he went about doing good to the bodies and to the souls of men his miracles were not destructive to mankind but healing and charitable He could if he had pleased by his miraculous power have confounded his enemies and have thundred out death and destruction against the Infidel world as his pretended Vicar hath since done against Hereticks But intending that his Religion should be propagated in human ways and that Men should be drawn to the profession of it by the bands of love and the cords of a man by the gentle and peaceable methods of Reason and perswasion he gave no example of a furious zeal and religious rage against those who despised his Doctrine It was propounded to men for their great advantage and they rejected it at their utmost peril It seemed good to the Author of this institution to compell no man to it by temporal punishments When he went about making proselytes he offered violence to no man only said If any man will be my disciple If any man will come after me And when his disciples were leaving him he does not set up an Inquisition to torture and punish them for their defection from the faith only says Will ye also go away And in imitation of this blessed Patern the Christian Church continued to speak and act for several Ages And this was the language of the holy Fathers Lex nova non se vindicat ultore gladio the Christian Law doth not avenge it self by the sword This was then the style of Councils Nemini ad credendum vim inferre to offer violence to no man to compell him to the Faith I proceed in the Second place to shew the Vnjustifiableness of this spirit upon any pretence whatsoever of zeal for God and Religion No case can be put with Circumstances of greater advantage and more likely to justify this spirit and temper than the case here in the Text. Those against whom the Disciples would have called for fire from heaven were Hereticks and Schismaticks from the true Church they had affronted our Saviour himself in his own person the honour of God and of that Religion which he had set up in the World and of Jerusalem which he had appointed for the place of his worship were all concerned in this case so that if ever it were warrantable to put on this fierce and furious zeal here was a case that seemed to require it But even in these circumstances our Saviour thinks fit to rebuke and discountenance this spirit Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of And he gives such a reason as ought in all differences of Religion how wide soever they be to deter men from this temper For the Son of man is not come to destroy mens lives but to save them that is this Spirit is utterly inconsistent with the great design of Christian Religion and the end of our Saviour's coming into the world And now what hath the Church of Rome to plead for her cruelty to men for the cause of Religion which the Disciples might not much better have pleaded for themselves in their case what hath she to say against those who are the objects of her cruelty and persecution which would not have held against the Samaritans Does she practice these severities out of a zeal for truth and for the honour of God and Christ and the true Religion Why upon these very accounts it was that the Disciples would have called for fire from Heaven to have destroyed the Samaritans Is the Church of Rome perswaded that those whom she persecutes are Hereticks and Schismaticks and that no punishment can be too great for such offenders So the Disciples were perswaded of the Samaritans and upon much better grounds Only the Disciples had some excuse in their case which the Church of Rome hath not and that was Ignorance And this Apology our Saviour makes for them ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of They had been bred up in the Jewish Religion which gave some indulgence to this kind of temper and they were able to cite a great Example for themselves besides they were then but learners and not throughly instructed in the Christian Doctrine But in the Church of Rome whatever the case of particular persons may be as to the whole Church and the Governing part of it this ignorance is wilful and affected and therefore inexcusable For the Christian Religion which they profess to embrace does as plainly teach the contrary as it does any other matter whatsoever and it is not more evident in the new Testament that Christ died for sinners than that Christians should not kill one another for the misbelief of any Article of revealed Religion much less for the disbelief of such Articles as are invented by men and imposed as the Doctrines of Christ You have heard what kind of Spirit it is which our Saviour here reproves in his Disciples It was a furious and destructive Spirit contrary to Christian charity and goodness But yet this may be said in mitigation of their fault that they themselves offered no violence to their enemies They left it to God and no doubt would have been very glad that he would have manifested his severity upon them by sending down fire from Heaven to have consumed them But there is a much worse Spirit than this in the world which is not only contrary to Christianity but to the common Principles of Natural Religion and even to Humanity it self Which by falshood and perfidiousness by secret plots and conspiracies or by open sedition and rebellion by an Inquisition or Massacre by deposing and killing Kings by fire and sword by the ruine of their Country and betraying it into the hands of Foreigners and in a word by dissolving all the bonds of humane Society and subverting the peace and order of the World that is by all the wicked ways imaginable doth incite men to promote and advance their Religion As if all the world were made for them and there were not only no other Christians but no other Men besides themselves as Babylon of old proudly vaunted I am and there is none besides me And as if the God whom the Christians worship were not the God of order but of confusion as if he whom we call the Father of mercies were delighted with cruelty and could not have a more pleasing sacrifice offered to him than a Massacre nor put a greater honour upon his Priests than to make them Judges of an Inquisition that is the Inventors and decreers of torments for men more righteous and innocent than themselves Thus to misrepresent God and Religion is to devest them of all their Majesty and Glory For if that of Seneca be true that sine bonitate nulla majestas without Goodness there can be no such thing as Majesty then to separate goodness and mercy from God compassion and charity from Religion is to make the two best things in the world God and Religion good for
Friend How can he possibly use him more barbarously than to feast upon his living flesh and bloud It is one of the greatest wonders in the world that it should ever enter into the minds of men to put upon our Saviour's words so easily capable of a more convenient sense and so necessarily requiring it a meaning so plainly contrary to Reason and Sense and even to Humanity it self Had the ancient Christians owned any such Doctrine we should have heard of it from the Adversaries of our Religion in every page of their Writings and they would have desired no greater advantage against the Christians than to have been able to hit them in the teeth with their feasting upon the natural flesh and Bloud of their Lord and their God and their best Friend What endless triumphs would they have made upon this Subject And with what confidence would they have set the cruelty used by Christians in their Sacrament against their God Saturn's eating his own Children and all the cruel and bloudy Rites of their Idolatry But that no such thing was then objected by the Heathens to the Christians is to a wise man instead of a thousand Demonstrations that no such Doctrine was then believed 3. It is scandalous also upon account of the cruel and bloudy consequences of this Doctrine so contrary to the plain Laws of Christianity and to one great end and design of this Sacrament which is to unite Christians in the most perfect love and charity to one another Whereas this Doctrine hath been the occasion of the most barbarous and bloudy Tragedies that ever were acted in the World For this hath been in the Church of Rome the great burning Article and as absurd and unreasonable as it is more Christians have been murthered for the denyal of it than perhaps for all the other Articles of their Religion And I think it may generally pass for a true observation that all Sects are commonly most hot and furious for those things for which there is least Reason for what men want of Reason for their opinions they usually supply and make up in Rage And it was no more than needed to use this severity upon this occasion for nothing but the cruel fear of death could in probability have driven so great a part of mankind into the acknowledgment of so unreasonable and senseless a Doctrine O blessed Saviour I thou best Friend and greatest lover of mankind who can imagine thou didst ever intend that men should kill one another for not being able to believe contrary to their senses for being unwilling to think that thou shouldst make one of the most horrid and barbarous things that can be imagin'd a main Duty and principal Mystery of thy Religion for not flattering the pride and presumption of the Priest who says he can make God and for not complying with the folly and stupidity of the People who are made to believe that they can eat him 4. Upon account of the danger of Idolatry which they are certainly guilty of if this Doctrine be not true and such a change as they pretend be not made in the Sacrament for if it be not then they worship a Creature instead of the Creatour God blessed for ever But such a change I have shewn to be impossible or if it could be yet they can never be certain that it is and consequently are always in danger of Idolatry and that they can never be certain that such a change is made is evident because according to the express determination of the Council of Trent that depends upon the mind and intention of the Priest which cannot certainly be known but by Revelation which is not pretended in this case And if they be mistaken about this change through the knavery or crossness of the Priest who will not make God but when he thinks fit they must not think to excuse themselves from Idolatry because they intended to worship God and not a Creature for so the Persians might be excus'd from Idolatry in worshipping the Sun because they intend to worship God and not a Creature and so indeed we may excuse all the Idolatry that ever was in the world which is nothing else but a mistake of the Deity and upon that mistake a worshipping of something as God which is not God II. Besides the infinite scandal of this Doctrine upon the accounts I have mentioned the monstrous absurdities of it make it insupportable to any Religion I am very well assur'd of the grounds of Religion in general and of the Christian Religion in particular and yet I cannot see that the foundations of any revealed Religion are strong enough to bear the weight of so many and so great absurdities as this Doctrine of Transubstantiation would load it withall And to make this evident I shall not insist upon those gross contradictions of the same Body being in so many several places at once of our Saviour's giving away himself with his own hands to every one of his Disciples and yet still keeping himself to himself and a thousand more of the like nature but to shew the absurdity of this Doctrine I shall only ask these few Questions 1. Whether any man have or ever had greater evidence of the truth of any Divine Revelation than any man hath of the falshood of Transubstantiation Infidelity were hardly possible to men if all men had the same evidence for the Christian Religion which they have against Transubstantiation that is the clear and irresistible evidence of sense He that can once be brought to contradict or deny his senses is at an end of certainty for what can a man be certain of if he be not certain of what he sees In some circumstances our senses may deceive us but no Faculty deceives us so little and so seldom And when our senses do deceive us even that errour is not to be corrected without the help of our senses 2. Supposing this Doctrine had been delivered in Scripture in the very same words that it is decreed in the Council of Trent by what clearer evidence or stronger Argument could any man prove to me that such words were in the Bible than I can prove to him that bread and wine after consecration are bread and wine still He could but appeal to my eyes to prove such words to be in the Bible and with the same reason and justice might I appeal to several of his senses to prove to him that the bread and wine after consecration are bread and wine still 3. Whether it be reasonable to imagine that God should make that a part of the Christian Religion which shakes the main external evidence and confirmation of the whole I mean the Miracles which were wrought by our Saviour and his Apostles the assurance whereof did at first depend upon the certainty of sense For if the senses of those who say they saw them were deceived then there might be no Miracles wrought and consequently it may justly be
not seen and yet have believed hath no where said blessed are they that have seen and yet have not believed much less blessed are they that believe directly contrary to what they see To conclude this Discourse By what hath been said upon this Argument it will appear with how little truth and reason and regard to the interest of our common Christianity it is so often said by our Adversaries that there are as good arguments for the belief of Transubstantiation as of the Doctrine of the Trinity When they themselves do acknowledge with us that the Doctrine of the Trinity is grounded upon the Scriptures and that according to the interpretation of them by the consent of the ancient Fathers But their Doctrine of Transubstantiation I have plainly shewn to have no such ground and that this is acknowledged by very many learned men of their own Church And this Doctrine of theirs being first plainly proved by us to be destitute of all Divine Warrant and Authority our Objections against it from the manifold contradictions of it to Reason and Sense are so many Demonstrations of the falshood of it Against all which they have nothing to put in the opposite Scale but the Infallibility of their Church for which there is even less colour of proof from Scripture than for Transubstantiation it self But so fond are they of their own Innovations and Errours that rather than the Dictates of their Church how groundless and absurd soever should be call'd in question rather than not have their will of us in imposing upon us what they please they will overthrow any Article of the Christian Faith and shake the very foundations of our common Religion A clear evidence that the Church of Rome is not the true Mother since she can be so well contented that Christianity should be destroyed rather than the Point in question should be decided against her THE Protestant Religion Vindicated from the Charge of Singularity and Novelty IN A SERMON Preached before the KING At WHITE-HALL April the 2d 1680. JOSHUA XXIV 15. If it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord chuse you this day whom you will serve THese are the words of Joshua who after he had brought the People of Israel thorough many difficulties and hazards into the quiet possession of the promised land like a good Prince and Father of his Country was very sollicitous before his death to lay the firmest foundation he could devise of the future happiness and prosperity of that People in whose present settlement he had by the blessing of God been so succesfull an instrument And because he knew no means so effectual to this end as to confirm them in the Religion and Worship of the true God who had by so remarkable and miraculous a Providence planted them in that good Land he summons the people together and represents to them all those considerations that might engage them and their posterity for ever to continue in the true Religion He tells them what God had already done for them and what he had promised to do more if they would be faithfull to him And on the other hand what fearfull calamities he had threatned and would certainly bring upon them in case they should transgress his Covenant and go and serve other Gods And after many Arguments to this purpose he concludes with this earnest Exhortation at the 14th verse Now therefore fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and in truth and put away the Gods which your father served on the other side of the flood and in Egypt and serve ye the Lord. And to give the greater weight and force to this Exhortation he do's by a very eloquent kind of insinuation as it were once more set them at liberty and leave them to their own election It being the nature of man to stick more stedfastly to that which is not violently imposed but is our own free and deliberate choice And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord chuse you this day whom you will serve Which words offer to our consideration these following Observations 1. It is here supposed that a Nation must be of some Religion or other Joshua do's not put this to their choice but takes it for granted 2. That though Religion be a matter of choice yet it is neither a thing indifferent in it self nor to a good Governour what Religion his people are of Joshua do's not put it to them as if it were an indifferent matter whether they served God or Idols he had sufficiently declared before which of these was to be preferred 3. The true Religion may have several prejudices and objections against it If it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord intimating that upon some accounts and to some persons it may appear so 4. That the true Religion hath those real advantages on its side that it may safely be referr'd to any considerate mans choice And this seems to be the true Reason why Joshua refers it to them Not that he thought the thing indifferent but because he was fully satisfied that the truth and goodness of the one above the other was so evident that there was no danger that any prudent man should make a wrong choice If it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord chuse you this day whom you will serve intimating that the plain difference of the things in competition would direct them what to chuse 5. The Example of Princes and Governours hath a very great influence upon the people in matters of Religion This I collect from the Context And Joshua was sensible of it and therefore though he firmly believed the true Religion to have those advantages that would certainly recommend it to every impartial mans judgment yet knowing that the multitude are easily imposed upon and led into error he thought fit to encline and determine them by his own example and by declaring his own peremptory resolution in the case Chuse you this day whom you will serve as for me I and my house will serve the Lord. Laws are a good security to Religion but the Example of Governours is a living Law which secretly overrules the minds of men and bends them to a compliance with it Non sic inflectere sensus Humanos edicta valent ut vita Regentis The Lives and Actions of Princes have usually a greater sway upon the minds of the People than their Laws All these Observations are I think very natural and very considerable I shall not be able to speak to them all but shall proceed so far as the time and your patience will give me leave First It is here supposed that a Nation must be of some Religion or other Joshua do's not put it to their choice whether they would worship any Deity at all That had been too wild and extravagant a supposition and which it is likely in those days had never entered into any mans mind But he takes it for granted that all people will
