THE CAUSE CURE OF Offences IN A DISCOURSE On MATTH 18.7 BY R. Kingston M. A. Prebendary of So ◠and Chaplain in Ordinary to His Majesty 1 Cor. 10.32 Give no offence to the Jew nor to the Gentile nor to the Church of God Rom. 16.17 Mark them that cause divsions and offences contrary to the Doctrine ye have learned and avoid them LONDON Printed for Daniel Brown at the Black Swan and Bible without Temple-bar 1682. To the Right Worshipful SAMUEL ASTRY Esq His Majesties Coroner and Attorney in His Majesties Court of Kings-Bench and one of His Majesties Justices of the Peace for the County of Gloucester SIR THO I have so deep a Resentment of those many extraordinary Favours which you have been pleas'd to confer upon me that I know it impossible to make any proportionable retaliation and think it would be also more than a venial sin to offer such a violence to Gratitude as not to acknowledge them with all Thankfulness yet I must assure you and all the World the Arguments which prevail'd with me for this Dedication were fetch'd from Topicks of a far different nature The Discourse is of a Pious and Publick Concernment and therefore no other Patron could be more sutable than one of such a Sober and Well-temper'd Zeal and that with such a prudent care of the Publick Peace and common good adorn your Station as all that know you must bear witness to The Cure of Offences and an endeavour to recover the Age from the Mischiefs of Misunderstanding prejudice and settle it in a harmonious peace and united Devotion will not go under any other Patronage than of so Loyal a Subject to his Majesty a hearty well-wisher to the Doctrine Discipline of the Church of England and one that by Inclination as well as Authority is an enemy to all that of malitious wickedness offend against either Neither do I fear hereby to derive from the most invidious person any envy upon you or the imputation of flattery upon my self since it is a well-known Maxime that Honour as a shadow flies the pursuer but follows him close that flies from it and among thankful men Desert will sooner be descried where it obscures it self and published with greater applause the less it is affected Sir If these few and unpolish'd Papers that in all Humility and Thankfulness and as a lasting Testimony of my due Respects I here offer to you may be serviceable to the Public in reducing Dissenters to a Venerable Esteem of our Church and an unanimous embracing all its Holy Sanctions I have accomplish'd my end and hope to obtain your pardon for making use of your Name to countenance this honest Design in confidence whereof I shall never cease to implore the Blessings of Heaven for your self your Virtuous Consort and all your hopeful Issue and take leave to assume the Honour of being Worthy Sir Your most Humble Obedient and thankful Servant RICH. KINGSTON THE CAUSE and CURE OF Offences St. MATTH 18.7 Wo be to the man by whom the offence cometh THE Disciples of the holy and blessed Jesus hearing their Royal Master discourse of his Death and Passion Mark 9.31 like Alexander's Captains every man looks for a Seigniory somebody they think must be Lord-Deputy on Earth when Christ is gone to his Glory 34 and therefore ambitiously enquire who should be the person dignified with superiority in that Kingdom of the Messias which they suppos'd would now be erected upon earth One thinks his Merit shall prefer him another his Intimacy another his Affinity another his Seniority but our Saviour who knew their Thoughts and understood their unwarrantable Designes was after worldly Gain and secular Grandeur drives them from that unhallowed inquest with Words and Signs too First 35 With a Word of Admonishment The greatest among you must be as one that serves and unless they lowred those aspiring thoughts and abandoned their ambitions designs after Greatness they could not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven they could not truly and indeed be his Disciples or deserve the very name of Christians As if he had said Should your Gifts and Graces prefer you should you obtain what you wish and be the uppermost Garments in the mystical Body of Christ yet may you not contemn or despise your Underlings But on the contrary the greater dignity you acquire the more service will be expected the larger portion of Favour is bestowed the higher Obligation lies on you to be beneficial to others for herein you comply with the grand design of eternal goodness who is unwilling the meanest person on earth should be lost that might with our indulgent and charitable methods be recovered to the knowledge and exercise of Godliness The next warning is by a Sign A little Child coming in his way our Saviour sets him in the midst of his haughty followers saying Unless they became as little Children in their innocency and unconcernedness Heaven was no place for them As if he had thus reproved their sinful affectation of Dominion You that aspire to the highest place in my Kingdom if you persevere so diametrically opposite to the Laws of Christianity the lowest Class will be too good for you And lest such eminent Grandees should scorn to take their Copy from a Childs hand he tells them in what esteem these Punies are with him Receive a little one saith our Saviour and you receive me offend a little one and you offend me Beware then whoever you are that pretend to belong to Christ that you make not the fall of others