to let them alone either in publike or private whatever other work we have to do I confess I am forced frequently to neglect that which should tend to the further encrease of knowledge in the godly and may be called stronger meat because of the lamentable necessity of the unconverted Who is able to talk of Controversies or nice unnecessary points yea or truths of a lower degree of necessity how excellent soever while he seeth a company of ignorant carnal miserable sinners before his face that must be chang'd or damn'd Me thinks I even see them entring upon their final woe Me thinks I even hear them crying out for help and speedyest help Their misery speaks the lowder because they have not hearts to seek or ask for help themselves Many a time have I known that I had some hearers of higher fancies that lookt for rarities and were addicted to despise the Ministery if he told them not somewhat more then ordinary and yet I could not find in my heart to turn from the observation of the necessities of the impenitent for the humouring of these nor to leave speaking to the apparently miserable for their salvation to speak to such novelists for the clawing of their ears no nor so much as otherwise should be done to the weak for their confirmation and increase in grace Me thinks as Pauls Spirit was stir'd within him when he saw the Athenians so addicted to Idolatry Acts 17. 16. so it should cast us into one of his paroxisms to see so many men in great probabilitie of being everlastingly undone and if by faith we did indeed look upon them as within a step of hell it should more effectually untye our tongues then they tell us that Croesus danger did his sons He that will let a sinner go to hell for want of speaking to him doth set less by souls then the Redeemer of souls did and less by his neighbour then rational Charity will allow him to do by his greatest enemy O therefore Brethren whomsoever you neglect neglect not the most miserable Whatever you pass over forget not poor souls that are under the condemnation and curse of the Law and may look every hour for the infernal execution if a speedy change do not prevent it O call after the impenitent and ply this great work of converting souls whatever else you leave undone 2. The next part of the Ministerial work is for the building up of those that are already truly converted And according to the various states of these the work is various in general as the persons are either such as are young and weak or such as are in danger of growing worse or such as are already declining so our work is all reducible to these three Confirmation and Progress Preservation and Restauration 1. We have many of our flock that are young and weak though of long standing yet of small proficiency or strength Heb. 5. 11 12. And indeed it is the most common condition of the godly Most of them â—â—ick in weak and low degrees of grace And it is no easie matter to get them higher To bring them to higher and stricter opinions is very easie that is to bring them from the truth into error on the right hand as well as on the left but to encrease their knowledge and gifts is not easie but to encrease their graces is the hardest of all It is a very troublesom thing to be weak It keepeth under dangers it abateth consolation and delight in God and taketh off the sweetness of his waies and maketh us go to work with too much backwardness and come off with little peace or profit It maketh us less serviceable to God and man to bring less honour to our Master and profession and do less good to all about us We find small benefit by the means we use we too easily play with the Serpents baits and are insnared by his wiles A Seducer will easily make us shake and evil may be made appear to us as Good truth as falshood sin as a duty and so on the contrary we are less able to resist and stand in an encounter we sooner fall we hardlier rise and are apter to prove a scandal and reproach to our profession We less know our selves and are more apt to be mistaken in our own estate not observing corruptions when they have got advantage we are dshonourable to the Gospel by our very weakness and little useful to any about us and in a word though we live to less profit to our selves or others yet are we unwilling and too unready to dye And seeing the case of weakliness is comparatively so sad how diligent should we be to cherish and encrease their grace The strength of Christians is the honour of the Church When men are inflamed with the Love of God and live by a lively working saith and set light by the profits and honours of the world and love one another with a pure heart fervently and can bear and heartily forgive a wrong and suffer joyfully for the cause of Christ and study to do good and walk in offensively and harmlesly in the world as ready to be servants of all men for their good becoming all things to all men to win them and yet abstaining from the appearances of evil and seasoning all their actions with a sweet mixture of Prudence Humility Zeal and Heavenly spirituality O what an honour are such to their professions What ornaments to the Church and how excellently serviceable to God and man Men would sooner believe that the Gospel is indeed a word of truth and power if they could see more such effects of it upon the hearts and lives of men The world is better able to read the nature of Religion in a mans life then in the Bible They that obey not the word may be won by the conversations of such as these 1 Pet. 3. 