all the brevity and clearness I can And I doubt not to make it appear that as to the point of Vniversality though that be no-wise necessary to justifie the truth of any Religion ours is not inferior to theirs if we take in the Christians of all Ages and of all parts of the World And as to the point of Antiquity that our Faith and the Doctrines of our Religion have clearly the advantage of theirs all our Faith being unquestionably ancient their 's not so 1. As to the Point of Vniversality Which they of the Church of Rome I know not for what reason will needs make an inseparable property and mark of the true Church And they never slout at the Protestant Religion with so good a grace among the ignorant People as when they are bragging of their Numbers and despising poor Protestancy because embraced by so few This pestilent Northern Heresie as of late they scornfully call it entertained it seems only in this cold and cloudy Corner of the World by a company of dull stupid People that can neither penetrate into the proofs nor the possibility of Transubstantiation whereas to the more refined Southern Wits all these difficult and obscure Points are as clear as their Sun at Noon-day But to speak to the thing it self If Number be necessary to prove the truth and goodness of any Religion ours upon enquiry will be found not so inconsiderable as our Adversaries would make it Those of the Reformed Religion according to the most exact calculations that have been made by learned men being esteemed not much unequal in number to those of the Romish persuasion But then if we take in the ancient Christian Church whose Faith was the same with ours and other Christian Churches at this day which all together are vastly greater and more numerous than the Roman Church and which agree with us several of them in very considerable Doctrines and Practices in dispute between us and the Church of Rome and all of them in disclaiming that fundamental point of the Roman Religion and Summ of Christianity as Bellarmine calls it I mean the Supremacy of the Bishop of Rome over all Christians and Churches in the World then the Number on our side will be much greater than on theirs But we will not stand upon this advantage with them Suppose we were by much the sewer So hath the true Church of God often been without any the least prejudice to the truth of their Religion What think we of the Church in Abraham's time which for ought we know was confined to one Family and one small Kingdom that of Melchisedec King of Salem What think we of it in Moses his time when it was confined to one People wandering in a Wilderness What of it in Elijah's time when besides the two Tribes that worshipped at Jerusalem there were in the other ten but seven thousand that had not bowed their knee to Baal What in our Saviour's time when the whole Christian Church consisted of twelve Apostles and seventy Disciples and some few Followers beside How would Bellarmine have despised this little Flock because it wanted one or two of his goodliest marks of the true Church Vniversality and Splendor And what think we of the Christian Church in the height of Arianism and Pelagianism when a great part of Christendom was over-run with these Errors and the number of the Orthodox was inconsiderable in comparison of the Hereticks But what need I to urge these Instances As if the Truth of a Religion were to be estimated and carried by the major Vote which as it can be an Argument to none but Fools so I dare say no honest and wise man ever made use of it for a solid proof of the truth and goodness of any Church or Religion If multitude be an Argument that men are in the right in vain then hath the Scripture said Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil For if this Argument be of any force the greater Number never go wrong 2. As to the Point of Antiquity This is not always a certain Mark of the true Religion For surely there was a time when Christianity began and was a new Profession and then both Judaism and Paganism had certainly the advantage of it in Point of Antiquity But the proper Question in this Case is Which is the true Ancient Christian Faith that of the Church of Rome or Ours And to make this matter plain it is to be considered that a great part of the Roman Faith is the same with Ours as namely the Articles of the Apostles Creed as explained by the first four General Councils And these make up our whole Faith so far as concerns matters of meer and simple Belief that are of absolute necessity to Salvation And in this Faith of Ours there is nothing wanting that can be shewn in any ancient Creed of the Christian Church And thus far Our Faith and theirs of the Roman Church are undoubtedly of equal Antiquity that is as ancient as Christianity it self All the Question is as to the matters in difference between us The principal whereof are the twelve new Articles of the Creed of Pope Pius the IV concerning the Sacrifice of the Mass Transubstantiation the Communion in one kind only Purgatory c. not one of which is to be found in any ancient Creed or Confession of Faith generally allowed in the Christian Church The Antiquity of these we deny and affirm them to be Innovations and have particularly proved them to be so not only to the answering but almost to the silencing of our Adversaries And as for the negative Articles of the Protestant Religion in opposition to the Errors and Corruptions of the Romish Faith these are by accident become a part of our Faith and Religion occasioned by their Errors as the renouncing of the Doctrines of Arianism became part of the Catholick Religion after the rise of that Heresie So that the Case is plainly this We believe and teach all that is contained in the Creeds of the ancient Christian Church and was by them esteemed necessary to Salvation and this is Our Religion But now the Church of Rome hath innovated in the Christian Religion and made several Additions to it and greatly corrupted it both in the Doctrines and Practices of it And these Additions and Corruptions are their Religion as it is distinct from ours and both because they are Corruptions and Novelties we have rejected them And our rejection of these is our Reformation And our Reformation we grant if this will do them any good not to be so ancient as their Corruptions All Reformation necessarily supposing Corruptions and Errors to have been before it And now we are at a little better leisure to answer that captious Question of theirs Where was your Religion before Luther Where-ever Christianity was in some places more pure in others more corrupted but especially in these Western parts of Christendom overgrown for several Ages with
I shall only observe to you that after the discovery of this Plot the Authors of it were not convinced of the evil but sorry for the miscarriage of it Sir Everard Digby whose very original Papers and Letters are now in my hands after he was in Prison and knew he must suffer calls it the best Cause and was extremely troubled to hear it censured by Catholicks and Priests contrary to his expectation for a great sin Let me tell you says he what a grief it is to hear THAT so much condemned which I did believe would have been otherwise thought of by Catholicks And yet he concludes that Letter with these words In how full joy should I dye if I could do any thing for the Cause which I love more than my life And in another Letter he says he could have said something to have mitigated the odium of this business as to that Point of involving those of his own Religion in the common ruine I dare not says he take that course that I could to make it appear less odious for divers were to have been brought out of danger who now would rather hurt them than otherwise I do not think there would have been three worth the saving that should have been lost And as to the rest that were to have been swallow'd up in that destruction he seems not to have the least relenting in his mind about them All doubts he seems to have look'd upon as temptations and intreats his Friends to pray for the pardoning of his not sufficient striving against temptations since this business was undertook Good God! that any thing that is called Religion should so perfectly strip men of all humanity and transform the mild and gentle race of mankind into such Wolves and Tygers that ever a pretended zeal for Thy glory should instigate men to dishononr Thee at such a rate It is believed by many and not without cause that the Pope and his Faction are the Antichrist I will say no more than I know in this matter I am not so sure that it is he that is particularly designed in Scripture by that Name as I am of the main Articles of the Christian Faith But however that be I challenge Antichrist himself whoever he be and whenever he comes to do worse and wickeder things than these But I must remember my Text and take heed of imitating that Spirit which is there condemned whilst I am inveighing against it And in truth it almost looks uncharitably to speak the truth in these matters and barely to relate what these men have not blush'd to do I need not nay I cannot aggravate these things they are too horrible in themselves even when they are express'd in the softest and gentlest words I would not be understood to charge every particular person who is or hath been in the Roman Communion with the guilt of these or the like practises But I must charge their Doctrines and Principles with them I must charge the Heads of their Church and the prevalent teaching and governing part of it who are usually the contrivers and abetters the executioners and applauders of these cursed Designs I do willingly acknowledg the great Piety and Charity of several persons who have lived and died in that Communion as Erasmus Father Paul Thuanus and many others who had in truth more goodness than the Principles of that Religion do either incline men to or allow of And yet he that considers how universally almost the Papists in Ireland were engaged in that Massacre which is still fresh in our memories will find it very hard to determine how many degrees of innocency and good nature or of coldness and indifferency in Religion are necessary to overballance the fury of a blind zeal and a misguided Conscience I doubt not but Papists are made like other men Nature hath not geneally given them such savage and cruel dispositions but their Religion hath made them so Whereas true Christianity is not only the best but the best-natur'd Institution in the world and so far as any Church is departed from good nature and become cruel and barbarous so far is it degenerated from Christianity I am loth to say it and yet I am confident 't is very true That many Papists would have been excellent Persons and very good Men if their Religion had not hindered them if the Doctrines and Principles of their Church had not perverted and spoiled their natural Dispositions I speak not this to exasperate You worthy Patriots and the great Bulwark of our Religion to any unreasonable or unnecessary much less unchristian Severities against them No let us not do like them let us never do any thing for Religion that is contrary to it But I speak it to awaken your care thus far That if their Priests will always be putting these pernicious Principles into the minds of the People effectual Provision may be made that it may never be in their Power again to put them in Practice We have found by Experience that ever since the Reformation they have been continually pecking at the Foundations of our Peace and Religion When God knows we have been so far from thirsting after their Blood that we did not so much as desire their disquiet but in order to our own necessary safety and indeed to theirs And God be praised for those matchless Instances which we are able to give of the generous humanity and Christian temper of the English Protestants After Q. Marys Death when the Protestant Religion was restored Bishop Bonner notwithstanding all his Cruelties and Butcheries was permitted quietly to live and dye amongst us And after the Treason of this Day nay at this very time since the discovery of so barbarous a Design and the highest Provocation in the World by the treacherous Murder of one of His Majesty's Justices of the Peace a very good Man and a most excellent Magistrate who had been active in the discovery of this Plot I say after all this and notwithstanding the continued and insupportable insolence of their Carriage and Behaviour even upon this occasion no Violence nay not so much as any incivility that I ever heard of hath been offer'd to any of them I would to God they would but seriously consider this one difference between our Religion and theirs and which of them comes nearest to the Wisdom which is from above which is peaceable and gentle and full of mercy And I do heartily pray and have good hopes that upon this occasion God will open their eyes so far as to convince a great many among them that that cannot be the true Religion which inspires men with such barbarous minds I have now done and if I have been transported upon this Argument somewhat beyond my usual temper the Occasion of this Day and our present circumstances will I hope bear me out I have expressed my self all along with a just sense and with no unjust severity concerning these horrid Principles and
Virtue is Vice and Vice Virtue he would hereby take away the very foundation of Religion and how can I look upon him any longer as a Judg in matters of Religion when there can be no such thing as Religion if he have judged and determined right Secondly The Scripture plainly allows this liberty to particular and private Persons to judg for themselves And for this I need go no farther than my Text which bids men try the Spirits whether they be of God I do not think this is spoken only to the Pope or a General Council but to Christians in general for to these the Apostle writes Now if St. John had believed that God had constituted an infallible Judge in his Church to whose Sentence and Determination all Christians are bound to submit he ought in all reason to have referred Christians to him for the trial of Spirits and not have left it to every man's private judgment to examine and to determine these things But it seems St. Paul was likewise of the same mind and though he was guided by an infallible Spirit yet he did not expect that men should blindly submit to his Doctrine Nay so far is he from that that he commends the Bereans for that very thing for which I dare say the Church of Rome would have check'd them most severely namely for searching the Scriptures to see whether those things which the Apostles delivered were so or not This liberty St. Paul allowed and though he was inspired by God yet he treated those whom he taught like men And indeed it were a hard case that a necessity of believing Divine Revelations and rejecting Impostures should be imposed upon Christians and yet the liberty of judging whether a Doctrine be from God or not should be taken away from them Thirdly Our Adversaries themselves are forced to grant that which in effect is as much as we contend for For though they deny a liberty of judging in particular points of Religion yet they are forced to grant men a liberty of judging upon the whole When they of the Church of Rome would perswade a Jew or a Heathen to become a Christian or a Heretick as they are pleased to call us to come over to the Communion of their Church and offer Arguments to induce them thereto they do by this very thing whether they will or no make that man Judge which is the true Church and the true Religion Because it would be ridiculous to perswade a man to turn to their Religion and to urge him with Reasons to do so and yet to deny him the use of his own judgement whether their Reasons be sufficient to move him to make such a change Now as the Apostle reasons in another case If men be fit to judge for themselves in so great and important a matter as the choice of their Religion why should they be thought unworthy to judge in lesser matters They tell us indeed that a man may use his judgement in the choice of his Religion but when he hath once chosen he is then for ever to resign up his judgment to their Church But what tolerable reason can any man give why a man should be fit to judge upon the whole and yet unfit to judge upon particular Points especially if it be considered that no man can make a discreet judgment of any Religion before he hath examined the particular Doctrines of it and made a judgment concerning them Is it credible that God should give a man judgment in the most fundamental and important matter of all viz. To discern the true Religion and the true Church from the false for no other end but to enable him to chuse once for all to whom he should resign and inslave his judgment for ever which is just as reasonable as if one should say That God hath given a man eyes for no other end but to look out once for all and to pitch upon a discreet person to lead him about blindfold all the days of his life I come now to the III. Thing I propounded which is To Answer the main Objection of our Adversaries against this Principle and likewise to shew that there is no such Reason and necessity for an universal Insallible Judge as they pretend Now their great Objection is this If every man may judge for himself there will be nothing but confusion in Religion there will be no end of Controversies so that an universal infallible Judge is necessary and without this God had not made sufficient provision for the assurance of men's Faith and for the Peace and unity of his Church Or as it is expressed in the Canon Law aliter Dominus non videretur fuisse discretus otherwise our Lord had not seem'd to be discreet How plausible soever this Objection may appear I do not despair but if men will lay aside prejudice and impartially consider things to make it abundantly evident that this ground is not sufficient to found an Infallible Judge upon And therefore in answer to it I desire these following particulars may be considered Firft That this which they say rather proves what God should have done according to their fancy than what he hath really and actually done My Text expresly bids Christians to try the Spirits which to any man's sense does imply that they may judge of these matters But the Church of Rome says they may not because if this liberty were permitted God had not ordered things wisely and for the best for the peace and unity of his Church But as the Apostle says in another case What art thou O man that objectest against God Secondly If this reasoning be good we may as well conclude that there is an universal infallible Judge set over the whole world in all Temporal matters to whose Authority all mankind is bound to submit Because this is as necessary to the peace of the World as the other is to the peace of the Church And men surely are every whit as apt to be obstinate and perverse about matters of Temporal Right as about matters of Faith But it is evident in fact and experience that there is no such universal Judge appointed by God over the whole World to decide all Cases of temporal Right and for want of him the World is fain to shift as well as it can But now a very acute and scholastical man that would argue that God must needs have done whatever he fancies convenient for the World should be done might by the very same way of Reasoning conclude the necessity of an universal infallible Judge in Civil matters as well as in matters of Religion And their aliter Dominus non videretur fuisse discretus otherwise God had not seem'd to be discreet is every whit as cogent and as civil in the one Case as the other Thirdly There is no need of such a Judge to assure men in matters of Religion Because men be sufficiently certain without him I hope it may be certain
