immediately united in the Churches welfare which we are in that manner to preserve and promote for both their sakes as not to exclude either And thus much for the coherence and explication which I have the longer insisted upon to gain your full assent to these two things 1. That by Ierusalem here is meant the Church And 2. That by her peace is to be understood our agreement in religion since without this agreement there is no probability no likelihood of her enjoying peace I shall now crave leave to gather up all I have to say into one proposition and such a proposition as the words do naturally without any force put upon them afford us And 't is this in the words of the Text That we ought for our Brethren and Companions sakes to wish and endeavour the Churches peace Which in a brief Paraphrase speaks thus That 't is the duty of every Man amongst us whether Magistrate or other as he is the Governour or Member of a Society upon a meer civil account our affection to our Native Countrey and the good of community in our several places and stations heartily to wish and vigorously to endeavour the peace and prosperity of the Church in the uniform exercise of Religion and God's publick worship And this Proposition I shall make good by three Arguments taken 1. From the ground of a Peoples happiness Divine favour and protection and that favour not to be procur'd but by keeping up God's publick honour amongst us and that honour no way to be secur'd but by our unanimous agreement in his publick worship 2. From that influence which Religion is apt to have upon the minds of Men both in awing them and uniting them which aw and union both without the uniformity of worship if People be left to their own liberty to worship God publickly how they please will infallibly utterly be lost and when Religion shall once be brought into a publick contempt and made the ground of an universal quarrel when the candlestick is once removing out of the Church 't is easie to foresee what danger the State will then be in and what will in a short time become of such a People 3. From the particular constitution of our Laws and Government wherein the concerns of State are so intimately and closely link'd with the Peace and prosperity of the Church that they must needs stand or fall together First then for the first Argument that the Peace of the Church that is our agreement in the service of God is the only way of keeping up God's publick honour amongst us and consequently of after-taiming to us the favour and blessing of God which is the main and only ground of National prosperity and happiness the great concern of all our Brethren and Companions Wherein I have three things to make out 1. That the Divine favour is the main and only prop of a Peoples happiness 2. That the setting up Gods honour in publick amongst us is the only means of procuring and ascertaining his favour And 3. That our agreement in the service of God is the only way of keeping up his publick honour I say first That the favour of God is the grand support and alone foundation of any peoples prosperity and happy estate This is the Palladium of the Government ancile imperii the buckler of State when as the Psalmist expresses it God encompasseth us with his favour as with a shield whereupon it is that by vertue of this divine influence upon his Vice-gerents the Magistrates they themselves are also term'd the shields of the earth A learned Frenchman tells us that the Eastern people were wont at the building of any City according to the positions of Heaven at that time by rules of Astrology and other Magical observations to make Artificial Sculptures upon Brass which they call'd Talismans and to consecrate them to the auspicious beginnings and fortunate success of that City which they fancied as long as those Hieroglyphicks were preserv'd would never miscarry by fire of water war or plague And of this nature and design he takes Laban's Teraphim to have been which his daughter Rachel stole away and those of Micah which the boisterous Danites plunder'd him of as the pledges of good fortune to those Families who were therefore both much concern'd in the loss of them To the same purpose the Grecians and others indeed who not had their Tutelar Gods as the guardians of each City so that the first thing enemies did that came to besiege a Town was to call away their God either by inchantments inticing him or by extraordinary respects out-bidding the Inhabitants and proffering the Deity better terms if he would come over to their side insomuch that the Tyrians when Alexander's Army beleaguer'd them upon such an apprehension of Apollo's leaving them tyed him fast with a Golden Chain to Hercules his Altar that he might not stir And 't was a great part of policy among these Heathens to conceal these their strengths and keep them close as the arcana imperii that in time of danger they might be sure of them From these and the like superstitious usages this serious truth at least may be learnt that very Infidels and Strangers to the Common-wealth of Israel had from the instincts of Nature that sense of a Deity and an over-ruling Power that they trusted not to the situation and strength of their Cities to the number or valour and wealth of the Inhabitants for the defence of them but wholly imputed their safety to divine protection