in this as the Liturgy These things will be sufficient upon this first way that I proposed to shew that conforming to the Institutions of the Church is not concerned in any thing the Apostle speaks in this place nor can come under his notion of giving offence to any which he speaks against in it I will not deny but that some may be offended and troubled at it It is too visible how much some men are troubled to see a Church constituted among us to behold it protected by Law and Power and to see so great a deference and respect payd unto it and its way of Worship as blessed be God is at present by multitudes both of great and good men I do not doubt but it is greatly maligned and envyed by men and it is little less than a continual trouble and grief to them It is contrary to their private Interest and so long as it is so their designs and aims will never be effected But so ill men are troubled at a good Government and Thieves and Robbers may be vexed that Honest men are secured from them and these may as well cry out that the Laws and the Government are an offence to them as others may that they are offended at the Church and Conformity Sure we know things better than to call every thing a Scandal that any man is vexed or troubled at If we must acknowledge that an offence or forbear doing every thing for fear of Scandal that every ill designing man is pleased to take exceptions against it is more than probable we must do nothing at all nor venture to undertake any thing till we see whether all persons will be pleased with it or not We must not call every thing an offence that pleaseth not the humour of every man for then nothing can avoid that character But this is not enough to say in this matter for it will serve us much further not onely to justifie our selves from this imputation but to reflect it back upon those that charge us For when we have well considered things we shall find that the Scandal will fall upon our Accusers and not Conformity but Separation will be found to be the giving Offence and that in both the notions of giving it that have been named Separation is indeed the Scandal as being both an evil in it self and that which betrays others into many evils If ever there were such a thing as Schism in the world or if the Separation of the Donatists or any that were ever made from the Communion of a National Church were a Schism I think it hath been sufficiently proved on our behalf that the present Separation from our Church is really a Schism And if Schism be a damnable sin and so it is if we will judge either by the Doctrines of the Apostles or their best Successors yea and few sins greater then we shall need no other argument to prove Separation to be indeed the Scandal and that in the greatest notion of Scandal too And we sadly see what great mischiefs it is introductive of what uncharitableness and railing what pride and censoriousness it betrays men into Schism was scarce ever content to be alone Men think it not enough to separate from the Communion of the Church unless they go to justifie their Separation by aspersing what they separated from and so men are inevitably betrayed into envyings and bitter railings into strife and contention and all those evils that such things are naturally productive of And I am sure it is a sore grief and trouble and an offence in the second notion of it to many good men who cannot but be grieved greatly To see the Institutions of Christ so disregarded the great Duties and Services of Religion so slighted and neglected and to behold the Peace and Welfare of the Church which cost the Saviour of the world so dear and is so greatly beloved by him so very little consulted or rather purposely betrayed To behold men allow themselves nay glory in such damnable sins destroy their Souls by the guilt of them and wilfully forfeit the benefit of all that Christ hath done and suffered for them And lastly to see the way of Religion so perplexed with idle Questions and made intricate by needless Disputes and to see so many unreasonable Controversies started and such eager Quarrels amongst Christians which the best men sometimes have much ado to weather and get over so as they should do These are the things that make many sad and aking hearts among those whom God hath not made sad and these are the effects of the sad Divisions and Separations among us These therefore are the Scandal and the things that so much offend and these are the Divisions for which there are such searchings of heart at this day I would to God some men would seriously consider things they might then possibly begin to reflect upon themselves and their own actions and perhaps see cause to take some part of that reproach upon themselves which they are pleased so prodigally to cast upon us 2. But I have another thing yet to shew the errour of applying this Speech of the Apostle to our case For as there is a mistake in the notion of Scandal and Offence so there is too in those things to which the giving offence here relates and they are vastly different from those things in the Church that we conform unto by which the offence is pretended to be given The difference I mean is this that however they may be things in their own nature equally indifferent yet the supervening command from lawful Authority may make a vast difference between them Those things to which this Text relates were indifferent and undetermined too no humane Law had taken cognizance of them but the Institutions or Ceremonies of the Church in which it is pretended we give offence are things already determined by the Laws of men and such as a lawful Authority hath bound us to the practice of I shall not need to have any controversie I hope with any about the nature of them nor will any of the tragical Outcries against them prove them essentially evil Though some men have been taught to call them Rags of Rome Instances of Superstition and Relicks of Idolatry these are words of course and arts of railing which proclaim indeed the rancour and malice of some mens spirits but do not change the nature of things And certainly a stranger that should hear all this outcry and at last find the things declaimed so against are but pure Modes and Circumstances of things he would either greatly question the judgement and honesty of some men or at least conclude that a little thing will serve those men to quarrel with that are resolved either to find faults or to make them 2. Nor secondly shall I need here to dispute whether such things may be injoyned by a lawful Authority in the Service of God This hath been done fully already by