1. It is therefore a necessary part of our work to labour more in the polishing and perfecting of the Saints that they may be strong in the Lord and fitted for their masters use 2. Another sort of Converts that need our special help are those that labour under some particular distemper that keeps under their graces and maketh them temptations and troubles to others and a burden to themselves For alas too many such there are Some that are specially addicted to Pride and some to worldliness and some to this or that sensual desire and many to frowardness and disturbing passions It is our duty to set in for the assistance of all these and partly by disswasions and clear discoveries of the odiousness of the sin and partly by suitable directions about the way of remedy to help them to a fuller conquest of their corruptions We are leaders of Christs Army against the powers of darkness and must resist all the works of darkness wherever we find them though it be in the children of light We must be no more tender of the sins of
would have done it on insufficient terms By which means the enemy of Peace hath brought it to pass that whoever maketh motion for Peace is presently under suspition of being one that hath need of it for an indulgence to his own Errors A fearful case that heresie should be so credited as if none were such friends to Unity and Peace as they And that so great and necessary a duty upon which the Churches wellfare doth so depend should be brought into such suspition or disgrace Brethren I speak not all this without apparent reason We have as sad divisions among us in England considering the piety of the persons and the smallness of the matter of our discord as most Nations under heaven have known The most that keeps us at odds is but about the right form and order of Church-Government Is the distance so great that Presbyterian Episcopal and Independent might not be well agreed Were they but heartily willing and forward for peace they might I know they might I have spoken with some moderate men of all the parties and I perceive by their concessions it were an easie work Were mens hearts but sensible of the Churches case and unfeignedly touched with Love to one another and did they but heartily set themselves to seek it the settling of a safe and happy Peace were an easie work If we could not in every point agree we might easily find out and narrow out differences and hold Communion upon our agreement in the main determining of the safest way for the managing of our few and small disagreements without the danger or trouble of the Church But is this much done It is not done To the shame of all our faces be it spoken it is not done Let each party flatter themselves now as they please it will be recorded to the shame of the Ministery of England while the Gospel shall abide in the Christian world What will be recorded What Why this That learned and godly Ministers in England did first disagree among themselves and head and lead on their people in those disagreements That they proceeded in them for the space of 14. years already how much more will be God knows and in all that time had as great advantages and opportunities for Agreement as any people in the world They had the sad experience of the conflagration of the Common-wealth and were scourged to it by a calamitous war They saw the fearful confusions in the Church and the perverting of multitudes of seduced souls some to be Seekers some Socinians some Ranters Quakers or Infidels They saw the continual exasperation of minds and the jealousies and bitterness that their distance bred and how it was the â—uel of a daily course of sin And yet for all these they were not moved to effectual endeavours for a cure They could let a course of sin run on they could let divisions and heresies increase they see the Church of Christ so low and yet forbear the cheapest cure that ever a people could be called to use They could see and hear and know that we were all made a very derision to our enemies and the publike scorn or pitty of the world and yet set still as if all this were little to them They had Magistrates that did not hinder them from the work but gave them full liberty to have consulted and endeavoured a full agreement They lived neer together and might have easily met together for the work and if one or two or an hundred meetings could not have accomplisht it they might have held on till it was done And yet for all this there is no such thing done not any considerable attempt yet made And O what hainous aggravations do accompany this sin Never men since the Apostles daies I think did make greater profession of godliness The most of them are bound by solemn Oathes and Covenants for unity and reformation They all confess the worth of peace and most of them will preach for it and talk for it while they set still and neglect it as if it were not worth the looking after They will read and preach on those Texts that command men to follow peace with all men and as much as in us lyeth if it be possible to live peaceably with them and yet we are so far from following it and doing all that possibly we can for it that too many will snarl at it and malign and censure any that endeavour it as if all zeal for Peace did proceed from an abatement of our zeal for holiness and as if holiness and peace were so fallen out that there were no reconciling them when yet they have found by long experience that concord is a sure friend to Piety and Piety alwaies moves to Concord We have seen how Errors and Heresies breed by Discord as Discord is bred and fed by them We have seen to our sorrow that where the servants of God should live together as one