and clear enough That there is a God and That his Providence governs the World and That there is another Life after this though neither Pope nor Council had ever declared any thing about these matters And for Revealed Doctrines we may be certain enough of all that is necessary if it be true which the Fathers tell us That all things necessary are plainly revealed in the Holy Scriptures Fourthly An infallible Judge if there were one is no certain way to end Controversies and to preserve the unity of the Church unless it were likewise infallibly certain That there is such a Judge and Who he is For till men were sure of both these there would still be a Controversy whether there be an infallible Judge and who he is And if it be true which they tell us That without an infallible Judge Controversies cannot be ended then a Controversie concerning an infallible Judge can never be ended And there are two Controversies actually on foot about an infallible Judge One Whether there be an infallible Judge or not which is a Controversie between Us and the Church of Rome and the other Who this infallible Judge is which is a Controversie among themselves which could never yet be decided And yet till it be decided Infallibility if they had it would be of no use to them for the ending of Controversies Fifthly There is no such absolute need as is pretended of determining all Controversies in Religion If men would devest themselves of prejudice and interest as they ought in matters of Religion the necessary things of Religion are plain enough and men would generally agree well enough about them But if men will suffer themselves to be by assed by these they would not hearken to an infallible Judge if there were one or they would find out some way or other to call his Infallibility into question And as for doubtful and lesser matters in Religion charity and mutual forbearance among Christians would make the Church as peaceable and happy as perhaps it was ever design'd to be in this World without absolute unity in Opinion Sixthly and Lastly Whatever may be the inconveniences of mens judging for themselves in Religion yet taking this Principle with the Cautions I have given I doubt not to make it appear that the inconveniences are far the least on that side The present condition of humane Nature doth not admit of any constitution of things whether in Religion or Civil matters which is free from all kind of exception and inconvenience That is the best state of things which is liable to the least and fewest If men be modest and humble and willing to learn God hath done that which is sufficient for the assurance of our Faith and for the peace of his Church without an infallible Judge And if men will not be so I cannot tell what would be sufficient I am sure there were Heresies and Schisms in the Apostles Times when Those who governed the Church were certainly guided by an infallible Spirit God hath appointed Guides and Teachers for us in matters of Religion and if we will be contented to be instructed by them in those necessary Articles and Duties of Religion which are plainly contained in Scripture and to be counselled and directed by them in things that are more doubtful and difficult I do not see why we might hot do well enough without any infallible Judge or Guide But still it will be said Who shall judge what things are plain and what doubtful The answer to this in my opinion is not difficult For if there be any thing plain in Religion every man that hath been duly instructed in the Principles of Religtion can judge of it or else it is not plain But there are some things in Religion so very plain that no Guide or Judge can in reason claim that Authority over men as to oblige them to believe or do the contrary no though he pretend to Infallibility no though he were an Apostle though he were an Angel from heaven S. Paul puts the case so high Gal. 1.8 Though we or an Angel from heaven preach any other Gospel unto you than what you have received let him be accursed which plainly supposeth that Christians may and can judge when Doctrines are contrary to the Gospel What not believe an Apostle nor an Angel from heaven if he should teach any thing evidently contrary to the plain Doctrine of the Gospel If he should determine Vertue to be Vice and Vice to be Vertue No not an Apostle nor an Angel because such a Doctrine as this would confound and overturn all things in Religion And yet Bellarmin puts this very Case and says If the Pope should so determine we were bound to believe him unless we would sin against Conscience I will conclude this Discourse by putting a very plain and familiar Case by which it will appear what credit and authority is fit to be given to a Guide and what not Suppose I came a Stranger into England and landing at Dover took a Guide there to conduct me in my way to York which I knew before by the Mapp to lie North of Dover having committed my self to him if he lead me for two or three days together out of any plain Road and many times over hedge and ditch I cannot but think it strange that in a civil and well inhabited Country there should be no High-ways from one part of it to another Yet thus far I submit to him though not without some regret and impatience But then if after this for two or three days more he lead me directly South and with my face full upon the Sun at noon day and at last bring me back again to Dover Pere and still bids me follow him Then certainly no modesty do's oblige a man not to dispute with his Guide and to tell him surely that can be no way because it is Sea Now though he set never so bold a face upon the matter and tell me with all the gravity and authority in the world That it is not the Sea but dry Land under the species and appearance of Water and that whatever my eyes tell me having once committed my self to his guidance I must not trust my own senses in the case it being one of the most dangerous sorts of Infidelity for a man to believe his own eyes rather than his faithful and infallible Guide All this moves me not but I begin to expostulate roundly with him and to let him understand that if I must not believe what I see he is like to be of no farther use to me because I shall not be able at this rate to know whether I have a Guide and whether I follow him or not In short I tell him plainly that when I took him for my Guide I did not take him to tell me the difference between North and South between a Hedge and a High-way between Sea and dry Land all this I knew before as well as he
manifold Errors and Corruptions which the Reformation hath happily cut off and cast away So that though our Reformation was as late as Luther our Religion is as ancient as Christianity it self For when the Additions which the Church of Rome hath made to the ancient Christian Faith and their Innovations in practice are pared off that which remains of their Religion is ours and this they canot deny to be every tittle of it the ancient Christianity And what other Answer than this could the Jews have given to the like Question if it had been put to them by the ancient Idolaters of the World Where was your Religion before Abraham but the very same in substance which we now give to the Church of Rome That for many Ages the Worship of the one true God had been corrupted and the Worship of Idols had prevailed in a great part of the World that Abraham was raised up by God to reform Religion and to reduce the Worship of God to its first Institution in the doing whereof he necessarily separated Himself and his Family from the Communion of those Idolaters So that though the Reformation which Abraham began was new yet his Religion was truly ancient as old as that of Noah and Enoch and Adam Which is the same in substance that we say and with the same and equal reason And if they will still complain of the Newness of our Reformation so do we too and are heartily sorry it began no sooner but however better late than never Besides it ought to be considered that this Objection of Novelty lies against all Reformation whatsoever though never so necessary and though things be never so much amiss And it is in effect to say that if things be once bad they must never be better but must always remain as they are for they cannot be better without being reformed and a Reformation must begin sometime and whenever it begins it is certainly new So that if a real Reformation be made the thing justifies it self and no Objection of Novelty ought to take place against that which upon all accounts was so fit and necessary to be done And if they of the Church of Rome would but speak their mind out in this matter they are not so much displeased at the Reformation which we have made because it is new as because it is a Reformation It was the humour of Babylon of old as the Prophet tells us that she woud not be healed Jer. 51.9 and this is still the temper of the Church of Rome they hate to he reformed and rather than acknowledge themselves to have been once in an Error they will continue in it for ever And this is that which at first made and still continues the breach and Separation between us of which we are no-wise guilty who have onely reformed what was amiss but they who obstinately persist in their errors and will needs impose them upon us and will not let us be of their Communion unless we will say they are no Errors II. The other Prejudice against the true Religion is the contrariety of it to the vicious inclinations and practices of Men. It is too heavy a yoke and lays too great a restraint upon humane Nature And this is that which in truth lies at the bottom of all Objections against Religion Men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil But this Argument will require a Discourse by it self and therefore I shall not now enter upon it onely crave your patience a little longer whilst I make some Reflections upon what hath been already delivered You see what are the Exceptions which Idolatry and Superstition have always made and do at this day still make against the true Religion and how slight and insignificant they are But do we then charge the Church of Rome with Idolatry Our Church most certainly does so and hath always done it from the beginning of the Reformation in her Homilies and Liturgy and Canons and in the Writings of her best and ablest Champions And though I have as impartially as I could consider'd what hath been said on both sides in this Controversy yet I must confess I could never yet see any tolerable defence made by them against this heavy charge And they themselves acknowledge themselves to be greatly under the suspicion of it by saying as Cardinal Perron and others do that the Primitive Christians for some Ages did neither worship Images nor pray to Saints for fear of being thought to approach too near the Heathen Idolatry And which is yet more divers of their most learned men do confess that if Transubstantiation be not true they are as gross Idolaters as any in the World And I hope they do not expect it from us that in complement to them and to acquit them from the charge of Idolatry we should presently deny our senses and believe Transubstantiation and if we do not believe this they grant we have Reason to charge them with Idolatry But we own them to be a true Church which they cannot be if they be guilty of Idolatry This they often urge us withall and there seems at first sight to be something in it And for that reason I shall endeavour to give so clear and satisfactory an answer to it as that we may never more be troubled with it The truth is we would fain hope because they still retain the Essentials of Christianity and profess to believe all the Articles of the Christian Faith that notwithstanding their Corruptions they may still retain the true Essence of a Church as a man may be truly and really a man though he have the plague upon him and for that reason be fit to be avoided by all that wish well to themselves But if this will not do we cannot help it Therefore to push the matter home Are they sure that this is a firm and good consequence That if they be Idolaters they cannot be a true Church Then let them look to it It is they I take it that are concerned to prove themselves a true Church and not we to prove it for them And if they will not understand it of themselves it is fit they should be told that there is a great difference between Concessions of Charity and of Necessity and that a very different use ought to be made of them We are willing to think the best of them but if they dislike our Charity in this point nothing against the hair 〈◊〉 they will forgive us this Injury we will not offend them any more But rather than have any farther difference with them about this matter we will for quietness sake compound it thus That till they can clearly acquit themselves from being Idolaters they shall never more against their wills be esteemed a true Church And now to draw to a Conclusion If it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord and to worship him only to pray to him alone and that only in the name
seeing them in this heat notwithstanding all the reasons they pretended for their passion and for all they sheltered themselves under the great Example of Elias doth very calmly but severely reprove this temper of theirs Ye know not what manner of Spirit ye are of for the Son of Man is not come to destroy mens lives but to save them Grotius observes that these two excellent Sentences are lest out in a Manuscript that is in England I cannot tell what Manuscript he refers to but if it were a Copy written out in the height of Popery no wonder if some zealous Transcriber offended at this passage struck it out of the Gospel being confident our Saviour would not say any thing that was so directly contrary to the current Doctrine and practice of those times But thanks be to God this admirable Saying is still preserv'd and can never be made use of upon a fitter occasion Ye know not what manner of Spirit ye are of That is Ye own your selves to be my Disciples but do you consider what spirit now acts and governs you Not that surely which my Doctrine designs to mould and fashion you into which is not a furious and persecuting and destructive spirit but mild and gentle and saving tender of the lives and interests of men even of those who are our greatest Enemies You ought to consider That you are not now under the rough and sowr Dispensation of the Law but the calm and peaceable Institution of the Gospel to which the spirit of Elias though he was a very good man in his time would be altogether unsuitable God p rmitted it then under that imperfect way of Religion but now under the Gospel it would be intolerable For that designs universal love and peace and good-will and now no difference of Religion no pretence of zeal for God and Christ can warrant and justifie this passionate and fierce this vindictive and exterminating spirit For the Son of Man is not come to destroy mens lives but to save them He says indeed elsewhere that he was not come to send Peace but a Sword which we are not to understand of the natural tendency of his Religion but of the accidental event and effect of it through the malice and perverseness of men But here he speaks of the proper intention and design of his coming He came not to kill and destroy but for the healing of the Nations for the salvation and redemption of Mankind not onely from the wrath to come but from a great part of the evils and miseries of this life He came to discountenance all fierceness and rage and cruelty in men one towards another to restrain and subdue that furious and unpeaceable Spirit which is so troublesome to the world and the cause of so many mischiefs and disorders in it And to introduce a Religion which consults not only the eternal Salvation of mens souls but their temporal peace and security their comfort and happiness in this world The words thus explained contain this Observation That a revengeful and cruel and destructive Spirit is directly contrary to the design and temper of the Gospel and not to be excused upon any pretence of zeal for God and Religion In the prosecution of this Argument I shall confine my Discourse to these Three heads First To shew the opposition of this spirit to the true Spirit and design of the Christian Religion Secondly The unjustifiableness of it upon