And this much more to be acknowledged by us to whom God has made himself so well known in his Word with whom he has entred into Covenant whom he has admitted unto so endearing nearnesses to himself Our Royal Author is every where full of these acknowledgments in this his Book of Publick Devotions calling God a Sun and a Shield his strong Rock and Tower of Defence and mighty Deliverer ascribing all his deliverances and preservations to the light of his countenance and the saving strength of his right hand Particularly in Psal. 144. where he does ex professo handle this Argument he says 't is he that gives Victory unto Kings and then having recited the several instances of a peoples outward prosperity That our sons grow up as young plants and our daughters as the polished corners of the Temple that our garners be full and plenteous with all manner of store that our sheep bring forth thousands and ten thousands in our streets that our oxen be strong to labour and in good plight that there be no invasion upon us no leading into captivity and no complaining in our streets he closes this account with an acclamation wherin he resolves the sum of all into divine favour as the ground and original of all these blessings and advantages Happy are the people that are in such a case happy I say are the people which have the Lord for their God But yet more closely
disturbances manifestly hazard their own prosperity in the general Confusion and at long run do themselves no less mischief than they designed the Church drowning for company in the miscarriage of the Vessel 2. For that which ought to be every honest mans next consideration for the good of 〈◊〉 Community for a Heathen could say Non nobis solùm nati sumus c. we are not born only for our selves but our Country our kindred our friends our brethren and companions challenge a great share in us so that if a man cast up his obligations aright he ought not so much to live to himself as to the Publick and this much more upon the score of Christianity where Self-denial is the main Principle and Charity the grand Duty And this Argument is represented in the Text. For my brethren and companions sakes for my Friends and Country-men for my Neighbours and Relations I will say Peace be within thee or as in the reading Psalms I will wish thee prosperity And this is upon a Civil account the Peace and prosperity of the Church being likely to procure the settlement of good order and the establishment of peace in the Civil State whereas quarrels about Religion seldom or never end there till they have involved the Government and Policy of a Nation into dangerous consequents 3. From that which though set last ought to be considered and resolved on in the first place by all pious men that have any sense of Gods Honour any zeal to his Name and Service any love or kindness to his House and Ordinances from the Worship and Respect due to God from his people Because of the house of the Lord our God I will seek thy good And this upon a Spiritual or Religious account to love the Church for the Churches sake and to do it all the good we can for the honour of God as well as for the benefit of our brethren and companions that so we may under our King live quiet and peaceble lives in all godliness and honesty as our Church has taught us to pray Being to speak before this Honourable Assembly with whom the Care and Government of our Ierusalem this once famous City is intrusted I have made choice of the second of these Arguments which shews how Civil Society is concerned in a quiet Exercise of the National Religion wherein the Psalmist makes it his resolution and recommends it to us all to pray for the Churches peace and to wish her prosperity for our brethren and companions sake in the behalf of our Friends and Country-men as we wish well to our King and Country and stand well affected to the Government and the Laws as we hope to see the Nation thrive Trade flourish the City rebuilt and all our friends and acquaintance in a prosperous condition the peace of the Church and the peoples agreement in the Service of God being the only probable means of securing and ascertaining our Civil Interests and Publick tranquillity For my brethren and companions sakes I will now say Peace be within thee I will wish thee prosperity In the words we have two things fall under our Consideration 1. A Duty recommended to us in Davids Example and Resolution which is to wish the Churches peace 2. A strong Motive to inforce this Duty for our brethren and companions sakes out of that love and affection we bear to the Publick and to our native Country The Resolution of Duty exprest in the latter Clause of the Verse I will now say Peace be within thee where though our English render it as the common form of Salutation used amongst that people when they met or parted with one another as our Saviour ordered his Disciples when he sent them forth Luke 10. 