in humane reason they can by no other means be remedied than by the special hand of Heaven Which we come therefore here to implore in a particular blessing upon the consultations and endeavours of the great Council of the Kingdom and in defeating the wicked counsels and devices of our enemies and uniting the hearts of all his Majesties loyal Protestant Subjects But these great Blessings we cannot reasonably hope to obtain no not by our Fasting and Humiliation and Prayers unless we endeavour a true reconciliation with God by being unfeignedly penitent and resolving to forsake those sins which we our selves confess have brought us into such distresses and perplexities as nothing else can remedy Now in order unto this As I excited you on the last Day of solemn Fasting and Prayer to a serious and speedy Repentance by such Arguments as I found in those words of our Saviour to another of the seven Churches of Asia ii 16. Repent or else I will come unto thee quickly and fight against thee with the sword of my mouth so at this time I shall direct you a little in the way and method of repentance and point at some things of which you are to repent from these words which I have read out of our Saviour's Letter to the Church of Sardis with whom we of this Church have too manifest a resemblance For as our blessed Lord complains ver 1. we have a name that we live i. e. are good Christians but alas in deed and truth are dead for we produce not the fruits of Christian vertue There is a great deal of bustle and stir about Religion for which we seem to be mightily concerned but the inward life and power of it is generally wanting which we do not love to be troubled withal Nay we can scarce say so much of our people as God doth of Judah in the first Lesson for Evening Prayer lviii Isai 2. They seek me daily and delight to know my ways as a Nation that did righteousness and forsook not the Ordinances of their God c. which alas we have most openly deserted though this was far short we find in that Chapter of making them an acceptable Nation to him At the best we must confess we are fallen asleep and grown very slothful as our Saviour here supposes ver 2. them of Sardis to have been and there is so great and universal a decay of true piety and goodness among us that we are in apparent danger to lose the small remainders of it Something good there is still left in this Church as there was in that but far from that intire and compleat obedience which our Lord expects from us as will appear by considering what is to be done by us for our recovery to a better condition And there are three things which our Lord here requires of them in my Text and are incumbent upon every one of us as our necessary Duty if we would be saved from our present danger First To remember what they had received and heard Secondly To hold it fast Thirdly To repent of their forgetfulness I suppose their looseness and indifferency in their Religion I shall treat of them all in the order wherein they stand and consider them both with respect to the condition of that Church to whom they were first delivered and then with respect to ours who have no less need of such admonitions I. The first of them supposes That they had been taught some Doctrin which they had received and entertained with belief and had heard it also often since inculcated and pressed so I understand the words by those Pastors who were set over them by the Apostle or those who first delivered the Truth unto them Which was nothing else but the Christian Religion of which I must not here speak at large but only tell you It is that way of serving God which is prescribed by Christ and his Apostles in the Books of the New Testament Wherein we now read what they then received by word of mouth from the Apostles and understand fully what we must believe and do to be saved Now as there is no cause to which God more frequently ascribes the sins and particularly the Idolatry of the Children of Israel than their forgetfulness of Him and of his Law and of what He had done for them so this very thing stupid forgetfulness and neglect of what Christ and his Apostles delivered by Signs and wonders and mighty deeds introduced that deadness in Religion of which our Saviour complains in the beginning of this Chapter and He foresaw would bring in all the corruptions which afterwards followed in the Church and began very early to appear in the Christian World For there arose false Apostles and false Prophets nay direct Antichrists as this very Apostle Sr John tells us men who denied the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ that brought in damnable Heresies sleighted the authority of the Apostles turned the Grace of God into lasciviousness nay brought back the old Idolatry as you read in the foregoing Chapter of this Book vers 14.20 And though this Church of Sardis is not charged with so deep a degree of Apostasie as those of Pergamus and Thyatira yet there was great danger of falling into it unless they took this advice of our Saviour to remember better than they had done what they had received and heard Which is the very same with that which God himself had given of old to the Israelites to prevent their defection from Him in many places of the Book of Deuteronomy viii 1 2 18 c. and which his Prophets were wont to give in after times as the first step to their recovery when they had revolted from God their Saviour xlvi Isai 8 9. vi Mic. 5. Who here calls upon his Church in like manner to bring to