any pretence of zeal for God and Religion Thirdly to apply this Discourse to the occasion of this Day First I shall shew the opposition of this spirit to the true Spirit and design of the Christian Religion That it is directly opposite to the main and fundamental Precepts of the Gospel and to the great Paterns and Examples of our Religion our Blessed Saviour and the Primitive Christians 1. This spirit which our Saviour here reproves in his Disciples is directly opposite to the main and fundamental Precepts of the Gospel which command us to love one another and to love all men even our very enemies and are so far from permitting us to persecute those who hate us that they forbid us to hate those who persecute us They require us to be merciful as our Father which is in Heaven is merciful to be kind and tender-hearted forbearing one another and forgiving one another if any man have a quarrel against any even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven us And to put on as the elect of God bowels of mercy meekness and long-suffering and to follow peace with all men and to shew all meekness to all men And particulary the Pastors and Governors of the Church are especially charged to be of this temper The servant of the Lord must not strive but be gentle unto all men apt to teach in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves if peradventure God will give them repentance to the acknowledgment of the truth To all which Precepts and many more that I might reckon up nothing can be more plainly opposite than inhumane Cruelties and Persecutions treacheroos Conspiracies and bloody Massacres a barbarous Inquisition and a holy League to extirpate all that differ from us And instead of instructing in meekness those that oppose themselves to convert men with fire and faggot and to teach them as Gideon did the men of Succoth with briars and thorns and instead of waiting for their repentance and endeavouring to recover them out of the snare of the Devil to put them quick into his hands and to dispatch them to Hell as fast as is possible If the precepts of Christianity can be contradicted surely it cannot be done more grosly and palpably than by such practises 2. This spirit is likewise directly opposite to the great Paterns and Examples of our Religion our Blessed Saviour and the Primitive Christians It was prophesied of our Saviour that he should be the Prince of peace and should make it one of his great businesses upon earth to make peace in heaven and earth to reconcile men to God and to one another to take up all those feuds and to extinguish all those animosities that were in the world to bring to agreement and a peaceable demeanour one towards another those that were most distant in their tempers and interests to make the lamb and the wolf lie down together that there might be no more destroying nor devouring in all Goll's holy mountain that is that that cruel and destructive spirit which prevailed before in the world should then be banished out of all Christian societies And in conformity to these predictions when our Saviour was born into the world the Angels sang that heavenly Anthem Glory to God in the highest peace on earth and good will among men And when he appeared in the world his whole life and carriage was gentle and peaceable full of meekness and charity His great business was to be beneficial to others to seek and to save that which was lost
nothing How much righter apprehensions had the Heathen of the Divine Nature which they looked upon as so benign and beneficial to mankind that as Tully admirably says Dii immortales ad usum hominum fabrefacti penè videantur The nature of the immortal Gods may almost seem to be exactly framed for the benefit and advantage of men And as for Religion they always spake of it as the great band of humane Society and the foundation of truth and fidelity and justice among men But when Religion once comes to supplant moral Righteousness and to teach men the absurdest things in the world to lye for the truth and to kill men for God's sake when it serves to no other purpose but to be a bond of conspiracy to inflame the tempers of men to a greater fierceness and to set a keener edge upon their spirits and to make them ten times more the children of wrath and Cruelty than they were by nature then surely it loses its nature and ceases to be Religion For let any man say worse of Atheism and Infidelity if he can And for God's sake what is Religion good for but to reform the manners and dispositions of men to restrain humane nature from violence and cruelty from falshood and treachery from Sedition and Rebellion Better it were there were no revealed Religion and that humane nature were left to the conduct of its own principles and inclinations which are much more mild and merciful much more for the peace and happiness of humane Society than to be acted by a Religion that inspires men with so wild a fury and prompts them to commit such outrages and is continually supplanting Government and undermining the welfare of mankind in short such a Religion as teaches men to propagate and advance it self by means so evidently contrary to the very nature and end of all Religion And this if it be well considered will appear to be a very convincing way of reasoning by shewing the last result and consequence of such Principles and of such a Train of Propositions to be a most gross and palpable absurdity For example We will at present admit Popery to be the true Religion and their Doctrines of extirpating Hereticks of the lawfulness of deposing Kings and subverting Government by all the cruel and wicked ways that can be thought of to be as in truth they are the Doctrines of this Religion In this Case I would not trouble my self to debate particulars but if in the gross and upon the whole matter it be evident that such a Religion as this is as bad or worse than Infidelity and no Religion this is conviction enough to a wise man and as good as a Demonstration that this is not the true Religion and that it cannot be from God How much better Teachers of Religion were the old Heathen Philosophers In all whose Books and Writings there is not one Principle to be found of Treachery or Rebellion nothing that gives the least countenance to an Association or a Massacre to the betraying of ones Native Country or the cutting of his Neighbours throat for difference in opinion I speak it with grief and shame because the credit of our common Christianity is somewhat concerned in it that Panaetius and Antipater and Diogenes the Stoick Tully and Plutarch and Seneca were much honester and more Christian Casuists than the Jesuits are or the generality of the Casuists of any other Order that I know of in the Church of Rome I come now in the Third and last place to make some Application of this Discourse 1. Let not Religion suffer for those faults and miscarriages which really proceed from the ignorance of Religion and from the want of it That under colour and pretence of Religion very bad things are done is no argument that Religion it self is not good Because the best things are liable to be perverted and abused to very ill purposes nay the corruption of them is commonly the worst as they say the richest and noblest Wines make the sharpest Vinegar If the light that is in you saith our Saviour be darkness how great is that darkness 2. Let us beware of that Church which countenanceth this unchristian spirit here condemned by our Saviour and which teaches such Doctrines and warrants such Practices as are consonant thereto You all know without my saying so that I mean the Church of Rome in which are taught such Doctrines as these That Hereticks that is all who differ from them in matters of Faith are to be extirpated by fire and sword which was decreed in the third and fourth Lateran Councils where all Christians are strictly charged to endeavour this to the uttermost of their power Sicut reputari cupiunt haberi fideles as they desire to be esteemed and accounted Christians Next their Doctrines of deposing Kings and of absolving their subjects from obedience to them which were not only universally believed but practised by the Popes and Roman Church for several Ages Indeed this Doctrine hath not been at all times alike frankly and openly avowed but it is undoubtedly theirs and hath frequently been put in execution though they have not thought it so convenient at all turns to make profession of it It is a certain kind of Engine which is to be screw'd up or let down as occasion serves and is commonly kept like Goliah's Sword in the Sanctuary behind the Ephod but yet so that the High-Priest can lend it out upon an extraordinary occasion And for Practices consonant to these Doctrines I shall go no further than the horrid and bloody Design of this Day Such a Mystery of Iniquity as had been hid from ages and generations Such a Master-piece of Villany as eye had not seen nor ear heard nor ever before entred into the heart of man So prodigiously Barbarous both in the substance and circumstances of it as is not to be parallell'd in all the voluminous Records of Time from the foundation of the World Of late years our Adversaries for so they have made themselves without any provocation of ours have almost had the impudence to deny so plain a matter of fact but I wish they have not taken an effectual course by fresh Conspiracies of equal or greater horror to confirm the belief of it with a witness But I shall not anticipate what will be more proper for another Day but confine my self to the present Occasion I will not trouble you with the particular Narrative of this dark Conspiracy nor the obscure manner of its discovery which Bellarmin himself acknowledges not to have been without a Miracle Let us thank God that it was so happily discovered and disappointed as I hope their present design will be by the same wonderful and merciful providence of God towards a most unworthy People And may the lameness and halting of Ignatius Loyola the Founder of the Jesuits never depart from that Order but be a Fate continually attending all their villanous Plots and Contrivances
Practises but yet with great pity and tenderness towards those miserably seduced Souls who have been deluded by them and ensnared in them And I can truly say as the Roman Orator did of himself upon another occasion Me natura misericordem patria severum crudelem nec patria nec natura esse voluit My nature inclines me to be tender and compassionate a hearty zeal for our Religion and concernment for the publick welfare of my Country may perhaps have made me a little severe but neither my natural disposition nor the temper of the English Nation nor the Genius of the Protestant that is the true Christian Religion will allow me to be cruel For the future Let us encourage our selves in the Lord our God and commit our Cause and the keeping of our Souls to Him in well doing And under God let us leave it to the wisdom and care of His Majesty and His two Houses of Parliament to make a lasting Provision for the security of our Peace and Religion against all the secret contrivances and open attempts of these sons of violence And let us remember those words of David Psal 37.12 13 14 15. The wicked plotteth against the just and gnasheth upon him with his teeth The Lord shall laugh at him for he seeth that his day is coming The wicked have drawn out the sword and bent their how to cast down the poor and needy and to slay such as be of upright conversation Their sword shall enter into their own hearty and their bows shall be broken And I hope considering what God hath heretofore done and hath now begun to do for us we may take encouragement to our selves against all the Enemies of our Religion which are confederated against us in the words of the Prophet Isa 8. 9 10. Associate your selves O ye People and ye shall be broken in pieces and give ear all ye of far Countries Gird your selves and ye shall be broken in pieces Gird your selves and ye shall be broken in pieces Take counsel together and it shall come to nought Speak the word and it shall not stand FOR GOD IS WITH VS And now what remains but to make our most devout and thankful acknowledgments to Almighty God for the invaluable blessing of our Reformed Religion and for the miraculous Deliverance of this Day and for the wonderful Discovery of the late horrid and barbarous Conspiracy against our Prince our Peace and our Religion To Him therefore our most gracious and merciful God our Shield and our Rock and our mighty Deliverer Who hath brought us out of the land of Egypt and out of the House of bondage and hath set us free from Popish Tyranny and Superstition a yoke which neither we nor our Fathers were able to bear Who hath from time to time delivered us from the bloody and merciless designs of wicked and unreasonable men and hath render'd all the plots and contrivances the mischievous counsels and devices of these worse-than-Heathens of none effect Who did as upon this Day rescue our King and our Princes our Nobles and the Heads of our Tribes the Governours of our Church and the Judges of the Land from that fearful Destruction which was ready to have swallowed them up Who still brings to light the hidden things of darkness and hath hitherto preserved our Religion and Civil interests to us in despight of all the malicious and restless attempts of our Adversaries Vnto that great God who hath done so great things for us and hath saved us by a mighty Salvation Who hath delivered us and doth deliver us and we trust will still deliver us be glory and honour thanksgiving and praise from generation to generation And let all the people say Amen A SERMON PREACHED At the First General Meeting of the Gentlemen and others born within the County of YORK To my Honoured FRIENDS and COUNTRYMEN Mr. Hugh Frankland Mr. Leonard Robinson Mr. Abrah Fothergill Mr. William Fairfax Mr. Thomas Johnson Mr. John Hardesty Mr. Gervas Wilcockes Mr. George Pickering Mr. Edward Duffeild Mr. John Topham Mr. James Longbotham Mr. Nathan Holroyd Stewards of the Yorkshire Feast GENTLEMEN THIS Sermon which was first Preached and is now Published at your desires I dedicate to your Names to whose prudence and care the direction and management of this First general Meeting of our Country-men was committed Heartily wishing that it may be some way serviceable to the healing of our unhappy Differences and the restoring of Vnity and Charity among Christians especially those of the Protestant Reform'd Religion I am Gentlemen Your affectionate Country-man and humble Servant Jo. Tillotson A SERMON PREACHED At the first general Meeting of the Gentlemen and others in and near London who were born within the County of York JOHN XIII 34 35. A new Commandment I give unto you that ye love one another as I have loved you that ye also love one another By this shall all men know that ye are my Disciples if ye love one another AS the Christian Religion in general is the best Philosophy and most perfect Institution of Life containing in it the most entire and compleat System of moral Rules and Precepts that was ever yet extant in the World so it peculiarly excells in the Doctrine of Love and Charity earnestly recommending strictly enjoyning and vehemently and almost perpetually pressing and inculcating the excellency and necessity of this best of Graces and Vertues and propounding to us for our imitation and encouragement the most lively and heroical Example of kindness and charity that ever was in the Life and Death of the great Founder of our Religion the author and finisher of our Faith Jesus the Son of God So that the Gospel as it hath in all other parts of our Duty cleared the dimness and obscurity of natural light and supplied the imperfections of former Revelations so doth it most eminently reign and triumph in this great and blessed virtue of Charity in which all the Philosophy and Religions that had been before in the World whether Jewish or Pagan were so remarkably defective With great reason then doth our blessed Saviour call this a new Commandment and assert it to himself as a thing peculiar to his Doctrine and Religion considering how imperfectly it had been taught and how little it had been practised in the World before A new Commandment I give unto you that ye love one another as I have loved you that ye also love one another By this shall all men know that ye are my Disciples if ye love one another I shall reduce my Discourse upon these Words under these six Heads First To inquire in what sense our Saviour calls this Commandment of loving one another a new Commandment Secondly To declare to you the nature of this Commandment by instancing in the chief Acts and Properties of Love Thirdly To consider the degrees and measures of our Charity with regard to the several Objects about which it is exercised Fourthly Our