5. Into whatsoever house they entred first to say Peace be to this house and thus our Church has in her Offices for the Visitation of the sick after our Saviours Example ordered that the Priest entring into the sick persons house shall say Peace be to this house and to all that dwell in it and certainly when ever we address our selves to Gods House the House of Prayer 't is very comely and most meet that we should all of us salute her in this Form Peace be within thee Yet this I take to be too narrow a sense for the Form of Salutation was somewhat different from this and it should have been said if that had been all intended 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Peace be to thee not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Peace be in thee Therefore the rest of the Interpreters take it in a wider sense by a plainer construction I will speak peace say they in thee and thus it may be the Magistrates part to speak peace with Authority to command it and to see it kept Say others I will speak peace for thee in thy behalf and that belongs to the Minister to preach up the peace of the Church even with that earnestness as to quarrel for it though with Ieremy he become a man of contentions in a perverse and froward generation while he does so and when he speaks of peace others make themselves ready for battel The Septuagint and Vulgar read it thus I will speak peace of thee or concerning thee i.e. to speak kindly of it and to wish it well and thus it will concern all the People the generality every man in the Nation And I am afraid there is but too much need that both Magistrate and Minister and People and all should all of us bestir our selves and contribute our utmost endeavours for the Churches peace and welfare if we will but do what we ought to do and that out of Interest as well as Duty for our own and our Countries sake for that 's The Motive and Reason with which this Duty is back'd indeed faced and put forward with in the beginning of the verse for my brethren and companions sakes whose good will they nill they be they the Churches friends or foes is to be sought in the preservation of the Church for as the Churches peace depends upon the union and agreement of these brethren and companions so on the other hand in her peace and prosperity is comprehended the happiness and nearest concerns of us all By Brethren is meant Kindred and Relations the charitates naturales in a strict sense but according to the larger acception of the word in the Hebrew language all our Country-men from one end of the Nation to the other all that live under the same Laws and Government especially those that are of the same houshold of faith and profess the same Gospel of Peace By Companions or Friends are to be understood those of a stricter and closer Alliance with whom we have contracted nearer and dearer familiarities above all those that agree with us in the same Orthodox Judgment and walk regularly and lovingly with us according to the same Rules and Institutions of Gods publick Worship whose concerns are more
matter of no great concern what Religion they are of or whether they be of any at all But alas we have now in this Church that disadvantage without travelling for it Our people stay at home and see fashions and some as Travellers use to put on the habit and garb of each Country they go through have appeared in all shapes taken up all Opinions and Forms and done exercise in them all till at last they have taken the degree of Doctors in the Scorners Chair and have turned profest Atheists How do the Romanists triumph in our dissensions make Bonfires out of our flames and daily get ground of the Protestant Cause whilst we Protestants our selves do their work for them by unnatural quarrels destroying our common Mother the Church How do prophane persons make themselves merry at the miscarriages of the Church and harden themselves in their Atheistical Reasonings against God himself when they see so much ado made such zeal and heat shown on all sides about Forms of Worship and the Circumstances of Religion when the mean while the great Duties of Christianity wherein the life and power of Religion lyes are by most of us of all perswasions neglected and how can they chuse but think Religion it self a trifle if that be it that makes us so earnest about trifles and yet so regardless in those things which the worst of Atheists themselves confess are necessary for the preservation of men whether singly in their own persons or joyntly in Society such as are Iustice Temperance Charity and the like What can Neighbour-States and Churches abroad think of us that after God had so wonderfully restored us to the astonishment of the world we have so strangely and with no less astonishment to the dishonour of God and our own shame lost the Miracle and let it fall to the ground and given up the Cause in a manner to which God by his extraordinary Providences and his Anointed our late Soveraign the blessed Martyr by his unparallel'd sufferings gave such testimony And at last what can we our selves look for now that God will yet work more Miracles for our preservation who have by our divisions in his Worship and our Spiritual fornications not only forfeited his protection but procured his displeasure and at once both disobliged his mercy and provoked his Justice To me to speak what I apprehend freely it appears in the posture we now stand in a very shrewd symptom and a dangerous indication that God himself and Religion and all are now about to take their solemn leave of the Country together with the Churches peace And then what will become of our brethren and companions for whose sake we are to endeavour the Churches peace when God has once forsaken the Land