then hazard it and that it is your daily principal business to seek it Can you truly say that though you have your failings and sins yet your main care and the bent of your whole life is to please God and enjoy him for ever and that you give the world Gods leavings as it were and not God the worlds leavings and that your worldly business is but as a travellers seeking for provision in his jorney and heaven is the place that you take for your home If he say yea to the first and third tell him how great a thing it is for a mans heart to abhor his sin and to lay up his happiness unfeignedly in another world and to live in this world for another that is out of sight And therefore desire him to see that it be so indeed If he say yea to the second question then turn to the ninth tenth eleventh or twelfth Articles of the Catechism and read over some of those Duties which you most suspect him to omit and ask him Whether he do perform such or such a duty Especially Prayer in a family or private and the holy spending of all the Lords day because these are of so great moment of which anon Direction 7. When you have either by former discovery of gross ignorance or by these later enquiries into his spiritual state discerned an apparent probability that the person is yet in an unconverted state your next business is to fall on with all your skill and power to bring his heart to the sense of his condition E. G. Truly neighbours I have no mind the Lord knows to make your condition worse then it is nor to put any causless fear or trouble into your mind but I suppose you would take me but for a flattering enemy and not a faith ful friend if I should daub with you and not tell you the truth If you sought to a Physitian in your sickness you would have him tell you the truth though it were the worst Much more here For there the knowledge of your disease may by fears increase it but here you must know it or else you can never be recovered from it I much fear that you are yet a stranger to the new life of all them that Christ will save For if you were a Christian indeed and truly converted your very heart would have been set on God and the life to come and you would have admired the riches of grace in Christ and you would have made it your business to prepare for Everlasting and you durst not you would not live in any wilful sin nor in the neglect of such duties Alas what have you done how have you spent your time till now Did you not know that you had a soul to save or lose and that you must live in heaven or hell for ever and that you had your life and time in this world for that purpose to prepare for another Alas what have you been doing all this while that you are so ignorant or so unprepared for death if it should now find you If you had but had as much mind of heaven as of earth you would have known more of it and done more of it and enquired more diligently after it then you have done You can learn how to do your business in the world and why could you not have learned more of the will of God if you had but minded it You have neighbours that could learn more that have had as much to do in the world as you and as little time Do you think that heaven is not worth your labour or that its like it can be had without any care or pains when you cannot have the trifles of this world without and when God hath bid you first seek his Kingdom and the righteousness thereof Alas Neighbour what if you had dyed before this hour in an unconverted state what had become of you and where had you now been why you did not know all this while that you should live a day to an end O that ever you would be so cruel to your selves as to venture your Everlasting state so desperately as you have done what did you think of Did you not all this while know that you must shortly dye and be judged as you were then found Had you any greater work to do or any greater business to mind then your salvation Do you think that all that you can get in this world will comfort you at a dying hour or purchase your salvation or ease the pains of Hell-fire Set these things home with a more earnest voice then the former part of your conference was managed with For if you get it not to heart you do little or nothing and that which affecteth not is soon forgotten Direct 8. Next this conclude the whole with a Practical Exhortation which must contain two parts First the duty of the heart in order to a closure with Christ and that which is contained in that closure and Secondly The use of external means for the time to come and the avoiding of former sins E. g. Neighbour I am heartily sorry to find you in so sad a case but I should be more sorry to leave you in it and therefore let me intreat you for the Lords sake and for your own sake to to regard what I shall say to you as to the time to come It is the Lords great mercy that he did not cut you off in your unconverted natural state and that you have yet life and time and that there is a sufficient Remedy provided for your soul in the blood of Christ and he is yet offered with Pardon and life to you as well as any others God hath not left sinful man to utter desperation for want of a Ransom by a Redeemer as he hath done the Devils nor hath he made any exception in the offer or promise of pardon and life against you any more then against any other If you had yet but a bleeding heart for sin and could come to Christ believingly for recovery and resign your selves to him as your Saviour and Lord and would be a new man for the time to come the Lord will have mercy on you in the pardon of your sins and the saving of your soul And I must tell you that as it must be the great work of Gods grace to give you such a heart so if ever he mean to pardon and save you he will make this change upon you that I have before mentioned he will make you feel your sin as the heaviest burden in the world as that which is most odious in it self and hath laid you open to the Curse of God he will make you see that you are a lost man and that there is no way but one with you even everlasting damnation unless you are pardoned by the blood of Christ and sanctified by his spirit he will you make you see the need you have of Christ and how much you are