steps for your selves to rise by That being great men or having advantage by Authority or the luckiness of befriended Circumstances that you wrong not nor offend the genuine Babes of Christ and instead of a temporal Happiness incur an endless Wo For wo is to the man by whom the offence cometh Which words are the denuntiation of a sad Curse against those that scandalize or offend Christ's little ones Yet notwithstanding our duty is so plainly explicated and represented in Gloss and Case by the several Commentaries of St. Paul upon this commination of our blessed Saviour the words being misunderstood by the Ignorant and misapplied by the Litigious I hope it will not be thought waste of time to explain them The Greek Grammarians tell us the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 properly signifies the Prop or little piece of wood in a Trap or Pitfal that supports the device and being touch'd lets it fall Aristoph Suidas Lexic voc 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but I suppose naturally hath a more general Notion and signifies any thing that makes one halt or limp or that occasions a man to stumble or fall from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to halt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and such like wherefore 't is rendred sometimes a Stumbling-block that which in Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and St. Peter expresses by another Greek
the Opinion of one man only but that some of all Orders in that Church have bin guilty of it and tho Charity may encline me to believe that many Loyal persons of the Romish perswasion do abhor those Jesuitical principles and practices yet the Pope nay the whole Church cannot be acquitted till they have punished those Church-men of his who have publickly abetted such treasonable Conspiracies censured Mariana's and such other Books as have commended Regicides to the great scandal of Religion and by his Pontifical decree provided better for the safety of Kings than his Colledge of Jesuits have for till this be done and they have given us as many years experience of their Loyalty as they have of their Treachery 't will be of dangerous consequence to believe them innocent For what faith or trust can be reposed in those men whose Church perswades them to be wicked and covers all their hell-bred Contrivances under the umbrello of Religion which does nothing else but give scandal to it and bring upon themselves an endless Woe Now having done with these killing Nurses I could gladly break off this unsavoury Theme but that there is another Sect amongst us whose Poysonous Doctrines are as baneful if we take not heed 'T is one of the present Troubles we groan under a proud company of male-contented Bablers who are Priests of their own making and the sictitious Idols of abused Phancies having imbibed Seditious principles from them unwary Zealots have suck't not the Sincere milk of the Word I will be bold to say but a poysoned dose of Schism and Prejudice Thus the Stars fall from Heaven the waters below are turn'd into wormwood and the drinkers dye What mischievous offences have overspread the bosom of great Britain What splenative rage and opprobrious words are cast on the face of Authority What stumbling-blocks are daily thrown out to check harmonious Peace and united Devotion since troublesome rebellious and testy Spirits were both indulged and applauded 'T is now grown a necessary point of Purity to muzzle Assemblies into Schism and Faction to snivel out a demure Lye instead of a holy Doctrine to vent a Libel instead of a Use to bring in suspition that Thames and Tyber have joyn'd Channels and that our Government Rites and Liturgy are wholly Romish or Antichristian With this soure milk the Babes of Christ are publickly fed and yet the Non-conforming Presbyters would be thought no Offenders The boysterous Thunders of Heaven strike not the top of Olympus but saucy Seducers are now found that fear not to blast the height of Majesty overthrow the Seats of Superiority and tear Allegeance out of the peoples hearts and instead of casting St. Peters Net into the wild lusts of Mars translate the blessed Gospel of Peace into the iron language of Blood and War Trouble and Discord Truly however such clamorous Zealots boast of the certainty of their Election Christ hath mark'd them with a woe of rejection Woe to those barbarous Pilats that mingle blood with their Sacrifices Woe to those furious Sampsons that must have multitudes to perish with them Woe to the Seducing Prophet by whom the offence comes But truth as well as errour may occasion an offence good Counsel like the Peach-tree may bring forth poysonous fruit in one place and wholsome in another The messages of Heaven are oft compared to showers of rain which falling in due season makes a plentiful year but scarcity follows unseasonable showers That which in one place avails in another annoys it inricheth our fields but dirtieth our streets Woe be to those Clouds saith Bernard that send such showers as make foul work among us but bring forth no Fruit. A word spoken in due season and sit place hath an excellent savour but when both these are wanting the audience goes away worse Among others there are three waies of giving offences even in the publication of Truth 1. Either by scrupulous Doctrine 2. By bitter Rebukes or 3. By personal Invectives First We have some that