remembrance and think again and again till they had fixed it in their mind what they had received and with what affection also they had embraced the Gospel of God's Grace for that may be implied in the Particle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 how you have received and heard as the only means to preserve them from lapsing farther into a worse condition and losing that good which was still remaining but ready to dye among them This the Apostles afterward endeavoured with great care and diligence and promised as we read in St. Peter 2. i. 12 13 15. to endeavour that after their decease they might have those things in remembrance always which they had been taught But for want of the like diligence and watchfulness in the people who did not take such heed as they ought to have done to these admonitions the Christian Religion in process of time was so adulterated that a great part of the Church fell into that lamentable apostasie which is foretold and described in this Book of the Revelation and which we see now fulfilled too plainly in the Church of Rome and those of its
Christs Counsel TO HIS CHURCH IN TWO SERMONS Preached at the Two Last Fasts ONE APRIL xi MDCLXXIX THE OTHER DECEMBER xxii MDCLXXX By SYMON PATRICK D. D. DEAN of PETERBVRGH and Chaplain in Ordinary to His MAJESTY LONDON Printed by J. Macock for R. Royston Bookseller to His Most Sacred Majesty 1681. TO THE Right Honourable WILLIAM EARL of BEDFORD Knight of the Most Noble Order of the GARTER c. My very good LORD and PATRON MY LORD BEing desired by some in my Parish to print the Sermon I preached on the last Fast-day I found it necessary to prefix to it the Sermon I preacht the Fast before because this depends on that and have presumed to prefix Your Lordships Name to both because it is by Your Favour and Patronage that I preached either the one or the other in that Place The matter of them is suitable to the occasion For in the First I have chiefly pressed the General Remedy of all the evils under which we labour in the Second one Particular Remedy and in both exposed the wickedness of Popery But I have shown withal that all we say against it will not keep it out unless we will so duly prize our own Religion as to live according to it Which being in the general allowed even by those who continue to live quite contrary I see no reason why any Body should quarrel with what I have said about one particular Duty of our Religion unless they think that we have nothing to answer for upon the account of our contempt of Christs Ministers and of that Order which He hath appointed in His Church which seems to me such a dangerous sin that I could not think I discharged a good Conscience if at such a time and such an occasion I took no notice of it Wherein I do not plead our own Cause as some are wont to object to such Discourses but the Cause of Christ and of His Religion which now lyes a bleeding and we fear a dying by the wounds we give it our selves through the subtile Contrivance of our Romish Adversaries Whose Plots have been many and horrid but their first and greatest strength as appears by the directions given to their Emissaries lay in this To bring the whole Ministry of the Church of England into contempt and to divide the People from their established Pastors into a great many little Bodies under no Government but what they themselves pleased And it is apparent that by the same Popish artifice this poysonous conceit is industriously infused into the peoples mind that we are looking towards Rome if we do but tell them that they ought not to form opinions as they think good but guide themselves in their judgment by our direction But I hope the better sort are not ignorant by this time of their devices and that though there be some in the Ministry who are not so fit as they should be to direct and guide their Flocks yet they will consider that the men who most complain of it are such as will be guided by none at all no not by those whose ability and honesty cannot be suspected And it is a very great Truth also that their intemperate Speeches against the Clergy is the thing that hath frighted the weaker sort of them into such an apprehension of danger from those men as hath made them guilty of the follies which have done great injury to us all This My Lord is the grief of all good Men among us who consider the state we are in and desine the safety or have any love for the honour of our Religion For we seem now to be in such a condition as Gregory Nyssen describes in his days when things were come to such a pass that the people neither understood themselves from their own inward sense what was fit for them nor would believe those that rightly informed them No saith he * Tom. 2. p. 745. