as our thoughts but as the Heavens are high above the Earth so are his ways above our ways and his thoughts above our thoughts And the best way to keep our selves from despairing of GOD's Mercy and Forgiveness to us is to be easy to grant Forgiveness to others And without this as GOD hath reason to deny Forgiveness to us so we our selves have all the reason in the World utterly to despair of it It would almost transport a Christian to read that admirable Passage of the Great Heathen Emperour and Philosopher M. Aurelius Antoninus Can the Gods says he that are Immortal for the continuance of so many ages bear without impatience with such and so many Sinners as have ever been and not only so but likewise take care of them and provide for them that they want nothing And dost thou so grievously take on as one that can bear with them no longer Thou that art but for a moment of time yea Thou that art one of those Sinners thyself I will conclude this whole Discourse with those weighty and pungent Sayings of the wise Son of Syrach He that revengeth shall find vengeance from the Lord and he will certainly retain his Sins Forgive thy neighbour that hath hurt thee so shall thy Sins also be forgiven when thou prayest One man beareth hatred against another and doth he seek pardon of the Lord He sheweth no mercy to a man like himself and doth he ask forgiveness of his own Sins Enable us O Lord by thy Grace to practise this excellent and difficult Duty of our Religion And then Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us For thy mercies sake in Jesus Christ to whom with Thee O Father and the Holy Ghost be all Honour and Glory Adoration and Obedience both now and ever Amen The care of our Souls the One thing needful A SERMON Preached before the KING and QUEEN AT Hampton-Court April the 14 th 1689. The care of our Souls the One thing needful LUKE X. 42 But one thing is needful IN the accounts of Wise men one of the first Rules and Measures of human actions is this To regard every thing more or less according to the degree of its consequence and importance to our happiness That which is most necessary to that End ought in all reason to be minded by us in the first place and other things only so far as they are consistent with that great End and subservient to it Our B. Saviour here tells us that there is one thing needful that is one thing which ought first and principally to be regarded by us And what that is it is of great concernment to us all to know that we may mind and pursue it as it deserves And we may easily understand what it is by considering the Context and the occasion of these Words which was briefly this Our Saviour as He went about preaching the Kingdom of God came into a certain Village where He was entertain'd at the house of two devout Sisters The elder who had the care and management of the Family and the Affairs of it was imployed in making entertainment for such a Guest The other sate at our Saviour's feet attending to the Doctrine of Salvation which he preach'd The elder finding her self not able to do all the business alone desires of our Saviour that he would command her Sister to come and help her Upon this our Saviour gives her this gentle reprehension Martha Martha Thou art careful and troubled about many things but one thing is needful And what that is he declares in the next words And Mary hath chosen that good part which shall not be taken away from her that is she hath chosen to take care of her Salvation which is infinitely more considerable than any thing else Our Saviour doth not altogether blame Martha for her respectful care of Him but cmmends her Sister for her greater care of her Soul which made her either wholly to forget or unwilling to mind other things at that time So that upon the whole matter He highly approves her wise choice in preferring an attentive regard to his Doctrine even before that which might be thought a necessary civility to His Person From the Words thus explain'd the Observation which I shall make is this That the care of Religion and of our Souls is the one thing necessary and that which every man is concern'd in the first place and above all other things to mind and regard This Observation seems to be plainly contain'd in the Text. I shall handle it as briefly as I can and then by way of Application shall endeavour to persuade You and my self to mind this one thing necessary And in speaking to this serious and weighty Argument I shall do these two things First I shall endeavour to shew wherein this care of Religion and of our Souls does consist Secondly To convince men of the necessity of taking this care I. I shall shew wherein this care of Religion and of our Souls doth consist And this I shall endeavour to do with all the plainness I can and so as every one that hears me may understand and be sufficiently directed what is necessary for him to do in order to his eternal Salvation And of this I shall give an account in the five following Particulars in which I think the main business of Religion and the due care of our Souls does consist First In the distinct knowledge and in the firm belief and persuasion of those things which are necessary to be known and believed by us in order to our eternal Salvation Secondly In the frequent Examination of our lives and actions and in a sincere Repentance for all the errours and miscarriages of them Thirdly In the constant and daily exercise of Piety and Devotion Fourthly In avoiding those things which are pernicious to our Salvation and whereby men do often hazard their Souls Fifthly In the even and constant practice of the several Graces and Vertues of a good Life I. The due care of Religion and our Souls does consist in the distinct knowledge and in the firm belief and persuasion of those things which are necessary to be known and believ'd by us in order to our eternal Salvation For this knowledge of the necessary Principles and Duties of Religion is the foundation of all good Practice wherein the life of Religion doth consist And without this no man can be truly Religious Without faith saith the Apostle to the Hebrews it is impossible to please God For he that cometh to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him Now these two expressions of pleasing God and seeking Him are plainly of the same importance and do both of them signify Religion or the Worship and Service of God which doth antecedently suppose our firm belief and persuasion of these two fundamental Principles of all Religion That there is a