while they would be thought Solid do indeed prove but saucy Divines on all occasions they are rushing into the hidden Secrets of God and perplex their weak people with the thorny mysteries of Election and reprobation a doctrine which is fitly ranked among those things that profit being unknown Not that I deny but there may be excellent matter drawn from such high Points but the Brain must use her knowledge as she doth her spittle and vent no more of it than may stand with the bodies welfare The bright countenance of Moses was vayled when he was to deal with the people whose benefit he prefer'd before his own applause It were far better men obscured the light of their knowledge and learning than that they should display it to affright others or dote about questions that breed envy and evil surmises There are in our Religion several Mysteries and holy Scripture contains many things above the reach of our quickest Capacities and in nothing more men give offences than in going about to explain Mysteries and give an account of such things which themselves acknowledge to be incomprehensible And this is not my opinion only but what some men will think strange 't is Mr. Calvin's also for at the close of his Doctrine of decrees he advises Ministers to be very wary of proposing this Doctrine to the people for fear of giving them offence and disturbance For if a man saith he should come into a Congregation and thus bespeak them Friends and Christians I am here sent to you to preach the Gospel but I must acquaint you aforehand that there are but two or three among you those that are the Elect that are like to be ever the better for my Ministry and as to the rest of you there 's Horribile Decretum a dreadful Bar in your way that all the Preaching in the world can do you no good and the Ordinances of Christ apply to them as you will can never prove available to your Salvation His hearers would run out of the Church and cry the man were out of his Wits This just resentment was extorted from the Geneva-Oracle by an ingenious reflection on his own Scheme and the unhappy consequence he foresaw it would produce and I heartily wish his caveat might be observed by his followers For certainly it would conduce more to the Glory of God and the Interest of Christianity if men would let those things that are mysterious remain so and employ themselves in promoting Justice Honesty and serious Devotion and instead of reprobating one another into the Regions of darkness to do offices of love and friendship one towards another and adorn the Doctrine of our Saviour by our mutual good-will and serviceableness to our brethren Secondly Publick Rebukes unless like Jonathans Rod they be dipped in honey offend all The rough hands of Esau were unfit for Superiority Sinners like blind men must be led gently not haled by violence What gets the
enemy than his own ill nature This makes it a kind of misery to be excellent because it is sure to be attended with malignity it being the constant guise of poorer spirits those brats of mouldy clay to erect obelisks to their own obscure bearings out of the ruines of others and since they are unable to raise themselves to the esteem of their adversaries they endeavour by Calumny or the exercise of their befriended not acquired authority to bring them down to the same ignoble level with themselves This is a stone of Stumbling and a rock of offence for Christians to malign each other Joh. 1.2.9 for he that hateth his brother is in darkness until now but he that loveth abideth in the light and there is no occasion of stumbling in him But that which aggravates the offence and makes the sin become so excessively sinful is that the only cause for which the envious man is enraged against his brother is that for which Cain slew Abel because his own works were evil and his brothers good And that this hath been the constant practise of this devilish vice will appear when we further consider that for this cause Josephs brethren sold him and it was virtue in David that provoked Saul to seek his life and the Ninevites repentance that distempered Jonas for this cause namely unparallel'd goodness 't was that the Jews conspired the death of our Saviour and which made the Roman Governour endeavour his releasement because he knew that for envy they had delivered him This is even the nature of envy to assault the worthiest persons whose eminency shines beyond others in glorious Actions but meddles not with such as be of meaner quality But to perswade men from the practise of this unchristian and unmanlike vice know that Divine Justice hath appointed this sin to be the torment of it self for Envy like cankered Brass feeds upon his own substance Justius invidia nihil est quae protinus ipsum Authorem rodit excrutiatquesuum But I shall rather prescribe Antidotes against this poyson than shew the punishment that attends it and to that purpose if thou seest another abound in Learning Judgment or the like commendables be not so envious to thy self as to be vexed at that which may better or inform thee if thou wouldst make a right use thereof If thou hear him defend the Truth with applause of others let not a perverse emulation tempt thee to maintain the contrary to the subverting of the hearers for there is saith Nazianzen a happiness even to be overcome And it is far better to be honestly vanquished and quit the field than to obtain an inglorious