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We are exceeding angry at our Teachers and very hardly bear their admonitions their counsels are a grievance and their instruction in good things we nauseate as sick men do the medicines which their Physicians exhibite to them If a reproof be given we take it heavily if we hear a rougher word we fall into a rage if we be thrust out of the Church we blaspheme This is not the disposition of Learners nor the obedience of Disciples but the ambitious contention of seditious and rebellious people For a Scholar who desires to learn any common Art or Science ought to be like a little Child much more ought he to be like a sucking Infant who would be instructed in Christian piety because our Lord hath honoured that Age as apt to receive impressions with his commendation Now no Child rises up against the Characters and the Lineaments that his Master makes for him in Wax nor devises new Elements by a frantick Licence innovating about making Letters but exercises his hand after his Masters Copy and both in word and deed imitates what his Director delivers to him c. But a Christian doth not thus though he hath heard That except ye be converted and become like little Children ye cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven but when the Priest severely corrects his errour openly contradicts and mutters between his teeth and going round the Streets and the places of publick concourse rails and reviles and as it follows a little after sits judging even me the Bishop in the Chair of the Scorner Now what can the end of such things be but utter confusion Which necessarily follows when the unity that ought to be between the Pastors and people is quite dissolved or the people some upon one account some upon another lose all their respect for them and love to them for their works sake There hath been much speech Your Lordship knows of a Prophecy as it is called of Bishop Usher late Primate of Armagh which hath very much startled many and made them fear dreadful things Though the certainty of it hath not been so publickly attested as that which I have been bold to set down in the first of these Sermons Where Your Lordship will find something that looks like a sad Prediction which an excellent Divine and holy Man of this Church published long ago in a Book of his upon the Creed Which I wish were diligently heeded and laid to heart because it directs to the way whereby the threatning may be avoided pointing to the very sin that deserves the Judgment he denounces Which if it be slighted when we are told of it it will be one of the worst signs that can be his Prognostication will prove true and be fulfilled But they who are appointed to stand on the Watch-Tower and give notice of danger have delivered their own Souls when they have faithfully declared the mind of Christ in this matter Which was the greatest motive I had both to preach and to print these Sermons which I am
sure will be acceptable to Your Lordship not only because you have a due respect to Gods Ministers but because I present them as a token of my gratitude and of the honour I have for Your Lordship being My LORD Your most humble Servant S. PATRICK A SERMON PREACHED ON THE FAST-DAY APRIL xi MDCLXXIX REVEL II. 16. Repent or else I will come unto thee quickly and I will fight against them with the sword of my mouth WHAT our Saviour had said unto the Jews before his death in the Second Lesson for this Morning Prayer xiii Luke 3 5. Except ye repent ye shall all likewise perish He saith here in effect after his ascension to Heaven unto the Gentile Christians Repent or else I will come quickly and will fight against them with the sword of any mouth This is a Lesson for all Nations and for all Ages in which the Church of England is as much concerned now as the Church of Pergamus was then Though this Letter was not particularly directed unto us no more than to the rest of the Christian World yet the next words tell us that our Lord expects every body should take notice of it consider it and take warning by it as much as if it had been addressed to them by name ver 17. He that hath an ear to hear let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the Churches We all herein read our own doom and ought to understand the words as if our Lord had enlarged them in such a general Admonition as he gives in another case about watching xiii Mark ult And what I say unto the Church of Pergamus I say unto all Repent Repent or else I will come quickly and will fight against them with the sword of my mouth In which words you may easily discern An Exhortation to a most necessary Duty which is To repent and a Commination in case the Exhortation be not obeyed which is A denunciation of war against such obstinate Offenders who provoke him to sharpen against them the sword of his mouth The Exhortation is so frequently pressed and as frequently explained that I cannot think it fit to spend the time in telling you what it is to repent For you all know well enough that it is such a godly sorrow for what we have done amiss as makes us not only afflict our selves for our sins but utterly renounce and forsake them If you know your Baptismal Vow as who is there that can be unacquainted with it unless he affect a stupid and brutish ignorance it is easie to understand that nothing less than this can pass with God for Repentance If we had never broken that Vow there would have been no need of Repentance which is the repairing of that breach and the making it up again And how shall we make all whole but only by observing that Vow better which we have violated and broken No man of sense can think there is any other way of being reconciled to God after we have offended him but only by becoming more dutiful to him Performing that is those engagements which we always had to him and from which we can never be absolved because beside our natural obligation we have tyed and bound our selves by a solemn and most sacred Vow to be his faithful Servants When we do not keep this Vow we sin and bring a heavy guilt upon our selves From which sin and guilt if we would be freed we must Repent that is keep our Vow better forsaking the Devil and all his works heartily believing God's holy Word and obediently keeping