of such a Religion require and oblige them to do I must confess in one thing the Church of England may be an occasion of a great deal of sin in the world but it is such as will as little advantage our Brethren to have it granted as it will be any disparagement or disadvantage to be caused by it I mean in being an occasion of all that sin and guilt that all those bring upon themselves that rail and cry out so much upon it that separate and divide from it and studiously maintain and keep up an unreasonable and downright Schism against it But certainly all men will see that this is an offence onely taken and not given and ought no more to be objected against the Church than Murther and Adultery Theft and Robbery ought to be charged upon the Laws of God that declare the same to be sin Were there no such thing as the Constitution of a Church these men would not be guilty of Schism and unjust Separation from it But so if there were no Law there would be no transgression and Adulterers may as well accuse the Law for their sin in one case as Schismaticks can accuse they Constitution of the Church in the other They are both in this case equally culpable i. e. indeed not at all In a word and to conclude this Period if Piety and becoming expressions of Devotion in the publick Worship of God If Gravity Decency and Order in the Offices of Religion And if engaging men to a due respect and regard to the rules of the Gospel be sins or evils to be eschewed and dreaded by men then I will grant that Conformity to the Church of England may possibly give offence in this sence of giving of it but if not I do not see any reason to apprehend or fear any danger at all of it By these considerations it will appear we are free from giving offence by our Conformity to the Rules of our Church in this first sence of Scandal and giving Offence 2. I proceed therefore now to enquire if we cannot clear our selves sufficiently from it in the second notion of these things also And this I think will best and most plainly be determined by considering what can be thought just cause of sorrow and grief to a good man or a reasonable discouragement or hinderance to him in his way of Duty I mean still cause of these given to him by another Now these I think I may reduce pretty safely to these three Heads 1. Some dishonour offered to God and his Religion 2. The Wickedness and Profaneness of men 3. The making the way of Religion and Duty more cumbersome and difficult than otherwise it would be These are great and just causes of offence and grief to a good man It cannot but greatly afflict a good man to behold his God whom he adores and honours and loves above all things affronted and dishonoured his Laws violated his Authority contemned and trampled upon by daring and foolish men Rivers of waters saith the holy Psalmist run down mine eyes because men keep not thy law Psal 119.136 And it cannot but be cause of the like sorrow to such a man to see other men for whom he hath a great and concerning charity and whom he loves as his own soul to live in sin and a contempt of God to wound and destroy their precious Souls and to provide matter for eternal torments And any thing that discourageth a man in the way of his Duty or renders it more perplexed and troublesome to him may be justly called an offence or grief to him I do not easily understand how this kind of offence can properly be said to be given any other but by some of these ways Now let our debate be determined by these things and let the issue be Whether Conformity can be grieving others upon any of these accounts It cannot I am sure be said or at least nothing like a proof be offered that we offend men hereby because we either do any dishonour to God or to his holy Religion by it It is much truer that we bring honour and reputation to both by it To God by taking the best course we can pitch upon to secure the Solemnity and Decency of his Worship And to Religion by taking care that all the great Services of it be performed decently and to edification and not profaned by the ignorance or temerity of every bold and unskilful undertaker 2. Nor secondly can it be pretended that hereby we let men be spectators of our wickedness and profaneness and so grieve and make sad the hearts of good men while they see us without any fear of God before our eyes I have that charity for the modesty and integrity of our Dissenting Brethren that they will not call our Worship Idolatry and the service of Baal any longer though it cannot be dissembled that a great part of the less-discerning Rabble have been taught by them so to account and think of it But if any have been misled into such an Opinion I would beg them to come and behold our way of publick Worship for their better conviction 3. No nor thirdly do I see how it can be any offence upon its making the way of Religion and Duty more cumbersome or difficult to others than it would be It would be a hard matter for any to shew where he is hindred from being good by seeing others conformable to the Church or what obstruction that casts in his way of Duty I will at any time undertake to shew that it may be an help and advantage to him and a furtherance to him in the way of Religion and Salvation but let or hinderance it can be none If it be pretended that by this we make Religion cumbersome and clog that with Rites and Ceremonies that is a plain and easie thing I grant the Objection were reasonable and the Charge of giving offence undeniable were it either so as it began to be of old in St. Augustin's time or is at present in the Roman-Church clogged with so many antick and garish Ceremonies that it requires a great deal of study to be an exact Ritualist and is a thousand times harder to remember and observe all the Rites and Modes of any Service and Office in Religion than to do the thing a hundred times over But let me beg men to consider whether this Charge can be just against a Church and its Liturgy which enjoyn but three Ceremonies against which the Dissenters themselves can object and these too not in the same but so many distinct Services and which are little more than barely determining those circumstances of Habit and Gesture which are natural and necessary to all our actions If these things can be thought to make the Practice and Services of Religion burthensome then any of the Postures in which our Brethren perform their Worship will make that so too and then the Directory will be as chargeable and faulty