that is this That there is some way to discern mere pretenders to Inspiration from those who are truly and Divinely inspired And this is necessarily implied in the Apostles bidding us to try the Spirits whether they are of God For it were in vain to make any trial if there be no way to discern between pretended and real Inspirations Now the handling of this will give occasion to two very material Enquiries and useful to be resolved I. How we may discern between true and counterfeit Doctrines those which really are from God and those which only pretend to be so II. To whom this judgement of discerning doth appertain I. How we may discern between true and counterfeit Doctrines and Revelations for the clearing of this I shall lay down these following Propositions I. That Reason is the faculty whereby Revelations are to be discerned or to use the phrase in the text it is that whereby we are to judge what Spirits are of God and what not For all Revelation from God supposeth us to be men and to be indued with Reason and therefore it does not create new Faculties in us but propounds new Objects to that Faculty which was in us before Whatever Doctrines God reveals to men are propounded to their Understandings and by this Faculty we are to examine all Doctrines which pretend to be from God and upon on examination to judge whether there be reason to receive them as Divine or to reject them as Impostures 2. All supernatural Revelation supposeth the truth of the Principles of Natural Religion We must first be assured that there is a God before we can know that he hath made any Revelation of himself and we must know that his Words are true otherwise there were no sufficient reason to believe the Revelations which he makes to us and we must believe his Authority over us and that he will reward our obedience to his Laws and punish our breach of them otherwise there would neither be sufficient obligation nor encouragement to Obedience These and many other things are supposed to be true and naturally known to us antecedently to all supernatural Revelation otherwise the Revelations of God would signifie nothing to us nor be of any force with us 3. All Reasonings about Divine Revelations must necessarily be governed by the Principles of Natural Religion that is by those apprehensions which men naturally have of the Divine perfections and by the clear Notions of good and evil which are imprinted upon our Natures Because we have no other way to judge what is worthy of God and credible to be revealed by him and what not but by the natural notions which we have of God and of his essential perfections which because we know him to be immutable we have reason to believe he will never contradict And by these Principles likewise we are to interpret what God hath revealed and when any doubt ariseth concerning the meaning of any divine Revelation as that of the Holy Scriptures we are to govern our selves in the interpretation of it by what is most agreeable to those natural Notions which we have of God and we have all the reason in the World to reject that sense which is contrary thereto For instance when God is represented in Scripture as having a humane shape eyes ears and hands the Notions which men naturally have of the Divine Nature and Perfections do sufficiently direct us to interptet these expressions in a sense worthy of God and agreeable to his Perfection And therefore it is reasonable to understand them as rather spoken to our capacity and in a Figure than to be literally intended And this will proportionably hold in many other cases 4. Nothing ought to be received as a Revelation from God which plainly contradicts the Principles of Natural Religion or overthrows the certainty of them For instance it were in vain to pretend a Revelation from God That there is no God because this is a contradiction in terms So likewise to pretend a command from God That we are to hate and despise him because it is not credible that God should require any thing of Reasonable Creatures so unsuitable to their Natures and to their Obligations to him Besides that such a Law as this does tacitly involve a contradiction because upon such a supposition to despise God would be to obey him and yet to obey him is certainly to honour him So that in this case to honour God and to despise him would be the same thing and equal contempts of him In like manner it would be vain to pretend any Revelation from God That there is no life after this nor rewards and punishments in another World because this is contrary to those natural apprehensions which have generally possest mankind and would take away the main force and sanction of the divine Laws The like may be said concerning any pretended Revelation from God which evidently contradicts those natural Notions which men have of good and evil as That God should command or allow Sedition and Rebellion Perfidiousness and Perjury because the practise of these would be apparently destructive of the peace and happiness of Mankind and would naturally bring confusion into the World But God is not the God of Confusion but of Order which St. Paul appeals to as a Principle naturally knowu Upon the same account nothing ought to be entertained as a Divine Revelation which overthrows the certainty of the Principles of natural Religion because that would take away the certainty of Divine Revelation it self which supposeth the truth of those Principles For instance whoever pretends any Revelation that brings the Providence of God into question does by that very thing make such a Revelation questionable For if God take no care of the World have no concernment for humane affairs why should we believe that he makes any Revelation of his Will to men And by this Principle Moses will have false Prophets to be tried Deut. 13.1 If there arise among you a Prophet and giveth thee a sign or wonder and the signor the wonder come to pass whereof he spake unto thee saying Let us go after other Gods and let us serve them thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that Prophet And he gives the reason of this ver 5. Because he hath spoken unto you to turn you away from the Lord your God which brought you out of the Land of Egypt Here is a case wherein a false Prophet is supposed to work a true Miracle to give credit to his Doctrine which in other cases the Scripture makes the sign of a true Prophet but yet in this case he is to be rejected as an Impostor Because the Doctrine he teacheth would draw men off from the worship of the true God who is naturally known and had manifested himself to the people of Israel in so miraculous a manner by bringing them out of the Land of Egypt So that a Miracle is not enough to give credit to a
or any man else could tell me but I took him to conduct and direct me the nearest way to York And therefore after all his impertinent talk after all his Motives of Credibility to perswade me to believe him and all his confident sayings which he gravely calls Demonstrations I stand stifly upon the shore and leave my learned and reverend Guide to take his own course and to dispose of himself as he pleaseth but firmly resolved not to follow him And is any man to be blamed that breaks with his Guide upon these Terms And this is truly the Case when a man commits himself to the Guidance of any Person or Church If by virtue of this Authority they will needs perswade me out of my senses and not to believe what I see but what they say that Vertue is Vice and Vice Vertue it they declare them to be so And that because they say they are Infallible I am to receive all their Dictates for Oracles tho never so evidently false and absurd in the Judgment of all Mankind In this case there is no way to be rid of these unreasonable People but to desire of them since one kindness deserves another and all Contradictions are alike easie to be believed that they would be pleased to believe that Infidelity is Faith and that when I absolutely renounce their Authority I do yield a most perfect submission and obedience to it Upon the whole matter all the Revelations of God as well as the Laws of men go upon this presumption that men are not stark fools but that they will consider their Interest and have some regard to the great concernment of their eternal salvation And this is as much to secure men from mistake in matters of Belief as God hath afforded to keep men from sin in matters of Practice He hath made no effectual and infallible provision that men shall not sin and yet it would puzzle any man to give a good Reason why God should take more care to secure men against Errors in belief than against sin and wickedness in their Lives I shall now only draw three or four Inferences from this Discourse which I have made and so conclude 1. That it is every mans Duty who hath ability and capacity for it to endeavour to understand the grounds of his Religion For to try Doctrines is to inquire into the grounds and reasons of them which the better any man understands the more firmly he will be established in the Truth and be the more resolute in the day of Trial and the better able to withstand the Arts and assaults of cunning Adversaries and the fierce storms of Persecution And on the contrary that man will soon be moved from his stedfastness who never examined the Grounds and Reasons of his belief When it comes to the Trial he that hath but little to say for his Religion will probably neither do nor suffer much for it 2. That all Doctrines are vehemently to be suspected which decline Trial and are so loath to be brought into the light which will hot endure a fair Examination but magisterially require an implicite Faith Whereas Truth is bold and full of courage and loves to appear openly and is so secure and confident of her own strength as to offer her self to the severest Trial and Examination But to deny all liberty of Enquiry and Judgment in matters of Religion is the greatest injury and disparagement to Truth that can be and a tacite acknowledgment that she lies under some disadvantage and that there is less to be said for her than for Error I have often wonder'd why the People in the Church of Rome do not suspect their Teachers and Guides to have some ill design upon them when they do so industriously debar them of the means of Knowledge and are so very loath to let them understand what it is that we have to say against their Religion For can any thing in the world be more suspicious than to perswade men to put out their eyes upon promise that they will help them to a much better and more faithful Guide If any Church any Profession of men be unwilling their Doctrines should be exposed to Trial it is a certain sign they know something by them that is faulty and which will not endure the light This is the account which our Saviour gives us in a like case It was because mens deeds were evil that they loved darkness rather than light For every one that doth evil hateth the light neither cometh he to the light lest his deeds should be reproved But he that doth the truth cometh to the light that his deeds may be made manifest that they are wrought in God 3. Since Reason and Christianity allow this liberty to private persons to judg for themselves in matters of Religion we should use this priviledg with much modesty and humility with great submission and deference to our Spiritual Rulers and Guides whom God hath appointed in his Church And there is very great need of this Caution since by experience we find this liberty so much abused by many to the nourishing of Pride and Self-conceit of Division and Faction and those who are least able to judge to be frequently the most forward and confident the most peremptory and perverse and instead of demeaning themselves with the submission of Learners to assume to themselves the authority of Judges even in the most doubtful and disputable matters The Tyranny of the Roman Church over the Minds and Consciences of men is not to be justified upon any account but nothing puts so plausible a colour upon it as the ill use that is too frequently made of this natural Privilege of mens judging for themselves in a matter of so infinite concernment as that of their eternal happiness But then it is to be consider'd that the proper remedy in this Case is not to deprive men of this Privelege but to use the best means to prevent the abuse of it For though the inconveniences arising from the ill use of it may be very great yet the mischief on the other hand is intolerable Religion it self is liable to be abused to very bad purposes and frequently is so but it is not therefore best that there should be no Religion And yet this Objection if it be of any force and be pursued home is every whit as strong against Religion it self as against mens liberty of judging in matters of Religion Nay I add farther that no man can judiciously embrace the true Religion unless he be permitted to judge whether that which he embraces be the true Religion or not 4. When upon due Trial and Examination we are well setled and established in our Religion let us hold fast the prosession of our Faith without wavering and not be like Children tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of Doctrine through the sleight of men and the cunning craftiness of those who lye in wait to deceive
play fast and loose with oaths And it is a very sad sign of the decay of Christian Religion amongst us to see so many who call themselves Christians to make so little conscience of so great a sin as even the Light of Nature would blush and tremble at I will conclude all with those excellent Sayings of the Son of Sirach concerning these two sins I have been speaking of of Prophane Swearing and Perjury Eccl. 23.9 10 c. Accustom not thy mouth to swearing neither use thy self to the naming of the holy One. A man that useth much swearing shall be filled with iniquity and the plague shall never depart from his house If he shall offend his sin shall he upon him and if he acknowledg not his sin he maketh a double offence And if he swear salsly he shall not be innocent but his house shall be full of calamities And to represent to us the dreadfull nature of this sin of Perjury There is saith he a word that is cloathed about with death meaning a rash and false Oath There is a word that is cloathed about with death God grant it be not found in the heritage of Jacob for all such things shall be far from the godly and they will not wallow in these sins From which God preserve all good men and make them carefull to preserve themselves as they value the present peace of their own consciences and the favour of Almighty God in this world and the other for his mercies sake in Jesus Christ To whom c. A SERMON Preached at the FUNERAL Of the Reverend Mr. THOMAS GOVGE the 4th of Novemb. 1681. At St. Anne's Blackfryars With a brief account of his Life TO The Right Worshipfull THE PRESIDENT THE TREASURER And the rest of the worthy Governors of the Hospital of Christ-Church in LONDON WHEN upon the request of some of the Relations and Friends of the Reverend Mr. Gouge deceasedy and to speak the truth in compliance with mine own inclination to do right to the memory of so good a man and to set so great an Example in the view of all men I had determined to make this Discourse publick I knew not where more sitly to address it than to your selves who are the living pattern of the same Vertue and the faithful dispensers and managers of one of the best and greatest Charities in the world especially since he had a particular relation to you and was pleased for some years last past without any other consideration but that of Charity to employ his constant pains in Catechising the poor Children of your Hospital wisely considering of how great consequence it was to this City to have the foundations of Religion well laid in the tender years of so many persons as were afterwards to be planted there in several Professions and from a true humility of mind being ready to stoop to the meanest office and service to do good I have heard from an intimate friend of his that he would sometimes with great pleasure say that he had two Livings which he would not exchange for two of the greatest in England meaning Wales and Christ's Hospital Contrary to common account he esteemed every advantage of being useful and serviceable to God and men a rich Benefice and those his best Patrons and Benefactors not who did him good but who gave him the opportunity and means of doing it To you therefore as his Patrons this Sermon doth of right belong and to you I humbly dedicate it heartily beseeching Almighty God to raise up many by his example that may serve their generation according to the will of God as he did I am Your Faithfull and humble Servant Jo Tillotson A SERMON Preached at the Funeral of Mr. THOMAS GOVGE With a short account of his Life LUKE 20.37 38. Now that the dead are raised even Moses shewed at the bush when he calleth the Lord the God of Abraham the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. For he is not a God of the dead but of the living For all live to him THE occasion of these words of our blessed Saviour was an objection which the Sadduces made against the Resurrection grounded upon a case which had sometimes happened among them of a Woman that had had seven Brethren successively to her Husbands Upon which case they put this Question to our Saviour whose wife of the seven shall this woman be at the Resurrection That is if men live in another world how shall the controversie between these seven Brethren be decided for they all seem to have an equal claim to this Woman each of them having had her to his wife This captious Question was not easie to be answered by the Pharisees who fancied the enjoyments of the next life to be of the same kind with the sensual pleasures of this world only greater and more durable From which Tradition of the Jews concerning a sensual Paradise Mahomet seems to have taken the pattern of his as he did likewise many other things from the Jewish Traditions Now upon this supposition that in the next life there will be marrying and giving in marriage it was a Question not easily satisfied Whose wife of the seven this woman should then be But our Saviour clearly avoids the whole force of it by shewing the different state of men in this world and in the other The children of this world says he marry and are given in marriage but they who shall he accounted worthy to obtain that world and the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage And he does not barely and magisterially assert this Doctrine but gives a plain and substantial Reason for it because they cannot die any more After men have lived a while in this world they are taken away by death and therefore marriage is necessary to maintain a succession of mankind but in the other world men shall become immortal and live for ever and then the reason of marriage will wholly cease For when men can die no more there will then be no need of any new supplies of mankind Our Saviour having thus cleared himself of this Objection by taking away the ground and foundation of it he produceth an Argument for the proof of the Resurrection in the words of my Text Now that the dead are raised Moses even shewed at the bush when he calleth the Lord the God of Abraham the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob That is when in one of his Books God is brought in speaking to him out of the Bush and calling himself by the title of the God of Abraham the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. From whence our Saviour infers the Resurrection because God is not the God of the dead but of the living For all live to him My design from these words is to shew the force and strength of this Argument which our Saviour urgeth for the proof of the Resurrection In order whereunto I shall First