vouchsafed to us Because this is an argument of great ingratitude And this we find recorded as a heavy charge upon the People of Israel that they remembred not the Lord their God who had delivered them out of the hand of all their enemies on every side neither shewed they kindness to the House of Jerubbaal namely Gideon who had been their Deliverer according to all the goodness which he had shewed to Israel God we see takes it very ill at our hands when we are ungrateful to the Instruments of our Deliverance but much more when we are unthankful to Him the Author of it And how severely does Nathan the Prophet reproach David upon this account Thus said the Lord God of Israel I anointed thee King over Israel and delivered thee out of the hand of Saul c. And if this had been too little I would moreover have done such and such things Wherefore hast thou despis'd the Commandment of the Lord to do evil in his sight God here reckons up his manifold mercies and deliverances and aggravates David's Sin upon this account And he was very angry likewise with Solomon for the same reason because he had turned from the Lord God of Israel who had appear'd to him twice However we may slight the mercies of God he keeps a punctual and strict account of them It is particularly noted as a great blot upon Hezekiah that he returned not again according to the benefits done unto him God takes very severe notice of all the unkind and unworthy returns that are made to Him for his Goodness Ingratitude to God is so unnatural and monstrous that we find Him appealing against us for it to the inanimate Creatures Hear O Heavens and give ear O Earth for the Lord hath spoken I have nourish'd and brought up Children but they have rebelled against me And then he goes on and upbraids them with the Brute Creatures as being more grateful to men than men are to God The Ox knoweth his owner and the Ass her Masters Crib but Israel doth not know my People doth not consider And in the same Prophet there is the like complaint Let favour be shewn to the wicked yet will he not learn righteousness In the land of uprightness will he deal unjustly and will not behold the Majesty of the Lord. Lord when thy hand is lifted up they will not see but the shall see and be ashamed They that will not acknowledge the Mercies of God's Providence shall feel the strokes of his Justice There is no greater evidence in the World of an intractable disposition than not to be wrought upon by kindness not to be melted by mercies not to be obliged by benefits not to be tamed by gentle usage Nay God expects that his mercies should lay so great an obligation upon us that even a Miracle should not tempt us to be unthankful If there arise among you a Prophet says Moses to the People of Israel or a Dreamer of dreams and giveth thee a Sign or a Wonder and the Sign or the Wonder cometh to pass whereof he spake to thee saying let us go after other Gods and serve them thou shalt not hearken to the words of that Prophet And he gives the reason because he hath spoken to turn you away from the Lord God of Israel which brought you out of the Land of Egypt and delivered you out of the House of Bondage 3. It is a greater aggravation yet after gteat Mercies and Judgments to return to the same Sins Because this can hardly be without our sinning against knowledge and after we are convinced how evil and bitter the Sin is which we were guilty of and have been so sorely punish'd for before This is an argument of a very perverse and incorrigible temper and that which made the Sin of the People of Israel so above measure sinful that after so many signal Deliverances and so many terrible Judgments they fell into the same Sin of murmuring ten times murmuring against God the Author and against Moses the glorious Instrument of their Deliverance out of Egypt which was one of the two great Types of the Old Testament both of temporal and spiritual Oppression and Tyranny Hear with what resentment God speaks of the ill returns which they made to him for that great Mercy and Deliverance Because all these men which have seen my glory and my miracles which I did in Egypt and in the Wilderness and have tempted me now these ten times and have not hearkned unto my voice surely they shall not see the Land which I sware to their Fathers And after he had brought them into the promised Land and wrought great Deliverances for them several times how does he upbraid them with their proneness to fall again into the same Sin of Idolatry And the Lord said unto the Children of Israel did not I deliver you from the Egyptians and from the Amorites from the Children of Ammon and from the Philistins The Zidonians also and the Amalekites and Maonites did oppress you and ye cryed unto me and I delivered you out of their hand yet you have forsaken me and served other Gods wherefore I will deliver you no more go and cry unto the Gods which ye have