to the effectual workings of that Gospel which you preach and lest while you proclaim the necessity of a Saviour to the world your own hearts should neglect him and you should miss of an interest in him and his saving benefits Take heed to your selves lest you perish while you call upon others to take heed of perishing and lest you famish your selves while you prepare their food Though there be a promise of shining as the stars to those that turn many to righteousness Dan. 12. 3. that is but on supposition that they be first turned to it themselves Such promises are meant caeteris paribus suppositis supponendis Their own sincerity in the faith is the condition of their glory simply considered though their great ministerial labours may be a condition of the promise of their greater glory Many a man hath warned others that they come not to that place of Torment which yet they hasted to themselves Many a Preacher is now in hell that hath an hundred times called upon his hearers to use the utmost care and diligence to escape it Can any reasonable man imagine that God should save men for offering salvation to others while they refused it themselves and for telling others those truths which they themselves neglected and abused Many a Taylor goes in raggs that maketh costly cloathes for others And many a Cook scarce licks his fingers when he hath dress't for others the most costly dishes Believe it Brethren God never saved any man for being a Preacher nor because he was an able Preacher but because he was a justified sanctified man and consequently faithful in his masters work Take heed therefore to your selves first that you be that which you perswade your hearers to be and believe that which you perswade them daily to believe and have heartily entertained that Christ and Spirit which you offer unto others He that bid you love your neighbours as your selves did imply that you should love your selves not hate and destroy your selves and them SECT VI. 2. TAke heed to your selves lest you live in those actual sins which you preach against in others and lest you be guilty of that which daily you condemn Will you make it your work to magnifie God and when you have done dishonour him as much as others Will you proclaim Christs Governing Power and yet contemn it and rebel your selves Will you preach his laws and willfully break them If sin be evil why do you live in it If it be not why do you disswade men from it If it be dangerous how dare you venture on it If it be not why do you tell men so If God 's threatnings be true why do you not fear them If they be false why do you trouble men needlesly with them and put them into such frights without a cause Do you know the Iudgement of God that they that commit such things are worthy of death and yet will you do them Rom. 1. 32. Thou that teachest another teachest thou not thy self Thou that saiest a man should not commit adultery or be drunk or covetous art thou such thy self Thou that makest thy boast of the Law through breaking the Law dishonourest thou God Rom. 2. 21 21 23. What shall the same tongue speak evil that speaketh against evil shall it censure and slander and secretly backbite that cryes down these and the like in others Take heed to your selves lest you should cry down sin and not overcome it lest while you seek to bring it down in others you bow to it and become its slaves your selves For of whom a man is overcome of the same is he brought in bondage 2 Pet. 2. 19. To whom you yield your selves servants to obey his servants ye are to whom ye obey whether of sin unto death or of obedience unto righteousness Rom. 6. 16. It is easier to chide at sin then to overcome it SECT VII 3. TAke heed also to your selves that you be not unfit for the great employments that you have undertaken He must not be himself a babe in knowledge that will teach men all those mysterious things that are to be known in order to salvation O What qualifications are necessary for that man that hath such a charge upon him as we have How many difficulties in Divinity to be opened Yea about the very fundamentals that must needs be known How many obscure Texts of Scripture to be expounded How many duties to be done wherein our selves and others may miscarry if in the matter and end and manner and circumstances they be not well informed How many sins to be avoided which without understanding and foresight cannot be done What a number of slye and subtile temptations must we open to our peoples eyes that they may escape them How many weighty and yet intricate cases of conscience have we almost daily to resolve Can so much work and such work as this be done by raw unqualified men O what strong holds have we to batter and how many of them What subtile and diligent and obstinate resistance must we expect at every heart we deal with Prejudice hath blockt up our way we can scarce procure a patient hearing They think ill of what we say while we are speaking it We cannot make a breach in their groundless hopes and carnal peace but they have twenty shifts and seeming reasons to make it up again and twenty enemies that are seeming friends are ready to help them We dispute not with them upon equal terms But we have children to reason with that cannot understand us we have distracted men in spirituals to reason with that will bawl us down with raging non-sense We have wilful unreasonable people to deal with that when they are silenced they are never the more convinc't and when they can give you no reason they will give you their resolution like the man that Salvian had to deal with lib. 4. de Gubernat p. 133. that being resolved to devoure a poor mans means and being intreated by Salvian to forbear told him He could not grant his request for he had made a Vow to take it so that the Preacher audita religiosissimi sceleris
a vile usurpation of the Pope and his Prelates to assume the management of the temporal sword and immerse themselves in the businesses of the world to exercise the violent coertion of the Magistrate when they should use only the spiritual weapons of Christ Our business is not to dispose of Common-wealths nor to touch mens purses or persons by our penalties but it consisteth only in these two things 1. In revealing to men that Happiness or chief Good which must be their ultimate end 2. In acquainting them with the right means for the attainment of this end and helping them to use them and hindring them from the contrary 1. It is the first and great work of the Ministers of Christ to acquaint men with that God that made them and is their Happiness to open to them the treasures of his Goodness and tell them of the Glory that is in his presence which all his chosen people shall enjoy That so by shewing men the Certainty and the Excellency of the promised felicity and the perfect blessedness in the life to come compared with the vanities of this present life we may turn the stream of their cogitations and affections and bring them to a due contempt of this world and set them on seeking the durable treasure And this is the work that we should lie at with them night and day could we once get them right in regard of the end and set their hearts unfeignedly on God and heaven the chiefest part of the work were done for all the rest would undoubtedly follow And here we must diligently disgrace their seeming sensual felicity and convince them of the baseness of those pleasures which they prefer before the delights of God 2. Having shewed them the right end our next work is to acquaint them with the right means of attaining it Where the wrong way must be disgraced the evil of all sin must be manifested and the danger that it hath brought us into and the hurt it hath already done us must be discovered Then have we the great mysterie of Redemption to disclose the Person Natures Incarnation Perfection Life Miracles Sufferings Death Burial Resurrection Ascension Glorification Dominion Intercession of the blessed Son of God As also the tenor of his promises the conditions imposed on us the duties which he hath Commanded us and the Everlasting Torments which he hath threatned to the final Impenitent neglecters of his grace O what a treasury of his blessings and Graces and the priviledges of his Saints have we to unfold What a blessed life of Holiness and Communion therein have we to recommend to the sons of men And yet how many temptations difficulties and dangers to disclose and assist them against How many precious spiritual duties have we to set them upon and excite them to and direct them in How many objections of flesh and blood and cavils of vain men have we to confute How much of their own corruptions and sinful inclinations to discover and root out We have the depth of Gods bottomless Love and Mercy the depth of the mysteries of his Designs and Works of Creation Redemption Providence Justification Adoption Sanctification Glorification the depth of Satans temptations and the depth of their own hearts to disclose In a word we must teach them as much as we can of the whole Word and Works of God O what two volumns are there for a Minister to Preach upon how great how excellent how wonderful and mysterious All Christians are Disciples or Schollars of Christ the Church is his School we are his Ushers the Bible is his Grammer This is it that we must be daily teaching them The Papists would teach them without book lest they should learn heresies from the Word of truth least they learn falshood from the Book of God they must learn only the books or words of their Priests But Our business is not to teach them without Book but to help them to undrstand this Book of God So much for the subject matter of our work SECT IV. III. THE Object of our Pastoral care is All the Flock That is the Church and every member of it It is considered by us 1. In the whole body or society 2. In the parts or individual members 1. Our first care must be about the whole And therefore the first duties to be done are publike duties which are done to the whole As our people are bound to prefer publike duties before private so are we much more But this is so commonly confessed that I shall say no more of it 2. But that which is less understood or considered is That All the Flock even each individual member of our charge must be taken heed of and watched over by us in our Ministery To which end it is presupposed necessary that unless where absolute necessity forbiddeth it through the scarcity of Pastors and greatness of the Flock We should know every person that belongeth to our charge For how can we take heed to them if we do not know them Or how can we take that heed that belongeth to the special charge that we have undertaken if we know not who be of our charge and who not though we know the persons Our obligation is not to all neighbour Churches or to all straglers as great as it is to those whom we are set over How can we tell whom to exclude till we know who are included Or how can we refel the accusations of the offended that tell us of the ungodly or defiled members of our Churches when we know not who be members and who not Doubtless the bounds of our Parishes will not tell us as long as Papists and some worse do there inhabit Nor will bare hearing us certainly discover it as long as those are used to hear that are members of other Churches or of none at all Nor is meer participation of the Lords Supper a sure note while strangers may be admitted and many a member accidentally be kept off Though much probability may be gathered by these or some of these yet a fuller knowledge of our charge is necessary where it may be had and that must be the fittest expression of Consent because it is Consent that is necessary to the Relation All the Flock being thus known must afterward be Heeded One would think all reasonable men should be satisfied of this and it should need no further proof Doth not a careful Shepherd look after every individual Sheep And a good Schoolmaster look to every individual Scholler both for instruction and correction And a good Physitian look after every particular Patient And good Commanders look after every individual souldier Why then should not the Teachers the Pastors the Physitians the Guides of the Churches of Christ take heed to every individual member of their charge Christ himself the great and good Shepherd and master of the Church that hath the whole to look after doth yet take care of every individual In the 15. of
