〈◊〉 the resemblances of the Divine nature and life Be ye merciful saith our Saviour Luke 6.36 as your Heavenly Father is merciful In Divinitate nil divinius in humanitate nil humanius Lactantius tells us Summa Religionis est eum imitari quem colis it is the perfection of Religion to be like him whom we worship Now God is love and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God and God in him 1 Joh. 4.16 And he that loveth not his Brother whom he hath seen how can he i. e. he cannot love his God whom he hath not seen 1 Joh. 4.20 God hath made our charity and our peace as well as our holiness Heb. 12.14 conditions without which we shall not see God The Prophet Hosea to instruct us in the mercifulness of God c. 6.6 commends to us the knowledge of God did we know God better we would love our Brethren more 1 Joh. 4.8 He that loveth not knoweth not God for God is love It is spoken of Josiah that he judged the cause of the poor and needy was not this to know me saith the Lord Jer. 22.16 Heu primae scelerum causae mortalibus aegris Naturam nescire Deûm Sil. Ital. We are mostly prepossest with unreasonable and uncharitable Opinions and passions which do not only dispose us to think amiss of our Brethren but of God also as if he were such as our selves as the Indians being black See Jer. 9.24 paint their Gods so too That Man must needs be very unmerciful that can think his God to be so and sure it is that if God should be as unmerciful towards others as we fancy him or as we are there are but few that would be saved except those of the same fraternity with our selves Jam. 3.15 But such black thoughts are fruits of the spirit of Darkness the fruits of the best spirit are love joy peace long-suffering gentleness goodness Gal. 5.22 c. I shall ever suspect that Religion that teacheth Men to love God and hate their Brethren with all their heart It is no wonder if the Stoicks that deny the Deity and ascribe all to an inexorable fate do also unman Humanity and unbowel Virtue teaching that a wise Man ought to cast away all compassion and making that a defect of the Soul viz. bearing one anothers burthens which a better Philosopher says Gal. 6.2 is to fulfill the Law of Christ Well might Cicero reject them neque enim audiendi sunt qui virtutem duram ferream esse volunt as not fit to be heard who would transform Virtue which is of a gentle tender tractable and yielding quality into a rigid stupid implacable and unsociable constitution Such wise Men have as little brains as bowels seeing St. James tells us that the wisdom that is from above is first pure then peaceable gentle and easie to be intreated full of mercy and good fruits without partiality and without hypocrisie And thus though I have but casually let fall some drops of Mercy into the other scale you may perceive how much they do outweigh the whole Jewish Discipline and Sacrifices The treasures of Mercy are as boundless as the Ocean and therefore I shall not attempt to contract them within this scale My thoughts are not your thoughts Is 55.8 neither are my ways your ways for as the Heavens are higher than the Earth so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts saith the Lord. What great things the mercy of God will effect for such as love him may partly appear by the things he works in them and by them whom he causeth to partake of his own spirit and so sheds abroad his love into their hearts that they can extend it again throughout the whole World and be merciful as their Heavenly Father is merciful even in that great instance of making as instruments the sun of righteousness to shine and the Dew of Heaven to fall upon the just and the unjust and by their compassionate desires and faithful prayers their tender mercies are over all the works of God How gladly could I cast my self into this Ocean as Aristotle to Euripus and say Quoniam ego non Comprehendam te tu Comprehendes me because I cannot comprehend thy mercies Lord let me be comprehended of them But as every dust of Gold is Gold so every act of mercy is precious and therefore I shall not need to mention the infinite perfections of Divine mercy nor those Heroick deeds of merciful Men whose love hath been more strong than Death but confine my self within those ordinary bounds of Charity wherein every Christian may and ought to converse with other such as the Apostle names 1 Cor. 13.4 To be long-suffering and kind not to envy or vaunt themselves not to be puffed up and seek their own not to be easily provoked not to think or speak evil any of these defects will as the want of Salt to the Sacrifice make it corrupt and become unsavory Every malicious thought will be as so much fire to make them evaporate into smoke So the Apostle assures us 1 Cor. 13. Though I spake with the tongue of men and Angels though I had the gift of Prophecie and understand all Mysteries and knowledge and had all Faith and have not Charity it profiteth me nothing The bare omission of the meanest acts of Charity such as our Saviour mentioneth Matthew 25.25 is sufficient to exclude our Souls as well as our Services from Heaven The Pharisees then had little reason to insist so exactly on a Levitical Ceremony of