suppose to dye so imperfect that they stand in need of being purged and according to the degree of their imperfection are to be detain'd a shorter or a longer time in Purgatory But now besides that there is no Text in Scripture from whence any such state can probably be concluded as is acknowledged by many learned men of the Church of Rome and even that Text which they have most insisted upon they shall be saved yet so as by fire is given up by them as insufficient to conclue the thing Estius is very glad to get off it by saying there is nothing in it against Purgatory Why no body pretends that but we might reasonably expect that there should be something for it in a Text which hath been so often produced and urged by them for the proof of it I say besides that there is nothing in Scripture for Purgatory there are a great many things against it and utterly inconsistent with it In the parable of the Rich man and Lazarus which was designed to represent to us the different stares of good and bad men in another world there is not the least intimation of Purgatory but that good men pass immediately into a state of happiness and bad men into a place of torment And St. John Rev. 14.13 pronounceth all that dye in the Lord happy because they rest from their labours which they cannot be said to do who are in a state of great anguish and torment as those are supposed to be who are in Purgatory But above all this Reasoning of Saint Paul is utterly inconsistent with any imagination of such a state For he encourageth all Christians in general against the fear of death from the consideration of that happy state they should immediately pass into by being admitted into the presence of God which surely is not Purgatory We are of good courage says he and willing rather to be absent from the body And great reason we should be so if so soon as we leave the body we are present with the Lord. But no man sure would be glad to leave the body to go into a place of exquisite and extreme torment which they tell us is the case of most Christians when they dye And what can be more unreasonable than to make the Apostle to use an argument to comfort all Christians against the sear of death which concerns but very few in comparison So that if the Apostle's reasoning be good that while we are in this life we are detained from our happiness and so soon as we depart this life we pass immediately into it and therefore death is desirable to all good men I say if this reasoning be good it is very clear that Saint Paul knew nothing of the Doctrine now taught in the Church of Rome concerning Purgatory because that is utterly inconsistent with what he expresly asserts in this Chapter and quite takes away the force of his whole Argument 3. To encourage us against the fear of death And this is the Conclusion which the Apostle makes from this consideration Therefore says he we are of good courage knowing that whilst we converse in the body we are absent from the Lord. There is in us a natural love of life and a natural horrour and dread of death so that our spirits are apt to shrink at the thoughts of the approach of it But this fear may very much be mitigated and even over-ruled by Reason and the considerations of Religion For death is not so dreadful in it self as with regard to the consequences of it And those will be as we are comfortable and happy to the good but dismal and miserable to the wicked So that the only true antidote against the fear of death is the hopes of a better life and the only firm ground of these hopes is the mercy of God in Jefus Christ upon our due preparation for another world by repentance and a holy life For the sting of death is sin and when that is taken away the terrour and bitterness of death is past And then death is so far from being dreadful that in reason it is extremely desirable because it lets us into a better state such as only deserves the name of life Hi vivunt qui ex corporum vinculis tanquam è carcere evolaverunt vestra vero quae dicitur vita mors est They truly live could a Heathen say who have made their escape out of this prison of the body but that which men commonly call life is rather death than life To live indeed is to be well and to be happy and that we shall never be till we are got beyond the grave 4. This Consideration should comfort us under the loss and death of Friends which certainly is one of the greatest grievances and troubles of humane life For if they be fit for God and go to him when they dye they are infinitely happier than it was possible for them to have been in this world and the trouble of their absence from us is fully balanced by their being present with the Lord. For why should we lament the end of that life which we are assured is the beginning of immortality One reason of our trouble for the loss of friends is because we loved them But it is no sign of our love to them to grudge and repine at their happiness But we hoped to have enjoyed them longer Be it so yet why should we be troubled that they are happy sooner than we expected but they are parted from us and the thought of this is grievous But yet the consideration of their being parted for a while is not near so sad as the hopes of a happy meeting again never to be parted any more is comfortable and joyful So that the greater our love to them was the less should be our grief for them when we consider that they are happy and that they are safe past all storms all the troubles and temptations of this life and out of the reach of all harm and danger for ever But though the Reason of our duty in this case be very plain yet the practice of it is very difficult and when all is said natural affection will have its course And even after our Judgment is satisfied it will require some time to still and quiet our Passions 5. This Consideration should wean us from the love of life and make us not only contented but willing and glad to leave this world whenever it shall please God to call us out of it This Inference the Apostle makes ver 8. We are confident I say and willing rather to he absent from the body and present with the Lord. Though there were no state of immortality after this life yet methinks we should not desire to live always in this world Habet natura says Tully ut aliarum rerum sic vivendi modum As nature hath set bounds and measures to other things so likewise to life of which men should know when
unsutable carriage at the Lord's Supper They came to it very disorderly one before another It was the custom of Christians to meet at their Feast of Charity in which they did communicate with great sobriety and temperance and when that was ended they celebrated the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper Now among the Corinthians this order was broken The rich met and excluded the poor from this common Feast And after an irregular feast one before another eating his own supper as he came they went to the Sacrament in great disorder one was hungry having eaten nothing at all others were drunk having eaten intemperately and the poor were despised and neglected This the Apostle condemns as a great profanation of that solemn Institution of the Sacrament at the participation whereof they behaved themselves with as little reverence as if they had been met at a common supper or feast And this he calls not discerning the Lord's body making no difference in their behaviour between the Sacrament and a common meal which irreverent and contemptuous carriage of theirs he calls eating and drinking unworthily for which he pronounceth them guilty of the body and bloud of the Lord which were represented and commemorated in their eating of that bread and drinking of that cup. By which irreverent and contemptuous usage of the body and bloud of our Lord he tells them that they did incur the Judgment of God which he calls eating and drinking their own judgment For that the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which our Translatours render damnation does not here signifie eternal condemnation but a temporal judgment and chastisement in order to the prevention of eternal condemnation is evident from what follows He that eateth and drinketh unworthily eateth and drinketh judgment to himself And then he says For this cause many are weak and sickly among you and many sleep That is for this irreverence of theirs God had sent among them several diseases of which many had dyed And then he adds For if we would judge our selves we should not be judged If we would judge our selves whether this be meant of the publick Censures of the Church or our private censuring of our selves in order to our future amendment and reformation is not certain If of the latter which I think most probable then judging here is much the same with examining our selves ver 28. And then the Apostle's meaning is that if we would censure and examine our selves so as to be more carefull for the future we should escape the judgment of God in these temporal punishments But when we are judged we are chastened of the Lord that we should not be condemned with the world But when we are judged that is when by neglecting thus to judge our selves we provoke God to judge us we are chastened of the Lord that we should not be condemned with the world that is he inflicts these temporal judgments upon us to prevent our eternal condemnation Which plainly shews that the judgment here spoken of is not eternal condemnation And then he concludes Wherefore my Brethren when ye come together to eat tarry for one another And if any man hunger let him eat at home that ye come not together unto judgment where the Apostle plainly shews both what was the crime of unworthy receiving and the punishment of it Their crime was their irreverent and disorderly participation of the Sacrament and their punishment was those temporal judgments which God inflicted upon them for this their contempt of the Sacrament Now this being I think very plain we are proportionably to understand the precept of examination of our selves before we eat of that bread and drink of that cup. But let a man examine himself that is consider well with himself what a sacred Action he is going about and what behaviour becomes him when he is celebrating this Sacrament instituted by our Lord in memorial of his body and bloud that is of his death and passion And if heretofore he have been guilty of any disorder and irreverence such as the Apostle here taxeth them withall let him censure and judge himself for it be sensible of and sorry for his fault and be carefull to avoid it for the future and having thus examined himself let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup. This I think is the plain sense of the Apostle's Discourse and that if we attend to the scope and circumstances of it it cannot well have any other meaning But some will say Is this all the preparation that is required to our worthy receiving of the Sacrament that we take care not to come drunk to it nor to be guilty of any irreverence and disorder in the celebration of it I answer in short this was the particular unworthiness with which the Apostle taxeth the Corinthians and which he warns them to amend as they desire to escape the judgments of God such as they had already felt for this irreverent carriage of theirs so unsutable to the holy Sacrament He finds no other fault with them at present in this matter though any other fort of irreverence will proportionably expose men to the like punishment He says nothing here of their habitual preparation by the sincere purpofe and resolution of a good life answerable to the rules of the Christian Religion This we may suppose he took for granted However it concerns the Sacrament no more than it does Prayer or any other religious duty Not but that it is very true that none but those who do heartily embrace the Christian Religion and are sincerely resolved to frame their lives according to the holy rules and precepts of it are fit to communicate in this solemn acknowledgment and profession of it So that it is a practice very much to be countenanced and encouraged because it is of great use for Christians by way of preparation for the Sacrament to examine themselves in a larger sense than in all probability the Apostle here intended I mean to examine our past lives and the actions of them in order to a sincere repentance of all our errours and miscarriages and to fix us in the steady purpose and resolution of a better life particularly when we expect to have the forgiveness of our sins sealed to us we should lay aside all enmity and thoughts of revenge and heartily forgive those that have offended us and put in practice that universal love and charity which is represented to us by this holy Communion And to this purpose we are earnestly exhorted in the publick Office of the Communion by way of due preparation and disposition for it to repent us truly of our sins past to amend our lives and to be in perfect charity with all men that so we may be meet partakers of those holy mysteries And because this work of examining our selves concerning our state and condition and of exercising repentance towards God and charity towards men is incumbent upon us as we are Christians and can
thing because it self stands in need of another Miracle to give testimony to it and to prove that it was wrought And neither in Scripture nor in profane Authours nor in common use of speech is any thing call'd a Miracle but what falls under the notice of our senses A Miracle being nothing else but a supernatural effect evident to sense the great end and design whereof is to be a sensible proof and conviction to us of something that we do not see And for want of this Condition Transubstantiation if it were true would be no Miracle It would indeed be very supernatural but for all that it would not be a Sign or Miracle For a Sign or Miracle is always a thing sensible otherwise it could be no Sign Now that such a change as is pretended in Transubstantiation should really be wrought and yet there should be no sign and appearance of it is a thing very wonderfull but not to sense for our senses perceive no change the Bread and Wine in the Sacrament to all our senses remaining just as they were before And that a thing should remain to all appearance just as it was hath nothing at all of wonder in it we wonder indeed when we see a strange thing done but no man wonders when he sees nothing done So that Transubstantiation if they will needs have it a Miracle is such a Miracle as any man may work that hath but the confidence to face men down that he works it and the fortune to be believed And though the Church of Rome may magnify their Priests upon account of this Miracle which they say they can work every day and every hour yet I cannot understand the reason of it for when this great work as they call it is done there is nothing more appears to be done than if there were no Miracle Now such a Miracle as to all appearance is no Miracle I see no reason why a Protestant Minister as well as a Popish Priest may not work as often as he pleases or if he can but have the patience to let it alone it will work it self For surely nothing in the world is easier than to let a thing be as it is and by speaking a few words over it to make it just what it was before Every man every day may work ten thousand such Miracles And thus I have dispathc'd the First part of my Discourse which was to consider the pretended grounds and Reasons of the Church of Rome for this Doctrine and to shew the weakness and insufficiency of them I come in the SECOND place to produce our Objections against it Which will be of so much the greater force because I have already shewn this Doctrine to be destitute of all Divine warrant and authority and of any other sort of Ground sufficient in reason to justify it So that I do not now object against a Doctrine which hath a fair probability of Divine Revelation on its side for that would weigh down all objections which did not plainly overthrow the probability and credit of its Divine Revelation But I object against a Doctrine by the mere will and Tyranny of men impos'd upon the belief of Christians without any evidence of Scripture and against all the evidence of Reason and Sense The Objection I shall reduce to these two Heads First The infinite scandal of this Doctrine to the Christian Religion And Secondly The monstrous and insupportable absurdity of it First The infinite scandal of this Doctrine to the Christian Religion And that upon these four accounts 1. Of the stupidity of this Doctrine 2. The real barbarousness of this Sacrament and Rite of our Religion upon supposition of the truth of this Doctrine 3. Of the cruel and bloudy consequences of it 4. Of the danger of Idolatry which they are certainly guilty of if this Doctrine be not true 1. Upon account of the stupidity of this Doctrine I remember that Tully who was a man of very good sense instanceth in the conceit of eating God as the extremity of madness and so stupid an apprehension as he thought no man was ever guilty of * De Nat. Deorum l. 3. When we call says he the fruits of the earth Ceres and wine Bacchus we use but the common language but do you think any man so mad as to believe that which he eats to be God It seems he could not believe that so extravagant a folly had ever entred into the mind of man It is a very severe saying of Averroes the Arabian Philosopher who lived after this Doctrine was entertained among Christians and ought to make the Church or Rome blush * Dionys Carthus in 4. dist 10. art 1. if she can I have travell'd says he over the world and have found divers Sects but so sottish a Sect or Law I never found as is the Sect of the Christians because with their own teeth they devour their God whom they worship It was great stupidity in the People of Israel to say Come let us make us Gods but it was civilly said of them Let us make us Gods that may go before us in comparison of the Church of Rome who say Let us make a God that we may eat him So that upon the whole matter I cannot but wonder that they should chuse thus to expose Faith to the contempt of all that are endued with Reason And to speak the plain truth the Christian Religion was never so horribly exposed to the scorn of Atheists and Infidels as it hath been by this most absurd and senseless Doctrine But thus it was foretold that †2 Thess 2.10 the Man of Sin should come with Power and Signs and Lying Miracles and with all deceiveableness of unrighteousness with all the Legerdemain and jugling tricks of falshood and imposture amongst which this of Transubstantiation which they call a Miracle and we a Cheat is one of the chief And in all probability those common jugling words of hocus pocus are nothing else but a corruption of hoc est corpus by way of ridiculous imitation of the Priests of the Church of Rome in their trick of Transubstantiation Into such contempt by this foolish Doctrine and pretended Miracle of theirs have they brought the most sacred and venerable Mystery of our Religion 2. It is very scandalous likewise upon account of the real barbarousness of this Sacrament and Rite of our Religion upon supposition of the truth of this Doctrine Literally to eat the flesh of the Son of man and to drink his bloud St. Austin as I have shewed before declares to be a great Impiety And the impiety and barbarousness of the thing is not in truth extenuated but onely the appearance of it by its being done under the Species of Bread and Wine For the thing they acknowledge is really done and they believe that they verily eat and drink the natural flesh and bloud of Christ And what can any man do more unworthily towards his