to let them alone either in publike or private whatever other work we have to do I confess I am forced frequently to neglect that which should tend to the further encrease of knowledge in the godly and may be called stronger meat because of the lamentable necessity of the unconverted Who is able to talk of Controversies or nice unnecessary points yea or truths of a lower degree of necessity how excellent soever while he seeth a company of ignorant carnal miserable sinners before his face that must be chang'd or damn'd Me thinks I even see them entring upon their final woe Me thinks I even hear them crying out for help and speedyest help Their misery speaks the lowder because they have not hearts to seek or ask for help themselves Many a time have I known that I had some hearers of higher fancies that lookt for rarities and were addicted to despise the Ministery if he told them not somewhat more then ordinary and yet I could not find in my heart to turn from the observation of the necessities of the impenitent for the humouring of these nor to leave speaking to the apparently miserable for their salvation to speak to such novelists for the clawing of their ears no nor so much as otherwise should be done to the weak for their confirmation and increase in grace Me thinks as Pauls Spirit was stir'd within him when he saw the Athenians so addicted to Idolatry Acts 17. 16. so it should cast us into one of his paroxisms to see so many men in great probabilitie of being everlastingly undone and if by faith we did indeed look upon them as within a step of hell it should more effectually untye our tongues then they tell us that Croesus danger did his sons He that will let a sinner go to hell for want of speaking to him doth set less by souls then the Redeemer of souls did and less by his neighbour then rational Charity will allow him to do by his greatest enemy O therefore Brethren whomsoever you neglect neglect not the most miserable Whatever you pass over forget not poor souls that are under the condemnation and curse of the Law and may look every hour for the infernal execution if a speedy change do not prevent it O call after the impenitent and ply this great work of converting souls whatever else you leave undone 2. The next part of the Ministerial work is for the building up of those that are already truly converted And according to the various states of these the work is various in general as the persons are either such as are young and weak or such as are in danger of growing worse or such as are already declining so our work is all reducible to these three Confirmation and Progress Preservation and Restauration 1. We have many of our flock that are young and weak though of long standing yet of small proficiency or strength Heb. 5. 11 12. And indeed it is the most common condition of the godly Most of them â—â—ick in weak and low degrees of grace And it is no easie matter to get them higher To bring them to higher and stricter opinions is very easie that is to bring them from the truth into error on the right hand as well as on the left but to encrease their knowledge and gifts is not easie but to encrease their graces is the hardest of all It is a very troublesom thing to be weak It keepeth under dangers it abateth consolation and delight in God and taketh off the sweetness of his waies and maketh us go to work with too much backwardness and come off with little peace or profit It maketh us less serviceable to God and man to bring less honour to our Master and profession and do less good to all about us We find small benefit by the means we use we too easily play with the Serpents baits and are insnared by his wiles A Seducer will easily make us shake and evil may be made appear to us as Good truth as falshood sin as a duty and so on the contrary we are less able to resist and stand in an encounter we sooner fall we hardlier rise and are apter to prove a scandal and reproach to our profession We less know our selves and are more apt to be mistaken in our own estate not observing corruptions when they have got advantage we are dshonourable to the Gospel by our very weakness and little useful to any about us and in a word though we live to less profit to our selves or others yet are we unwilling and too unready to dye And seeing the case of weakliness is comparatively so sad how diligent should we be to cherish and encrease their grace The strength of Christians is the honour of the Church When men are inflamed with the Love of God and live by a lively working saith and set light by the profits and honours of the world and love one another with a pure heart fervently and can bear and heartily forgive a wrong and suffer joyfully for the cause of Christ and study to do good and walk in offensively and harmlesly in the world as ready to be servants of all men for their good becoming all things to all men to win them and yet abstaining from the appearances of evil and seasoning all their actions with a sweet mixture of Prudence Humility Zeal and Heavenly spirituality O what an honour are such to their professions What ornaments to the Church and how excellently serviceable to God and man Men would sooner believe that the Gospel is indeed a word of truth and power if they could see more such effects of it upon the hearts and lives of men The world is better able to read the nature of Religion in a mans life then in the Bible They that obey not the word may be won by the conversations of such as these 1 Pet. 3. 1. It is therefore a necessary part of our work to labour more in the polishing and perfecting of the Saints that they may be strong in the Lord and fitted for their masters use 2. Another sort of Converts that need our special help are those that labour under some particular distemper that keeps under their graces and maketh them temptations and troubles to others and a burden to themselves For alas too many such there are Some that are specially addicted to Pride and some to worldliness and some to this or that sensual desire and many to frowardness and disturbing passions It is our duty to set in for the assistance of all these and partly by disswasions and clear discoveries of the odiousness of the sin and partly by suitable directions about the way of remedy to help them to a fuller conquest of their corruptions We are leaders of Christs Army against the powers of darkness and must resist all the works of darkness wherever we find them though it be in the children of light We must be no more tender of the sins of
the godly then the ungodly nor any more befriend them or favour them By how much more we love the persons above others by so much the more must we express it in the opposition of their sins And yet we must look to meet with some tender persons here especially when iniquity hath got any head and made a party and many have fallen in love with it They will be as pettish and impatient of a reproof as some worser men and interest piety it self into their faults and say that a Minister that preacheth against them doth preach against the godly A most haynous crime to make God and godliness accessory to their sins When all the world besides hath not the thousandth part of that enmity and opposition against them But the Ministers of Christ must do their duties for all mens peevishness and must not so far hate their Brother as to forbear the plain rebuking of him or suffer sin to lie upon his soul Levit. 19. 17. Though it must be done with much prudence yet done it must be 3. Another sort that our work is about is Declining Christians that are either fallen into some scandalous sin or else abate their zeal and diligence and shew us that they have lost their former Love As the case of back-sliders is very sad so our diligence must be great for their recovery It s sad to them to lose so much of their Life and peace and serviceableness to God and to become so serviceable to Satan his cause It is sad to us to see that al our labour is come to this and that when we have taken so much pains with men and bad so much hopes of them all should be so far frustrate It is saddest of all to think that God should be so abused by those that he hath so loved and done so much for and that the enemy should get such advantage upon his graces and that Christ should be so wounded in the house of a friend and the name of God evil spoken of among the wicked through such and all that fear God should be reproached for their sakes Besides that partial back-sliding hath a natural tendency to total Apostacie and would effect it if special grace prevent it not The sadder the case of such Christians is the more lieth upon us for their effectual recovery to restore those that are but overtaken with a fault by the Spirit of meekness Gal. 6. 12. and yet to see that the sore be throughly searcht and healed and the joynt be well set again what pain soever it cost and especially to look to the honour of the Gospel and to see that they rise by such free and full confessions and significations of true Repentance that some reparation be thereby made to the Church and their holy profession for the wound of dishonour that they had given it by their sin Much skill is required to the restoring of such a soul 4. Another part of the Ministerial work is about those that are fallen under some great Temptation Much of our assistance is needful to our people in such a case And therefore every Minister should be a man that hath much insight into the Tempters wiles We should know the great variety of them and the cunning craft of all Satans instruments that lie in wait to deceive and the methods and devices of the grand deceiver some of our people lie under Temptations to Error and Heresie especially the young unsettled and most self-conceited and those that are most conversant or familiar with Seducers Young raw ungrounded Christians are commonly of their mind that have most interest in their esteem and most opportunity of familiar talk to draw them into their way And as they are tinder so deceivers want not the sparks of zeal to set them on a flame A zeal for error and opinions of our own is natural and easily kindled and kept alive but it is far otherwise with the spiritual zeal for God O what a deal of holy Prudence and Industry is necessary in a Pastor to preserve the flock from being tainted with heresies and falling into noxious conceits and practices and especially to keep them in Unity and Concord and hinder the rising or increase of Divisions If there be not a notable conjunction of all accomplishments and a skilful improvement of parts and interests it will hardly be done especially in such times as ours when the sign is in the head and the disease is Epidemical If we do not publikely maintain the credit of our Ministery and second it by unblamable exemplary lives and privately meet with Seducers and shame them if we be not able to manifest their folly and follow not close our staggering people before they fall how quickly may we give great advantage to the enemy and let in such an inundation of sin and calamity that will not easily be again cast out Others lie under a temptation to worldliness and others to gluttony or drunkenness and others to iust some to one sin and some to another A faithful Pastor therefore should have his eye upon them all and labour to be acquainted with their natural temperament and also with their occasions and affairs in the world and the company that they live or converse with that so he may know where their temptations lie and then speedily prudently and diligently to help them 5. Another part of our work is to comfort the disconsolate and to settle the Peace of our peoples souls and that on sure and lasting grounds To which end the quality of the Complainants and the course of their lives had need to be known for all people must not have the like Consolations that have the like complaints But of this I have spoken already elsewhere and there is so much said by many especially Mr. Bolton in his Instructions for right Comforting that I shall say no more 6. The rest of our Ministerial work is upon those that are yet strong For they also have need of our assistance Partly to prevent their temptations and declinings and preserve the grace they have partly to help them for a further progress and encrease and partly to direct them in the improving of their strength for the service of Christ and the assistance of their brethren As also to encourage them especially the aged the tempted and afflicted to hold on and to persevere that they may attain the Crown All these are the objects of the Ministerial work and in respect to all these we must Take heed to all the Flock Abundance more distributions of our work with directions how to perform it to rich and poor young and old c. You may find in Gregor M. de cura pastorali worth the reading You may have the Book by it self of Mr. Ier. Stephens Edition SECT V. IV. HAving done with our work in respect of its Objects I am next to speak of the Acts themselves But of this I shall be very brief 1. Because they