Anglicanus was called stupor mundi before all those Ignorant and Scandalous ones were cast out what may we now call it Brethren let me deal freely with you The ungrateful contempt of a faithful Ministry is the shame of the faces of thousands in this Land and if through-Repentance prevent it not they shall better know in hell whether such Ministers were their friends or foes and what they would have done for them if their counsel had been heard When the Messengers of God were mocked and his words despised and his Prophets abused the wrath of the Lord arose on the Israelites themselves and there was no remedy 2 Chro. 36. 16. Shall Ministers study and preach and pray for you and shall they be despised When they have the God of Heaven and their own consciences to witness that they desire not yours but you and are willing to spend and be spent for your sakes and that all the wealth in the world would not be regarded by them in comparison of your salvation and that all their labours and sufferings is for your sakes if yet they shall be requited with your contempt or scorn or dicourageing unteachableness see who will prove the losers in the end When God himself shall Justifie and Condemn them with a Well done good and faithful servant let those that reproached despised and condemned them defend their faces from shame and their consciences from the accusations of their horrid ingratitude as well as they can Read the Scripture and see whether they that obeyed Gods Messengers or they that despised and disobeyed them sped best And if any of the Seducers will tell you that we are not the Ministers of Christ leave them not till they tell you which is his true Church and Ministry and where they are and by that time they have well answered you you may know more of their minds 3. My last advice to you is this See that you Obey your faithful Teachers and improve their help for your salvation while you have it and take heed that you refuse not to learn when they would teach you And in particular see that you refuse not to submit to them in this duty of Private Instruction which is mentioned in this Treatise Go to them when they desire you and be thankful for their help Yea and at other times when you need their advice go to them of your own accord and ask it Their office is to be your guides in the way to life If you seek not their Direction it seems you either despise salvation it self or else you are so Proud as to think your selves sufficient to be your own Directors Shall God in mercy send you Leaders to Teach you and Conduct you in the way to Glory and will you stoutly send them back or refuse their assistance and say We have no need of their Direction Is it for their own case or gain that they trouble you or is it for your own everlasting gain Remember that Christ hath said to his Messengers He that despiseth you despiseth me If your obstinate refusal of their Instruction do put them to bear witness against you in Judgement and to say Lord I would have taught these ignorant sinners and admonished these worldly impenitent wretches but they would not so much as come to me nor speak with me look you to it and answer it as you can For my part I would not be then in your case for all the world But I shall say no more to you on this point but only desire you to read and consider the exhortation which is published in our Agreement it self which speaks to you more fully And if you read this book remember that the Duty which you find to belong to the Ministers doth shew also what belongs to your selves For it cannot be our duty to Teach Catechize Advise c. if it be not yours to Hear and Learn and seek Advice If you have any temptation to question our office read the London Ministers Ius Divinum Minister Evang. and Mr. Tho. Balls book for the Ministry If you doubt of the duty of learning the Principles and being Catechized read the London Ministers late Exhortation to Catechizing and Mr. Zach. Croftons book for Catechizing now newly published April 16. 1656. Rich. Baxter Dr. H. Hammond of the Power of the Keyes cap. 4. sect 104. pag. 113. NAY thirdly there will be little matter of doubt or controversie but that private frequent spiritual conference betwixt fellow-Christians but especially and in matters of high concernment and difficulty between the Presbyter and those of his charge even in the time of health and peculiarly that part of it which is spent in the discussion of every mans special sins and infirmities and inclinations may prove very useful and advantagious in order to spiritual directions reproof and comfort to the making the man of God perfect And to tell truth if the Pride and self conceit of some the wretchlesness of others the bashfulness of a third sort the nauseating and instant satiety of any good in a fourth the follies of men and artifices of Satan had not put this practice quite out of fashion among us there is no doubt but more good might be done by Ministers this way then is now done by any other means separated from the use of this particularly then by that of Publike Preaching which yet need not be neglected the more when this is used which hath now the fate to be cryed up and almost solely depended on it being the likelyer way as Quintilian saith comparing Publike and private teaching of youth to fill narrow mouth'd bottles and such are the most of us by taking them single in the hand and pouring in water into each then by setting them altogether and throwing never so many bottles of water on them Mr. William Gurnal in his excellent Book called The Christian in compleat Armour pag. 2 5. THE ignorant soul feels no such smart If the Minister stay till he sends for him to instruct him he may sooner hear the bell go for him than any Messenger come for him You must seek them out and not expect that they will come to you These are a sort of people that are afraid more of their Remedy than their disease and study more to hide their ignorance then how to have it cured which should make us pitty them the more because they can pitty themselves so little I confess it is no small unhappiness to some of us who have to do with a multitude that we have neither time nor strength to make our addresses to every particular person in our Congregations and attend on them as their needs require and yet cannot well satisfie our consciences otherwise But let us look to it that though we cannot do to the height of what we would we be not found wanting in what we may Let not the difficulty of our Province make us like some who when they see they have more work