doubted whether that kind of confirmation which God hath given to the Christian Religion would be strong enough to prove it supposing Transubstantiation to be a part of it Because every man hath as great evidence that Transubstantiation is false as he hath that the Christian Religion is true Suppose then Transubstantiation to be part of the Christian Doctrine it must have the same confirmation with the whole and that is Miracles But of all Doctrines in the world it is peculiarly incapable of being proved by a Miracle For if a Miracle were wrought for the proof of it the very same assurance which any man hath of the truth of the Miracle he hath of the falshood of the Doctrine that is the clear evidence of his Senses For that there is a Miracle wrought to prove that what he sees in the Sacrament is not bread but the body of Christ there is onely the evidence of sense and there is the very same evidence to prove that what he sees in the Sacrament is not the body of Christ but bread So that here would arise a new Controversie whether a man should rather believe his Senses giving testimony against the Doctrine of Transubstantiation or bearing witness to a Miracle wrought to confirm that Doctrine there being the very same evidence against the truth of the Doctrine which there is for the truth of the Miracle And then the Argument for Transubstantiation and the Objection against it would just ballance one another and consequently Transubstantiation is not to be proved by a Miracle because that would be to prove to a man by some thing that he sees that he doth not see what he sees And if there were no other evidence that Transubstantiation is no part of the Christian Doctrine this would be sufficient that what proves the one doth as much overthrow the other and that Miracles which are certainly the best and highest external proof of Christianity are the worst proof in the world of Transubstantiation unless a man can renounce his senses at the same time that he relies upon them For a man cannot believe a Miracle without relying upon sense nor Transubstantiation without renouncing it So that never were any two things so ill coupled together as the Doctrine of Christianity and that of Transubstantiation because they draw several ways and are ready to strangle one another For the main evidence of the Christian Doctrine which is Miracles is resolved into the certainty of sense but this evidence is clear and point-blank against Transubstantiation 4. And Lastly I would ask what we are to think of the Argument which our Saviour used to convince his Disciples after his Resurrection that his Body was really risen and that they were not deluded by a Ghost or Apparition Is it a necessary and conclusive Argument or not * Luk. 24.38 39. And he said unto them why are ye troubled and why do thoughts arise in your hearts Behold my hands and my feet that it is I my self for a Spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see me have But now if we suppose with the Church of Rome the Doctrine of Transubstantiation to be true and that he had instructed his Disciples in it just before his death strange thoughts might justly have risen in their hearts and they might have said to him Lord it is but a few days ago since thou didst teach us not to believe our senses but directly contrary to what we saw viz. that the bread which thou gavest us in the Sacrament though we saw it and handled it and tasted it to be bread yet was not bread but thine own natural body and now thou appealed to our senses to prove that this is thy body which we now see If seeing and handling be an unquestionable evidence that things are what they appear to our senses then we were deceived before in the Sacrament and if they be not then we are not sure now that this is thy body which we now see and handle but it may be perhaps bread under the appearance of flesh and bones just as in the Sacrament that which we saw and handled and tasted to be bread was thy flesh and bones under the form and appearance of bread Now upon this supposition it would have been a hard matter to have quieted the thoughts of the Disciples For if the Argument which our Saviour used did certainly prove to them that what they saw and handled was his body his very natural flesh and bones because they saw and handled them which it were impious to deny it would as strongly prove that what they saw and received before in the Sacrament was not the natural body and bloud of Christ but real bread and wine And consequently that according to our Saviour's arguing after his Resurrection they had no reason to believe Transubstantiation before For that very Argument by which our Saviour proves the reality of his body after his Resurrection doth as strongly prove the reality of bread and wine after Consecration But our Saviour's Argument was most infallibly good and true and therefore the Doctrine of Transubstantiation is undoubtedly false Upon the whole matter I shall onely say this that some other Points between us and the Church of Rome are managed with some kind of wit and subtilty but this of Transubstantiation is carried out by mere dint of impudence and facing down of Mankind And of this the more discerning persons of that Church are of late grown so sensible that they would now be glad to be rid of this odious and ridiculous Doctrine But the Council of Trent hath rivetted it so fast into their Religion and made it so necessary and essential a Point of their belief that they cannot now part with it if they would it is like a Mill-stone hung about the neck of Popery which will sink it at the last And though some of their greatest Wits as Cardinal Perron and of late Monsieur Arnauld have undertaken the defence of it in great Volumes yet it is an absurdity of that monstrous and massy weight that no humane authority or wit are able to support it It will make the very Pillars of St. Peter's crack and requires more Volumes to make it good than would fill the Vatican And now I would apply my self to the poor deluded People of that Church if they were either permitted by their Priests or durst venture without their leave to look into their Religion and to examine the Doctrines of it Consider and shew your selves men Do not suffer your selves any longer to be led blindfold and by an implicit Faith in your Priests into the belief of nonsense and contradiction Think it enough and too much to let them rook you of your money for pretended Pardons and counterfeit Reliques but let not the Authority of any Priest or Church persuade you out of your Senses Credulity is certainly a fault as well as Infidelity and he who said blessed are they that have
be of some Religion and then offers it to their consideration which they would pitch upon Chuse you this day whom you will serve whether the Gods which your fathers served c. Religion is a thing to which men are not only formed by education and custom but as Tully says Quo omnes duce naturâ vehimur It is that to which we are all carried by a natural inclination which is the true Reason why some Religion or other hath so universally prevailed in all Ages and places of the world The temporal felicity of men and the ends of Government can very hardly if at all be attained without Religion Take away this and all Obligations of Conscience cease and where there is no obligation of Conscience all security of Truth and Justice and mutual confidence among men is at an end For why should I repose confidence in that man why should I take his word or believe his promise or put any of my Interests and concernments into his power who hath no other restraint upon him but that of humane Laws and is at liberty in his own mind and principles to do whatever he judgeth to be expedient for his interest provided he can but do it without danger to himself So that declared Atheism and Infidelity doth justly bring men under a jealousie and suspition with all mankind And every wise man hath reason to be upon his guard against those from whom he hath no cause to expect more justice and truth and equity in their dealings than he can compel them to by the mere dint and force of Laws For by declaring themselves free from all other obligations they give us fair warning what we are to expect at their hands and how far we may trust them Religion is the strongest band of humane Society and God so necessary to the welfare and happiness of mankind as it could not have been more if we could suppose the Being of God himself to have been purposely designed and contrived for the benefit and advantage of men So that very well may it be taken for granted that a Nation must be of some Religion or other Secondly Though Religion be a matter of our choice yet it is neither a thing indifferent in it self nor to a good Governour what Religion his people are of Notwithstanding the supposition of the Text Joshua doth not leave them at liberty whether they will serve God or Idols but by a very Rhetorical Scheme of Speech endeavours to engage them more firmly to the worship of the true God To countenance and support the true Religion and to take care that the people be instructed in it and that none be permitted to debauch and seduce men from it properly belongs to the Civil Magistrate This power the Kings of Israel always exercised not only with allowance but with great approbation and commendation from God himself And the case is not altered since Christianity The better the Religion is the better it deserves the countenance and support of the Civil Authority And this Power of the Civil Magistrate in matters of Religion was never called in question but by the Enthusiasts of these later times And yet among these every Father and Master of a Family claims this Power over his Children and Servants at the same time that they deny it to the Magistrate over his Subjects But I would fain know where the difference lyes Hath a Master of a Family more power over those under his Government than the Magistrate hath No man ever pretended it Nay so far is it from that that the natural Authority of a Father may be and often is limited and restrained by the Laws of the Civil Magistrate And why then may not a Magistrate exercise the same power over his Subjects in matters of Religion which every Master challengeth to himself in his own Family that is to establish the true worship of God in such manner and with such circumstances as he thinks best and to permit none to affront it or to seduce from it those that are under his care And to prevent all misunderstandings in this matter I do not hereby ascribe any thing to the Magistrate that can possibly give him any pretence of right to reject God's true Religion or to declare what he pleases to be so and what Books he pleases to be Canonical and the Word of God and consequently to make a false Religion so currant by the stamp of his Authority as to oblige his Subjects to the profession of it Because he who acknowledgeth himself to derive all his Authority from God can pretend to none against Him But if a false Religion be established by Law the case here is the same as in all other Laws that are sinfull in the matter of them but yet made by a lawfull Authority in this case the Subject is not bound to profess a false Religion but patiently to suffer for the constant profession of the true And to speak freely in this matter I cannot think till I be better inform'd which I am always ready to be that any pretence of Conscience warrants any man that is not extraordinarily commission'd as the Apostles and first Publishers of the Gospel were and cannot justifie that Commission by Miracles as they did to affront the establish'd Religion of a Nation though it be false and openly to draw men off from the profession of it in contempt of the Magistrate and the Law All that persons of a different Religion can in such a case reasonably pretend to is to enjoy the private liberty and exercise of their own Conscience and Religion for which they ought to be very thankfull and to forbear the open making of Proselytes to their own Religion though they be never so sure that they are in the right till they have either an extraordinary Commission from God to that purpose or the Providence of God make way for it by the permission or connivance of the Magistrate Not but that every man hath a Right to publish and propagate the true Religion and to declare it against a false one but there is no Obligation upon any man to attempt this to no purpose and when without a miracle it can have no other effect but the loss of his own life unless he have an immediate command and Commission from God to this purpose and be endued with a power of miracles as a publick Seal and Testimony of that Commission which was the case of the Apostles who after they had received an immediate Commission were not to enter upon the execution of it but to stay at Jerusalem till they were endued with power from on high In this case a man is to abide all hazards and may reasonably expect both extraordinary assistance and success as the Apostles had and even a miraculous protection till his work be done and after that if he be call d to suffer Martyrdome a supernatural support under those sufferings And that they are guilty however
of gross Hypocrisie who pretend a further obligation of Conscience in this matter I shall give this plain Demonstration which relies upon Concessions generally made on all hands and by all Parties No Protestant that I know of holds himself obliged to go and Preach up his Religion and make Converts in Spain or Italy Nor do either the Protestant Ministers or Popish Priests think themselves bound in conscience to Preach the Gospel in Turky and to confute the Alcheran to convert the Mahometans And what is the Reason because of the severity of the Inquisition in Popish Countreys and of the Laws in Turky But doth the danger then alter the obligation of Conscience No certainly but it makes men throw off the false pretence and disguise of it But where there is a real obligation of Conscience danger should not deter men from their Duty as it did not the Apostles which shews their case to be different from ours and that probably this matter was stated right at first So that whatever is pretended this is certain that the Priests and Jesuites of the Church of Rome have in truth no more obligation of conscience to make Converts here in England than in Sueden or Turky where it seems the evident danger of the attempt hath for these many years given them a perfect discharge from their duty in this particular I shall joyn the Third and Fourth Observations together That though the true Religion may have several prejudices and objections against it yet upon examination there will be found those real advantages on its side that it may safely be referred to any considerate mans choice If it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord chuse you this day whom you will serve If it seem evil unto you Intimating that to some persons and upon some accounts it may appear so But when the matter is truly represented the choice is not difficult nor requires any long deliberation Chuse you this day whom you will serve Let but the Cause be fully and impartially heard and a wise man may determine himself upon the spot and give his Verdict without ever going from the Bar. The true Religion hath always layen under some prejudices with partial and inconsiderate men which commonly spring from one of these two Causes either the Prepossessions of a contrary Religion or the contrariety of the true Religion to the vicious inclinations and practices of men which usually lyes at the bottom of all prejudice against Religion Religion is an enemy to mens beloved lusts and therefore they are enemies to Religion I begin with the first which is as much as I shall be able to compass at this time I. The Prepossessions of a false Religion which commonly pretends two advantages on its side Antiquity and Vniversality and is wont to object to the true Religion Novelty and Singularity And both these are intimated both before and after the Text Put away the gods which your Father served on the other side of the flood and in Egypt And chuse you this day whom you will serve whether the gods which your Fathers served on the other side of the flood or the gods of the Amorites in whose land ye dwell Idolatry was the Religion of their Fathers and had spread it self over the greatest and most ancient Nations of the world and the most famous for Learning and Arts the Chaldeans and Egyptians and was the Religion of the Amorites and the Nations round about them So that Joshua represents the Heathen Religion with all its strength and advantage and do's not dissemble its confident pretence to Antiquity and Vniversality whereby they would also insinuate the Novelty and Singularity of the worship of the God of Israel And it is very well worthy our observation that one or both of these have always been the Exceptions of false Religions especially of Idolatry and Superstition against the true Religion The ancient Idolaters of the World pretended their Religion to be ancient and universal that their Fathers served these Gods and that the worship of the God of Israel was a plain Innovation upon the Ancient and Catholick Religion of the world and that the very first rise and original of it was within the memory of their Fathers and no doubt they were almost perpetually upon the Jews with that pert question Where was your Religion before Abraham and telling them that it was the Religion of a very small part and corner of the world confined within a little Territory But the great Nations of the world the Egyptians and Chaldeans famous for all kind of knowledge and wisedom and indeed all the Nations round about them worshipped other Gods And therefore it was an intolerable arrogance and singularity in them to condemn their Fathers and all the world to be of a Religion different from all other Nations and hereby to separate themselves and make a Schism from the rest of mankind And when the Gospel appeared in the world which the Apostle to the Hebrews to prevent the scandal of that word calls the time of Reformation the Jews and Heathen still renewed the same Objections against Christianity The Jews urged against it not the ancient Scriptures and the true word of God but that which they pretended to be of much greater Authority the unwritten Word the ancient and constant Traditions of their Church and branded this new Religion with the name of Heresie After the way saith St. Paul that you call Heresie so worship I the God of my Fathers believing all things that are written in the Law and in the Prophets By which we see that they of the Church of Rome were not the first who called it Heresie to reject humane Traditions and to make the Scriptures the Rule of Faith This was done long before by their reverend Predecessors the Scribes and and Pharisees And the Gentiles they pretended against it both Antiquity and Vniversality the constant belief and practice of all Ages and almost all Places of the World Sequimur majores nostros qui feliciter secuti sunt suos says Symmachus We follow our Fore-fathers who happily followed theirs But you bring in a new Religion never known nor heard of in the World before And when the Christian Religion was most miserably depraved and corrupted in that dismal night of Ignorance which overspread these Western parts of the World about the Ninth and Tenth Centùries and many pernicious Doctrines and Superstitious Practices were introduced to the wofull defacing of the Christian Religion and making it quite another thing from what our Saviour had left it and these Corruptions and Abuses had continued for several Ages No sooner was a Reformation attempted but the Church of Rome make the same outcry of Novelty and Singularity And though we have substantially answered it a thousand times yet we cannot obtain of them to forbear that threadbare Question Where was your Religion before Luther I shall therefore apply my self to answer these two Exceptions with