touching and accompanying with unclean persons when they admitted that pride and contempt of their brethren that envy against Christ which rendred them by far the more unclean A principle which hath much troubled the Church of God in all ages when Pharisaical men first censure and condemn their Brethren and then separate from them and grow in hatred against them when they have no other reason to think ill of their Brethren but because they think too well of themselves and by their zeal for the externals of Religion seek to palliate their neglect of the most essential duties To these our Saviour commends the Lesson in the Text as well as to those ancient Pharisees Go learn what that meaneth c. Having endeavoured to convince your understanding of the truth of the proposition in general I shall apply it as effectually as I can for the cure of our present distempers for we also do trouble our selves and others about many-inconsiderable circumstances of external Worship to the neglect of those moral duties of Humility Charity and peace which are of the very Essence of Religion And I doubt not but if we would lay aside our pride prejudice and carnal interest and as new-born Babes desire the sincere Milk of the Word that we might grow thereby this plain Lesson of our Saviour touching the Love of Mercy would more edifie
Messengers of Satan by whom God doth prove you whether you are well rooted and grounded in the true faith and love of God and his Commandments and are not with every blast of wind to be turned out of the way which the Lord thy God commanded thee to walk in v. 5. The ways of God are ways of Peace and Holiness but to despise the Churches of God to disobey our Governors the Bishops and Pastors of the Church to hate and slander our Brethren to slight the Discipline and neglect the Prayers of the Church and our Lord's Prayer too hath been ever in the Church of God accounted Schisme and that Schisme Damnable And because it is a Rule among the Ancients that to reduce Schismes and Heresies to their beginning is a means to refute them I entreat you but to look so far back as the Year 1640. before which time our Union at home made us a terror to our Enemies and the glory of the Protestant Churches abroad and to give me your impartial Opinion of those Men who under pretence of reforming us in Doctrine and Worship and taking off evil Councellors from the King than whom if any Christian Prince had fewer yet none was less influenced by them to the prejudice either of the Church or State did involve us under such a Deluge of Confusion and Bloodshed Rebellion and Irreligion for Twenty Years together I grant that many of them might be Men of good affections that never thought of the events that would follow but then they should have thought of those Duties that were incumbent on them To fear God and the King and not to meddle with them that were given to change especially when they saw they were actually engaged in a most Unnatural War Let the Histories of Presbytery and Independency be read over and then tell me if the same things were to be acted over again Could you with a good Conscience be Actors in such a Tragedy Let me tell you then that it is your duty to beware of such Agents and Counsels as do tend to the like Disorders and Confusions lest notwithstanding the fair pretences of Men of the same spirit and it may be of some of the same Men notwithstanding the good intentions that you now profess which may make you abhor such practices as much as Hazael did Is thy Servant a Dog 2 Kings 8.13 that he should do such things you be by degrees drawn to the like impieties For Schisme is a fruitful evil it is always labouring in the birth of other mischiefs they that separate flye from the Church as the Parthians from their Enemies still shooting back their Arrows and maintaining War against them but they fight against a Rock under which they shall one day fall and perish The Heathen had this Notion of their Jupiter Quos perdere vult dementat prius Spiritual infatuation is the fore-runner of Destruction He that is perverse in his way despiseth the Lord Pro. 14.2 for as much as he despiseth that reproof and instruction which God sends him for his amendment This is a Brand of the Sons of Belial that are marked out for destruction as the Sons of Eli They hearkned not to the voice of their Father 1 Sam. 2.25 because the Lord would stay them 2ly For Counsel and Direction St. Peter exhorts us to grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. It is Sensuality that is the cause of Separation viz pride and Ambition Envy and Uncharitableness ignorance and negligence to be well informed concerning our duties Mortifie therefore these and all other fleshly lusts study Christ and him crucified that you may Phil. 3.9 10. as St. Paul did know him and the power of his Resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings being made conformable to his death No such charm against Separation as a true mortification of fleshly lusts and desires Study therefore to exceed others in Humility and Charity in a meek and quiet spirit which in the sight of God is of more esteem than all those furious Zealots that know not