of one heart and one soul and one lip and should promote each others faith and holiness and admonish and assist each other against sin and rejoyce together in the hope of their future glory we have contrarily lived in mutual jealousies and drowned holy love in bitter contendings and have studyed to disgrace and undermine one another and to increase our own parties by right or wrong and we that were wont to glory of our Love to the Brethren as the certain mark of our sincerity in the faith have now turned it into a Love of a Party only and those that are against that Party have more of our spleen and envy and malice then our love I know this is not so with all nor prevalently with any true Believer but yet it is so common that it may cause us to question the sincerity of many that are thought by themselves and others to be most sincere And it is not our selves only that are scorched in this flame but we have drawn our people into it and cherished them in it so that most of the godly in the Nation are fallen into several parties and have turned much of their antient Piety into vain Opinions and vain Disputes and envyings and animosities Yea whereas it was wont to be made the certain mark of a graceless wretch to deride the godly how few be there now that stick at secret deriding and slandering those that are not of their opinion A pious Prelatical man can reverently scorn and slander a Presbyterian and some of them an Independent and an Independent both And which is the worst of all the common ignorant people take notice of all this and do not only deride us but are hardened by us against Religion and when we go about to perswade them to be Religious they see so many Parties that they know not which to joyn with and think that it is as good be of none at all as of any when they are uncertain which is the right And thus thousands are grown into a
happy Church and Commonwealth The same I mean also along of the Course of Schoolmasters to their scholars But when Languages and Philosophy have almost all their time and diligence and instead of reading Philosophy like Divines they read Divinity like Philosophers as if it were a thing of no more moment then a lesson of Musick or Arithmetick and not the doctrine of Everlasting life this is it that blasteth so many in the bud and pestereth the Church with unsanctified Teachers Hence it is that we have so many worldlings to preach of the invisible felicity and so many carnal men to declare the mysteries of the Spirit and I would I might not say so many Infidels to preach Christ or so many Atheists to preach the living God And when they are taught Philosophy before or without Religion what wonder if their Philosophy be all or most of their Religion and if they grow up into admirations of their unprofitable fancies and deifie their own deluded brains when they know no other God and if they reduce all their Theologie to their Philosophy like Campanella White and other self-admirers or if they take Christianity for a meer delusion and fall with Hobbs to write Leviathans or with the L. Herbert to write such Treatises de veritate as shall shew the world how little they esteem of verity or at best if they turn Paracelsian Behmenists and spin them a Religion from their own inventions Again therefore I address my self to all them that have the education of youth especially in order to preparation for the Ministery You that are Schoolmasters and Tutors begin and end with the things of God Speak daily to the hearts of your Schollars those things that must be wrought into their hearts or else they are undone Let some piercing words fall frequently from your mouthes of God and the state of their souls and the life to come Do not say They are too young to understand and entertain them You little know what impressions they may make which you discern not Not only the soul of that boy but a Congregation or many souls therein may have cause to bless God for your zeal and diligence yea for one such seasonable word You have a great advantage above others to do them good You have them before they are grown to the worst and they will hear you when they will not hear another If they are destinated to the Ministery you are preparing them for the special service of God and must they not first have the knowledge of him whom they must serve O think with your selves what a sad thing it will be to their own souls and what a wrong to the Church of God if they come out from you with common and carnal hearts to so holy and spiritual and great a work Of an hundred Students that be in one of your Colledges how many may there be that are serious experienced godly men some talk of too small a number If you should send one half of them on a work that they are un it for what bloody work will they make in the Church or Countries Whereas if you be the means of their through-sanctification how many souls may bless you and what greater good can you do the Church When once their hearts are savingly affected with the Doctrine which they study and preach they will study it more heartily and preach it heartily their own experience will direct them to the fittest subjects and will furnish them with matter and quicken them to set it home and I observe that the best of our hearers can feel and favour such experimental preachers and usually do less regard others what ever may be their accomplishments See therefore that you make not work for Sequestrators nor for the groans and lamentation of the Church nor for the great Tormenter of the murderers of souls SECT VI. 2. MY second particular Exhortation is