chosen let them deliver you in the time of your tribulation This incensed God so highly against them that they still relaps'd into the same Sin of Idolatry after so many afflictions and so many deliverances Upon such an occasion well might the Prophet say Thine own wickedness shall correct thee and thy sins shall reprove thee know therefore that it is an evil and bitter thing that thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God It is hardly possible but we should know that the wickedness for which we have been so severely corrected is an evil and bitter thing Thus much for the first part of the Observation namely that it is a fearful aggravation of Sin after great Judgments and great deliverances to return to Sin and especially to the same Sins again I proceed to the Second part namely That this is a fatal presage of ruin to a People Should we again break thy Commandments and join in affinity with the People of these abominations wouldst thou not be angry with us till thou hadst consumed us so that there should be no remnant nor escaping And so God threatens the People of Israel in the Text which I cited before wherefore I will deliver you no more Wherefore that is because they would neither be reform'd by the Afflictions wherewith God had exercised them nor by the many wonderful Deliverances which he had wrought for them And there is great reason why God should deal thus with a People that continues impenitent both under the Judgments and Mercies of God 1. Because this doth ripen the Sins of a Nation and it is time for God to put in his Sickle when a People are ripe for ruin When the
Blessed Saviour who knew what was in man better than any man that ever was knowing our great reluctancy and backwardness to the practice of this Duty hath urged it upon us by such forcible and almost violent Arguments that if we have any tenderness for our selves we cannot refuse Obedience to it For he plainly tells us That no Sacrifice that we can offer will appease God towards us so long as we our selves are implacable to Men Verse 23 d. of this Chapter If thou bring thy gift to the Altar and there remembrest that thy brother hath ought against thee leave thy gift before the Altar and go thy way first go and be reconciled to thy brother and then come and offer thy gift To recommend this Duty effectually to us He gives it a preference to all the positive Duties of Religion First go and be reconciled to thy brother and then come and offer thy gift Till this Duty be discharged God will accept of no Service no Sacrifice at our hands And therefore our Liturgy doth with great reason declare it to be a necessary Qualification for our Worthy Receiving of the Sacrament that we be in Love and Charity with our Neighbours because this is a Moral Duty and of eternal Obligation without which no positive part of Religion such as the Sacraments are can be acceptable to GOD especially since in this Blessed Sacrament of Christ's Body and Blood we expect to have the Forgiveness of our Sins ratified and confirmed to us Which how can we hope for from GOD if we our selves be not ready to forgive one another He shall have judgment without mercy says St. James who hath shewed no mercy And in that excellent Form of Prayer which our Lord himself hath given us He hath taught us so to ask Forgiveness of God as not to expect it from Him if we do not forgive one another So that if we do not practice this Duty as hard as we think it is every time that we put up this Petition to God Forgive us our Trespasses as we forgive them that Trespass against us we send up a terrible Imprecation against our selves and do in effect beg of God not to forgive us And therefore to imprint this matter the deeper upon our minds our Blessed Saviour immediately after the recital of this Prayer hath thought fit to add a very remarkable enforcement of this Petition above all the rest For if says He ye forgive men their trespasses your heavenly Father will also forgive you But if ye forgive not men their trespasses neither will your Father forgive your trespasses And our Saviour hath likewise in his Gospel represented to us both the reasonableness of this Duty and the Danger of doing contrary to it in a very lively and affecting Parable deliver'd by him to this purpose Concerning a wicked Servant who when his Lord had but just before forgiven him a vast Debt of ten thousand Talents took his poor Fellow-servant by the throat and notwithstanding his humble Submission and earnest Intreaties to be favourable to him haled him to Prison for a trifling Debt of an hundred Pence And the Application which he makes of this Parable at the end of it is very terrible and such as ought never to go out of our minds So likewise says He shall my heavenly Father do also unto you if ye do not from your hearts forgive every one his brother his trespasses One might be apt to think at first view that this Parable was over done and wanted something of a due Decorum it being hardly credible that a man after he had been so mercifully and generously dealt withal as upon his humble Request to have so huge a Debt so freely forgiven should whilst the memory of so much Mercy was fresh upon him even the very next moment handle his Fellow Servant who had made the same humble submission and request to him which he had done to his Lord with so much roughness and cruelty for so inconsiderable a Sum. This I say would hardly seem credible did we not see in experience how very unreasonable and unmerciful some men are and with what confidence they can ask and expect great mercy from God when they will shew none to Men. The greatness of the Injuries which are done to us is the reason commonly pleaded by us why we cannot