what spirit they are of And in the words of St. Jude build up your selves on your most holy faith the Doctrine of Christ dying for your sins and rising for your Justification and still making Intercession for you In his Name pray unto God with such fervour and hope faith humility and perseverance that you may be kept in the love of GOD and a comfortable expectation of the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto Eternal Life The wifest and best of us are but Men compassed about with many infirmities what through ignorance and interest passion and prejudice in many things we offend all and all the means and diligence we can use without the special grace of God will be too little to undeceive us and set us in the right way which grace he hath promised only to the humble and meek Psal 25.9 The meek he will guide in judgment and the meek he will teach his way 'T is the first Lesson that Christ teacheth his Disciples and that by his Example as well as Precept Learn of me for I am meek and lowly Mat. 11.29 and ye shall find rest unto your Souls I conclude with those Pathetical perswasions of Saint Paul which I beseech God to imprint upon all our hearts If there be any consolation in Christ if any comfort of love Phil. 2.3 if any fellowship of the spirit if any bowels and mercies fulfill ye my joy that ye be like minded having the same love being of one accord of one mind Let nothing be done through strife and vain glory but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves And again Put on Col. 3.12 as the Elect of God holy and beloved bowels of mercies kindness humbleness of mind meekness long-suffering forbearing one another and forgiving one another if any man have a quarrel against any even as Christ forgave you so also do ye And above all things put on Charity which is the bond of perfectness and let the peace of God rule in your hearts to the which also ye are called in one body and be ye thankful FINIS POST-SCRIPT SInce this Treatise of Schism was in the Press I met with a Book of Miscellanies under Mr. Hales's Name in which was a TRACT concerning Schisme much applauded by the Separatists both Schisme and Heresie p. 191. to be as he calls them but two Theological Scarcrows but upon my first reading it I apprehended it to be so far from being unanswerable that it did sufficiently confute it self which I doubt not will appear to all judicious Readers upon this Analysis of the TRACT which followeth Q. WHat is the benefit of Communion Answ Communion is the strength and ground of all society Sacred and Civil whoever therefore causeth a breach if in civil occasions is guilty of Sedition or Rebellion if in Ecclesiastical
to quarrel about external circumstances wherein they are not at all concerned and to neglect the most necessary duties of the Gospel Judgment Mercy and Faith which are of Eternal concernment to their Souls In so doing the may save themselves and perhaps thousands of those that know them and are ready to follow them And if there be a pleasure in doing good there is no pleasure like that which will arise from being instrumental in so publick a blessing wherein the very being of Religion the peace of the Nation the salvation of souls are bound together especially in this juncture of affairs when for want of exercising mercy to one another we expose our selves as a Sacrifice to our common enemies Misericordiam volo is God's voice to us and may it ever be heard in our Land If he should have dealt with us as we do one with another lay hold of every provocation to destroy us the whole Land might have been a sacrifice to his Justice but he hath in the midst of judgment remembred mercy and seeing it is his mercy that we are not consumed let us not be so unmerciful to our selves as to bite devour one another till we be utterly consumed Gal. 5.15 Misericordiam volo is the Kings Motto as well as God's He hath sometime graciously manifested his readiness to dispense with the use of those established forms of worship which himself retains as most agreeable to the Word of God and in which the Arguments and Sufferings of his Royal Father have confirmed him next to a Jus Divinum against all doubtings or contradictions yet to shew that he also loves mercy rather than sacrifice he indulged the omission of them as long as the peace and welfare of the Nation could bear it how ill do they requite this great condescension that will not recede one step from their pretended holy but really unpeaceable Discipline to follow such a Divine and Royal example as both God and the King do propose to them Misericordiam volo should be our Petition to the King to pardon all that obstinacy and peevishness of spirit that keeps us still in disobedience and contradiction to those good and wholesome Laws whereby we might lead quiet and peaceable lives in all godliness and honesty 1 Tim. 2.2 Sure I am Misericordiam volo will one day be our Petition to God that he would not enter into judgment with us and we may know what our sentence will be then Rom. 2.16 sor by the Gospel we must be judged and that assures us that with what judgment we judge we shall be judged Mat. 7.2 and he shall have judgment without mercy