Angel of light to deceive He will get within you and trip up your heels before you are aware He will play the juglar with you undiscerned and cheat you of your faith or innocency and you shall not know that you have lost it nay he will make you believe it is multiplyed or increased when it is lost You shall see neither hook nor line much less the subtile Angler himself whole he is offering you his bait And his baits shall be so fitted to your temper and disposition that he will be sure to find advantages within you and make your own principles and inclinations to betray you and when ever he ruineth you he will make you the instruments of your own ruine O what a conquest will he think he hath got if he can make a Minister lazy and unfaithful if he can tempt a Minister into covetousness or scandal He will glory against the Church and say These are your holy Preachers you see what their preciseness is and whither it will bring them He will glory against Jesus Christ himself and say These are thy Champions I can make thy chiefest servants to abuse thee I can make the Stewards of thy house unfaithful If he did so insult against God upon a false surmise and tell him he could make Iob to curse him to his face Iob 1. 11. What would he do if he should indeed prevail against us And at last he will insult as much over you that ever he could draw you to be false to your great trust and to blemish your holy profession and to do him so much service that was your enemy O do not so far gratifie Satan do not make him so much sport suffer him not to use you as the Philistines did Sampson first to deprive you of your strength and then to put out your eyes and so to make you the matter of his triumph and derision SECT XIII 5. TAke heed to your selves also because there are many eyes upon you and therefore there will be many observers of your fals You cannot miscarry but the world will ring of it The Ecclipses of the Sun by day time are seldom without witnesses If you take your selves for the Lights of the Churches you may well expect that mens eyes should be upon you If other men may sin without observation so cannot you And you should thankfully consider how great a mercy this is That you have so many eyes to watch over you and so many ready to tell you of your faults and so have greater helps then others at least for the restraining of your sin Though they may do it with a malicious mind yet you have the advantage by it God forbid that we should prove so impudent as to do evil in the publike view of all and to sin wilfully while the world is gazing on us He that is drunk is drunk in the night and he that sleepeth doth sleep in the night 1 These 5. 7. What fornicator so impudent as to sin in the open streets while all look on Why consider that you are still in the open light Even the Light of your own Doctrine will disclose your evil doings While you are as Lights set upon a hill look not to lie hid Mat. 5. 14. Take heed therefore to your selves and do your works as those that remember that the world looks on them and that with the quick-sighted eye of malice ready to make the worst of all and to find the smallest fault where it is and aggravate it where they find it and divulge it and make it advantagious to their designs and to make faults where they cannot find them How cautelously then should we walk before so many ill-minded observers SECT XIV 6. TAke heed also to your selves for your sins have more hainous aggravations then other mens Its noted among King Alphonsus sayings that a great man cannot commit a small sin we may much more say that a learned man or a Teacher of others cannot commit a small sin or at least that the sin is great as committed by him which is smaller in another I. You are liker then others to sin against knowledge because you have more then they At least you sin against more light or means of knowledge What do you not know that Covetousness and Pride are sins do you not know what it is to be unfaithful to your trust and by negligence or self-seeking to betray mens souls You know your masters will and if you do it not shall be beaten with many stripes There must needs therefore be the more wilfulness by how much there is the more knowledge If you sin it is because you will sin 2. Your sins have more hypocrisie in them then other mens by how much the more you have spoke against them O what a hainous thing is it in us to study how to disgrace sin to the utmost and make it as odious to our people as we can and when we have done to live in it and secretly cherish that which we openly disgrace What vile hypocrisie is it to make it our daily work to cry it down and yet to keep it to call it publikely all to naught and privately to make it our bed-fellow and companion To bind heavy burdens for others and not to touch them our selves with a finger What can you say to this in judgement Did you think as ill of sin as you spoke or did you not If you did not why would you dissemblingly speak it If you did why would you keep it and commit it O bear not that badge of a miserable Pharisee They say but do not Mat. 23. 3. Many a minister of the Gospel will be confounded and not be able to look up by reason of this heavy charge of hypocrisie 3. Moreover your sins have more perfidiousness in them then other mens You have more engaged your selves against them Besides all your common engagements as Christians you have many more as Ministers How oft have you proclaimed the evil and danger of it and called sinners from it how oft have you declared the terrors of the Lord all these did imply that you renounced it your selves Every Sermon that you preacht against it every private Exhortation every Confession of it in the Congregation did lay an engagement upon you to forsake it Every child that you have baptized and entred into the Covenant with Christ and every administration of the Supper of the Lord wherein you called men to renew their Covenant did import your own renouncing of the flesh and the world and your engagement unto Christ How oft and how openly have you born witness of the odiousness and damnable nature of sin and yet will you entertain it against all these professions and testimonies of your own O what treachery is it to make such a stir in the Pulpit against it and after all to entertain it in the heart and give it the room that is due to God and even prefer it before