a thing as satisfactory when true Repentance is absent hath discovered more of the accusers error then of theirs For no doubt it is true Repentance that they exhort men to and it is true Repentance which offendors do profess and whether they truly profess it who can tell but God It is not nothing that sin is brought to so much disgrace and the Church doth so far acquit themselves of it But of this next 2. Next To the duty of Publike Reproof must be joyned an exhortation of the person to Repentance and to the Publike Profession of it for the satisfaction of the Church For as the Church is bound to avoid Communion with impenitent scandalous sinners so when they have had the Evidence of their sin they must see some Evidence of their Repentance for we cannot know them to be penitent without Evidence And what Evidence is the Church capable of but their Profession of Repentance first and their actual reformation afterwards both which must be expected 3. To these may most fitly be adjoyned the publike prayers of the Church and that both for the Reproved before they are Rejected and for the Rejected some of them at least that they may repent and be restored but we are now upon the former Though this is not expresly affixed to Discipline yet we have sufficient discovery of Gods will concerning it in the general precepts We are commanded to pray alway and in all things and for all men and in all places and all things are said to be sanctified by it It is plain therefore that so great a business as this should not be done without it And who can have any just reason to be offended with us if we pray to God for the changing of their hearts and the pardon of their sins It is therefore in my Judgement a very laudable course of those Churches that use for the three next daies together to desire the Congregation to joyn in earnest prayer to God for the opening of the sinners eyes and softning of his heart and saving him from impenitency and eternal death And though we have no express direction in Scripture just how long we shall stay to try whether the sinner be so impenitent as to be necessarily excluded yet we must follow the general directions with such diversity as the case and quality of the person and former proceeding shall require it being left to the discretion of the Church who are in general to stay so long till the person manifest himself obstinate in his sin not but that a temporal exclusion called suspension may oft be inflicted in the mean time but before we proceeded to an exclusion à statu it is very meet ordinarily that three daies prayer for him and patience towards him should antecede And indeed I see no reason but this course should be much more frequent then it is and that not only upon those that are members of our special charge and do consent to Discipline but even to those that deny our Pastoral oversight and Discipline and yet are our ordinary hearers For so far as men have Christian Communion or familiarity with us so far are they capable of being excluded from Communion Though the members of our special charge have fuller and more special Communion and so are more capable of a fuller and more special exclusion yet all those that dwell among us and are our ordinary hearers have some Communion For as they converse with us so they hear the word not as heathens but as Christians and members of the universal Church into which they are baptized And they joyn with us in publike prayers and praises in the celebration of the Lords day From this therefore they are capable of being excluded or from part of this at least Morally if not Locally For the precept of avoiding and withdrawing from and not eating with such is not restrained to the members of a Governed Church but extended to all Christians that are capable of Communion When these ungodly persons are sick we have daily bills from them to request the prayers of the Congregation And if we must pray for them against sickness and temporal death I know no reason but we should much more earnestly pray for them against sin and eternal death That we have not their consent is no disswasive For that is their disease and the very venom and malignity of it and we do not take it to be sober arguing to say I may not pray for such a man against his sickness because he is sick Or if he were not sick I would pray against his sickness No more is it to say If he were not impenitent so as to refuse our prayers I would pray that he might be saved from his impenitency I confess I do not take my self to have so strict a charge over this sort of men that renounce my oversight as I do over the rest that own it and that 's the reason why I have called no more of them to publike Repentance because it requireth most commonly more time to examine the matter of fact or to deal with the person first more privately that his impenitenc may be discerned then I can possibly spare from the duties which I owe to my special charge to whom I am more indebted and therefore may ordinarily expend no more on the rest who are to me but as strangers or men of another Parish and of no governed particular Church then I can spare when I have done my main duty to my own Flock But yet though I cannot use any such discipline on all that sort nor am so much obliged to do it yet some of them that are most notoriously and openly wicked where less proof and shorter debates are requisite I intend to deal thus with hereafter having found some success in that kind already But specially to all those whom we take for Members of that particular Church which we are Pastors of there is no question but this is our duty And therefore where the whole Parish are members Discipline must be exercised on the whole I confess much prudence is to be exercised in such proceedings least we do more hurt then good but it must be such Christian prudence as ordereth duties and suteth them to their ends and not such carnal prudence as shall enervate or exclude them It may be fit therefore for younger Ministers to consult with others for the more cautelous proceeding in such works And in the performance of it we should deal humbly even when we deal most sharply and make it appear that it is not from any contending or Lordly disposition nor an act of revenge for any injury but a necessary duty which we cannot conscionably avoid And therefore it will be meet that we disclaim all such animosities and shew the people the commands of God obliging us to what we do E. G. Neighbours and Brethren sin is so hateful an evil in the eyes of the most holy God how light
soever impenitent sinners make of it that he hath provided the everlasting torments of Hell for the punishment of it and no lesser means can prevent that punishment then the Sacrifice of the blood of the Son of God applyed to those that truly Repent of it and forsake it and therefore God that calleth all men to Repentance hath commanded us to exhort one another daily while it is called to day least any be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin Heb. 3. 13. and that we do not hate our Brother in our heart but in any wise rebuke our neighbour and not suffer sin upon him Lev. 19. 17. and that if our brother offend us we should tell him his fault between him and us and if he hear not take two or three and if he hear not them tell the Church and if he hear not the Church he must be to us as a heathen or a Publican Mat. 18. 17. and those that sin we must rebuke before all that others may fear 1 Tim. 5. 20. and rebuke with all authority Tit. 1. 15. Yea were it an Apostle of Christ that should openly sin he must be openly reproved as Paul did Peter Gal. 2. 11 14. and if they repent not we must avoid them and with such not so much as eat 2 Thes 3. 6 12 14. 1 Cor. 5. 11 13. According to these commands of the Lord having heard of the scandalous practice of N. N. of this Church or Parish and having received sufficient proof that he hath committed the odious sin of We have seriously dealt with him to bring him to repentance but to the grief of our hearts do perceive no satisfactory success of our endeavours but he seemeth still to remain impenitent or still liveth in the same sin though he verbally profess repentance We do therefore judge it our necessary duty to proceed to the use of that further remedy which Christ hath commanded us to try and hence we desire him in the Name of the Lord without any further delay to lay by his obstinacy against the Lord and to submit to his rebuke and will and to lay to heart the greatness of his sin the wrong he hath done to Christ and to himself and the scandal and grief that he hath caused to others and how unable he is to contend with the Almighty and prevail against the Holy God who to the impenitent is a consuming fire or to save himself from his burning indignation And I do earnestly beseech him for the sake of his own soul that he will but soberly consider What it is that he can gain by his sin or impenitency and whether it will pay for the loss of everlasting life and how he thinks to stand before God in Iudgement or to appear before the Lord Jesus one of these daies when death shall snatch his soul from his body if he be found in this impenitent state when the Lord Jesus himself in whose blood they pretend to trust hath told such with his own mouth that except they repent they shall all perish Luk. 13. 3 5. And I do beseech him for the sake of his own soul and require him as a Messenger of Iesus Christ as he will answer the contrary at the Bar of God that he lay by the stoutness and impenitency of his heart and unfeignedly confess and lament his sin before God and this Congregation And this desire I here publish not out of any ill will to his person as the Lord knoweth but in love to his soul and in obedience to Christ that hath made it my duty desiring that if it be possible that he may be saved from his sin and from the power of Satan and from the everlasting burning wrath of God and may be reconciled to God and to his Church and therefore that he may be humbled by true contrition before he be humbled by remediless condemnation Thus or to this purpose I conceive our publike admonition should proceed And in some cases where the sinner taketh his sin to be small the aggravation of it will be necessary and specially the citing of some texts of Scripture that do aggravate and threaten it And in case he either will not be present that such admonition may be given him or will not be brought to a discovery of Repentance and to desire the prayers of the Congregation for him it will be meet that with such a preface as this afore expressed we desire the prayers of the Congregation for him our selves That the people would consider what a fearful condition the impenitent are in and have pitty on a poor soul that is so blinded and hardened by sin and Satan that he cannot pitty himself and think what it is for a man to appear before the living God in such a case and therefore that they would joyn in earnest prayer to God that he would open his eyes and soften and humble his stubborn heart before he be in hell beyond remedy And accordingly let us be very earnest in prayer for them that the Congregation may be provoked affectionately to joyn with us and who knows but God may hear such prayers and the sinners heart may more relent then our own exhortation could procure it to do However the people will perceive that we make not light of sin and preach not to them in meer custom or formality If Ministers would be conscionable in thus carrying on the work of God entirely and self-denyingly they might make something of it and expect a fuller blessing But when we will shrink from all that is dangerous or ungrateful and shift off all that is costly or troublesom they cannot expect that any great matter should be done by such a carnal partial use of means and though some may be here and there called home to God yet we cannot look that the Gospel should prevail and run and be glorified where it is so lamely and defectively carryed on 4. When a sinner is thus Admonished and Prayed for if it please the Lord to open his eyes and give him remorse before we proceed to any further censure it is our next duty to proceed to his full recovery where these things must be observed 1. That we do not either discourage him by too much severity nor yet by too much facility and levity make nothing of Discipline nor help him to any saving cure but meerly slubber and palliate it over If therefore he have sinned scandalously but once if his Repentance seem deep and serious we may in some cases Restore him at that time that is If the wound that he hath given us to the credit of the Church be not so deep as to require more ado for satisfaction or the sin so hainous as may cause us to delay But if it be so or if he have lived long in the sin it is most meet that he do wait in Penitence a convenient time before he be Restored 2. And when the time comes whether at the first confession