this Content not your selves to have the main work of grace but be also very careful that your graces be kept in life and action and that you preach to your selves the Sermons that you studâ— before you preach them to others If you did this for your own sakes it would be no lost labour but I am speaking to you upon the publike account and that you would do it for the sake of the Church When your minds are in a heavenly holy frame your people are like to partake of the fruits of it Your prayers and praises and doctrine will be heavenly and sweet to them They will likely feel when you have been much with God That which is on your hearts most is like to be most in their ears I confess I must speak it by lamentable experience that I publish to my Flock the distempers of my soul when I let my heart grow cold my preaching is cold and when it is confused my preaching will be so and so I can observe too oft in the best of my hearers that when I have a while grown cold in preaching they have cooled accordingly and the next Prayers that I have heard from them hath been too like my preaching We are the Nurses of Christs little ones If we forbear our food we shall famish them they will quickly find it in the want of Milk and we may quickly see it again on them in the lean and dull discharge of their several duties If we let our Love go down we are not so like to raise up theirs If we abate our holy care and fear it will appear in our Doctrine If the matter shew it not the manner will If we feed on unwholsom food either errors or fruitless controversies our hearers are like to fare the worse for it Whereas if we could abound in Faith and Love and Zeal how would it over-flow to the refreshing of our Congregations and how would it appear in the increase of the same graces in others O Brethren watch therefore over your own hearts keep out lusts and passions and worldly inclinations Keep up the life of Faith and Love Be much at home and be much with God If it be not your daily serious business to study your own hearts and subdue corruptions and live as upon God if you make it not your very work which you constantly attend all will go amiss and you will starve your auditors or if you have but an affected servency you cannot expect such a blessing to attend it Be much above all in secret prayer and meditation There you must fetch the heavenly fire that must kindle your sacrifices Remember you cannot decline and neglect your duty to your own hurt alone but many will be losers by it as well as you For your peoples sakes therefore look to your hearts If a pang of spiritual Pride should overtake you and you should grow into any dangerous or schismatical conceits and vent your own over-valued inventions to draw away Disciples after you what a wound might this prove to the Church that you
wicked man can be no true friend and if you befriend their wickedness you shew that you are such your selves Pretend not to love them if you favour their sins and seek not their salvation Solisancti Dei sunt inter se amici Basil Improborum stultorum nemo amicus Id. By favouring their sin you will shew your enmity to God then how can you love your brother Amicus esse homini non potest qui Deo fuerit inimicus Ambros If you be their best friends help them against their worst enemies Amicus animae custos And think not all sharpness inconsistent with Love Parents will correct their children And God himself will chasten every son that he loveth Melius est cum severitate diligere quam cum lenitate decipere Aug. Besides this the nature of love is to excite men to do good and to do it speedily diligently and as much as we can Alios curat aedificare alios contremiscit offendere ad alios se inclinat cum aliis blanda aliis severa nulli inimica omnibus mater August de Catech. Ecce quem amas Domine infirmatur Non dixerunt veni Amanti enim tantum nunciandum fuit sufficiet ut noverit Non onim amaâ— deserit August in Ioan. So will it be with us 12. Another necessary concomitant of our work is Patience We must bear with many abuses and injuries from those that we are doing good for When we have studyed for them and prayed for them and beseeched and exhorted them with all condescention and spent our selves for them and given them what we are able and tendered them as if they had been our children we must look that many should requite us with scorn and hatred and contempt and cast our kindness in our faces with disdain and take us for their enemies because we tell them the truth and that the more we love the less we shall be beloved And all this must be patiently undergone and still we must unwearyedly hold on in doing good in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves if God peradventure will give them repentance c. If they unthankfully scorn and reject our Teaching and bid us look to our selves and care not for them yet must we hold on We have to deal with distracted men that will flye in the face of their Physitian but we must not therefore forsake the cure He is unworthy to be a Physitian that will be driven away from a phrenitick patient by foul words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. i. e. Sicut insani etiam medicum impetere conantur ita illi saith Chrysost of the Sodomites Hom. 43. in Gen. Et alibi Medici ferant aegrotum calcibus ferientem incessentem contumelâ—is convitiis nec off enduntur quia nihil aliud quam salutem agroti quaerentes licet facientis indecora non ideo acura desistunt sic concionator licet malae patiatur ab auditoribus c. If we tell them that natural men favour not the things of the spirit