his Commandments If we be truly sorrowful and afflicted that we have not done thus in which Repentance begins we must resolve and seriously endeavour to make this our business hereafter in which Repentance ends and is compleated I shall say no more in so plain a business which hath been urged upon you a thousand times not by one alone but by all God's Ministers that ever you heard preach about it And what Theme is there more common that comes oftner into the Pulpits I wish the perpetual sound of it without due regard have not made it become so ineffectual that now men turn a deaf ear to such Discourses as beaten and thredbare Subjects to which they need not give any attendance But if any man have an ear still open let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the Churches here in this Book Let him hear at least what a desperate course he runs if he continue to neglect a Duty which is so well known that he thinks he need not hear of it any more For our Saviour threatens such as would not repent that he would come unto them quickly and fight against them with the sword of his mouth The first Motive you know to a change is commonly an apprehension of the danger of that course wherein a man is at present engaged This is apt to put a stop unto him in his way and bring him to a stand The very first sight of it when it smites his Soul is wont to repress the violence and heat wherewith he pursues his sinful desires A new scene of thoughts begin to appear in his mind and he is led to consider with himself Whither am I going What mischief is this which threatens me Whither will this course carry me and what will be the end of these things And if the danger be very great and pressing and his apprehension of it also be great and proportionable to the danger this strikes the greater fear and dread into his Soul And fear of what will insue disposes him to a change and alteration of his course of life that he may escape those miseries which he sees he is drawing upon himself Especially if he be perswaded as you have often heard that no terrours or affrightments no entreaties or prayers no crys or tears no sadness or affliction of Spirit no outward humiliation or abasements no purposes no promises will prevail for his deliverance from that danger without an effectual reformation and forsaking those wicked ways that necessarily lead to death and destruction And it is no hard matter one would think for men to convince themselves of this Truth For suppose you were in a journey and you should be told of nay should see a great Pit or Precipice to which and no whither else that Road did directly lead would you think of any other means to avoid it but only by turning into another path Though you should quiver and tremble like a Leaf when it is shaken with the Wind though you should conceive the greatest horrour and offer never so many Prayers and Vows nay though you turned your faces about and looked the contrary way yet if still you should proceed and go forward in that Road you would most certainly hurle your selves though you turn'd your backs of it and were loth to see it into inevitable ruine This is exactly the case of every Sinner who besides that his way
whereby they were disposed to receive any Religion which the great men of this World should be pleased to set up by their Authority Which sad Complaint with much more that there follows I wish we had no cause to renew in this Church and had not lost our first love to our Saviour and to his holy Word Which being disgraced by the means forementioned better people have been infected with such a negligence that few read the holy Scriptures as they were wont heretofore to do but live as if they believed the Papists say true That the reading of the Scriptures is the cause of all the mischiefs that are befallen us Nay the publick reading of them in the Church is not so reverently regarded as formerly it was and as it ought to be For there are those that never mind what is read but look upon that as a vacant time to gaze about them or to whisper and discourse what they please one with another In times past good people were wont to bring their Bibles along with them hither but that now is worn out of use or so little practised that it looks as if they were as much ashamed of it as to appear in an old fashion which is held ridiculous Let such things therefore be amended I beseech you if you mean to save your Religion from being destroyed by our Romish Adversaries whom we have highly gratified by these things and invited to plot our ruine Let all men among us become serious Believers and shew that they are by reverencing and reading the holy Scriptures by frequenting the holy Assemblies and there duly attending to them by growing truly more knowing in the ground and foundation of our Religion and taking such care to be acquainted with the Scriptures that this may not be our condemnation that they lay open before us and were put into our hands in a language we could understand and yet we despised them or would not mind them II. The mischief of which is apparent For if we proceed to examine our selves upon the second Head we shall find a most lamentable account either of our ignorance or negligence or wilful disobedience For who doth not see that the Fruits of Faith are so much wanting that we are in danger to perish merely because there is so little integrity so little common honesty remaining among us but so much falseness lewdness filthiness and sottish debauchery as have