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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A86299	The parable of the tares expounded & applyed, in ten sermons preached before his late Majesty King Charles the second monarch of Great Britain. / By Peter Heylin, D.D. To which are added three other sermons of the same author.	Heylyn, Peter, 1600-1662.	1659 (1659)	Wing H1729; Thomason E987_1	253,775	424

constant argument of my Sermons before the King so on the like occasion I am now induced I may not unfitly say compelled to make them publick unto others For notwithstanding that I have so fully declared my self against the errors and corruptions of the Church of Rome in my late Comment on the Creed yet on a sudden whither I will or no I must be a Papist a Jesuit or some Agent for the See of Rome suspected at the least for such by Dr. Bernard and as he tells us by others for which consult the book entituled The Judgement of the late Lord Primate c. pa. 115. The author of the History of the Life and Reign of King Charles ecchoeth the words of Dr. Bernard which like an Eccho he reiterateth vocesquè refert iteratque quod audit as it is in ovid in his scurrilous pamphlet called the Post-Hast Reply c. It was accounted for a prudent part in Sophocles as indeed it was when he was once accused of madness to produce one of his Tragedies then newly written to read the same before the people of Athens and then to ask his Judges Num illud carmen videretur esse hominis delirantis whether they thought it like to be the work of a man distracted And I hope it will be counted no imprudence in me being again accused of popery or at the least suspected of it to commit these Sermons to the Press to offer them to the reading of the people of Engl. then to put this question to them Whether they think such Sermons could proceed from the pen of a Papist som Jesuit or Agent for the See of Rom Adde hereunto that finding it wondred at in print that so many of my books do so little concern my profession though I know none that do so little concern the same as the Pamphlets hath it I hope the printing of these Sermons will take off the wonder that they will be looked upon as in which my profession is concerned Such being the reason of bringing these Sermons to the publick view I shall observe in the next place with what injustice the Court-Chaplains have been accused for flatterie and time serving for preaching up the Kings prerogative and derogating from the property and liberty of the English subject in which if one or two were faulty it stands not with the rules of Justice and much less of Equity that for the fault of one or two unius ob culpam furias in the Poets words a general blemish should be laid on all the rest Certain I am no flatterie or time-serving no preaching up the Kings prerogative or derogating from the propertie of the English subjects will be found in these Sermons nor could be found in any other of mine had they been sifted to the bran In confidence whereof when some exceptions had been made against some passages in one of my Sermons preached at VVestminster by a mistake of some that heard it I offered the Committee for the Courts of Justice before whom that exception had been started to put into their hands all the Sermons which I had either preached at Court or in Westminster Abbie to the end that they might see how free and innocent I was from broching any such new Doctrines as might not be good Parliament-proof when soever they should come to be examined and had they took me at my offer certain I am it might have redounded very much to the clearing of my reputation in the sight of those Gentlemen and nothing to my hurt or disadvantage at all In the digestion of these Sermons I made it my chief care rather to inform the understanding then to work on the affections of them that heard me For having for seven or eight years before felt the pulse of the Court and finding that many about the King were not well principled in the constitution of the Church of England and thereby gave occasion to others to think as sinisterly of it as they did themselves I thought that course most fit to be followed in my preaching which was like to be most profitable to them that heard me for the Understanding being well informed and the Judgement of men well setled on so sure a bottom I doubted not but that their affections would be guided by the light of their Understanding and bring them to be all of one mind and of one soul like the Christians in Acts 4. 32. Voluntas sequitur intellectum is a maxime of undoubted truth in the schools of Philosophie and holds good in all the practical duties which concern Religion Which way of preaching had it been more generally followed as it might have been I think it probable enough that we might better have kept the unity of the spirit in the bond ●f peace then by striving to stir up the affections with little or no improvement to the understanding Knowledg without Zeal may be resembled to a candle carried in a Dark-lanthorn or hid under a bushel which wasts it self without giving light to others and is uuprofitably consumed without any benefit to the publick but on the other side zeal without knowledg or not according to knowledg may be compared unto the meteor which the Philosophers call an Ignis Fatuus which for the most part leads men out of the way and sometimes draws them on to dangerous precipices or to a brush-Bavine-faggot in a Country Cottage more apt to fire the house then to warm the chimney So much being said as to the Motives which induc'd me to print these Sermons upon the parable of the Tares and to my handling and accomodating that Parable to the use of the Church as then it stood established by the Laws of the Land I am in the next place to let you know the reason why I have made choice of you name in this Dedication And herein I can make as little use of those common aims which are so frequent in Dedications of this nature that is to say protection profit or preferment as I did before of those common pretences which are so frequently alledged for publishing many of those books which without any loss to Learning or disadvantage to the Ch. as before was said might have been reprieved from the Press Protection I expect none from you in these perilous times in which without a prudent care of your life and actions you will be hardly able to protect your self nor is this dedication made in the way of gratitude for any benefit or profit formerly received from you in which respect I dedicated my book called Ecclesia Vindicata to my kind and honoured Schoolmaster Mr. Edward Davies or out of any covetous hopes of being gratified by you with any profit or preferment in the Church for time to come of which if I were capable I might by the same capability return again unto my own and being made uncapable can receive none from you or from any other though my present condition be