forgive them But whoever thou art that makest this an Argument why thou canst not forgive thy Brother lay thine hand upon thy heart and bethink thy self how many more and much greater Offences thou hast been guilty of against God Look up to that Just and Powerful Being that is above and consider well Whether thou dost not both expect and stand in need of more Mercy and Favour from Him than thou canst find in thy heart to shew to thine offending Brother We have all certainly great reason to expect that as we use one another God will likewise deal with us And yet after all this how little is this Duty practis'd among Christians And how hardly are the best of us brought to love our Enemies and to forgive them And this notwithstanding that all our hopes of Mercy and Forgiveness from God do depend upon it How strangely inconsistent is our practice and our hope And what a wide distance is there between our expectations from GOD and our dealings with Men How very partial and unequal are we to hope so easily to be forgiven and yet to be so hard to forgive Would we have GOD for Christ's sake to forgive us those numberless and monstrous provocations which we have been guilty of against His Divine Majesty And shall we not for His sake for whose sake we our selves are forgiven be willing to forgive one another We think it hard to be oblig'd to forgive great Injuries and often repeated and yet Woe be to us all and most miserable shall we be to all Eternity if GOD do not all this to us which we think to be so very hard and unreasonable for us to do to one another I have sometimes wonder'd how it should come to pass that so many persons should be so apt to despair of the Mercy and Forgiveness of GOD to them especially considering what clear and express Declarations GOD hath made of his readiness to forgive our greatest Sins and Provocations upon our sincere Repentance But the wonder will be very much abated when we shall consider with how much difficulty men are brought to remit great Injuries and how hardly we are perswaded to refrain from flying upon those who have given us any considerable provocation So that when men look into themselves and shall carefully observe the motions of their own minds towards those against whom they have been justly exasperated they will see but too much reason to think that Forgiveness is no such easy matter But our comfort in this case is That GOD is not as Man that his ways are not as our ways nor his thoughts
our great trespass Our evil deeds bring all other evils upon us 2. That great Sins have usually a proportionable punishment after all that is come upon us there is the greatness of our punishment for our evil deeds and for our great trespass there is the greatness of our Sin But when I say that great Sins have a proportionable Punishment I do not mean that any temporal Punishments are proportionable to the great evil of Sin but that God doth usually observe a proportion in the temporal punishments of Sin so that although no temporal punishment be proportionable to Sin yet the temporal punishment of one Sin holds a proportion to the punishment of another and consequently lesser and greater Sins have proportionably a lesser and greater Punishment 3. That all the Punishments which God inflicts in this Life do fall short of the demerit of our Sins and seeing thou our God hast punish'd us less than our iniquities deserve In the Hebrew it is and hast kept down our iniquities that is that they should not rise up against us The LXX expresseth it very emphatically thou hast eased us of our sins that is thou hast not let the whole weight of them fall upon us Were it not for the restraints which God puts upon his anger and the merciful mitigations of it the Sinner would not be able to bear it but must sink under it Indeed it is only said in the Text that the punishment which God inflicted upon the Jews though it was a long Captivity was beneath the desert of their Sins But yet it is universally true and Ezra perhaps might intend to insinuate so much that all temporal Punishments though never so severe are always less than our iniquities deserve 4. That God many times works very great Deliverances for those who are very unworthy of them and hast given us such a Deliverance as this notwithstanding our evil deeds and notwithstanding our great Trespass 5. That we are but too apt even after great Judgments and after great Mercies to relapse into our former Sins should we again break thy Commandments Ezra insinuates that there was great reason to fear this especially considering the strange temper of that People who when God multiply'd his blessings upon them were so apt to wax fat and kick against Him and tho he had cast them several times into the furnace of Affliction though they were melted for the present yet they were many times but the harder for it afterwards 6. That it is good to take notice of those particular Sins which have brought the Judgments of God upon us So Ezra does here after all that is come upon us for our evil deeds and for our great trespass and should we again join in affinity with the People of these abominations Secondly Here is a Sentence and determination in the Case wouldst thou not be angry with us till thou hadst consumed us so that there should be no remnant nor escaping Which Question as I said before doth imply a strong and peremptory affirmative as if he had said after such a provocation there is great reason to conclude that God would be angry with us till he had consumed us From whence the Observation contained in this part of the Text will be this That it is a fearful aggravation of Sin and a sad presage of ruin to a People after great Judgments and great Deliverances