and are besides themselves in matters of salvation we must measure our expectations accordingly and not look thar fools should make us as grateful a return as the wise These are things that all of us can say but when we come to the practice with sinners that reproach and slander us fur our love and are readyer to spit in our faces then to give us thanks for our advice what heart-risings wâ—ll there be and how will the remnants of old Adam pride and passion struggle against the meekness and patience of the new man And how sadly do many Ministers come off in this part of their tryal Having given you these 12. Concomitants of our Ministerial labour as singly to be performed by every Minister let me conclude with one other that is necessary to us as we are conjoyned and fellow-labourers in the work and that is this We must be very studious of Union and Communion among our selves and of the Unity and Peace of the Churches that we oversee We must be sensible how needful this is to the Prosperity of the whole the strengthening of our common cause the good of the particular members of our flock and the further enlargement of the Kingdom of Christ And therefore Ministers must smart when the Church is wounded and be so far from being the Leaders in divisions that they should take it as a principal part of their work to prevent and heal them Day and night should they bend their studies to find out means to close such breaches They must not only barken to motions for Unity but propound them and prosecute them Nor only entertain an offered Peace but even follow it when it flyeth from them They must therefore keep close to the antient simplicity of the Christian faith and the foundation and Center of Catholike Unity They must abhor the arrogancy of them that frame new Engins to wrack and tear the Church of God under protence of obviating Errors and maintaining the truth The Scripture-sufficiency must be maintained and nothing beyond it imposed on others and if Papists or others call to us for the Standard and Rule of our Religion it is the Bible that we must shew them rather then any Confessions of Churches or writings of men We must learn to difference well between Certainties and Uncertainties Necessaries and Unnecessaries Catholike verities quae ab omnibus ubique semper sunt retentae as Vincent Lioen speaks and private opinions and to lay the stress of the Churches Peace upon the former and not upon the latter We must therefore understand the Doctrine of Antiquity that we may know what way men have gone to heaven by in former ages and know the writings of later Divines that we may partake of the benefit of their clearer Methods and Explications but neither of them must be made the Rule of our faith or charity We must avoid the common confusion of those that difference not between verbal and real Errors and hate that Rabies quorundam Theologorum that tear their Brethren as Hereticks before they understand them And we must learn to see the true state of Controversies and reduce them to the very Point where the difference lyeth and not to make them seem greater then they are Instead of quarreling with our Brethren we must combine against the common adversaries And all Ministers must associate and hold Communion and Correspondency and Constant meetings to those ends and smaller differences of Judgement are not to interrupt them They must do as much of the work of God in Unity and Concord as they can Which is the use of Synods not to Rule over one another and make Laws but to avoid misunderstandings and consult for mutual edification and maintain Love and Communion and go on unanimously in the work that God hath already Commanded us Had the Ministers of the Gospel been men of Peace and of Catholike rather then factious spirits the Church of
were not still the same thing And they look not only after new discoveries in lesser things but they are making us new Articles of faith framing out new waies to heaven The body of Popery came in at this door Their new fundamentals were received on these terms Their new Catholike Church which their fore-fathers knew not was thus set up Before it consisted of all Christians through the world and now it must consist of none but the Popes subjects So is it with the Anabaptists They must now in the end of the world have a new Church for Christ even in the natural capacity of the matter I Never since the creation can it be proved that God had any where a Church on earth where Infants were excluded from being members if there were any among them They were members before the Law under the Promise under the Law and under the Gospel through the Christian world to this day ◠and yet they would needs make Christ a Church now without them As if Christ had mist it in the forming of his Church till now Or as if he begun to be aweary of infants in his Church now at last Or as if the Providence of God did now begin to be awakened to have a right formed Church in the conclusion of the world and to eject those infants as incapable who till now have been in the bosom of his family Yea this disturbing vice doth also work by setting a higher rate of necessity upon some truths then the Church of Christ had ever done When we will needs make that to be of absolute Certainly which hath been either not before received or but as a dark doubtful thing and we will make that to be of necessity to salvation which the former ages did hold but as a point of a far lower nature which some were for and some against without any great disagreement or mutual censure I confess I do hold some points of Doctrine