made men so beyond measure dull and stupid that it hath given our Adversaries hope they were disposed to receive any Religion Nay they who are better enclined have been too careless in the Divine Service too frozen in their Devotion and not solicitous enough in the mortifying their unruly affections and passions in bridling their tongues and adding to their Faith all those Graces about which St. Peter requires us to give all diligence 2 Pet. i. 5 c. And yet the Grace of the Gospel teaches us so plainly how to walk and to please God that it is a wonder every Body does not look upon a holy life as the most necessary part of Christianity For nothing is there so earnestly pressed as this which is most lacking among us who live as it follows there in St. Peter ver 9. like blind men or which is all one that cannot see afar off nothing at a distance but merely that which is held before their eyes having forgotten that they were purged from their old sins do not reflect that is upon what was done at their Baptism but as if they were not able to look so far back wallow in their filthiness which then they solemnly renounced But this is too large a Subject for a particular Discourse and therefore I must leave it to your own private examination and search whether you have not relied too much contrary to what you have received and heard and professed upon a naked Faith and the merits of our Saviour without that care which He requires to make your Faith work by love to God and to your Neighbours And here there are as many sins to be repented of as there are Christian Duties to be practised if we have been negligent in any of them And if we will not amend but still continue to be barren and unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ with what reason do we expect that He should be pleased with an idle Faith which doth us no good and not rather look for that doom which was pronounced upon the empty Fig-Tree Cut it down why cumbreth it the ground III. For the preventing of which dreadful Sentence I must call you to repentance for one most dangerous sin contrary to our Faith and Christian Profession which I fear too many will find themselves guilty of if they will but be at the pains to examine the state of their souls upon the third Head viz. The demeanour of the people towards their spiritual Pastors and Guides in the way to salvation Towards whom there are a great many pious persons it must be thankfully acknowledged who still preserve in their hearts and behaviour that due regard which Religion and reason require But it must on the other hand be bewailed that there are vast numbers among all sorts of men who do not only sleight them but have shaken off the yoke of obedience to them Which is the thing above all others that hath made the Papists so audacious and will certainly if it be not amended bring in Popery at last among us Be not offended I beseech you if in a time when plain dealing is so necessary and in a matter of such great consequence as I apprehend it I be so bold as to tell you that there are those who oppose themselves so senselesly as well as arrogantly to all spiritual Authority that this Doctrine of obedience to it they call Popery Which is a foul reproach to the Reformation an Apostasie from its Principles and a casting off the direction of the holy Scriptures which require such obedience as we preach For we do not bid men follow any Guides but such as take God for their Guide that is guide themselves and the people by the Word of God If we did go about to hide that from the peoples eyes and hinder them from reading it it would be an evident sign that we knew our selves to be reproved by the Scriptures and that instead of submitting to that Rule we would make our own authority to be the supreme Rule which is the crime of the Roman Church But there is no colour for any such charge to be laid against us who exhort who press the people to be diligent in reading the holy Scriptures only we desire them as the Scriptures themselves do that they would take along with them the assistance and direction of those whom Christ hath appointed to guide their judgment Without which direction men may easily see if they please to read them what a high crime it is to despise and
satisfied but fearing withal it may prove a sin not to obey to use all means for satisfaction not absolutely denying obedience much less reviling their Injunctions or making violent oppositions to them which commonly ends in wresting all authority out of their Pastors hands but merely not doing for the present what is enjoyned modestly entreating their forbearance in such matters or if it cannot be obtained peaceably and patiently submitting to their censures Which sure would not be heavy upon such humble modest and truly conscientious Christians if they should God would judge such Governours for their unreasonable severity but there would rather be ways found out to make up the difference without taking their Pastors power from them and governing themselves as they please For God I am confident would enlighten the one or the other to see either their errour in enjoyning or in not obeying 5. And this that I have said is the least that can be meant in such places of Scripture as these 1 Thess v. 12 13. We beseech you Brethren to know that is to love them which labour among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you And to esteem them highly in love for their works sake and to be at peace among your selves Which they could