to return to Sin and especially to the same Sins again Hear how passionately Ezra expresses himself in this Case verse 6. I am ashamed O my God and blush to lift up mine eyes to thee my God Why what was the cause of this great shame and confusion of face He tells us verse 9. for we were bondmen yet our God hath not forsaken us in our bondage but hath extended his mercy to us to give us a reviving to set up the House of our God and to repair the desolations thereof and to give us a Wall in Judah and in Jerusalem that is to restore to them the free and safe exercise of their Religion Here was great Mercy and a mighty Deliverance indeed and yet after this they presently relapsed into a very great sin verse 10. And now O our God what shall we say after this for we have forsaken thy Commandments In the handling of this Observation I shall do these two things First I shall endeavour to shew that this is a very heavy aggravation of Sin and Secondly That it is a fatal presage of ruin to a People First It is a heavy aggravation of Sin after great Judgments and after signal Mercies and Deliverances to return to Sin and especially to the same Sins again Here are three things to be distinctly spoken to 1. That it is a great aggravation of Sin to return to it after great Judgments 2. To do this after great Mercies and Deliverances 3. After both to return to the same Sins again 1. It is a great aggravation of Sin after great Judgments have been upon us to return to an evil course Because this is an Argument of great obstinacy in evil The longer Pharaoh resisted the Judgments of God the more was his wicked heart hardned till at last he arriv'd at a monstrous degree of hardness having been as the Text tells us hardned under ten plagues And we find that after God had threaten'd the People of Israel with several Judgments he tells them that if they will not be reformed by all these things he will punish them seven times more for their sins And if the just God will in such a case punish seven times more we may conclude that the Sin is Seven times greater What sad complaints doth the Prophet make of the People of Israel growing worse for Judgments Ah! sinful Nation a People laden with iniquity children that have been corrupters a seed of evil doers He can hardly find words enough to express how great Sinners they were and he adds the reason in the next verse Why should they be smitten any more they will revolt more and more They were but the worse for Judgments This renders them a sinful Nation a People laden with iniquity And again The People turneth not to him that smiteth them neither do they seek the Lord of Hosts therefore his anger is not turned away but his hand is stretched out still And the same Prophet further complains to the same purpose When thy hand is lifted up they will not see There is a particular brand set upon King Ahaz because affliction made him worse This is that King Ahaz that is that grievous and notorious Sinner And what was it that rendr'd him so In the time of his distress he sinned yet more against the Lord this is that King Ahaz who is said to have provoked the Lord above all the Kings of Israel which were before him 2. It is likewise a sore aggravation of Sin when it is committed after great Mercies and Deliverances
Place to consider the principle and immediate Guide of our Actions which St. Paul here tells us was his Conscience I exercise my self to have always a conscience void of offence By which he does not only mean a resolution to follow the dictate and direction of his Conscience but likewise a due care to inform his Conscience aright that he might not in any thing transgress the Law of God and his Duty Conscience is the great Principle of moral Actions and our Guide in matter of Sin and Duty It is not the Law and Rule of our Actions that the Law of God only is but it is our immediate Guide and Directour telling us what is the Law of God and our Duty But because Conscience is a word of a very large and various signification I shall endeavour very briefly to give you the true notion of it Now in common speech concerning Conscience every man is represented as having a kind of Court and Tribunal in his own breast where he tries himself and all his Actions And Conscience under one Notion or other sustains all parts in this Tryal The Court is call'd the Court of a man's Conscience and the Barr at which the Sinner stands impleaded is call'd the Barr of Conscience Conscience also is the Accuser and it is the Record and Register of our Crimes in which the memory of them is preserv'd And it is the Witness which gives testimony for or against us hence are those expressions of the testimony of our Consciences and that a man 's own Conscience is to him instead of a thousand Witnesses And it is likewise the Judge which declares the Law and what we ought or ought not to have done in such or such a Case and accordingly passeth Sentence upon us by acquitting or condemning us Thus according to common use of Speech Conscience sustains all imaginable parts in this Spiritual Court It is the Court and the Bench and the Barr the Accuser and Witness and Register and all But I shall only at present consider Conscience in the most common and famous Notion of it as it is the Principle or Faculty whereby we judge of moral Good and Evil and do accordingly direct and govern our Actions So that in short Conscience is nothing else but the Judgment of a man 's own mind concerning the morality of his actions that is the Good or Evil or Indifferency of them telling us what things are commanded by God and consequently are our Duty what things are forbidden by Him and consequently are sinful what things are neither commanded nor