or after it is meet that we urge him to be serious in his humiliation and set it home upon his conscience till he seem to be truly sensible of his sin For it is not a vain formality but the Recovery and saving of a soul that we expect 3. We must see that he beg the Communion of the Church and their prayers to God for his Pardon and Salvation 4. And that he Promise to fly from such sins for the time to come and watch more narrowly and walk more warily 5. And then we have these things more to do 1. To assure him of the riches of Gods love and the sufficiency of Christs blood to pardon his sins and that if his Repentance be sincere the Lord doth pardon him of which we are authorized as his Messengers to assure him 2. To charge him to persevere and perform his promises and avoid temptations and continue to beg mercy and strengthening grace 3. To charge the Church that they imitate Christ in forgiving and retain or if he were cast out receive the Penitent person in their Communion that they never reproach him with his sins or cast them in his teeth but forgive and forget them as Christ doth 4. And then to give God thanks for his recovery so far and to pray for his confirmation and future preservation 5. The next part of Discipline is the Rejecting and Removing from the Churches Communion those that after sufficient tryaldo remain impenitent Where note 1. That if a man have sinned but once so scandalously or twice it is but a Profession of Repentance that we can expect for our satisfaction but if he be accustomed to sin or have oft broke such Promises then it is an actual reformation that we must expect And therefore he that will refuse either of these to Reform or to Profess and manifest Repentance is to be taken by us as living in the sin For a hainous sin but once committed is morally continued in till it be Repented of and a bare forbearing of the act is not sufficient 2. Yet have we no warrant to rip up matters that are worn out of the publike memory and so to make that publike again that is ceased to be publike at least in ordinary cases 3. Exclusion from Church-Communion commonly called Excommunication is of divers sorts or degrees more then two or three which are not to be confounded of which I will not so far digress as here to treat 4. That which is most commonly to be practised among us is Only to remove an impenitent sinner from our Communion till it shall please the Lord to give him Repentance 5. In this Exclusion or Removal the Minister or Governors of that Church are Authoritatively to charge the people in the name of the Lord to avoid Communion with him and to pronounce him one whose Communion the Church is bound to avoid and the Peoples duty is Obedientially to avoid him in case the Pastors charge contradict not the word of God So that he hath the Guiding or Governing Power and they have 1. A discerning power whether his charge be just 2. And an executive power For it s they that must execute the sentence in part by avoiding the Rejected as he himself must execute it by denying him those Ordinances and Priviledges not due to him whereof he is the Administrator 6. It is very convenient to pray for the Repentance and restauration even of the Excommunicate 7. And if God shall give them Repentance they are gladly to be received into the Communion of the Church again Of the manner of all these I shall say no more they being things that have so much said of them already And for the manner of other particular duties of which I have said little or nothing you have much already as in other writings so in the Directory of the late Assemblie Would we were but so far faithful in the Practice of this Discipline as we are satisfied both of the matter and manner and did not dispraise and reproach it by our negligence while we write and plead for it with the highest commendations It is worthy our consideration Who is like to have the heavyer charge about this matter at the Bar of God Whether those deluded ones that have reproached and hindred discipline by their tongues because they knew not its nature and necessity or we that have so vilified it by our constant omission while with our tongues we have magnified it If hypocrisie be no sin or if the knowledge of our Masters will be no aggravation of the evil of disobedience then we are in a better case then they I will not advise the zealous maintainers and obstinate neglecters and rejecters of Discipline to unsay all that they have said till they are ready to do as they say nor to recant their defences of Discipline till they mean to practice it nor to burn all the Books that they have written for it and all the Records of their cost and hazzards for it least they rise up in Judgement against them to their confusion not that they recant their condemnation of the Prelates in this till they mean a little further to outgo them But I would perswade them without any more delay to conform their Practices to these Testimonies which they have given lest the more they are proved to have commended Discipline the more they are proved to have condemned themselves for neglecting it I have often marvailed that the same men who have been much offended at the Books that have been written for Free Admission to the Lords Supper or for mixt Communion in that one part have been no more offended at as Free permission in a Church state and as Free admission to other parts of Communion and that they have made so small a matter at as much mixture in all the rest I should think that it is a greater profanation to permit an obstinate scandalous sinner to be a stated member of that particular Church without any private first and then publike Admonition Prayer for him or censure of him then for a single Pastor to admit him to the Lords Supper if he had no power to censure him as these suppose I should think that the faithful Practice of Discipline in the other parts would soon put an end to the Controversie about Free Admission to the Lords Supper and heal the hurt that such Discourses have done to the rebellions of our people For those Discourses have more modesty then to plead for a Free Admission of the Censured or Rejected ones but its only of those that have yet their standing in that Church and are not censured And if when they forfeit their title to Church-Communion we would deal with them in Christs appointed way till we had either reclaimed them to Repentance or censured them to be Avoided it would be past controversie then that they were not to be admitted to that one act of Communion in the Supper who are justly
Christ had not been in the case as now it is the Nations of Lutherans and Calvinsts abroad and the differing parties here at home would not have been plotting the subversion of one another nor remain at that distance and in that uncharitable bitterness nor strengthen the common enemy and hinder the building and prosperity of the Church as they have done CHAP. IV. SECT I. Use REverend and dear Brethren our business here this day is to humble our souls before the Lord for our former negligence especially of Catechizing and personal instructing those committed to our charge and to desire Gods assistance of us in our undertaken employment for the time to come Indeed we can scarce expect the later without the former If God will help us in our future duty and amendment he will sure humble us first for our former sin He that hath not so much sense of his faults as unfeignedly to lament them will hardly have so much more as may move him to reform them The sorrow of Repentance may go without the change of heart and life because a Passion may be easier wrought then a true conversion but the change cannot go without some good measure of the sorrow Indeed we may justly here begin our Confessions It is too common with us to expect that from our people which we do little or nothing in our selves What pains take we to humble them while our selves are unhumbled How hard do we squeeze them by all our expostulations convictions and aggravations to wring out of them a few penitent tears and all too little when our own eyes are dry and our hearts too strange to true remorse and we give them an example of hard-heartedness while we are endeavouring by our words to mollifie and melt them O if we did but study half as much to affect and amend our own hearts as we do our hearers it would not be with many of us as it is It s a great deal too little that we do for their humiliation but I fear its much less that some of us do for our own Too many do somewhat for other mens souls while they seem to forget that they have any of their own to regard They so carry the matter as if their part of the work lay in calling for Repentance and the hearers in Repenting their 's in speaking tears and sorrow and other-mens-only in weeping and sorrowing theirs in preaching duty and the hearers in performing it their 's in crying down sin and the peoples in forsakeing it But we find that the Guides of the Church in Scripture did confess their own sins as well as the sins of the people and did begin to them in tears for their own and the peoples sins Ezra confesseth the sins of the Priests as well as of the people weeping and casting himself down before the house of God Ezr. 9. 6 7 10. and 10. 1. So did the Levites Neh. 9. 32 33 34. Daniel confessed his own sin as well as the peoples Dan. 9. 20. And God calleth such to it as well as others Joel 2. 15 16 17. When the fast is summoned the people gathered the Congregation sanctified the Elders assembled the Priests the Ministers of the Lord are called to begin to them in weeping and calling upon God for mercy I think if we consider well of the Duties already opened and withal how we have done them of the Rule and of our unanswerableness thereto we need not demurr upon the question nor put it to a question Whether we have cause of humiliation I must needs say though I judge my self in saying it that he that readeth but this one Exhortation of Paul in Acts 20. and compareth his life with it is too stupid and hard-hearted if he do not melt in the sense of his neglects and be not laid in the dust before God and forced to bewail his great omissions and to flye for refuge to the blood of Christ and to his pardoning grace I am confident Brethren that none of you do in judgement approve of the Libertine Doctrine that cryeth down the necessity of Confession Contrition and true humiliation yea and in order to the pardon of sin Is it not pitty then that our Hearts are not more Orthodox as well as our heads But I see our lesson is but half learnt when we know it and can say it When the understanding hath learned it there is more ado to teach it our Wills and Affections our eyes our tongues and hands It is a sad thing that so many of us do use to preach our hearers asleep but it s sadder if we have studyed and preacht our selves asleep and have talkt so long against hardness of heart till our own grow hardned under the noise of our own reproofs Though the head only have eyes and ears and smell and taste the heart should have life and feeling and motion as well as the head And that you may see that it is not a causeless sorrow that God calleth us to I shall take it to be my duty to call to remembrance our mainfold sins or those that are most obvious and set them this day in order before God and our own faces that God may cast them behind his back and to deal plainly and faithfully in a free confession that he who is faithful and just may forgive them and to judge our selves that we be not judged of the Lord. Wherein I suppose I have your free and hearty consent and that you will be so far from being offended with the disgrace of your persons and of others in this office that you will readily subscribe the charge and be humble self-accusers and so far am I from justifying my self by the accusation of others that I do unfeignedly put my name with the first in the bill For how can a wretched sinner of so great transgressions presume to justifie himself with God Or how can he plead Guiltless whose conscience hath so much to say against him If I cast shame upon the Ministery it is not on the office but on our persons by opening that sin which is our shame The glory of our high imployment doth not communicate any glory to our sin nor will afford it the smallest covering for its nakedness For sin is a reproach to any people or persons Prov. 14. 34. And it is my self as well as others on whom I must lay the shame And if this may not be done What do we here to day Our business is to take shame to our selves and to give God the glory and faithfully to open our sins that he may cover them and to make our selves bare by confession as we have done by transgression that we may have the white rayment which cloatheth none but the penitent For be they Pastors or people it is only he that confesseth and forsaketh his sins that shall have mercy when he that hardeneth his heart shall fal into mischief Pro. 28. 13. And I think it will not be