it unto that and not unto these And the same reasons that determine thus our Charity will determine as well our care of not giving Offence especially since this is a proper and principal act of Charity and no one that I know of more so This will be a sufficient answer to all the tragical stories of the sin of Scandal and the great necessity of not giving it to any We are expresly charged not to give Offence and so we are expresly charged above all things to put on Charity In giving Offence we must have a regard to the meanest person in the Church and a woe is denounced against him that offends a little one And so we are in charity commanded too and a woe threatned to him that shuts up his bowels of Compassion from the meanest servant of God Yea this is commanded even to the creatures below us And yet for all this we must prefer the Church before all others and if it should so happen that Charity could not be shewed unto both we ought to determine our respects and Charity to the Church and to suspend the acts of it unto the others and must do so too in our Charity of not offending or grieving the Church unless some disproportion could be shewed in this from the other acts of Charity or some reasons here to alter the case which I am very sure cannot This place alone if there were none others sufficiently determines this Case And that we are warranted also by the Precedents of the New Testament to act by this Rule the actions of those great men whose lives are there recorded for our imitation do shew us The Life of our blessed Saviour is a good example for us in this as well as in all other instances of duty that are incumbent on us We find him in every thing paying a mighty deference to the Church of the Jews and studiously avoiding to give any displeasure or offence unto them and this in many things which they themselves had introduced without any express Warrant or Command from God as were easie to shew and hath been by many learned men of late But there is one instance which comes pretty well up to our present case and that is his paying Tribute of which you have the story Matth. 17.27 there is no doubt but by this he might give some offence in this loose notion of offence i. e. occasion some trouble in his followers by owning himself a stranger and paying Tribute as such nevertheless he chose to do that rather than to give any offence to the Publick Notwithstanding that we offend them not c. Whether the persons he was so careful here not to offend were the Roman Government or the Church of the Jews it is all one to our present Case If it were the Church of the Jews then we see he was more careful not to offend them than his own Followers But if it were the Government of the Romans it concludes more strongly for us and for our present Case where the Government is Christian and that of the Church and of the Kingdom one and the same where we cannot offend the Church but we must offend the Government and Civil Power too under whose protection and favour it is established and whose Canons it hath adopted into its own Laws After this great example I proceed to take notice of some that we find registred in the life of St. Paul to the like purpose I instance onely in two which will be sufficient The first was his circumcising Timothy of which you have the story Acts 16.1 2 3. It is certain Timothy might have objected against Circumcision and pleaded his freedom from any obligation to it being the Son of a Grecian Father and there is no reason to doubt but it must be irksome and troublesome to him yet for all that St. Paul hath greater respect to the Church of the Jews in those parts which might be offended had he not been circumcised his Mother being a Jew The other is that famous story of St. Paul's shaving his head and purifying himself in the Temple with the men that had a vow upon them just according to the manner prescribed in the Levitical Law you have the account of it Acts 21. from 23 to 27. I do not at all question but this action of St. Paul must be strangely looked upon at first by Trophimus and those other Heathen Converts that came with him to Jerusalem who knowing his Doctrine and manner of conversation abroad could scarce chuse but reflect with some trouble upon this action and the truth is it was a plain temptation to them to have some hard thoughts of him Yet notwithstanding this St. Paul preferred his respect to the Church of Jerusalem and chose rather to incur this censure of theirs than to give any offence to the Church of Christ which was there From which example a great advantage may be drawn not onely to direct us what regard to have to the Church of God in general above any private persons but even to a National or Local Church which is but a member and part of Christs Church and from which the constitution of other Churches as to Customs and Usages may be different St. Paul might have pleaded strongly against this thing to which St. James advised him especially upon the account of offence to those that were with him and to others from whom he came yet for all this his respect to the present Church where he was and his care not to offend it overcame all other considerations and caused him readily to do that which neither they were greatly pleased with nor himself in all probability neither Which hath often brought to my mind the Apostolical temper of St. Ambrose in that famous answer of his to St. Austin's Mother which he magnifies so highly for Oracular and Divine That at Millain he did not observe the Sabbath-fast because it was not the usage of his Church but at Rome he did because it was the custom there advising her in all such things to make the custom of the present Church her Precedent and Rule and by no means to give any offence to it By both which notable Examples we may learn by what measure to govern our selves in these things namely a respect to the Usages and Constitutions of the present Church we are in provided they be not sinful and plainly contrary to any Law of God for of such things I am speaking all this while and about such things it is that our present dispute about giving offence is by both sides acknowledged to be I onely add one thing more before I leave this Precedent That if we ought to have this great and over-ruling respect to any National Church of Christ to which we chance to come and in which we sojourn we certainly ought much more to have the same to our own National Church in which we not onely live but were born and baptised Members