my self to be true which I cannot find that the Church or any in it did hold of many ages after the Apostles but then I cannot lay such a stress on them as to think them of flat necessity to the welfare of the Church and the saving of souls As the Doctrine of the certain perseverance of all the Justified and some few more If I may think that Austin Prosper and all the Church in those Ages did err therein as I think they did Yet to think that they erred fundamentally were to think that Christ had no Church I will not take the Judgement or Practice of the Church in any age since the Apostles as my Rule of faith and life but I will suppose that they had all things in the most defiled age that were of absolute necessity to salvation I know that we must be Justified in the same way as they were and upon the same terms Faith is the same thing now as it was then and hath the same object to apprehend for our Justification and the same office in order to our Justification Many new notions are brought in by Disputers which must not be made matters of necessity to the soundness or integrity of the Churches faith We may talk of Peace as long as we live but we shall never obtain it but by returning to the Apostolical simplicity The Papists faith is too big for all men to agree upon or all their own if they enforced it not with arguments drawn from the fire the halter and the strappado And many Anti-Papists do too much imitate them in the tedious length of their subscribed Confessions and novelty of impositions when they go furthest from them in the quality of the things imposed I shall speak my mind to these in the words of Vincentim Lirinensis cap. 26. 〈◊〉 satis nequeo tantam quorundam hominum vaesaniam tantam excoecatae mentis impietatem tantam postremo errandi libidinem ut contenti non sint traditâ semel acceptâ antiquitus credendi reguld sed nova ac nova in diem quaerant semperque aliquid gestiant religioni addere mutare detrabere Quasi non coeleste dogma sit quod semel revelatum esse sufficiat sed terrena institutio quae aliter perfici nisi assidua emendations immo potius reprehensione non possit When we once return to the antient simplicity of faith then and not till then we shall return to the antient love and peace But the Pride of mens hearts doth make them so overvalve their own conceptions that they expect all men else should be of their mind and bow down to those reasons which others can see through while they are as confident as if there were no room for doubting Every Sect is usually confident in their own way and as they value themselves so they do their reasons And hereupon arise such breaches in affections and communion as there are while most men cry down the divisions of others but maintain the like Some will have no Communion with our Churches because we have some Members that they take to be ungodly and do not pull up the Tares in doubtful unproved cases where we cannot do it without pulling up the Wheat Others are so confident that Infants should be unbaptized and out of the Church that they will be of no Church that hath infant members till these scandalous infants be I say not excommunicated for that supposeth a former right but taken as such that have no part or fellowship in the business they will not joyn with such a society Christ telleth us that except we become as little children we shall not enter into his Kingdom and they say except little children be kept out of the Church they will not enter or abide in it Is not this extream height of spirit to be so confident as to avoid Communion upon it in a case where the Church hath been in all ages or almost all by their own confession so much against them Would they not have separated from the whole Church on the same ground if they had lived in these times Others as is before said are so confident that we are no Ministers or Churches for want of Prelatical Ordination and Government that they separate also or deny Communion with us And thus every party in the height of their self-conceitedness is ready to divide condemn all others that be not of their mind And it usually falls out that this confidence doth but bewray mens ignorance and that too many make up that in passion and wilfulness which they want in reason How many have I heard zealously condemning what they little understand It s a far easier matter to say that another man is erroneous or heretical or rail at him as a deceiver or blasphemer then to give a sound account of our belief And as I remember twenty years ago I have observed it the common trick of a company of ignorant formal Preachers to get the repute of that learning which they wanted by
now reproving any of these in the matter though the last especially well deserve it but that they lay so much upon their several orders and formalities as many of them do When indeed if we had our will in all such matters of order and had the rightest form of Government in the world it is the painful execution and the diligent and prudent use of means for mens conversion and edification by able faithful men that must accomplish the Reformation Brethren I dare confidently tell you that if you will but faithfully perform what you have Agreed upon both in this business of Catechizing and personal instruction and in the matter of Discipline formerly where we have well waved all the controverted part which hath so much ascribed to it you will do more for the true Reformation that is so desirable and hath been so long prayed and hoped for then all the changes of forms and orders so eagerly contended for are ever like to effect If