or after it is meet that we urge him to be serious in his humiliation and set it home upon his conscience till he seem to be truly sensible of his sin For it is not a vain formality but the Recovery and saving of a soul that we expect 3. We must see that he beg the Communion of the Church and their prayers to God for his Pardon and Salvation 4. And that he Promise to fly from such sins for the time to come and watch more narrowly and walk more warily 5. And then we have these things more to do 1. To assure him of the riches of Gods love and the sufficiency of Christs blood to pardon his sins and that if his Repentance be sincere the Lord doth pardon him of which we are authorized as his Messengers to assure him 2. To charge him to persevere and perform his promises and avoid temptations and continue to beg mercy and strengthening grace 3. To charge the Church that they imitate Christ in forgiving and retain or if he were cast out receive the Penitent person in their Communion that they never reproach him with his sins or cast them in his teeth but forgive and forget them as Christ doth 4. And then to give God thanks for his recovery so far and to pray for his confirmation and future preservation 5. The next part of Discipline is the Rejecting and Removing from the Churches Communion those that after sufficient tryaldo remain impenitent Where note 1. That if a man have sinned but once so scandalously or twice it is but a Profession of Repentance that we can expect for our satisfaction but if he be accustomed to sin or have oft broke such Promises then it is an actual reformation that we must expect And therefore he that will refuse either of these to Reform or to Profess and manifest Repentance is to be taken by us as living in the sin For a hainous sin but once committed is morally continued in till it be Repented of and a bare forbearing of the act is not sufficient 2. Yet have we no warrant to rip up matters that are worn out of the publike memory and so to make that publike again that is ceased to be publike at least in ordinary cases 3. Exclusion from Church-Communion commonly called Excommunication is of divers sorts or degrees more then two or three which are not to be confounded of which I will not so far digress as here to treat 4. That which is most commonly to be practised among us is Only to remove an impenitent sinner from our Communion till it shall please the Lord to give him Repentance 5. In this Exclusion or Removal the Minister or Governors of that Church are Authoritatively to charge the people in the name of the Lord to avoid Communion with him and to pronounce him one whose Communion the Church is bound to avoid and the Peoples duty is Obedientially to avoid him in case the Pastors charge contradict not the word of God So that he hath the Guiding or Governing Power and they have 1. A discerning power whether his charge be just 2. And an executive power For it s they that must execute the sentence in part by avoiding the Rejected as he himself must execute it by denying him those Ordinances and Priviledges not due to him whereof he is the Administrator 6. It is very convenient to pray for the Repentance and restauration even of the Excommunicate 7. And if God shall give them Repentance they are gladly to be received into the Communion of the Church again Of the manner of all these I shall say no more they being things that have so much said of them already And for the manner of other particular duties of which I have said little or nothing you have much already as in other writings so in the Directory of the late Assemblie Would we were but so far faithful in the Practice of this Discipline as we are satisfied both of the matter and manner and did not dispraise and reproach it by our negligence while we write and plead for it with the highest commendations It is worthy our consideration Who is like to have the heavyer charge about this matter at the Bar of God Whether those deluded ones that have reproached and hindred discipline by their tongues because they knew not its nature and necessity or we that have so vilified it by our constant omission while with our tongues we have magnified it If hypocrisie be no sin or if the knowledge of our Masters will be no aggravation of the evil of disobedience then we are in a better case then they I will not advise the zealous maintainers and obstinate neglecters and rejecters of Discipline to unsay all that they have said till they are ready to do as they say nor to recant their defences of Discipline till they mean to practice it nor to burn all the Books that they have written for it and all the Records of their cost and hazzards for it least they rise up in Judgement against them to their confusion not that they recant their condemnation of the Prelates in this till they mean a little further to outgo them But I would perswade them without any more delay to conform their Practices to these Testimonies which they have given lest the more they are proved to have commended Discipline the more they are proved to have condemned themselves for neglecting it I have often marvailed that the same men who have been much offended at the Books that have been written for Free Admission to the Lords Supper or for mixt Communion in that one part have been no more offended at as Free permission in a Church state and as Free admission to other parts of Communion and that they have made so small a matter at as much mixture in all the rest I should think that it is a greater profanation to permit an obstinate scandalous sinner to be a stated member of that particular Church without any private first and then publike Admonition Prayer for him or censure of him then for a single Pastor to admit him to the Lords Supper if he had no power to censure him as these suppose I should think that the faithful Practice of Discipline in the other parts would soon put an end to the Controversie about Free Admission to the Lords Supper and heal the hurt that such Discourses have done to the rebellions of our people For those Discourses have more modesty then to plead for a Free Admission of the Censured or Rejected ones but its only of those that have yet their standing in that Church and are not censured And if when they forfeit their title to Church-Communion we would deal with them in Christs appointed way till we had either reclaimed them to Repentance or censured them to be Avoided it would be past controversie then that they were not to be admitted to that one act of Communion in the Supper who are justly