of and therefore suffer our regard to it to over-rule all other respects to private persons that may interfere with it These things might be enough to assure the reasonableness of the present Consideration and I do not see what can well be objected against them 2. And yet I shall proceed to some Popular Considerations here also which are owned for sound and good Rules to act by in all other like Cases by all sorts of men and which when applied in our Case will presently determine it our concern and duty to have greater care not to give offence to the Church of God than to any private persons Four of these I shall just mention and leave to take effect by our leisurely consideration of them 1. That offending the Church is offending the greater party I hope I may say not onely greater than any other single denomination of men but than all of them together I know how forward each party hath been to boast its number and some to threaten Authority with their strength and to that purpose to make false musters and great shews to crowd together upon all occasions and to make it piacular for one to be absent when either the Party or the Cause was to be credited But thanks be to God that we have publick evidences now and of late that the Church-party is not so small and inconsiderable as some men would have it thought to be It is true honest men are not apt to be noisie and tumultuous the sense of their own Integrity satisfieth them and the assurance that they are known to God is to them more than Ten thousand witnesses They do not use to boast of themselves nor court greatly man's observance they keep their station and use not to run from place to place an art by which the same man may appear ten or twenty and this perhaps hath made some good men fearful and some others confident But thanks be to God they know one another better now and have signalized their numbers to material purposes Now this ought to be a swaying consideration with all scrupulous persons in this case In all others it is thought safest to offend the lesser party supposing them but in the same circumstances with others And when a Dissenter considers that by Conforming he can but offend some few of his own small party or at most but some few of others but by his Separation shall certainly offend the whole Church methinks it should soon teach him which side of the Question to chuse Unless those few must be counted the onely wise and the onely good the sober and the godly party and the whole Church be disparaged as consisting onely of ignorant and loose silly and dissolute persons When blessed be God plain experience contradicts both and shews them to be equal at least to their supercilious accusers both for knowledge and virtue and there is nothing to make them appear otherwise but onely the Pride and Uncharitableness of some men whose interest it is to have them believed to be so But Wisdom is justified in her Children 2. Offending the Church of Christ must needs be of worse consequence than offending any private party of men I need not stay to remark each single instance in which this is evident every man's reason will suggest enough to him Neither God nor Religion can be so much concerned in the one as in the other nor can the Souls of men or the peace of the World be so much endangered by private offences as by those against the publick Church Mens guilts are higher and more injurious to themselves and the effects are more dangerous and mischievous to others which is another good consideration to sway men in this case For a wise man will weigh the probable effects of what he doth and where an honest and uninstructed man is uncertain whether he may do or forbear such things and after his enquiry remains scrupulous and unresolved it is a good means to determine himself by to consider as well as he can what the effects and consequences of what he is going to do or forbear in all likelihood will be and that which he sees attended with a train of the worse and more mischievous consequences disargues it self and pronounceth its own condemnation And by these effects he may make as true a difference as if the plain essence and nature of the things were naked unto his view 3. Offending the Church of God is offending those to whom we owe more duty than we do unto any private party whatsoever I confess charity and respect and all the possible ininstances of it we owe to every private person with whom we converse and to whom we are any way related and God hath made all this matter of plain duty But it is a great deal more than this that we owe those that are over us in the Lord and his whole Church even as much more as we owe of deference and Duty of Obedience and Submission to a Father and a Governour and those that God and Nature hath set above us above that common Charity and Duty that we are to owe to one that is in all respects our equal The Laws of all Nations consider us under greater obligations to our Parents and to our Country than to any single persons whatsoever and make injuring of a Father or our Prince more heinous than doing the same to a common person upon the same level with us And I am sure the Laws of God and Religion too considering us as Members of the Church and calling the Governours of it our Fathers in Christ let us know what great duty we owe to them and of how much greater guilt it must needs be to offend them than our Fellow-christian or any Party in which we can be engaged There is a complication of sins and guilt in the one when there is but the breach of common charity in the other I deny not but men may joyn themselves to such a Party and make another man their Guide and commit themselves to the Conduct of him and thereby oblige themselves to more duty than they owe to others But this is duty of their own choice and the failure in it a sin of their own causing and doth no more supercede their original and primer obligations which God and Nature had layd on them than the being faithful to a company of Banditi will excuse disloyalty to our Prince and Country or than giving a gift to the Corban among the Jews would atone undutifulness to a wanting Parent However men may divide themselves from the Church of which Providence and Religion have made them Members and enter themselves into separate Factions yet they must remember that they owe duty to it still that no voluntary and second Compacts of their own can dissolve their primitive Obligations or their care to continue faithful to the one expiate their regardless offending of the other for they do owe more duty to