Victory with the shipwrack of true Religion If thou see another endued with spiritual Graces as Virtue Knowledge Temperance Patience here is matter for thy godly Emulation but not for thy bitter Envying thou shouldst strive to match him in the exercise of holy duties but not to damp his alacrity by malitious detraction According to our Saviours precept our light should so shine before men that they seeing our good Works may glorifie our Father which is in Heaven Therefore let not thy envy be the cloud to dim the light of anothers works and thereby hinder so much glory as might redound to thy heavenly Father Chrysost Although such a man were thy enemy yet because Almighty God is glorified by him he ought to be thy friend and now because God is glorified by him shall he therefore be thy enemy God forbid Remember whose work he is doing and encourage his faint endeavours with the addition of thy service and help to effect what thou dayly prayest for That Gods will may be done on Earth by thee and thy fellow-servants as it is in Heaven by the glorious Angels The Tongue is now wormed and the Cataract of Envy over the Eye is touch'd but I must lead you on with Ezekiel to more abominations to more offences in our lives they are of two sorts injurious and exemplary First The injurious offences are apparently indigitated in our Saviours words for who receiveth his little ones but their hopeful benefactors and who on the other side gives them offence but their spiteful opposers And here our old Complainants are ready to commence their suit in reckoning up the hard measures offered to their Zealous guides who are exil'd their Pulpits stript of their Maintenance rated fined persecuted as their word is whereas the contrary is most evident Being treated through the kindness of some and the remisness of others more favourably than the Law allows and their practice deserves And when they fall under any pecuniary mulct or corporal restraint their punishment is of themselves they cannot be called innocent Sufferers but injurious Agressors I would to God they would once learn to saddle the right Ass for as St. Augustin said of Sara and Hagar the Maid did more persecute the Mistress by her pride and sauciness than the Mistress did her Maid by the severity of her discipline and notwithstanding the Dissenters clamorous Charge upon a Melius inquirendum 't will be found that Schismaticks do more persecute and offend the Church than holy Church doth persecute or offend them and so unhappy consequences have been the issue of their lucrous ingannations that the Church better endured the Swords of Tyrants than the tongues of Schismaticks for while we smarted Unity remained but while these Anticeremonian Bigots are believed the Church is obnoxious to ruine by the seeds of division they sowe amongst us But that which spreads the contagion is that the Schismatical tenents of some Non-conforming brethren like ill weeds in a fat soil have done greater mischief through the good opinion men have of their personal Sanctity They are good men and by a bad consequence all they do must be so accounted But what can the pretence amount to when examin'd by an intelligent and unprejudiced soul for 't is not flourishing the banner of goodness that can priviledge men from either errour or sinning neither ought the unreprovableness of mens converse in other things countenance their Schismatical opinions or Church-dividing practices against the light of divine Scripture and right Reason Let mens Gifts and Graces be as large as they themselves would have it believed must not men of honesty live under Laws and submit to every Ordinance of man for the Lords sake Surely however they whisper the contrary they dare not speak it aloud lest they be as openly convicted to resist the Ordinance of God and purchase to themselves Damnation These are the gildings and varnish of those selfish intrigues whereby men of good hearts but weak heads and women who have weakest judgments but strongest wills and passions are cozened into a good opinion of these painted out-sides to embrace a Cloud instead of Juno and forsake a peaceable Church to be members of a contentious Conventicle I take no delight in searching the wounds or displaying the faults of a
prevalent when the Prophets Arm is joyned to it A merry Souldier struck a bird dead from which his Comrades expected an Augury saying How should these silly creatures direct others that cannot secure themselves Who goes to a Barber for his bread or to a Victualler for his cloth and who will e're hope to receive direction for Holiness from them in whom there is nothing to be seen but Vice We often complain and it may be justly enough of prevailing Faction amongst us but I am sure nothing so much promotes their interest as the scandalous lives of some that exercise the Ministerial Function among us The late incomparable Bishop Dr. Jer. Taylor tells us Sermon to the University of Dublin If we live Holy our Doctrine will be true and that truth shall prevail but if we live Wickedly and Scandalously every little Schismatick will put us to shame and abuse our Flocks and feed them with Colocynths and Hemlock and place Heresie in the Chair oppointed for our Religion 'T is an errour I know a fond and precise errour to think the Power of Gods Word or the benefit of the Sacrament should be tied to the holiness of him that ministereth The Church