they have been of the mind of his carnal friends that went to lay hold on him and said He is besides himself vers 21. They would have told Christ he made a drudge or a slave of himself and God did not require all this ado If they had seen him all night in prayer and all day in preaching and healing it seems he should have had this censure from them for his labour I cannot but advise these men to search their own hearts whether they unfeignedly believe that word that they preach Do you believe indeed that such Glory attends those that dye in the Lord and such Torment attendeth those that dye unconverted If you do how can you think any labour too much for such weighty ends If you do not say so and get you out of the vine ard and go with the Prodigal to keep swine and undertake not the feeding of the Flock of Christ Do you not know that it is your own benefit which you grudge at The more you do the more you receive the more you lay out the more you have coming in If you are strangers to these Christian Paradoxes you should not have taken on you to peach them to others At the present our incomes of spiritual life and peace are commonly in way of duty so that he that is most in duty hath most of God Exercise of Grace increaseth it And is it a slavery to be more with God and to receive more him then other men It is the chief solace of a gracious soul to be doing Good and receiving by doing and to be much exercised about those Divine things which have his heart A good stomack will not say at a feast what a slavery is it to bestow my time and pains so much to feed my self Besides that we prepare for fuller receivings hereafter we set our Talents to usury and by improving them we shall make five become ten and so be made Rulers of ten Cities We shall be judged according to our works Is it a drudgery to send to the utmost parts of the world to exchange our trifles for Gold and Jewels Do not these men seek to Justifie the prophane that make all diligent godliness a drudgery and reproach it as a precise and tedious life I say they will never believe but a man may be saved without all this ado Even so say these in respect to the works of the Ministry They take this diligence for ungrateful tediousness and they will not believe but a man may be a faithful Minister without all this ado It is a hainous sin to be Negligent in so great a business but to approve of that negligence and so to be impenitent and to plead against duty as if it were none and when they should lay out themselves for the saving of souls to say I do not believe that God requireth it this is so great an aggravation of the sin that where the Churches Necessity doth not force us to make use of such for want of better I cannot but think them worthy to be cast out as the rubbish and as sale that hath lost its savour that is neither fit for the land nor yet for the dunghil but men cast it out he that hath ears to hear saith Christ in these words let him hear Luke 14. 34. 35. And if such Ministers become a by-word and reproach let them thank themselves for it is their own sin that maketh them vile 1 Sam. 3. 13. And while they thus debase the service of the Lord they do but debase themselves and prepare for a greater abasement at the last Object 4. BUt if you make such severe Laws for Ministers the Church will be left without For what man will put himself upon such a toilsom life or what Parents will choose such a burden for their children Men will avoid it both for the bodily toil and the danger to their Consciences if they should not well discharge it Ans 1. It is not we but Christ that hath made and imposed these Laws which you call severe And if I should silence them or mis-interpret them or tell you that there is no such things that would not relax them nor disoblige or excuse you He that made them knew why he did it and will expect the performance of them Is infinite Goodness it self to be questioned or suspected by us as making bad or unmerciful Laws Nay it is meer mercy in him that imposeth this great duty upon us If Physitians be required to be as diligent in Hospitals or Pest-houses or with other patients to save their lives were there not more mercy then rigor in this Law what must God let the souls of your Neighbours perish to save you a little Labour and suffering and this in mercy to you O what a miserable world should we have if blind self-conceited man had the ruling of it 2. And for a supply of Pastors Christ will take care He that imposeth duty hath the fulness of the Spirit and can give men hearts to obey his Laws Do you think Christ will suffer all men to be as cruel unmerciful fleshly and self-seeking as you He that hath undertaken himself the work of our Redemption and born our transgressions and been faithful as the chief Shepherd and Teacher of the Church will not lose all his Labour and suffering for want of Instruments to carry on his work nor will he come down again to do all himself because no other will do it but he will provide men to be his Servants and Ushers in his School that shall willingly take the labour on them and rejoyce to be so imployed and account that the happiest life in the world which you account so great a toil and would not change it for all your ease and carnal pleasure but for the saving of souls and the propagating of the Gospel of Christ will be content to bear the burden and heat of the day and to fill up the measure of the sufferings of Christ in their bodies and to do what they do with all their might and to work while it is day and to be the servants of all and not to please themselves but others for their Edification and to become all things to all men that they may save some and to endure all things for the elects sake and to spend and be spent for men though the more they love the less they should be beloved and should be accounted their enemies for telling them the truth such Pastors will Christ provide his people after his own heart that will feed them with knowledge as men that seek not theirs but them What do you think Christ can have no servants if such as you shall with Demas turn to the present world and forsake him If you dislike his service you may seek you a better where you can find it and boast of your gain in the Conclusion but do not threaten him with the loss of your service He hath made such