And thus I have done with the first Argument The second is that the peace of the Church in the uniform Worship of God is a necessary expedient to make Religion the happy instrument of Government by securing that influence it has upon the minds of men in awing Subjects to obedience and uniting our brethren and companions in love without which obedience and love 't is impossible that any people should hold together and prosper since where discontents and divisions prevail a Society must needs of it self naturally tend to dissolution A House a City a Kingdom divided against it self cannot stand is a State-Aphorism we have from the mouth of Truth it self So then whether 't were fear or love was the Principle which gathered mankind into Nations and Common-wealths and brought them to live in Community under the same Laws and Priviledges we find them both in Religion Whereupon 't is the remark of a Roman Historian that as Romulus founded the City by Arms so Numa setled it by Religion and then came Ancus and found leisure to adorn it with Temples and publick Buildings Thus Religion secured the acquists of the Sword on one hand and prepared the design for the Truel on the other And till Religion be in a better condition amongst you then for ought I see 't is now in I cannot not tell what you may think of your Building 'T is true it seems to me in our present divisions that much what like the Iews after their return we rebuild our City with a Sword in one hand and a Truel in the other but so as if that Sword were to be used against our selves not against an Enemy as theirs was I wish heartily that the peace of the Church may be so setled amongst us and the rubbish of our late ruines there removed that you may lay your Foundations upon fair even ground and raise the Superstructures with comfort and honour that when you have built up your Walls and your Palaces Peace may be within your walls and plenteousness within your palaces which would then most certainly be when as you are obliged to an Vniformity of building the City so the Citizens themselves would joyn all in an uniform Exercise of Religion whose first Character it is that 1. It aws the consciences of men and binds them up to their good behaviour in a strict attendance upon the duties of every one in his place and a careful obedience to the Law in common And thus Machiavil himself tutours his Prince that he will put on the shew at least of Religion to make his Government dreadful though he hold it dangerous to his interest to be bigotted into it and would have him take up no more of it then will serve his turn But if the mask and vizard the bare appearance of Religion be in the esteem of carnal worldly Policy so considerable a help to Government how serene and awful would it be in its genuine native countenance with what rays of Divinity would the truth and power of it cloath the Magistrate that the people would behold him as an Angel of God For since all Government derives its power from God the more of God it shews the more powerful it must needs be Wherefore if once Religion grow mean amongst a people no wonder if they grow familiar and sawcy with the Government and having got the reins of conscience upon their neck run away with their Rider and 't is well if not dismount him too When men are suffered to set their mouths wide open against Heaven to blaspheme God and deny him in a breath and to droll in Scripture-language and jeer at sacred things how can it be expected that earthly Majesty should preserve its reverence with the people but that God will suffer some to be as bold with their Governors as they have suffered others to be with him that by way of Reprisal he may recover his lost Honour and those that have slighted him may be meanly esteemed For as God subdues the people under their lawful Prince so it must be the Princes care to subdue the people to God by keeping up the aw and port of Religion And this is done in the uniform and unanimous
from their own writings and practices and others there are that do in effect loosen the bands of all Society by excusing that duty Servants owe to their Masters Children to their Parents Wives to their Husbands under a pretence of seeking God justifie disobedience by the Corban of Religion and for any command of their Superiors they like not have a ready answer that they are to obey God rather than man whereas on the contrary there is no one thing that the English Church does in her Doctrine more positively affirm or in her Offices more zealously express then obedience to Governors and her duty to her Soveraign To draw to an end in this Argument some there are that fear not to charge the Church it self with Sacriledge and truly I must grant that Church-men may be guilty by imbezilling and mis-imploying Church-revenue which sure enough was mainly design'd for Pious Uses but may not a man that faithfully serves the Publick in his place have some regard to himself too in fair provisions for his own Family The Apostle tells us that he that does not is worse then an Infidel To shut up all and to drive this nail to the head I do freely acknowledge that the Church never flourish'd more under Pagan Governments then when it was in the poorest condition for it's temporals when it lay under Pressures and Afflictions and had the Heathen-State its Enemy But