forbidden and consequently are indifferent I proceed in the V th Place to give some Rules and Directions for the keeping of a conscience void of offence And they shall be these following First Never in any case to act contrary to the persuasion and conviction of our Conscience For that certainly is a great Sin and that which properly offends the Conscience and renders us guilty guilt being nothing else but trouble arising in our minds from a consciousness of having done contrary to what we are verily persuaded was our Duty And though perhaps this persuasion is not always well grounded yet the guilt is the same so long as this persuasion continues because every man's Conscience is a kind of God to him and accuseth or absolves him according to the present persuasion of it And therefore we ought to take great care not to offend against the light and conviction of our own mind Secondly We should be very careful to inform our Consciences aright that we may not mistake concerning our Duty or if we do that our errour and mistake may not be grosly wilful and faulty And this Rule is the more necessary to be consider'd and regarded by us because generally men are apt to think it a sufficient excuse for any thing that they did it according to their Conscience But this will appear to be a dangerous mistake and of very pernicious consequence to the Souls of men if we consider these two things 1 st That men may be guilty of the most heinous Sins in following an erroneous Conscience 2 ly And these Sins may prove damnable without a particular repentance for them 1 st That men may be guilty of the most heinous Sins in following an erroneous Conscience Men may neglect and abuse themselves so far as to do some of the worst and wickedest things in the World with a persuasion that they do well Our Saviour tells his Disciples that the time should come when the Jews should put them to death thinking they did God good service Nay the Jews murthered the Son of God himself through ignorance and a false perswasion of mind Father forgive them says our Blessed Lord when he was breathing out his Soul upon the Cross for they know not what they do And St. Peter after he had charged the Jews with killing the Prince of Life he presently adds I wote that through ignorance ye did it as did also your Rulers And St. Paul in mitigation of that great Crime says Had they known they would not have crucified the Lord of life and glory And concerning himself he tells us That he verily thought with himself that he ought to do many things against the Name of Jesus of Nazareth And yet notwithstanding that he acted herein according to the persuasion of his Conscience he tells us that he had been a blasphemer and a persecutour and injurious and a murtherer and in a word the greatest of Sinners So that Men may be guilty of the greatest Sins in following an erroneous Conscience And 2ly These Sins may prove damnable without a particular repentance for them Where the ignorance and mistake is not grosly wilful there God will accept of a general repentance but where it is grosly wilful great Sins committed upon it are not pardon'd without a particular Repentance for them And an errour which proceeds from want of ordinary human care and due Government of a man's self is in a great degree wilful As when it proceeds from an unreasonable and obstinate prejudice from great pride and self-conceit and contempt of counsel and instruction or from a visible byass of self-interest or when it is accompanied with a furious passion and zeal prompting men to cruel and horrible things contrary to the light of nature and the common sense of humanity An errour proceeding from such causes and producing such effects is wilful in so high a degree that whatever evil is done in vertue of it is almost equally faulty with a direct and wilful violation of the Law of God The ignorance and mistake doth indeed make the person so mistaken more capable of forgiveness which is the ground of our Saviour's Prayer for his Murtherers Father forgive them for they know not what they do St. Paul likewise tells us that he found mercy upon this account Nevertheless says he I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly and in
unbelief that is through a false persuasion of mind not believing it to be a Sin And yet he did not obtain this mercy without a particular conviction of his fault and repentance for it And St. Peter after he had convinced the Jews of their great Sin in crucifying Christ though they did it ignorantly yet he exhorts them to a particular and deep repentance for it as necessary to the pardon and forgiveness of it And therefore after he had said I wote that through ignorance ye did it as did also your Rulers he immediately adds Repent ye therefore and be converted that your Sins may be blotted out So that it highly concerns men to consider what opinions they embrace in order to practice and not to suffer themselves to be hurried away by an unreasonable prejudice and a heady passion without a due and calm examination of things nor to be over-born by pride or humour or partiality or interest or by a furious and extravagant zeal Because proportionably to the voluntariness of our Errour will be the guilt of our practice pursuant to that Errour Indeed where our Errour is involuntary and morally invincible God will consider it and make allowance for it but where it is voluntary and occasioned by our own gross fault and neglect we are bound to consider and to rectifie our mistake For what-ever we do contrary to the Law of God and our Duty in vertue of that false persuasion we do it at our utmost peril and must be answerable to God for it notwithstanding we did it according to the dictate of our