affirming also that for the present distresse it were good for all men so to be that the unmarried cares more for the things belonging to the Lord how he may please the Lord then the married doth The Fathers many of them are exceeding copious if not hyperbolicall in commendation of Virginity especially after that Jovinian seemed to undervalue it fideliumque matrimoniorum meritis adaequabat and made it of no greater merit then a vertuous Wedlock Which general Rules of the Apostle became appropriated to the Clergy first by conforming thereunto of their own accord as a matter voluntary next by the Authority of the Fathers who recommended it unto them for a more perfect state of life then that of marriage but left it howsoever as a matter arbitrary But after-ages finding out further motives to endure the business as viz. that being freed from domestick cares they might more readily attend Gods service more constantly pursue their studies more bountifully cherish and relieve the poor but specially that they might more chearfully infeoffe the Church with their possessions it came at last insensibly and by degrees to be imposed upon them as a matter necessary By meanes whereof the single life being generally imbraced by Clergymen in these Western parts it grew in time to be disputed whether ever it had been otherwise in the Church of God And in conclusion it was determined that however in some cases the Clergy were permitted to retain those Wives which they had taken before Orders yet that the Examples of men married after Orders were exceeding few if at all any could be found Thus was it in the blade or stalk no fault found with it But when it came to bring forth fruit to fecissent sructum then the case was otherwise and it appeared that howsoever continency and virginity were the gifts of God yet the restraint of marriage was a tare of Satans for what did follow hereupon but that the Clergy grew infamous by their frequent lusts Panormitan complaining plerosque coitu illi cito commaculari Cassander publickly affirming ut vix centesimum invenias that hardly one amongst a hundred did contain himself within the limits of his Vow the Canonists withall maintaining that Clerks were not to be deprived for their incontinency cùm pauci sine illo vitio inveniantur the mischief being grown so universal that it was thought uncapable of any remedy I willingly passe by their unnatural lusts for which they stand accused in the Poet Mantuan venerabilis ara cynaedis servit and that which followeth after nor will I tell you of the Fish-pond in Pope Gregories time wherein were found the skulls of 6000 Infants ex occultis fornicationibus adulteriis sacerdotum conceived to be the tragical effects of their loose affections And notwithstanding that these things were known and bitterly complained of by such devout and consciencious men as observed the same yet to so high an impudencie did they come at last that John the Cardinal of Cova preaching at noon against the marriage of Priests was the night following taken in adultery and Cardinal Campegius in the Diet of Norimberg did not shame to say that it was more lawful for a Priest to have many Concubines quàm vel uxorem unam ducere then one lawful Wife And why was all this suffered think you upon grounds of piety no but in point of policy to uphold the Popedom For when this matter was debated in the Co●ncel of Trent and that the Prelates there did not seem unwilling to ease the Clergy of that heavy but more scandalous yoke the Pope returned his absolute Negative and was much offended that they had suffered it to come in question Why so because that Church-men having Wives and Children to be as Hostages or pledges for their good beheaviour would become more obnoxious to the secular powers and more obedient to the pleasure and Command of their natural Princes adeoque Pontificem redigere ad solius Romae Episcopatum which would in fine prove prejudicial to the Popes Supremacy and limit his Authority to the Walls of Rome The fruits thus palpably discovering the true condition of the Doctrine begat withall a shrewd suspicion that possibly the reasons commonly alledged in defence thereof might be weak and wrested And upon search it did appear that the directions of St. Paul were general and did no more concern the Clergy then all people else some of them being only fitted to the present time and therefore not to make a rule for all future Ages that though the Fathers magnified and extolled the single life they imposed it not or if they did it was not more upon the Clergy then upon the Laicks and finally that Pope Siricius who imposed it first could find no Text in Scripture whereupon to ground it and therefore most prophanely wrested and abused that place Qui in carne sunt non possunt placere Deo to make it serviceable to his wretched ends And it was also found on further search into antiquity that this restraint of marriage being proposed unto the Fathers of the Council of Nice was by Paphnutius and the sounder part of that great Synod openly rejected that it was neither new nor strange to marry after holy Orders Eupsychius a Bishop of the Cappadocians whom Althanasius highly praiseth taking a Wife after he was advanced unto a Bishoprick and of a Bridegroom instantly become a Martyr dum adhuc quasi sponsus esse videretur saith the Tripartite History The like as to the point of marrying after holy orders Vincentius tells us of one Phileus an Egyptian Prelate The same may also be made good not only in the Eastern Church where the Priests are not yet debarred from marriage after Orders taken as it is noted on the Glosse on Gratian but for 1000 years together in these Western parts So lately it was before the Clergy were generally minded to yield to that slavish tyranny nor was it manifest on more mature deliberation that marriage in and of it self did any way disable men from Gods publick service the studying of the holy Scriptures o● the works of charity Greg. Nazianzen affirming of some friends of his which lived in Wedlock 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. That they were every way as eminent in all acts of godliness as those that did professe virginity Which with the wretched consequents before remembred being taken into consideration by our first Reformers and being it was observed withall that the restraint depended upon positive Lawes no Divine Commandement the wisdom of this State thought fit to take away those positive lawes on the which it stood and leave it arbitrary as at first And this they were the rather induced to do by reason that the rigorous necessity of a single life had formerly affrighted many a man of parts and learning from entring into holy Orders and filled the Church with ignorant and infamous persons By meanes of which indulgence granted as before the