shall any Christian Magistrate now design the Perscution and Ruine of the Church therefore This were to Argue with the Apostate Iulian to strip Bishops and Priests of their lively-hood and to turn them out of all they have that they may be poor in imitation of their master's Example and in obdedience to his command may learn to contemn the World But thanked be God we live not now under Heathen Emperours and Pagan Governours though if we did it were our duty to pray for them and to thank God for then too and to obey them in all lawful commands and where we can not safely obey chearfully suffer for a good Conscience Neither is nor ought the Church to be so now as it was in the Primitive times before it was setled under Christian Magistrates though then too there was fair liberal allowance and there 's no Minister we have but would be contented to Preach at the Primitive rates were our Auditors as free and open-handed as they were then In the close of all these sacred Morsels though they may seem sweet yet leave gravel behind them and this I dare boldly say that the decay of the Church and the disrepute of Religion amongst any people is a certain token and an infallible character of that People's approaching Ruine Sic profanatis sacris Peritura Troja perdidit primùm Deos. So that from the complication of Church and State and the extreme hazard each of them runs in the other's perils we stand obliged upon a meer Civil account for our Brethren and Companion sakes to wish the Churches prosperity and welfare in our mutual Agreement among our selves Before I make an end I think it necessary to take notice of an Objection or two which may seem to overthrow the purpose and design of this whole Discourse For though it hath already been clear'd out of the Context that by Ierusalem here must be meant the Church and that the Churches Peace which for his Brethren and Companions sakes David resolves to wish and endeavour did consist in that People's uniform Worship of God as appears further by that Churches sad experience when Ieroboam drew off the Ten Tribes from their Allegiance and which is reckon'd his great sin which he made the Children of Israel to sin had by setting up new forms of Worship made their return as well to the Thrones of David at Ierusalem as to the Temple impossible and by a subtle contrivance of an establish'd Schism to render his Rebellion perpetually successful divided them from their brethren in Religion and made the breach irreconcileable then by degrees the poor Samaritans fell off into all kinds of Superstitions and Idolatries the Statutes of Omri and Ahab and I know not what else gallymawfreys of Religion and all this grounded on the fair pretence of that Precise Sect the Karaei who would admit of nothing in the Worship of God but what they found expresly commanded in the Law of Moses I say though thus it stood with the Iewish Church I foresee an Objection may be made that our case is much different from theirs for first Theirs was but a Typical Ceremonial Service which in the Gospel state has no place since our Worship now must be in Spirit and in Truth and then again for these very Types and Ceremonies they had a Divine Command and were by strict precept oblig'd to that uniform attendance upon the Temple whereas such a precept or command now we have none to tye us up in like manner to any one form of Worship To the first part of the Objection that that was a Typical Service in the Iewish Church but that the Holy Iesus has to the Christian Church brought Grace and Truth which do not tye us up to such severe observances in external things but have instated us into a Liberty wherein we are commanded to stand fast and therefore we are not to part with it upon any terms I answer that though the Ceremonies of that Religion be abolished yet the substance of it remains still in the Christian Church for the shadow and the truth were to answer one another and those Types and representations are therefore now to be made out answerably by us in real performances so that the Vniformity of Worship is as agreeable and perhaps more necessary now to the Substance as 't was then to the Shadow and the obligation proportionably the same upon us as upon them For though God did by the death of his Son rent the vail of the Temple and break down the Partition-wall and so has brought us Gentiles into the Fellowship of the Church it was that we should in the same orderly manner serve him in substance as they did in Germony and in suitable methods accomplish their Types with the Truth of our services They brought their Calves and their Lambs to the Priest and had them by his hand offered in the Temple Christian Religion has for their Priests and Levites distinct orders likewise of Bishops Priests and Deacons and instead of a Temple Churches where the People by the Ministration of the Priesthood are to offer up their Prayers and their Praises which are our morning and evening Sacrifices And thus for their Temple their Sacrifices their Sabbaths their Priesthood and almost all considerable Instances of their Worship there is a perpetual uniform Analegy throughout betwixt them and us Only their Worship was perform'd in the shadow of the Law ours in the light of the Gospel and if this light proves to us darkness how great will our darkness be For alas that