not fail to be as long as they kept close to their spiritual Instructors and Governours And xiii Heb. 17. Obey them that have the Rule over you and submit your selves for they watch for your souls c. And 1 Pet. v. 5. Likewise ye younger submit your selves unto the Elders Where first observe the name given to the Pastors of the Church viz. Elders which imports an Office and Authority in the language of all Nations and here in St. Peter implies so high an Authority in the Rulers of the Church that the Apostle supposes more danger of its growing too imperious than of its being slighted and disobeyed For he requires the Elders to feed that is govern as well as teach the Flock of God not as Lords of Gods heritage but being ensamples to the Flock ver 2 3. Which Caution against domineering and Lording it as we speak had been idle if the power of the Pastors and the obedience due and paid then to it had not been so great that it might easily grow extravagant such was the reverence they had to their Persons and deference to their Judgments and submission to their Authority For the word submit you may observe further is the very same whereby he expresses in the second Chapter ver 13. the obedience he would have them give to Kings and those in Authority under them And therefore cannot signifie less than that their directions ought to be followed and the Flock ruled by their Orders in all things where God hath not ordered otherways and that they should be afraid to offend them by disobedience and much more by shaking off subjection to them and denying their Authority 6. Which includes in it a power of ordaining and constituting the manner of performing the Service of God according to His Word which requires that all things be done decently and in order 1 Cor. xiv 40. The things themselves to be done which that place speaks of are many of them specified in that very Chapter and the rest in other parts of the holy Scripture but the decent manner form and order how they shall be done is no where particularly defined there And therefore though by virtue of this Precept no Body hath power to form new Articles of Faith new Objects of Worship new Sacraments c. wherein the Church of Rome hath abused her power yet the substance of Religion being thus prescribed in His Word the order disposition form and manner of doing the Duties of Religion is left hereby to be determined by the wisdom of the Governours of the Church according to the general Rules of the holy Scripture Which they cannot indeed enact into Laws binding by civil penalties yet no Christian Magistrate to whom that power belongs ever denied them a directive power in making Rules for the Government of the Church or at any time made them without them but always took their advice in such matters For who so well able to tell as they what is most consonant to the Scriptures profitable for their Flock and agreeable to what hath been practised in the Church of God Which always taught and it is as undoubted a principle of the Reformation as any other That where the holy Scriptures have not given particular directions for the decent performance of the Duties they call for as it was impossible they should for all Cases Times and Countries there the Ministers of Christ whom the holy Scriptures appoint to be the Governours of His Church are to draw up Orders and Rules agreeable to the general Rule which the people ought to observe And it is very reasonable to interpret the place of the Apostle before mentioned in this manner Let all things be done first 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 decently or honestly after a comely beseeming fashion with such Rites as will procure veneration to holy things at least secure the service of God from contempt and promote devotion in the people and the way to have things done with such gravity as this word imports is next to do them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to order or by the deliberate appointment of those who have authority to ordain such Rites as will become holy actions An example of which we have in that very Chapter ver 32. where even such as had extraordinary spiritual gists are required to submit to this Order For the Spirits of the Prophets he saith are subject to the Prophets That is there was such a subordination in that Order of men that when one was prophesying he was to cease if a superior Prophet commanded him silence Which among other places of Scripture might silence those who question the authority of the present Governours of our Church because of their superiority over other Ministers Or it might be sufficient to make them modest in this thing to say only this That Christ sure did not leave His Church without a Government which had been to leave no Church and that it is incredible the whole Church Pastors and people should agree to change His Government without any contradiction that we can find into this which we have if this be not it which He left And that I think hath been as little nay less questioned as any Point of Christianity which must needs weigh much with all considerate minds 7. Who likewise cannot but grant that things being thus ordered and appointed by the Authority of Christs Ministers those Constitutions in all reason ought to be obeyed by those who are subject to them and not left at liberty whether the people will observe them or no. This is most judiciously handled by Mr Calvin in the Tenth Chapter of the Fourth Book of his Institutions which is well worth the