expressions no nor cannot learn when expressions are put into their mouths Some of the most pious experienced approved Christians that I know aged people complain exceedingly to me with tears that they cannot learn the words of the Catechism and when I consider their advantages that they have lived under the most excellent helps in constant duty and in the best company for fourty or fifty or sixty years together it teacheth me what to expect from poor ignorant people that never had such company and converse for one year or week and not to reject them so hastily as some hot and too high professors would have us do But this is on the by 5. This also must be observed that if you find them at a loss and unable to answer your questions drive them not on too hard or too long with question after question lest they conceive you intend but to puzzle them and disgrace them but presently when you perceive them troubled that they cannot answer then step in your self and take the burden off them make answer to the question your selves and then do it throughly and plainly and make a full explication of the whole business to them that by your Teaching they may be brought to understand it before you leave them And herein it is comonly necessary that you fetch up the matter ab origine take it on in order till you come to the point in question 6. And usually with the grosly ignorant it is flatly necessary that you do run over all the sum of our Religion to them in the most familiar way that you can possibly devise But this must be the next Direction Direct 5. When you have done what you see Cause in the trial of their knowledge proceed next to instruct them your selves And this must be according to their several Capacities If it be a Professor that understandeth the Fundamentals fall upon somewhat which you perceive that he most needeth either explaining further some of the mysteries of the Gospel or laying the Grounds of some duty which he may doubt of or shewing the necessity of what he neglecteth or meeting with his sins or mistakes as may be most convincing and edifying to him If it be one that is grosly ignorant give him a plain familiar recital of the sum of the Christian Religion in a few words for though it be in the Catechism already yet a more familiar way may better help them to understand it As thus You must know that from Everlasting there was one only God that had no beginning and can have no end who is not a Body as we are but a most pure spiritual Being that knoweth all things and can do all things and hath all Goodness and Blessedness in himself This God is but one but yet three Persons the Father the Son and holy Ghost in an incomprehensible manner above our reach yet we have somewhat in our selves and other creatures that may give us some resemblance of it As in a man his Power and his understanding and will be but One soul and yet they are not one faculty but differ one from another Or as in the Sun the Being or Power and the Heat and the Light are not all one and yet there is but one Sun so in a more incomprehensible manner it is in God And you must know that this One God did make all the world by his word the heavens he made to be the place of his Glory and made a world of holy Angels to serve him in his Glory but some of these did by Pride or other sin fall from God and are become Devils that shall be miserable in torments for ever when he had made the rest of this lower world he made man as his noblest creature here even one man and one woman Adam and Eve and he made them perfect without any sin or fault and put them into the gardan of Eden and forbad them to eat but of one tree in the garden and told them that if they did they should dye But the Devil that had first fallen himself did tempt them to sin and they yielded to his temptation and by wilful sinning they fell under the curse of Gods Law and fell short of the Glory of God But God of his infinite Wisdom and Mercy did send his own son Jesus Christ to be their Redeemer who as he was promised in the beginning so in the fulness of time 1655. years ago was made man and was born of a Virgin by the power of the Holy Ghost and lived on earth among the Jews about 33 years and he preached the Gospel himself and wrought many miracles to prove his doctrine and bring men to believe in him healing the lame the blind the sick and raising the dead by the word of his mouth by his Divine power at the end by the malice of the Jews his own Consent he was offered upon the Cross as a sacrifice for our sins to bear that Curse that we should have born and when he was buryed he rose again the third day and lived on earth forty dayes after And before his departure he sent his Apostles and other Ministers to preach the Gospel of salvation to the world and to call home lost sinners by Repentance and to assure them in his Name that if they will but believe in him and take him for their Saviour and unfeignedly lament their former sins and turn from them to God and will take Everlasting Glory for their portion and be content to resign their carnal Interests and desires he will pardon freely all that is past and be merciful to them for the time to come and will lead them up into spiritual Communion with God and bring them to his Glory when this life is Ended but for them that make light of their sins and of his Mercy and will not forsake the pleasures of this world for the hopes of another they shall be condemned to everlasting punishment This Gospel Christ hath appointed his Ministers to preach to all the world and when he had given this in charge to his Apostles he ascended up into heaven before their faces where he is now in Glory with God the Father in our Nature ruling all And at the end of this world he will come again in that nature and will call the dead to life again and set them all before him to be judged and all that truly Repented and believed in him and were renewed by his spirit and renounced this world for the hopes of a better shall be judged to live with God in Glory and shall be like to his Angels and praise him for ever and the rest that repented not and believed not in him but lived to the flesh and the world shall be condemned to everlasting misery So that you may see by this that mans Happiness is not in this world but in the next and that all men have lost their hopes of that Happiness by sin and