that sheweth no mercy James 2.13 Voluit Deus ut quisque sit sibi mensura misericordiae And now Misericordiam volo shall be my Plea also that you would pardon my trespassing on your patience and that you would suffer a word of Exhortation God hath planted us in his own Vineyard Isay 5. hedged us about with his Almighty providence and been at the expence of Miracles of Mercy to restore and establish us on foundations of peace and rightcousness And now that he expects Grapes let us not bring forth wild grapes he looketh for judgment let us not bring forth oppression and when he expects righteousness let us not bring forth a cry of our own sins and divisions and the sufferings of our brethren lest he take away our hedge and we be eaten up and lest he break down our wall and we be trodden down of them that bear evil will to Sion and watch opportunities to lay us wast If there be any fanatick principle among us and there are certainly very many this is one to think that purity of Ordinances will commute for the impurity of our lives or that we are either better or safer for being of this or that Party Lot and Noah are commended for being righteous in a wicked and perverse Generation their condemnation will be the greater that are wicked and unrighteous in a holy Nation and Schismatical in the Communion of a Church truly Catholick and Apostolical Let none of us be as the Sons of Eli Sons of Belial that snatched at the flesh while it was raw and served themselves before the Lord whereby they made the offerings of the Lord to be abhorred of the People Let none of us be like the Proud and Hypocritical Pharisees who thought to cloke their real impieties in neglecting works of mercy and peace by a pretence of zeal for the minute circumstances of external Worship and Disciplin but let us offer to God the sacrifices of a humble and contrite heart and not forget to do good and communicate Heb. 13.16 for with such sacrifices God is well pleased and then he will accept our praises and answer our Prayers with a Misericordiam volo I will have mercy upon you and heal your Land Which God grant for the sake of Jesus Christ Amen FINIS
conform to them but choose rather to lose all they have how Devout they are in their Prayers Powerful in their Preaching Holy in their Lives How hard a task is it to Undeceive such People who are verily perswaded that all that hath been told them is true and having never doubted and inquired into the truth of them have continued in their prejudices against the one and in Communion with the other and as they believe are greatly edified in knowledge and grace and as St. Paul acting zealously according to his knowledge and Conscience before his Conversion thought verily Acts 26.9 that he ought to do all those things against the Name of Jesus of Nazareth and that he did God good service in it Now what is the most probable means to convert such a one Should any of the Apostles have gone to Saul and upbraided him with hypocrisie and dissimulation Saul was guilty of no such thing he acted according to his knowledge and Conscience and such a Method would have confirmed him in his present perswasion that he acted for and they against the truth The same Method therefore that our Saviour used in Saul's conversion is the most probable for the undeceiving of such prejudiced Persons To convince them It is Jesus whom they persecute that the Pharisees under whom they were educated made Religion only a Cloak to hide their gross impieties that their preciseness about Ceremonies and tithing Mint Annise and Cummin was but a pretence to blind Men from charging them with the neglect of the weightier matters of the Law and there needs no other help to discover false Teachers than that of our Saviour by their fruits ye shall know them for as when we see a Wolf though in Sheeps clothing begin to scatter and worrey the Flock we may conclude him to be a Wolf so when we see Men live in Envy and Malice and to be the Authors of Confusion and every Evil thing we may conclude they have not the Spirit which they pretend to And as for the Multitude Christ instructs them in plain and easie Precepts of Repentance faith and new obedience and vindicates the Law of God from the gross and false interpretations of the Pharisees who notwithstanding the good Opinion that the People had of them were indeed grand Hypocrites proud censorious malicious And therefore they ought to shake off that heavy Yoke that was imposed upon their Consciences and to be of a meek and teachable Spirit to search the Scriptures and consider what was written in the Law and the Prophets of doing justly loving mercy Micah 6.8 and walking humbly with God To these our Saviour recalls the deceived People Matth. 5. in that most Heavenly Sermon on the Mount and that great Commandment of loving the Lord our God with all our Heart Matth. 