Bishops would do this work I would take them for Reformers And if Presbyters will do it I will take them for Reformers and it was those that neglected and hindred it that I ever took for Deformers Let us see the work well done that God hath made so necessary for mens conversion preservation restauration and salvation and the doers of it whether Prelates or Presbyters shall never have any fierce opposition of mine But it is not bare Canons and Orders and Names and Shews that any wise man will take for the substance of Reformation It is not Circumcision or uncircumcision to be a Jew or a Gentile bond or free that availeth any thing but a new creature and faith that worketh by love That is the Reformation which best healeth the Ignorance and Infidelity and Pride and Hypocrisie and Worldliness and other killing sins of the Land and that most effectually bringeth men to faith and holiness Not that I would have the least truth or duty undervalued or any part of Gods will to be rejected But the Kingdom of God consisteth not in every truth or duty not in ceremonies or circumstances not in meats or drinks but in Righteousness and Peace and Joy in the Holy-Ghost Dear Brethren it is you and such as you that under Christ must yet give this Nation the fruit of all their prayers and pains their cost and blood and heavy sufferings All that they have been doing for the good of the Church and for true Reformation for so may years was but to prepare the way for you to come in and do the work which they desired Alas what would they do by fire and sword by drums and trumpets for the converting of souls The actions of Armies and famous Commanders which seem so glorious and make so great a noise that the world rings of them what have they done or what can they do that is worth the talking on without you In themselves considered all their victories and great atchievements are so far from being truly glorious that they are very lamentable and a Butcher may as well glory that he hath killed so many beasts or a hangman that he hath executed so many men as they can glory in the thing considered in it self For war is the most heavy temporal judgement And far less cause would they have to glory if their cause and ends were wrong And if their hearts and ends and cause be right and they mean as honestly as any men in the world yet are these great Commanders but your pioneers to cut up the thorns that stand in your way and to cast out the rubbish and prepare you the way to build the house Alas they cannot with all their victories exalt the Lord Jesus in the soul of any sinner and therefore they cannot set up his spiritual Kingdom for the hearts of men are his house and throne If the work should stop with the end of theirs and go no further then they can carry it we should be in the end but where we were in the beginning and one generation of Christs enemies would succeed another and they that take down the wicked would inherit their vices as they possess their rooms and the last would be far the worst as being deeper in the guilt and more engaged in evil-doing All this trouble then and stir of the Nation hath been to bring the work to your hands and shall it dye there God forbid They have opened you the door and at exceeding cost and sufferings have removed many of your impediments and put the building instruments into your hands and will you now stand still or loyter God forbid up then Brethren and give the Nation the fruit of their cost and pains frustrate not all the preparers work fail not the long expectations of so many thousands that have prayed in hope of a true Reformation and paid in hope and ventured in hope and suffered in hope and waited till now in hope In the name of God take heed that now you fail not all these Hopes Have they spent so long time in fencing the Vineyard and weeding and pruning it and making it ready for your hands and will you now fail them that are sent to gather in the vintage and lose all their labours When they have plowed the field will you sow it by the halves If they had known beforehand that Ministers would have proved idle and unfaithful how many hundreds would have spared their blood and how many thousands would have sate still and have let the old Readders and formalists alone and have said If we must have dullards and unprofitable men it is as good have one as another It is not worth so much cost and pains to change one careless Minister for another The end is the mover and life of the agent in all the means How many thousands have prayed and paid and suffered and more upon the expectations of a great advantage to the Church and more common illumination and reformation of the Nation by your means And will you now deceive them all Again I say God forbid Now it is at your hands that they are expecting the happy issue of all The eyes of the Nation are or should be all under God upon you for the bringing in the harvest of their cost and labours I profess it maketh me admire at the fearful deceitfulness of the heart of man to see how every man can call on others for duty or censure them for the omitting it and what excellent Judges we are in other mens cases and how partial in our own The very judicious Teachers of the Nation can cry out and too justly against one sect and another sect and against unfaithful underminers of those that they thought would have done the work and against the disturbers of the Reformation that was going on and say These have betrayed the Church and frustrated the Nations cost and hopes and undone all that hath been so long a doing And yet they see not or seem