Conscience A Third Rule is this that in all doubts of Conscience we endeavour to be equal and impartial and do not lay all the weight of our doubts on one side when there is perhaps as much or greater reason of doubting on the other And consequently that we be as tractable and easie to receive satisfaction of our doubts in one kind as in another and be equally contented to have them over-ruled in cases that are equal I mean where our passions and interests are not concern'd as well as where they are And if we do not do this it is a sign that we are partial in our pretences of Conscience and that we do not aim meerly at the peace and satisfaction of our own minds but have some other interest and design For it is a very suspicious thing when men's doubts and scruples bear all on one side especially if it be on that side which is against charity and peace and obedience to Government whether Ecclesiastical or Civil In this case I think that a meer doubt and much more a scruple may nay ought in reason to be over-ruled by the Command of Authority by the opinion and judgment of wise and good men and in consideration of the publick peace and of the unity and edification of the Church Not that a man is in any case to go against the clear persuasion and conviction of his own mind but when there is only a meer doubt concerning the lawfulness or unlawfulness of a thing it seems to me in that case very reasonable that a man should suffer a mere doubt or scruple to be over-rul'd by any of those weighty considerations which I mentioned before The Fourth Rule is that all pretences of Conscience are vehemently to be suspected which are accompanied with turbulent passion and a furious zeal It is an hundred to one but such a man's Conscience is in the wrong It is an excellent saying of St. James The wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God that is the fierce passions of men are no proper instruments to promote Religion and to accomplish any thing that is good And therefore if any man be transported with a wild zeal and pretend conscience for his fury it is great odds but he is in an errour None are so likely to judge amiss as they whose minds are clouded and blinded by their passions Nubila mens est Haec ubi regnant And if men would carefully observe themselves they might almost certainly know when they act upon Reason and a true Principle of Conscience A good Conscience is easie to it self and pleased with its own doings but when a man's passion and discontent are a weight upon his judgment and do as it were bear down his Conscience to a compliance no wonder if this puts a man's mind into a very unnatural and uneasie state There can hardly be a broader sign that a man is in the wrong than to rage and be confident Because this plainly shews that the man's Conscience is not setled upon clear reason but that he hath brought over his Conscience to his interest or to his humour and discontent And though such a man may be so far blinded by his passion as not to see what is right yet methinks he should feel himself to be in the wrong by his being so very hot and impatient Art thou sure thou art in the right thou art a happy man and hast reason to be pleased What cause then what need is there of being angry Hath a man Reason on his side What would he have more Why then does he fly out into passion which as it gives no strength to a bad argument so I could never yet see that it was any grace and advantage to a good one Of the great evil and the perpetual mistake of this furious kind of Zeal the Jews are a lively and a lamentable Example in their carriage towards our Blessed Saviour and his Apostles And more particularly St. Paul when he persecuted the Christians from a false and erroneous persuasion of his Conscience Hear how St. Paul describes himself and his own doings whilst he was acted by an erroneous Conscience I persecuted says he this way unto the death binding and delivering into prison both men and women And in another Chapter I verily thought with my self that I ought to do many things against the Name of Jesus of Nazareth Here was his erroneous Conscience Let us next see what were the unhappy concomitants and effects of it ver 10 11 Which things says he I also did in Jerusalem and many of the Saints I shut up in prison and when they were put to death I gave my voice against them and punish'd them oft in every Synagogue and compell'd them to blaspheme and being exceedingly mad against them I persecuted them even to strange Cities When Conscience transports men with such a furious zeal and passion it is hardly ever in the right or if it should happen to be so they who are thus transported by their ungracious way of maintaining the truth and their ill management of a good cause have found out a cunning way to be in the wrong even when they are in the right Fifthly All pretences of Conscience are likewise to be suspected which are not accompanied with modesty and humility and a teachable temper and disposition willing to learn and