in the Canticles is a Garden of Nuts Cant. 6.11 and if the Law of God that is planted here be a Nut we may safely eat the Kernel though it come from a slovens hand But truly it were to be wished that as the beautiful Heavens above our heads are infinitely rais'd from earth most different and opposite to her Centre so the Messengers of Heaven were as far remov'd from the base and sinful customes of this corrupt World that instead of refreshing Fountains they were not Whirlpools to draw into danger such as are about them For as the Ivy and Elm for the People and Pastor grow together The people saith Jeremy take ill courses Jer. 23.10 and the reason is added in the next words The Prophet and Priest are profane men Therefore St. Paul thought it would ask more than an ordinary care Rom. 12.17 that it would be a point of high prudence in us to be honest men not onely in the sight of God but in the eyes of the World also Even Kings and Emperours have refused to quench their extreme thirst with offered Water when their Armies had none they would not give an example of Intemperance Why then do they that are Sacred to God offer themselves up to swinish excesses with the hazard of so many Souls The Whale espying her young ones at a low water left in danger of the almost-dry shore spouts such abundance of water upon them that they can swim away in that artificial Tide â—…nat Did we truly regard the welfare of the Servants of Christ Jesus we would part with our Liquor to save their Souls we would abandon our delights we would cast out a drunken humour to bring them again into the right way and this we may learn from the Indian Ocotochlus that having obtained his Prey by a great noise invites other beasts to feed on it and when they are sated feeds on the rest that the poyson wherewith he abounds might not injure his mes-mates by feeding with them What a shame is this to us men to us consecrated Priests that will abstain from none of our Cups from none of our Carouses from none of our vain delights how scandalous how infecting soever Truly the best remedy I can commend unto us of the Clergy who are set upon a hill for religious Example or the peoples Scorn and Derision is a holy Privacy and Retiredness at least a careful choice of our Company It is on record in Leviticus 14.36 That the Priests of God must not come into a polluted house They that are strangers to the course of our lives will judge of us by the quality of our company We loose our masculine Gravity and get contempt by Familiarity We throw the Honour of our Function too prodigally into a common bosome whiles we are seen mixing at Feasts and merry meetings with light and dissolute persons Our Saviour is observed never to stay long at Capernaum it was a place of pleasure and as Druthmarus tells us was much haunted for that purpose even by the Grandees of Rome People are prone to take offence that Church-men should share in those pleasures or haunt those places which yet themselves will freely enjoy The damned Churl thought he must be a man of another world that could convert his brethren How shall Souldiers wound their enemies if their Battalion stand not aloof how shall we vanquish humane corruptions if we keep not from them St. Paul wished himself separate even from Christ for his brothers sake and shall not we separate from leud and debauched Societies for as great a matters doth it not hinder men in the way of Salvation to be insensible of their own errings and who will think that he goes astray while his Pastor is in his company should no scandal ensue yet we pull a stain upon our selves For he that sorts with uncivil men shall hardly come off untainted While the Hebrew Multitude sports and dances and worships a golden Calf Moses is on the Mount with God praying and weeping and interceding for the sins of the people Let the world take her course and pursue her follies it is not for us my holy Brethren it is not for us to mix with it it would become us better to retire and pray and weep for publick offences not to lie as stumbling-blocks and pull Gods anger upon us but to stand in the gap and turn away his wrathful Indignation This were the way to be held in greater account if we were less seen to be more conspicuous if we were more hidden if like the Halcyon birds we came not out but to calm a tempestuous Sea to remove troubles and to bring peace to the vexed Conscience Woe be to them that gad abroad on contrary errands even to raise stirs and to cause offences Vae Sacerdoti wo be to the Church-man by whose irregular Life the offence comes A sinful complyance with the humors of Factious people against the prescribed Order of Holy Church is another offence in Clergy-men and too many such false brethren there are amongst us I speak this to their shame who like Aristotles first matter are capable of any form which profit shall stamp upon them and will be any thing but what they ought to be for in declaiming against abuses their meaning is not to have them redressed but by disgracing the present posture of things to make a way for their own exploded Discipline it being a certain Rule that he which perswades a multitude that things are not as they ought to be shall never want Rewards nor Auditors because under this fair and plausible colour whatsoever they utter passeth for good and currant These are the seeming friends that do more hurt to the Church of England than