But as there was no room on their part to a motion for peace or a petition for liberty in the time of their prosperity so when advantages did seem to appear to us of vindicating our liberties we looked upon them as unreconcileable and too inconsiderately rusht on and were wanting in those peaceable endeavours that were our duty We did not in our Assembly invite them to a free consultation that their cause might have the fullest and fairest hearing before it had been condemned Proposals that had any tendency to healing and accommodation had never that entertainment from us that they did deserve What moderate Proposals were made to one party by Bishop Usher which both parties did dislike How many pacificatory motions and excellent Treatises came from that Heavenly peaceable Bishop Hall especially his Peace-maker his Pax terris and his Modest Offer But how little did they effect Certainly some of the men were so venerable for their admirable learning and piety that they deserved to have been heard and consulted with too as wise and most Judicious men And Prelacy was not so young a plant in the Church nor had it in former and latter ages had so few or mean persons to adorn and credit it but that it well deserved the fairest hearing and debate But thus have we all shewed our frailty and this is the heed that we have taken to our selves and to all the Flock The Lord open our eyes at last that we may all fullyer see our own miscarriages for surely they lie as Mountains before us and all the world about us may see them and yet we will hardly see them our selves A man would think now that if the heart of man be cureable we should by this time be all brought to the sense of our miscarriages and be prepared to a closure on any reasonable terms Who would think but after all the smart of our divisions we should long ere this have got together and prayed and consulted our selves into peace But alas there is no such matter done and few do I find that mind the doing of it We continue our quarrels as hot as ever As Salvian saith in another case Miseri jam sumus nec dum nugaces discordes esse cessamus l. 6. p. 20 2. Et pag. 200. Mala incessabiliter malis addimus peccata peccatis cumulamus cum maxima nostri pars iam perierit id agimus ut pereamus omnes Nos non vicinos nostros tantum ardere vidimus sed ipsi iam ex maxima nostrorum corporum parte arsimus Et quid hoc proh nefas mali est arsimus arsimus tamen flammas quibus iam arsimus non timemus Nam quod non ubique agantur quae prius acta sunt miseriae est beneficium non disciplinae Facile hoc probo Da enim prioris temporis statum statim ubique sunt quae fuerunt The minds of many are as much exasperated or estranged as ever Three sorts I meet with that all are too backward to any accommodation 1. The violent men of the Prelates side especially those of the new way who are so far from Reconciliation and healing of our breaches that they labour to perswade the world that the contrary-minded are Schismaticks and that all the Ministers that have not Episcopal ordination are no Ministers nor any of the Churches that have not Prelates are true Churches at least except it can be proved to be through unavoidable necessity And they say To agree with such were to strike a Covenant with Schism it self 2. Some on the other side say Do you not see that except an inconsiderable number the Prelatical party are all empty careless if not scandalous ungodly men Where are almost any of them whose Communion is desirable That set themselves to the winning and saving of souls and are serious men in the matters of salvation in whom you can perceive a heavenly conversation Hath God brought down these enemies of godliness and persecutors and depopulaters of his Church and would you make a league with them again Do you not see that they are as bitter and implacable as ever and have not some of them the faces to justifie all the former impositions and persecutions and draw or continue the guile of it upon their heads and would make the world believe that they are wrongfully eiected when so many accusatians in Parliament before the division so many Centuries of horribly scandalous ones published by Mr. White and so many more Centuries that lie on Record under depositions in the several Countyes of the Nation where the Committees eiected them will be perpetual witnesses of the quality of these men 3. Others there be that are peaceable men on both sides that will not justifie the former miscarriages nor own the present evils of any but think though there be too much truth in these later accusations yet the nature of the Difference and the Quality of some of the persons is such as deserveth our desires and endeavours of Reconciltation But they think the work to be hopeless and impossible and therefore not to be attempted And thus our breach is made but how or when it will be well healed the Lord knoweth But this is not all it behoveth us yet to come neerer home and enquire into the waies of the present approved Godly Ministers of what party soever and doubtless if we are willing to know our selves we may soon find that which will lay us very low before the Lord I shall in all have an eye at my own corrupt heart which I am so far from Justifying in thâ—s common lamentation that I take it as my necessary duty to cast the first stone at my self The great sins that we are guilty of I shall not undertake to enumerate and therefore my passing over any particular is not to be taken as a denyal of it for our Justification But I shall take it to be my duty to give instance of some few that cry loud for humiliation and speedy Reformation Only I must needs first premise this profession That for all the faults that are now among us I do not believe that ever England had so able and faithful a Ministery since it was a Nation as it hath at this day and I fear that few Nations on earth if any have the like Sure I am the change is so great within this 12. years that it is one of the greatest joyes that ever I had in the world to behold it O how many Congregations are now plainly and frequently taught that lived then in great obscurity How many able faithful men are there now in a County in comparison of what were then How graciously hath God prospered the studies of many young men that were little children in the beginning of the late troubles so that now they cloud the most of their seniors How many miles would I have gone twenty years ago and less to have heard one of those
out their voice and stir up themselves to an earnest utterance But if they do speak loud and earnestly how few do answer it with earnestness of matter and the voice doth little good the people will take it but as meer bauling when the matter doth not correspond It would grieve one to hear what excellent Doctrines some Ministers have in hand and let it die in their hands for want of close and lively application What fit matter they have for convincing sinners and how little they make of it and what a deal of good it might do if it were set home and yet they cannot or will not do it O sirs how plain how close and earnestly should we deliver a message of such a nature as ours is when the everlasting life or death of men is concerned in it Me thinks we are nowhere so wanting as in this seriousness There is nothing more unsuitable to such a business then to be slight and dull What! speak coldly for God! and for mens salvation Can we believe that our people must be converted or condemned and yet can we speak in a drowsie tone In the name of God Brethren labour to awaken your hearts before you come and when you are in the work that you may be fit to waken the hearts of sinners Remember that they must be wakened or damned and a sleepy Preacher will hardly wake them If you give the holy things of God the highest praises in words and yet do it coldly you will seem in the manner to unsay what you said in the matter It is a kind of contempt of great things especially so great to speak of them without great affection and fervency The manner as well as the words must set them forth If we are commanded what ever our hand findeth to do to do it with all our might then certainly such a work as preaching for mens salvation should be done with all our might But alas how few how thin are such men here one and there one even among good Ministers that have an earnest perswading working way or that the people can feel him preach when they hear him SECT VI. 3. IF we are all heartily Devoted to the work of God why do we not compassionate the poor unprovided Congregations about us and take care to help them to able Ministers and in the mean time step out now and then to their assistance when the business of our own particular charge will give us any leave A Lecture in the more ignorant places purposely for the work of conversion performed by the most lively working-preachers might be a great help where constant means is wanting SECT VII 4. THE negligent execution of acknowledged duties doth shew that we be not so wholly Devoted to the work as we should be If there be any work of Reformation to be set a foot how many are there that will go no further then they are drawn And it were well if all would do but that much If any business for the Church be on foot how many neglect it for their own private business when we should meet and consult together for the unanimous and successful performance of our work one hath this business of his own and another that business which must be preferred before Gods business And when a work is like to prove difficult and costly how backward are we to it and make excuses and will not come on For instance What hath been for more talked of and prayed for and contended about in England for many years past then the business of Discipline And there are but few men the Erastians but they seem zealous in disputing for one side or other some for the Prelatical way and some for the Presbyterian and some for the Congregational And yet when we come to the practice of it for ought I see we are most of us for no way It hath made me admire sometimes to look on the face of England and see how few Congregations in the Land have any considerable execution of Discipline and to think withall what volumns they have written for it and how almost all the Ministery of the Nation is engaged for it how zealously they have contended for it and made many a just exclamation against the opposers of it and yet for all this will do little or nothing in the exercise of it I have marvelled what should make them so zealous in siding for that which their practice shews that their hearts are against But I see a disputing zeal is more natural then a holy obedient practizing zeal How many Ministers in England be there that know not their own charge that plead for the truth of their particular Churches and know not which they be or who be members of them and that never cast out one obstinate sinner no nor brought one to publike Confession and expression of Repentance and promise of reformation No nor admonished one publikely to call him to such Repentance But they think they do their duties if they give them not the Sacrament of the Lords Supper when it is perhaps avoided voluntarily by themselves and thousands will keep away themselves without our prohibiting them and in the mean time we leave them stated members of our Churches and grant them all other Communion with the Church and call them not to personal Repentance for their sin Read Albaspinaens a sober Papist in his Observat 1. and 2. and 3. after his Annot on O tatus and see whether Church-Communion in former times was taken to consist only â—n co-partaking of the Lords Supper Either these hundreds that we communicate not with in the Supper are members of our Churches or not If not then we are Separatists while we so much disclaim it for we have not cast them out nor have we called them to any profession whether they own or disown their membership but only whether they will be examined in order to a Sacrament nor do we use to let them know that we take their refusal of Examination for a refusal of Church membership and exclusion of themselves It follows therefore that we have gathered Churches out of Churches before they were unchurched or before we took Gods way to cast any of them much less all of them out But if they are taken for members how can we satisfie our consciences to forbear all execution of Discipline upon them It is not Gods Ordinance that they should be personally rebuked and admonished and then publikely called to Repentance and be cast out if they remain impenitent If these be no duties why have we made such a noise and stir about them in the world as we have done If they be duties why do we not practise them If none of all these persons be scandalous why do we not admit them to the Lords Supper If they keep away themselves is not that a sin which a brother should not be permitted to remain in Is it not a scandal for them to avoid the