Christ had not been in the case as now it is the Nations of Lutherans and Calvinsts abroad and the differing parties here at home would not have been plotting the subversion of one another nor remain at that distance and in that uncharitable bitterness nor strengthen the common enemy and hinder the building and prosperity of the Church as they have done CHAP. IV. SECT I. Use REverend and dear Brethren our business here this day is to humble our souls before the Lord for our former negligence especially of Catechizing and personal instructing those committed to our charge and to desire Gods assistance of us in our undertaken employment for the time to come Indeed we can scarce expect the later without the former If God will help us in our future duty and amendment he will sure humble us first for our former sin He that hath not so much sense of his faults as unfeignedly to lament them will hardly have so much more as may move him to reform them The sorrow of Repentance may go without the change of heart and life because a Passion may be easier wrought then a true conversion but the change cannot go without some good measure of the sorrow Indeed we may justly here begin our Confessions It is too common with us to expect that from our people which we do little or nothing in our selves What pains take we to humble them while our selves are unhumbled How hard do we squeeze them by all our expostulations convictions and aggravations to wring out of them a few penitent tears and all too little when our own eyes are dry and our hearts too strange to true remorse and we give them an example of hard-heartedness while we are endeavouring by our words to mollifie and melt them O if we did but study half as much to affect and amend our own hearts as we do our hearers it would not be with many of us as it is It s a great deal too little that we do for their humiliation but I fear its much less that some of us do for our own Too many do somewhat for other mens souls while they seem to forget that they have any of their own to regard They so carry the matter as if their part of the work lay in calling for Repentance and the hearers in Repenting their 's in speaking tears and sorrow and other-mens-only in weeping and sorrowing theirs in preaching duty and the hearers in performing it their 's in crying down sin and the peoples in forsakeing it But we find that the Guides of the Church in Scripture did confess their own sins as well as the sins of the people and did begin to them in tears for their own and the peoples sins Ezra confesseth the sins of the Priests as well as of the people weeping and casting himself down before the house of God Ezr. 9. 6 7 10. and 10. 1. So did the Levites Neh. 9. 32 33 34. Daniel confessed his own sin as well as the peoples Dan. 9. 20. And God calleth such to it as well as others Joel 2. 15 16 17. When the fast is summoned the people gathered the Congregation sanctified the Elders assembled the Priests the Ministers of the Lord are called to begin to them in weeping and calling upon God for mercy I think if we consider well of the Duties already opened and withal how we have done them of the Rule and of our unanswerableness thereto we need not demurr upon the question nor put it to a question Whether we have cause of humiliation I must needs say though I judge my self in saying it that he that readeth but this one Exhortation of Paul in Acts 20. and compareth his life with it is too stupid and hard-hearted if he do not melt in the sense of his neglects and be not laid in the dust before God and forced to bewail his great omissions and to flye for refuge to the blood of Christ and to his pardoning grace I am confident Brethren that none of you do in judgement approve of the Libertine Doctrine that cryeth down the necessity of Confession Contrition and true humiliation yea and in order to the pardon of sin Is it not pitty then that our Hearts are not more Orthodox as well as our heads But I see our lesson is but half learnt when we know it and can say it When the understanding hath learned it there is more ado to teach it our Wills and Affections our eyes our tongues and hands It is a sad thing that so many of us do use to preach our hearers asleep but it s sadder if we have studyed and preacht our selves asleep and have talkt so long against hardness of heart till our own grow hardned under the noise of our own reproofs Though the head only have eyes and ears and smell and taste the heart should have life and feeling and motion as well as the head And that you may see that it is not a causeless sorrow that God calleth us to I shall take it to be my duty to call to remembrance our mainfold sins or those that are most obvious and set them this day in order before God and our own faces that God may cast them behind his back and to deal plainly and faithfully in a free confession that he who is faithful and just may forgive them and to judge our selves that we be not judged of the Lord. Wherein I suppose I have your free and hearty consent and that you will be so far from being offended with the disgrace of your persons and of others in this office that you will readily subscribe the charge and be humble self-accusers and so far am I from justifying my self by the accusation of others that I do unfeignedly put my name with the first in the bill For how can a wretched sinner of so great transgressions presume to justifie himself with God Or how can he plead Guiltless whose conscience hath so much to say against him If I cast shame upon the Ministery it is not on the office but on our persons by opening that sin which is our shame The glory of our high imployment doth not communicate any glory to our sin nor will afford it the smallest covering for its nakedness For sin is a reproach to any people or persons Prov. 14. 34. And it is my self as well as others on whom I must lay the shame And if this may not be done What do we here to day Our business is to take shame to our selves and to give God the glory and faithfully to open our sins that he may cover them and to make our selves bare by confession as we have done by transgression that we may have the white rayment which cloatheth none but the penitent For be they Pastors or people it is only he that confesseth and forsaketh his sins that shall have mercy when he that hardeneth his heart shall fal into mischief Pro. 28. 13. And I think it will not be