22.37 and with all our Soul and with all our Mind and in the other which is like unto it to love our Neighbours as our selves and doing to all Men as we would they should do unto us on which Golden Rule hang all the Law and the Prophets I doubt not but as among the Pharisees of old so among the Papists and other Sectaries now there are many chief Leaders that know themselves to be in Error and that if they should acquaint the People with their own convictions they should retain very few Proselytes and therefore it was and is their constant care to keep the People under ignorance and prejudice still either wholly to deny the use of the Scriptures and other good works or so to wrest the one and defame the other that it is almost the same thing as if they were wholly denyed to them We read in the 2d of Sam. 15. how Absalom under pretence of a Vow and with fair speeches stole the hearts of the People and led them into Rebellion against his own Father he carries out at once Two Hundred Men from Jerusalem who as the Text says went in the simplicity of their hearts not knowing any thing Cameron doth excuse such Persons as are unawares seduced by the instance of one that unwittingly marries his own Sister which though it be really Incest yet relatè in respect that he did it ignorantly it is not so to him unless he continues in it after full information How far they were excusable from Rebellion and Separation that ingaged in the first unhappy Wars is by this time known to most of them But as they were rank Rebels that continued with Absalom when they saw him to be guided by the Counsel of Achitophel to form Armies and fight pitcht Battails against his Father David whom he so pursued that v. 30. you find David and the Men that were with him going up to the Mount Olivet bare-footed and weeping in which distress Shimei perpetually curseth him v. 7. Come out thou bloody Man and thou Man of Belial Ch. 16.7 and v. 13. cast dust and stones at him So they that having been Spectators and for the most part Agents or Patients in the horrid effects of our late most unhappy Divisions which were begun on pretence of reforming Church-affairs and introducing a better Discipline shall again ingage in the like Divisions and foment Discord and Separation which St. James tells us as well as our own experience will bring in confusion and every evil thing are Separatists in the highest degree Besides the generality of the People who are now separated were reconciled to the Communion of our Church which was done either upon good information and sound knowledge of the lawfulness of holding Communion with us or in a way of dissimulation and hypocrisie If upon the account of a right information then they sin in the Separation that is now made If upon the consideration of other vile ends and secular motives they were hypocrites in so doing and such in all probability they continue still It was undoubtedly their duty before they departed to have consulted with those spiritual Guides under whose Ministry they were for the resolution of their doubts and trial of the Grounds of their intended Separation which being wholly neglected it argues at least great rashness and supine negligence and consequently that Sensuality and not Piety was the ground of their Separation And as the Religion of some Men is framed according to their Natural constitutions and continual education so bodily Distempers and accidental infirmities and afflictions have a great influence to the perswasions of others Thus a discontented spirit disappointment of hopes decay of Trade a Sedentary calling and labouring in the Fire may raise such melancholy fancies and so strongly imprint them on the Spirits of Men as to make them really believe absurd and impossible things as if they were real truths for Melancholy is of the nature of Wine if sends up hot and flatulent Vapours into the Brain and there creates strange Imaginations and inableth Men with confident and eloquent Language to express their fancies and this temper
and do no more so wickedly and so it may prove a means of preventing the judgments of God from falling down upon the Land God himself will not be merciful to them that offend of malicious wickedness Psal 59.5 though he have said Misericordiam volo I will have mercy c. Which words commend unto us this seasonable and necessary instruction that Doctr. To be busie and scrupulous about the external worship of God to the neglect of moral duties to God and our Brethren is a Pharisaical temper contrary to the Will of God For the proof of which position I shall weigh Mercy and Sacrifice in the ballance of the Sanctuary that you may clearly see of what different esteems they are in the sight of God And first of Sacrifice whose Antiquity might justly gain a great veneration among that people for though I do not think it as ancient as the state of Innocency as Bellarmine and Greg. de Valentia the better to countenance their Sacrifice of the Mass do affirm Bellar. de missâ l. 1. c. 20. Valent. de missae Sacrif l. 1. c. 4. yet it is almost as old as Adam who taught his Sons to offer both of the fruits of the earth and the fatlings of the Flock which was done as some learned men affirm immediately upon that Covenant made to the promised seed which was solemnized by Sacrifices as the Apostle intimates Hebr. 9.18 22. And the Skins wherewith we find Adam and Eve clothed shortly after the fall and which were afterward made the Priests portion Levit. 