to us as well as others He therefore that hath ears let him hear the voice of railing enemies of all sorts the voice of them that cry down with us even to the ground all calling us to try our waies and to reform He that hath eyes let him see the precepts of Repentance written in so many admirable deliverances and preservations and written in so many lines of blood By fire and sword hath God been calling even us to Humiliation And as Judgement hath begun at the house of God so if Humiliation begin not there too it will be a sad prognostick to us and to the Land What! shall we deny or excuse or extenuate our sins while we call our people to such free Confessions Is it not better to give glory to God by a full and humble Confession then in tenderness of our own glory to seek for fig-leaves to cover our nakedness and to put God to it to build his glory which we denyed him upon the ruines of our own which we preferred before him and to distrain for that by a yet sorer Judgement which we denyed voluntarily to surrender to him Alas if you put God to get his honour as he can he can get it to your greater sorrow and dishonour If any of our hearers in a day of Humiliation when sin is fully confessed and lamented should be offended at the Confession and stand up against it and say You wrong me I am not so bad You should have told me of this in private and not have disgraced me before the Congregation What could we think of such a man but that he was a hardened impenitent wretch and as he would have no part in the Confession so he should have none in the Remission And shall we do that which we scarce ever see the most hardened sinner do Shall we say This should not have been spoken of us in the ears of the people but we should have been honoured before them Certainly sins openly committed are more dishonourable to us when we hide them then when we confess them It is the sin and not the Confession that is our dishonour And we have committed them before the Sun so that they cannot be hid Attempts to cloak them do increase the guilt and shame There is no way to repair the breaches in our honour which our sin hath made but by free Confession and Humiliation I durst not but make Confession of my own and if any be offended that I have confessed theirs let them know that I do but what I have done by my self And if they dare disown the confession of their sin let them do it at their peril But as for all the truly humble Ministers of the Gospel I doubt not but they will rather be provoked more solemnly in the face of their several Congregations to lament their sins and promise Reformation CHAP. V. SECT I. The Use of Exhortation HAving disclosed and lamented our miscarriages and neglects our duty for the future lies plain before us God forbid that we should now go on in the sin that we have confessed as carelesly as we did before Then would that exclamation of Salvian fall upon us de Gubern l. 3. p. 87. Novum siquidem monstri genus est cadem pene omnes jugiter faciunt quae fecisse plangunt Et qui intraâ—t Ecclefiasticam domum ut mala antiqua defleant exeunt quid dico exeunt in ipsis pene hoc orationibus suis ac supplicationibus moliuntur Aliud quippe or a hominum aliud corda agunt Et dum verbis praeterita mala plangunt sensu sutura meditantur ac fi oratio eorum rixa est magis criminum quam exoratrix ut vere illa in eis Scripturae maledictio compleatur ut de oratione ipsa exeunt condemnati oratio eorum fiat in peccalum Be awakened therefore I beseech you brethren by the lowd and manifold voice of God to set more seriously to the work of God and to do it for the future with all your might and to take heed to your selves and to all the Flock The Reasons why you should take heed to your selves I gave you in the beginning The Reasons why you should take heed to all the Flock I shall give you now as Motives to enforce this Exhortation and the Lord grant that they may work with us according to their truth and weight 1. THE first quickning Consideration which the text here affordeth us is taken from our Relation to all the Flock We are Overseers of it In this I shall further shew you these subordinate particulars which will manifest the force of this consideration 1. The nature of the office requireth us to Take heed What else are we Overseers for Episcopus est nomen quod plus oneris quam honoris significat saith Polid. Virgil. p. 240. and a Father before him To be a Bishop or Pastor is not to be set up as Idols for the people to bow to or as idle slow-bellies to live to our fleshly delight and ease but it is to be the guide of sinners to salvation The particulars of our duty we have somewhat touched before and more shall do anon It is a sad case that men should be of a calling that they know not the nature of and undertake they know not what Do these men know and consider what they have undertaken that live at ease and pleasure and have time to take their superfluous recreations and to spend an hour and more at once in loitering and vain discourses when so much work doth lie upon their hands Why Brethren do you consider where you stand and what you have taken upon you Why you have undertaken the Conduct under Christ of a band of his souldiers against Principalities and Powers and spiritual wickedness in high places You must lead them on the sharpest conflicts You must acquaint them with the enemies stratagems and assault You must watch your selves and keep them watching If you miscarry they and you many perish You have a subtile enemy and therefore must be wise You have a vigilant enemy and therefore must be vigilant A malicious and violent and unwearied enemy and therefore you must be resolute couragious unwearied You are in a crowd of enemies compassed with them on every side and if you heed one and not all you will quickly fall And O what a world of work have you to do Had you but one ignorant old man or woman to teach though willing to learn what a tedious task is it But if they be as unwilling as ignorant how much more difficult is it But to have such a multitude of these as most of us have what work will it find us Who hath ever tryed it that knoweth it not by experience What a pitiful life is it to reason with men that have almost lost the use of reason and to talk with obstinate willful people that know what they will and resolve but not why they do
and will put off mens souls with uneffectual formalities do you think this is an honourable usage of Christs Spouse Are the souls of men thought meet by God to see his face and live for ever in his glory and are they not worthy of your utmost cost and labour Do you think so basely of the Church of God as if it deserved not the best of your care and help Were you the Keepers of sheep or swine you might better let them go and say they be not worthy the looking after and yet you would scarce do so if they were your own But dare you say so by the souls of men even by the Church of God Christ walketh among them Remember his presence and keep all as clean as you can The praises of the most high God are in the midst of them They are a sanctified peculiar people a Kingly Priesthood an holy Nation a choice generation to shew forth the praises of him that hath called them 1 Pet. 2. 9. and yet dare you neglect them What a high honour is it to be but one of them yea but a door keeper in the house of God! but to be the Priest of these Priests and the Ruler of these Kings this is such an honour as multiplyeth your obligations to diligence and fidelity in so noble an employment SECT IV. IV. THE last Motive that is mentioned in my Text is from the Price that was paid for the Church which we Oversee God the Son did purchase it with his own blood O what an Argument is here to quicken the negligent and what an Argument to condemn those that will not be quickned up to their duty by it O saith one of the antient Doctors if Christ had but committed to my keeping one spoonful of his blood in a fragile glass how curiously should I preserve it and how tender should I be of that glass If then he have committed to me the purchase of his blood should I not as carefully look to my charge What Sirs shall we despise the blood of Christ Shall we think it was shed for them that are not worthy of our utmost care You may see here it is not a little fault that negligent Pastors are guilty of as much as in them lyeth the blood of Christ should be shed in vain They would lose him those souls that he hath so dearly bought O then let us hear those Arguments of Christ when ever we feel our selves grow dull and careless Did I dye for them and wilt not thou look after them Were they worth my blood and are they not worth thy labour Did I come down from Heaven to Earth to seek and to save that which was lost and wilt not thou go to the next door or street or Village to seek them How small is thy labour or condescention as to mine I debased my self to this but it is thy honour to be so imployed Have I done and suffered so much for their salvation and was I willing to make thee a co-worker with me and wilt thou refuse that little that lyeth upon thy hands Every time we look upon our Congregations let us believingly remember that they are the purchase of Christs blood and therefore should be regarded accordingly by us And think what a confusion it will be at the last day to a negligent Minister to have this Blood of the Son of God to be pleaded against him and for Christ to say It was the purchase of my blood that thou didst so make light of and dost thou think to be saved by it thy self O Brethren seeing Christ will bring his Blood to plead with us let it plead us to our duty leâ—t it plead us to damnation SECT V. I Have done with the Motives which I find in the Text it self There are many more that might be gathered from the rest of this Exhortation of the Apostle but we must not stay to take in all If the Lord will set home but these few upon your hearts I dare say we shall see reason to mend our pace and the change will be such on our hearts and in our Ministery that our selves and our Congregations will have cause to bless God for it I know my self unworthy to be your Monitor but a Monitor you must have and its better for us to hear of our sin and duty from any body then from no body Receive the admonition and you will see no cause in the Monitors unworthyness to repent of it but if you reject it the unworthyest Messenger may bear that witness against you that will confound you But before I leave this Exhortation as I have applyed it to our general work so I shall carry it a little further to some of the special parts and modes of our Duty which were before expressed 1. And first and above all See that the work of saving grace be throughly wrought on your own souls It is a fearful case to be an unsanctified Professor but much more to be an unsanctified Preacher Doth it not make you tremble when you open the Bible lest you should read there the Sentence of your own Condemnation when you pen your Sermons little do you think that you are drawing up inditements against your own souls When you are arguing against sin you are aggravating your own When you proclaim to your hearers the riches of Christ and grace you publish your own iniquity in rejecting them and your unhappiness in being without them What can you do in perswading men to Christ in drawing them from the world in urging them to a life of faith and holiness but conscience if it were but awake might tell you that you speak all this to your own confusion If you mention Hell you mention your own Inheritance If you describe the Joyes of heaven you describe your misery that have no right to it What can you devise to say for the most part but it will be against your own souls O miserable life that a man should study and preach against himself and spend all his daies in a course of self-condemning A graceless unexperienced Preacher is one of the most unhappy creatures upon earth And yet is he ordinarily most insensible of his unhappiness For he hath so many counters that seem like the gold of saving grace and so many splendid stones that seem like the Christians Jewel that he is seldom troubled with the thoughts of his poverty but thinks he is Rich and wanteth nothing when he is poor and miserable and blind and naked He is acquainted with the holy Scripture he is exercised in holy duties he liveth not in open disgraceful sin he serveth at Gods Altar he reproveth other mens faults and preacheth up holiness both of heart and life and how can this man chose but be Holy O what an aggravated misery is this to perish in the midst of plenty and to famish with the bread of life in our hands while we offer it to others and urge it on