amiss if in the beginning of our Confession we look behind us and imitate Daniel and other servants of God who confessed the sins of their fore-fathers and predecessors For indeed my own Judgement is so far from denying Original sin even the imputed part with the antient opposers of it or those of the new Edition that it doth not so much excuse me from the Guilt of my later progenitors offences as most other mens do seem to excuse them Let us fetch up then the core of our shame and go to the bottom and trace the behaviour of the Minsters of the Gospel from the daies of Christ till now and see how far they have been from innocency When Christ had chosen him but twelve Apostles who kept neer his person that they might be acquainted with his Doctrine Life and Miracles yet how ignorant did they long remain not knowing so much as that he must dye and be a sacrifice for the sins of the world and be buried and rise again and ascend into glory nor what was the nature of his spiritual Kingdom so that it puts us hard to it to imagine how men so ignorant could be in a state of grace but that we know that those points were after of absolute necessity to salvation that were not so then How oft doth Christ teach them publikely and apart Mark 4. 34. and rebuke them for their unbelief and hardness of heart And yet after all this so strange were these great mysteries of Redemption to them and these now Articles of our Creed that Peter himself disswadeth Christ from suffering and goeth so far in contradicting his gracious thoughts for our Redmption that he is called Satan and tantum non excommunicate And no wonder for if his counsel had been taken the world had been lost for ever And as there was a Iudas among them so the twelve are before Christs face contending for superiority so early did that Pride begin to work in the best which afterwards prevailed so far in others as to bring the Church so low as we have seen What should we say of their joynt forsaking Christ of their failings even after the powrings out of the Spirit of the dissention and separation between Paul and Barnabas how strange Peter made of the calling of the Gentiles of his complyance with the Jews to the endangering the liberties of the Gentiles Gal. 2. Of the dissimulation of Barnabas and the common dissertion of Paul in his suffering When he had found one Timothy he saith he had no man like-minded that would naturally care for their estate for all seek their own and not the things of Jesus Christ Phil. 2. 20 21. A sad charge of self-seeking in that glory of the Church for faith and purity And what charges are against most of the Angels of the seven Asian Churches is expressed Rev. 2. and 3. And its likely that Archippus was not the only man that had need to be warned to look to his Ministery Col. 4. 17. Nor Demas the only man that forsook a persecuted partner and turned after the things of the world Nor Diotrephes the only man that loved to have the prehemine noe and made quarrels and dealt unjustly and unmercifully in the Church upon that account And even while the Churches were frying in the flames yet did the Pride and dissentions even of godly Pastors do more then the fire of persecution could do to turn al to ashes How sad a story is it that Policrates with all the Eastern Churches should be arrogantly excommunicated by Victor with his Romans upon no higher a crime then mis-choosing of Easterday which our Brittains also long after were guilty of who would think that so great weakness and presumptuous usurpation and uncharitable cruelty and Schismatical zeal could have befalen the Pastors of the Church in the strongest temptations of prosperity much less in the midst of Heathenish persecutions What toyes and trifles did the antient Reverend Fathers of the Church trouble their heads about and pester the Church with and what useless stuff are many of their Canons composed of Yet these were the great matter and work of many of their famous consultations How quickly did they seem to forget the perfection of holy Scripture the non-necessity and burdensomness of ceremonious impositions And by taking upon them an unnecessary and unjust kind of Jurisdiction they made the Church so much more work then ever Christ made it and so clogged Religion with humane devices that the Christian world hath groaned under it ever since and been almost brought to ruine by it and the Reverence of their persons hath put so much Reputation on the crime and custom hath so taught it to plead praescription that when the â—acerated languid Churches will be delivered from the sad effects of their presumption God only knoweth It would make an impartial Reader wonder that peruseth their Canons and the History of the Church that ever men of piety and charity and sobriety could be drawn to perplex and tear in pieces the Churches by such a multitude of vanities and needless determinations â—o say no worse And that the Preachers of the Gospel of peace which so enjoyneth humility unity and love should ever be drawn to such a height of pâ—ide as to think themselves meet to make so many Laws for the whole Church of Christ and to bind all their Brethren through the world to the obedience of their dictates and practice of their historical insnaring Ceremonies and that upon the penalties of being accounted no less then damned Hereticks or Schismaticks Though Paul had told them betime that he was afraid of them lest as the Serpent deceived Eve so they should be deceived and drawn from the simplicâ—ty that was in Christ 2 Cor. 11. 3. Yet quickly was this Caution forgotten and the thing that Paul feared soon befell them and in stead of the simplicity of Doctrine they vexed the Churches with curious controversies and instead of the simplicity of Disciâ—line and Government they corrupted the Church with Pompe and Tyranâ—ie and varieties of new orders and rules of Religions and instead of the simplicity of worship they set up such a train of their own inventions of which the Church had no necessity that the Bishops were become the Masters of Ceremonies who should have been the faithful and humble observers of the pure Laws and Ordinances of Christ Though their Councils were usual for the Churches Communion had they been rightly ordered yet so unhappily did they manage them for the most part that Greg. Nâ—zianzene purposed to come at them no more as having never seen any that did not more harm then good And so bold and busie were they in additions and innovations even in making new â—reeds that Hilary sadly complains of it not sparing the Council of Nâ—ce it self though their Creed were allowable because they taught others the way and set the rest a work And Luther sheweth us at large in his