8.8 were given them by God he having first had the flesh in Sacrifice to be Symbolum propitiationis a sign of that Propitiation by which their sins were covered Secondly Sacrifices were of greater esteem for their Institution than their Antiquity God himself having commanded the several sorts of them and the particular circumstances concerning them As first the Peace-offering for the fruits of the earth Secondly the Sin-offering for Atonement and pardon of Transgressions Thirdly the Burnt-offering as an acknowledgment of Homage to God the Soveraign Lord of all The book of Leviticus is but a Directory for these Thirdly They were very considerable for their usefulness First as they were to be Signa innocentiae testimonies and declarations of Innocency For as the creatures offered unto God ought to be only such as were clean for their kind so particularly they ought to be without spot or blemish and no beasts or birds of prey but the Ox and the Lamb the Turtle and the Dove harmless and useful creatures only must be brought to the Altar and the offerer was to lay his hands on the beast either to profess his innocence that he was not guilty of bribes or of bloud of fraud or violence or if he were then to confess his sins and deprecate the wrath of God by virtue of that Covenant whereof the Sacrifice was a testimony and so it was propitiatory They were Secondly Eucharistical pledges and earnests of their gratitude expressing their readiness to forgoe all or to return it to him from whom they received it Thirdly they were Admonitions to the guilty persons to repent of their sins or else that they must perish as those beasts did Fourthly By external Sacrifices they were minded of their internal duties as mactare propriam voluntatem to mortifie all beastly lusts and affections Fifthly They were fences and boundaries to the Religion God commanding the Jews to Sacrifice those very beasts which their Idolatrous neighbours did worship as the Ox the Sheep and Dove which were worshipped as Gods among the Egyptians and Zabii to maintain a greater detestation of Idolatry in their hearts Sixthly They were as so many penalties and forfeitures taken on that people upon every trespass which also served not only as a present punishment but a future terror minding them that they had forfeited their own lives and Souls which God was pleased to spare expecting better obedience even a living Sacrifice And yet all this notwithstanding though Sacrifices were venerable for their Antiquity more for their usefulness as well to the Religion in general as to the Reformation of particular persons but most of all for its divine Instution the Levitical Law being but a Rubrick or directory for the Sacrifices Misericordiam volo c. I will have mercy For if hypocritical Jews should have amassed all these Sacrifices in one as the Prophet Jer. 7.21 speaks Put your burnt-offerings to your Sacrifices and eat flesh If they should go with their Flocks and heards to seek the Lord Hos 5.6 If they should have presented a Sacrifice as magnificent as that of Solomon 22000 Oxen and 120000 Sheep If they should have invented more costly ones 1 Kings 8.63 thousands of Rams and ten thousand rivers of Oil their first-born for their transgression the fruit of their bodies for the sin of their Souls yet to do justice and to love mercy is preferred to them all Mic. 6.8 For though Sacrifices were commanded yet not for any intrinsical goodness in them but with respect to some greater good Eze. 20.25 I gave them Statutes that were not good and judgments whereby they should not live they were not originally good as the duties of the Moral Law these were commanded because they were good the other good only because they were commanded they did not make the Offerer but he made them acceptable as in the case of Cain and Abel Thus God speaks to wicked men Psal 50. that gave their mouths to evil ver 19 20. and did sit and speak against their Brother and slander their own mothers son I will not reprove thee for thy Sacrifices or burnt-offerings Offer to God Thanksgiving c. And Psal 51.16 Thou desirest not Sacrifice else would I give it thee The Sacrifices of God are a broken Spirit a broken and a contrite heart O God thou wilt not despise Solomon tells us after that he had presented that costly Sacrifice To do justice and judgment is more acceptable to the Lord than Sacrifice Prov. 21.3 for it is true of the house of God what he says of ours Better is a dry morsel with quietness than a house full of Sacrifices with strife Prov. 17.1 In this therefore the young Scribe was better instructed than these Pharisees for he consented with our Saviour Mark 12.33 That to love the Lord with all our heart c. and our neighbours as our selves is more than all whole burnt-offerings and Sacrifice In a word our Saviour hath told us that whatever our gift be that we bring to the Altar if we remember that our Brother hath ought against us i. if we are conscious of any injury or unkindness wherewith he may charge us it is our duty to go first and be reconciled to our Brother before we presume to offer our gift though it be of prayer or praise God will never accept of a peace-offering from them that live in enmity with their Brethren