Reformation And this Covenant we made as in the presence of God the searcher of all hearts with a true intention to perform the same as we shall answer at the great day when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed O dreadful case then that we have put our selves into if infinite mercy help us not out May we not say after the reading of this as Iosiâ—h after the reading oâ— the Law a Kings 22. 13. 2 Chron. 34. 21. Great is the wrath of the Lord that is kindled against us because we have not done according to this Covenant Could a people have devised a readrer way to thrust themselves under the curse of God by such a solemn dreadful Covenant and when they have done so long so wilfully so openly to violate it Doth not this plainly bind us to the private as well as the publike part of our duty and to a Real Reformation of Discipline in our practice Again therefore I must needs say what a bottomless depth of deceit is the heart of man O what heavy charges have we brought against many others of these times for breaking this solemn Vow and Covenant from which I am far from undertaking to acquit them when yet we that led the way and drew on others and daily preach't up Reformation and Discipline have so horribly violated this Covenant our selves that in a whole Countrey it is rare to find a Minister that hath set up Discipline or private Instruction And he that can see much done towards it in England hath more acquaintance or better eyes then I have 2. Also in our frequent solemn Humiliation days in the time of our deep distress and fear how publikely and earnestly did we beg deliverances not as for our sakes but for the Church and Gospel sake as if we had not cared what had become of us so that the Reformation of the Church might go on and we promised if God would hear and deliver us what we would do towards it But O how unfaithful have we been to those Promises as if we were not the same men that ever spoke such words to God! I confess it filleth my own soul with shame to consider the unanswerableness of my affections and Endeavours to the many fervent prayers rare deliverances and confident Promises of those years of advesity And such experiences of the almost incredible unfaithfulness of our hearts is almost enough to make a man never trust his heart again and Consequently to shake his Certainty of sincerity Have we now or are we like to have any higher Resolutions then those were which we have broken And it tends also to make us question in the next extremity even at the hour of death whether God will hear and help us any more who have forfeited our Credit with him by proving so unfaithful If so many years publike humiliations spurred on by such calamities as neither we nor our fathers for many Generations had ever seen had no more in them then now appears and if this be the issue of all how can we tell how to believe our selves hereafter It may makes us fear lest our case be like the Israelites Psal 78. 34 35 36 37 43 42 57. Who when he slew them then they sought him and they returned and enquired early after God and they remembred that God was their Rock and the high God their Redeemer Nevertheless they did flatter him with their mouth and they lyed unto him with their tongues For their heart was not right with God neither were they stedfast in his Covenant They remembred not his hand nor the day when he delivered them from the Enemy But turned back and dealt unfaithfully like their fathers they were turned aside like a deceitful bow 3. Moreover if we will not be faithful in duties that we are engaged to our own Agreements and Engagements which remain subscribed by our hands and are published to the view of the world will rise up in judgement against us and condemn us We have engaged our selves under our hands near three years ago that we will set up the exercise of Discipline and yet how many have neglected it to this day without giving any just and reasonable excuse We have now subscribed another Agreement and Engagement for Catechizing and Instructing all that will submit We have done well so far But if now we should flag and prove remiss and superficial in the performance Our subscriptions will condemn us this days humiliation will condemn us Be not deceived God is not mocked it is not your Names only but your hearts and hands also that he requireth There is no dallying with God by feigned Promises He will expect that you be as good as your words He will not hold him guiltless that by false Oaths or Vows or Covenants with him doth take his holy Name in vain When thou vowest a vow unto God defer not to pay it for he hath no pleasure in fools pay that which thou hast vowed Better it is that thou shouldst not vow then that thou shouldst vow and not pay suffer not thy mouth to cause thy flesh to sin neither say thou before the Angel that it was an Error wherefore should God be angry at thy voice and destroy the work of thy hands Eccless 5 4 5 6. And thus I have shewed you what will come on it if you shall not set your selves faithfully to this work to which you have so many obligations and engagements and what an unexcusable thing our neglect would be and how great and manifold a condemnation it would expose us to Truly Brethen if I did not apprehend the work to be of exceeding great moment to your selves to the people and to the honour of God I would not have troubled you with so many words about it nor have presumed to have spoken so sharply as I have done But when it is for life and death men are apt to forget their reverence and courtefie and complements commonly called Good manners For my part I apprehend this as one of the best and greatest works that ever I put mine hand to in my life And I verily think that your thoughts of it are as mine and then you will not think my words too many or too keen I can well remember the time when I was earnest for the Reformation of matters of Ceremony and if I should be cold in such a substantial matter as this how disorderly and disproportionable would my Zeal appear Alas can we think that the Reformation is wrought when we cast out a few Ceremonies and changed some vestures and gestures and forms O no Sirs it is the converting and saving of souls that is our business That 's the chiefest part of the Reformation that doth most good and tendeth most to the salvation of the people Let others take it how they will I will so far speak my conscience for your just encouragement as to say again that I am verily perswaded that as you are happily
they have been of the mind of his carnal friends that went to lay hold on him and said He is besides himself vers 21. They would have told Christ he made a drudge or a slave of himself and God did not require all this ado If they had seen him all night in prayer and all day in preaching and healing it seems he should have had this censure from them for his labour I cannot but advise these men to search their own hearts whether they unfeignedly believe that word that they preach Do you believe indeed that such Glory attends those that dye in the Lord and such Torment attendeth those that dye unconverted If you do how can you think any labour too much for such weighty ends If you do not say so and get you out of the vine ard and go with the Prodigal to keep swine and undertake not the feeding of the Flock of Christ Do you not know that it is your own benefit which you grudge at The more you do the more you receive the more you lay out the more you have coming in If you are strangers to these Christian Paradoxes you should not have taken on you to peach them to others At the present our incomes of spiritual life and peace are commonly in way of duty so that he that is most in duty hath most of God Exercise of Grace increaseth it And is it a slavery to be more with God and to receive more him then other men It is the chief solace of a gracious soul to be doing Good and receiving by doing and to be much exercised about those Divine things which have his heart A good stomack will not say at a feast what a slavery is it to bestow my time and pains so much to feed my self Besides that we prepare for fuller receivings hereafter we set our Talents to usury and by improving them we shall make five become ten and so be made Rulers of ten Cities We shall be judged according to our works Is it a drudgery to send to the utmost parts of the world to exchange our trifles for Gold and Jewels Do not these men seek to Justifie the prophane that make all diligent godliness a drudgery and reproach it as a precise and tedious life I say they will never believe but a man may be saved without all this ado Even so say these in respect to the works of the Ministry They take this diligence for ungrateful tediousness and they will not believe but a man may be a faithful Minister without all this ado It is a hainous sin to be Negligent in so great a business but to approve of that negligence and so to be impenitent and to plead against duty as if it were none and when they should lay out themselves for the saving of souls to say I do not believe that God requireth it this is so great an aggravation of the sin that where the Churches Necessity doth not force us to make use of such for want of better I cannot but think them worthy to be cast out as the rubbish and as sale that hath lost its savour that is neither fit for the land nor yet for the dunghil but men cast it out he that hath ears to hear saith Christ in these words let him hear Luke 14. 34. 35. And if such Ministers become a by-word and reproach let them thank themselves for it is their own sin that maketh them vile 1 Sam. 3. 13. And while they thus debase the service of the Lord they do but debase themselves and prepare for a greater abasement at the last Object 4. BUt if you make such severe Laws for Ministers the Church will be left without For what man will put himself upon such a toilsom life or what Parents will choose such a burden for their children Men will avoid it both for the bodily toil and the danger to their Consciences if they should not well discharge it Ans 1. It is not we but Christ that hath made and imposed these Laws which you call severe And if I should silence them or mis-interpret them or tell you that there is no such things that would not relax them nor disoblige or excuse you He that made them knew why he did it and will expect the performance of them Is infinite Goodness it self to be questioned or suspected by us as making bad or unmerciful Laws Nay it is meer mercy in him that imposeth this great duty upon us If Physitians be required to be as diligent in Hospitals or Pest-houses or with other patients to save their lives were there not more mercy then rigor in this Law what must God let the souls of your Neighbours perish to save you a little Labour and suffering and this in mercy to you O what a miserable world should we have if blind self-conceited man had the ruling of it 2. And for a supply of Pastors Christ will take care He that imposeth duty hath the fulness of the Spirit and can give men hearts to obey his Laws Do you think Christ will suffer all men to be as cruel unmerciful fleshly and self-seeking as you He that hath undertaken himself the work of our Redemption and born our transgressions and been faithful as the chief Shepherd and Teacher of the Church will not lose all his Labour and suffering for want of Instruments to carry on his work nor will he come down again to do all himself because no other will do it but he will provide men to be his Servants and Ushers in his School that shall willingly take the labour on them and rejoyce to be so imployed and account that the happiest life in the world which you account so great a toil and would not change it for all your ease and carnal pleasure but for the saving of souls and the propagating of the Gospel of Christ will be content to bear the burden and heat of the day and to fill up the measure of the sufferings of Christ in their bodies and to do what they do with all their might and to work while it is day and to be the servants of all and not to please themselves but others for their Edification and to become all things to all men that they may save some and to endure all things for the elects sake and to spend and be spent for men though the more they love the less they should be beloved and should be accounted their enemies for telling them the truth such Pastors will Christ provide his people after his own heart that will feed them with knowledge as men that seek not theirs but them What do you think Christ can have no servants if such as you shall with Demas turn to the present world and forsake him If you dislike his service you may seek you a better where you can find it and boast of your gain in the Conclusion but do not threaten him with the loss of your service He hath made such