an instant and with the greatest ease and no created Power can put any difficulty in his way much less make any effectual resistance because Omnipotency can check and countermand and bear down before it all other Powers So that if God be on our side who can be against us We may safely commit our Souls into his hands for he is able to keep that which is committed to him He can give us all good things and deliver us from all evil for his is the Kingdom and the glorious Power Though all Creatures should fail us we may rely upon God and live upon his All-sufficiency for our supply and may say with the Prophet Though the Fig-tree should not blossom neither Fruit be in the Vine though the labour of the Olive should fail and the Fields should yield no meat though the Flock should be cut off from the Fold and there should be no Herd in the Stalls yet would I rejoice in the Lord and joy in the God of my Salvation Secondly As God is an All-sufficient Good so He is perfect Goodness He is willing to communicate happiness to us and to employ his Power and Wisdom for our good He made us that he might make us happy and nothing can hinder us from being so but our selves Such is his goodness that he would have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth And when we have provoked him by our sins he is long-suffering to us-ward not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance For he delighteth not in the death of a sinner but rather that he should turn from his wickedness and live So that if any of us be miserable it is our own choice if we perish our destruction is of our selves For as the Wiseman in one of the Apocryphal Books says excellently God made not death neither hath he pleasure in the destruction of the living But men seek death in the error of their life and pull destruction upon themselves with the works of their own hands So great is the goodness of God to mankind that he hath omitted nothing that is necessary to our happiness He design'd it for us at first and to that end he hath endowed us with Powers and Faculties whereby we are capable of knowing and loving and obeying and enjoying Him the chief Good And when we had forfeited all this by the wilful transgression and disobedience of the first Parents of mankind and were miserably bruised and maimed by their fall God of his infinite mercy was pleas'd to restore us to a new capacity of happiness by sending his only Son to suffer in our nature and in our stead and thereby to become a Propitiation for the sins of the whole World and the Author of eternal Salvation to them that believe and obey him And he hath likewise promised to give us his Holy Spirit to enable us to that Faith and Obedience which the Gospel requires of us as the necessary conditions of our eternal Salvation Thirdly God is also a firm and unchangeable Good Notwithstanding his infinite Wisdom and Power and Goodness we might be miserable if God were mutable For that cannot be a happiness which depends upon uncertainties and perhaps one of the greatest aggravations of misery is to fall from happiness to have been once happy and afterwards to cease to be so And that would unavoidably happen to us if the cause of our happiness could change and the foundation of it be removed If God could be otherwise than powerful and wise and good all our hopes of happiness would be shaken and would fall to the ground But the Divine nature is not subject to any change As he is the Father of lights and the Author of every good and perfect gift so with him is no variableness neither shadow of turning All the things of this World are mutable and for that reason had they no other imperfection belonging to them cannot make us happy Fourthly God is such a good as none can deprive us of and take away from us If the things of this World were unchangeable in their nature and not liable to any decay yet they cannot make us happy because we may be cheated of them by fraud or robb'd of them by violence But God cannot be taken from us Nothing but our Sins can part God and us Who shall separate us saith the Apostle from the love of God shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword We may be stripp'd of all our worldly Comforts and Enjoyments by the violence of men but none of all these can separate us from God I am persuaded as the Apostle goes on with great triumph that neither death nor life nor Angels nor Principalities nor Powers nor heighth nor depth nor things present nor things to come nor any other Creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Nor any other Creature Here is a sufficient induction of particulars and nothing left out of this Catalogue but one and that is Sin which is none of God's Creatures but our own This indeed deliberately consented to and wilfully continued in will finally part God and us and for ever hinder us from being happy But if we be careful to avoid this which only can separate between God and us nothing can deprive us of Him The aids and influences of his Grace none can intercept and hinder the joys and comforts of his Holy Spirit none can take from us All other things may leave us and forsake us We may be debarr'd of our best friends and banish'd from all our acquaintance but men can send us no whither from the presence of God Our Communication with Heaven cannot be prevented or interrupted Our Prayers and our Souls will always find the way thither from the uttermost parts of the Earth Fifthly God is an eternal God And nothing but what is so can make us happy Man having an immortal Spirit and being design'd for an endless duration must have a happiness proportionable For which reason nothing in this World can make us happy because we shall abide and remain after it When a very few years are past and gone and much sooner for any thing we know all the things of this World will leave us or else we shall be taken away from them But God is from everlasting to everlasting He is the same and his years fail not Therefore well might David fix his happiness upon God alone and say Whom have I in Heaven but thee and there is none upon Earth that I desire besides thee When my heart faileth and my strength faileth God is the strength of my heart and my portion for ever Sixthly God is able to support and comfort us in every condition and under all the accidents and adversities of humane Life Outward afflictions may hurt our Body but they cannot reach our