expressions no nor cannot learn when expressions are put into their mouths Some of the most pious experienced approved Christians that I know aged people complain exceedingly to me with tears that they cannot learn the words of the Catechism and when I consider their advantages that they have lived under the most excellent helps in constant duty and in the best company for fourty or fifty or sixty years together it teacheth me what to expect from poor ignorant people that never had such company and converse for one year or week and not to reject them so hastily as some hot and too high professors would have us do But this is on the by 5. This also must be observed that if you find them at a loss and unable to answer your questions drive them not on too hard or too long with question after question lest they conceive you intend but to puzzle them and disgrace them but presently when you perceive them troubled that they cannot answer then step in your self and take the burden off them make answer to the question your selves and then do it throughly and plainly and make a full explication of the whole business to them that by your Teaching they may be brought to understand it before you leave them And herein it is comonly necessary that you fetch up the matter ab origine take it on in order till you come to the point in question 6. And usually with the grosly ignorant it is flatly necessary that you do run over all the sum of our Religion to them in the most familiar way that you can possibly devise But this must be the next Direction Direct 5. When you have done what you see Cause in the trial of their knowledge proceed next to instruct them your selves And this must be according to their several Capacities If it be a Professor that understandeth the Fundamentals fall upon somewhat which you perceive that he most needeth either explaining further some of the mysteries of the Gospel or laying the Grounds of some duty which he may doubt of or shewing the necessity of what he neglecteth or meeting with his sins or mistakes as may be most convincing and edifying to him If it be one that is grosly ignorant give him a plain familiar recital of the sum of the Christian Religion in a few words for though it be in the Catechism already yet a more familiar way may better help them to understand it As thus You must know that from Everlasting there was one only God that had no beginning and can have no end who is not a Body as we are but a most pure spiritual Being that knoweth all things and can do all things and hath all Goodness and Blessedness in himself This God is but one but yet three Persons the Father the Son and holy Ghost in an incomprehensible manner above our reach yet we have somewhat in our selves and other creatures that may give us some resemblance of it As in a man his Power and his understanding and will be but One soul and yet they are not one faculty but differ one from another Or as in the Sun the Being or Power and the Heat and the Light are not all one and yet there is but one Sun so in a more incomprehensible manner it is in God And you must know that this One God did make all the world by his word the heavens he made to be the place of his Glory and made a world of holy Angels to serve him in his Glory but some of these did by Pride or other sin fall from God and are become Devils that shall be miserable in torments for ever when he had made the rest of this lower world he made man as his noblest creature here even one man and one woman Adam and Eve and he made them perfect without any sin or fault and put them into the gardan of Eden and forbad them to eat but of one tree in the garden and told them that if they did they should dye But the Devil that had first fallen himself did tempt them to sin and they yielded to his temptation and by wilful sinning they fell under the curse of Gods Law and fell short of the Glory of God But God of his infinite Wisdom and Mercy did send his own son Jesus Christ to be their Redeemer who as he was promised in the beginning so in the fulness of time 1655. years ago was made man and was born of a Virgin by the power of the Holy Ghost and lived on earth among the Jews about 33 years and he preached the Gospel himself and wrought many miracles to prove his doctrine and bring men to believe in him healing the lame the blind the sick and raising the dead by the word of his mouth by his Divine power at the end by the malice of the Jews his own Consent he was offered upon the Cross as a sacrifice for our sins to bear that Curse that we should have born and when he was buryed he rose again the third day and lived on earth forty dayes after And before his departure he sent his Apostles and other Ministers to preach the Gospel of salvation to the world and to call home lost sinners by Repentance and to assure them in his Name that if they will but believe in him and take him for their Saviour and unfeignedly lament their former sins and turn from them to God and will take Everlasting Glory for their portion and be content to resign their carnal Interests and desires he will pardon freely all that is past and be merciful to them for the time to come and will lead them up into spiritual Communion with God and bring them to his Glory when this life is Ended but for them that make light of their sins and of his Mercy and will not forsake the pleasures of this world for the hopes of another they shall be condemned to everlasting punishment This Gospel Christ hath appointed his Ministers to preach to all the world and when he had given this in charge to his Apostles he ascended up into heaven before their faces where he is now in Glory with God the Father in our Nature ruling all And at the end of this world he will come again in that nature and will call the dead to life again and set them all before him to be judged and all that truly Repented and believed in him and were renewed by his spirit and renounced this world for the hopes of a better shall be judged to live with God in Glory and shall be like to his Angels and praise him for ever and the rest that repented not and believed not in him but lived to the flesh and the world shall be condemned to everlasting misery So that you may see by this that mans Happiness is not in this world but in the next and that all men have lost their hopes of that Happiness by sin and
then hazard it and that it is your daily principal business to seek it Can you truly say that though you have your failings and sins yet your main care and the bent of your whole life is to please God and enjoy him for ever and that you give the world Gods leavings as it were and not God the worlds leavings and that your worldly business is but as a travellers seeking for provision in his jorney and heaven is the place that you take for your home If he say yea to the first and third tell him how great a thing it is for a mans heart to abhor his sin and to lay up his happiness unfeignedly in another world and to live in this world for another that is out of sight And therefore desire him to see that it be so indeed If he say yea to the second question then turn to the ninth tenth eleventh or twelfth Articles of the Catechism and read over some of those Duties which you most suspect him to omit and ask him Whether he do perform such or such a duty Especially Prayer in a family or private and the holy spending of all the Lords day because these are of so great moment of which anon Direction 7. When you have either by former discovery of gross ignorance or by these later enquiries into his spiritual state discerned an apparent probability that the person is yet in an unconverted state your next business is to fall on with all your skill and power to bring his heart to the sense of his condition E. G. Truly neighbours I have no mind the Lord knows to make your condition worse then it is nor to put any causless fear or trouble into your mind but I suppose you would take me but for a flattering enemy and not a faith ful friend if I should daub with you and not tell you the truth If you sought to a Physitian in your sickness you would have him tell you the truth though it were the worst Much more here For there the knowledge of your disease may by fears increase it but here you must know it or else you can never be recovered from it I much fear that you are yet a stranger to the new life of all them that Christ will save For if you were a Christian indeed and truly converted your very heart would have been set on God and the life to come and you would have admired the riches of grace in Christ and you would have made it your business to prepare for Everlasting and you durst not you would not live in any wilful sin nor in the neglect of such duties Alas what have you done how have you spent your time till now Did you not know that you had a soul to save or lose and that you must live in heaven or hell for ever and that you had your life and time in this world for that purpose to prepare for another Alas what have you been doing all this while that you are so ignorant or so unprepared for death if it should now find you If you had but had as much mind of heaven as of earth you would have known more of it and done more of it and enquired more diligently after it then you have done You can learn how to do your business in the world and why could you not have learned more of the will of God if you had but minded it You have neighbours that could learn more that have had as much to do in the world as you and as little time Do you think that heaven is not worth your labour or that its like it can be had without any care or pains when you cannot have the trifles of this world without and when God hath bid you first seek his Kingdom and the righteousness thereof Alas Neighbour what if you had dyed before this hour in an unconverted state what had become of you and where had you now been why you did not know all this while that you should live a day to an end O that ever you would be so cruel to your selves as to venture your Everlasting state so desperately as you have done what did you think of Did you not all this while know that you must shortly dye and be judged as you were then found Had you any greater work to do or any greater business to mind then your salvation Do you think that all that you can get in this world will comfort you at a dying hour or purchase your salvation or ease the pains of Hell-fire Set these things home with a more earnest voice then the former part of your conference was managed with For if you get it not to heart you do little or nothing and that which affecteth not is soon forgotten Direct 8. Next this conclude the whole with a Practical Exhortation which must contain two parts First the duty of the heart in order to a closure with Christ and that which is contained in that closure and Secondly The use of external means for the time to come and the avoiding of former sins E. g. Neighbour I am heartily sorry to find you in so sad a case but I should be more sorry to leave you in it and therefore let me intreat you for the Lords sake and for your own sake to to regard what I shall say to you as to the time to come It is the Lords great mercy that he did not cut you off in your unconverted natural state and that you have yet life and time and that there is a sufficient Remedy provided for your soul in the blood of Christ and he is yet offered with Pardon and life to you as well as any others God hath not left sinful man to utter desperation for want of a Ransom by a Redeemer as he hath done the Devils nor hath he made any exception in the offer or promise of pardon and life against you any more then against any other If you had yet but a bleeding heart for sin and could come to Christ believingly for recovery and resign your selves to him as your Saviour and Lord and would be a new man for the time to come the Lord will have mercy on you in the pardon of your sins and the saving of your soul And I must tell you that as it must be the great work of Gods grace to give you such a heart so if ever he mean to pardon and save you he will make this change upon you that I have before mentioned he will make you feel your sin as the heaviest burden in the world as that which is most odious in it self and hath laid you open to the Curse of God he will make you see that you are a lost man and that there is no way but one with you even everlasting damnation unless you are pardoned by the blood of Christ and sanctified by his spirit he will you make you see the need you have of Christ and how much you are