and mediation of Jesus Christ as he hath given us Commandment because there is but one God and one Mediator between God and Man the Man Christ Jesus If it seem evil unto you to have the liberty to serve God in a Language you can understand and to have the free use of the Holy Scriptures which are able to make men wise unto Salvation and to have the Sacraments of our Religion entirely administred to us as our Lord did institute and appoint And on the other hand if it seem good to us to put our necks once more under that yoke which our Fathers were not able to bear If it be really a Preferment to a Prince to hold the Pope's Stirrup and a Privilege to be deposed by him at his pleasure and a courtesie to be kill'd at his command If to pray without Understanding and to obey without Reason and to believe against Sense if Ignorance and implicit Faith and an Inquisition be in good earnest such charming and desirable things Then welcome Popery which wherever thou comest dost infallibly bring all these wonderfull Privileges and Blessings along with thee But the Question is not now about the choice but the change of our Religion after we have been so long settled in the quiet possession and enjoyment of it Men are very loth to change even a false Religion Hath a Nation changed their Gods which yet are no Gods And surely there is much more reason why we should be tenacious of the Truth and hold fast that which is good We have the best Religion in the World the very same which the Son of God revealed which the Apostles planted and confirmed by Miracles and which the noble Army of Martyrs sealed with their Blood And we have retrench'd from it all false Doctrines and superstitious Practices which have been added since And I think we may without immodesty say That upon the plain square of Scripture and Reason of the Tradition and Practice of the first and best Ages of the Christian Church we have fully justified Our Religion and made it evident to the World that our Adversaries are put to very hard shifts and upon a perpetual disadvantage in the defence of Theirs I wish it were as easie for us to justifie our Lives as our Religion I do not mean in comparison of our Adversaries for that as bad as we are I hope we are yet able to do but in comparison of the Rules of our holy Religion from which we are infinitely swerv'd which I would to God we all did seriously consider and lay to heart I say in comparison of the Rules of our Holy Religion which teach us to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts and to live soberly and righteously and godly in this present World in expectation of the blessed hope and the glorious appearance of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ To whom with the Father and the Holy Ghost c. JOSHUA XXIV 15. And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord chuse you this day whom you will serve THese words as I have already declared in the former Discourse are the last counsel and advice which Joshua gave to the People of Israel after he had safely conducted them into the Land of Canaan And that he might more effectually perswade them to continue stedfast in the worship of the true God by an eloquent kind of insinuation he doth as it were once more set them at liberty and leave them to their own choice If it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord chuse you this day whom you will serve The plain sense of which Words may be resolved into this Proposition That notwithstanding all the prejudices and objections against the true Religion yet it hath those real advantages on its side that it may safely be referred to any impartial and considerate man's choice If it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord intimating that to some persons and upon some accounts it may seem so but when the matter is throughly examined the resolution and choice cannot be difficult nor require any long deliberation Chuse you this day whom you will serve The true Religion hath always layn under some prejudices with partial arid inconsiderate men arising chiefly from these two Causes the prepossessions of a false Religion and the contrariety of the true Religion to the inclinations of men and the uneasiness of it in point of practice First From the prepossessions of a false Religion which hath always been wont to lay claim to Antiquity and Vniversality and to charge the true Religion with Novelty and Singularity And both these are intimated before the Text Put away the Gods whom your Fathers served on the other side of the Flood and in Egypt and chuse you this day whom you will serve It was pretended that the worship of Idols was the ancient Religion of the world of those great Nations the Egyptians and Chaldeans and of all the Nations round about them But this hath already been considered at large Secondly There are another sort of prejudices against Religion more apt to stick with men of better sense and reason and these arise principally from the contrariety of the true Religion to the inclinations of men and the uneasiness of it in point of practice It is pretended that Religion is a heavy yoke and lays too great a restraint upon humane Nature and that the Laws of it bear too hard upon the general inclinations of mankind I shall not at present meddle with the speculative Objections against Religion upon account of the pretended unreasonableness of many things in point of Belief because the contrariety of the true Religion to the inclinations of men and the uneasiness of it in point of practice is that which in truth lies at the bottom of Atheism and Insidelity and raises all that animosity which is in the minds of bad men against Religion and exasperates them to oppose it with all their wit and malice Men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil And if this prejudice were but once removed and men were in some measure reconciled to the practice of Religion the speculative Objections against it would almost vanish of themselves for there wants little else to enable a man to answer them but a willingness of mind to have them answered and that we have no interest and inclination to the contrary And therefore I shall at present wholly apply my self to remove this prejudice against Religion from the contrariety of it to the inclinations of men and the uneasiness of it in point of practice And there are two parts of this Objection 1st That a great part of the Laws of Religion do thwart the natural inclinations of men which may reasonably be supposed to be from God And 2ly That all of them together are a heavy yoke and do lay too great a restraint upon humane Nature intrenching too much upon the pleasures and liberty of it I.
That a great part of the Laws of Religion do thwart the natural inclinations of men which may reasonably be supposed to be from God So that God seems to have set our nature and our duty at variance to have given us appetites and inclinations one way and Laws another which if it were true must needs render the practice of Religion very grievous and uneasie The force of this Objection is very smartly expressed in those celebrated Verses of a Noble Poet of our own which are so frequently in the mouths of many who are thought to bear no good will to Religion O wearisome condition of Humanity Born under one Law to another bound Vainly begot and yet forbidden Vanity Created sick commanded to be sound If Nature did not take delight in blood She would have made more easie ways to good So that this Objection would sain charge the sins of men upon God first upon account of the evil inclinations of our Nature and then of the contrariety of our duty to those inclinations And from the beginning man hath always been apt to lay the blame of his faults where it can least lye upon goodness and perfection it self The very first sin that ever man was guilty of he endeavoured to throw upon God The woman whom thou gavest me saith Adam she gave me of the tree and I did eat And his posterity are still apt to excuse themselves the same way But to return a particular answer to this Objection 1. We will acknowledge so much of it as is true That there is a great degeneracy and corruption of humane Nature from what it was originally framed when it came out of God's hands of which the Scripture gives us this account that it was occasioned by the voluntary transgression of a plain and easy Command given by God to our first Parents And this weakness contracted by the fall of our first Parents naturally descends upon us their Posterity and visibly discovers it self in our inclinations to evil and impotence to that which is good And of this the heathen Philosophers from the light of nature and their own experience and observation of themselves and others were very sensible that humane Nature was very much declined from its primitive rectitude and sunk into a weak and drooping and sickly State which they called a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the moulting of the wings of the soul But yet they were so just and reasonable as not to charge this upon God but upon some corruption and impurity contracted by the Soul in a former State before its union with the Body For the descent of the Soul into these gross earthly Bodies they looked upon as partly the punishment of faults committed in a former State and partly as the opportunity of a new tryal in order to its purgation and recovery And this was the best account they were able to give of this matter without the Light of Divine Revelation So that the degeneracy of humane Nature is universally acknowledged and God acquitted from being the cause of it But however the posterity of Adam do all partake of the weakness contracted by his fall and do still labour under the miseries and inconveniences of it But then this degeneracy is not total For though our faculties be much weakned and disordered yet they are not destroyed nor wholly perverted Our natural Judgment and Conscience doth still direct to us what is good and what we ought to do and the impressions of the natural Law as to the great lines of our duty are still legible upon our hearts So that the Law written in God's Word is not contrary to the Law written upon our hearts And therefore it is not truly said that we are born under one Law and bound to another But the great disorder is that our infeririour faculties our sensitive appetite and passions are broke loose and have got head of our Reason and are upon all occasions apt to rebel I against it but our Judgment still dictates the very same things which the Law of God doth enjoyn It is likewise very visible that the sad effects of this degeneracy do not appear equally and alike in all whether from the better or worse temper of our Bodies or from some other more secret cause I shall not determine because I know not But that there is a difference is evident for though a proneness to evil and some seeds of it be in all yet we may plainly discover in many very early and forward inclinations to some kinds of vertue and goodness which being cultivated by Education may under the ordinary influence of God's grace be carried on with great case to great perfection And there are others who are not so strongly bent to that which is evil but that by good instruction and example in their tender years they may be swayed the other way and without great difficulty formed to goodness There are some indeed which is the hardest case in whom there do very early appear strong propensions and inclinations to evil especially to some particular kinds of vice But the case of these is not desperate though greater attention and care and a much more prudent management is required in the education of such persons to correct their evil tempers and by degrees to bend their inclinations the right way and if the seeds of piety and vertue be but carefully sown at first very much may be done by this means even in the most depraved Natures towards the altering and changing of them however to the checking and controuling of their vicious inclinations And if these persons when they come to riper years would pursue these advantages of education and take some pains with themselves and earnestly seek the assistance of God's grace I doubt not but even these persons by degrees might at last get the mastery of their unhappy tempers For next to the Being and perfections of God and the immortality of our own Souls there is no Principle of Religion that I do more firmly believe than this that God hath that love for men that if we do heartily beg his assistance and be not wanting to our selves he will afford it to every one of us in proportion to our need of it that he is always before hand with us and prevents every man with the gracious offers of his help And I doubt not but many very perverse Natures have thus been reclaimed For God who is the Lover of Souls as the Son of Sirach calls him though he may put some men under more difficult circumstances of becoming good than others yet he leaves no man under a fatal necessity of being wicked and perishing everlastingly He tenderly considers every man's case and circumstances and it is we that pull destruction upon our selves with the works of our own hands But as sure as God is good and just no man in the world is ruined for want of having sufficient help and aid afforded to him by God for his recovery
makes them to be bitterness in the end All the ways of sin are so beset with thorns and difficulties on every side there are so many unanswerable objections against Vice from the unreasonableness and ugliness of it from the remorse that attends it from the endless misery that follows it that none but the rash and inconsiderate can obtain leave of themselves to commit it It is the Daughter of inadvertency and blindness and folly and the Mother of guilt and repentance and woe There is no pleasure that will hold out and abide with us to the last but that of Innocency and well-doing All sin is folly and as Seneca truly says omnis stultitia laborat fastidio sui all folly soon grows sick and weary of it self The pleasure of it is slight and superficial but the trouble and remorse of it pierceth our very hearts And then as to the other part of the Objection That Religion restrains us of our liberty The contrary is most evidently true that sin and vice are the greatest slavery For he is truly a slave who is not at liberty to follow his own judgment and to do those things which he is inwardly convinced it is best for him to do but is subject to the unreasonable commands and the tyrannical power and violence of his lusts and passions So that he is not master of himself but other Lords have got dominion over him and he is perfectly at their beck and command One vice or passion bids him go and he goes another come and he comes and a third do this and he doth it The man is at perpetual variance with his own mind and continually committing the things which he condemns in himself And it is all one whether a man be subject to the will and humour of another person or to his own lusts and passions Only this of the two is the worse because the Tyrant is at home and always ready at hand to domineer over him he is got within him and so much the harder to be vanquished and overcome But the service of God and obedience to his Laws is perfect liberty Because the Law of God requires nothing of us but what is recommended to us by our own reason and from the benefit and advantage of doing it nothing but what is much more for our own interest to do it than it can be for God's to command it And if in some things God exact obedience of us more indispensibly and under severer penalties it is because those things are in their Nature more necessary to our felicity And how could God possibly have dealt more graciously and kindly with us than to oblige us most strictly to that which is most evidently for our good and to make such Laws for us as if we live in obedience to them will infallibly make us happy So that taking all things into consideration the interest of our bodies and our souls of the present and the future of this world and the other Religion is the most reasonable and wise the most comfortable and compendious course that any man can take in order to his own happiness The consideration whereof ought to be a mighty endearment of our duty to us and a most prevalent argument with us to yield a ready and chearfull obedience to the Laws of God which are in truth so many acts of grace and favour to mankind the real privileges of our nature and the proper means and causes of our happiness And do restrain us from nothing but from doing mischief to our selves from playing the fools and making our selves miserable And therefore instead of opposing Religion upon pretence of the unreasonable restraints of it we ought to thank God heartily that he hath laid so strict an obligation upon us to regard and pursue our true interest and hath been pleased to take that care of us as to set bounds to our loose and wild appetites by our duty and in giving us rules to live by hath no ways complyed with our inconsiderate and foolish inclinations to our real harm and prejudice But hath made those things necessary for us to do which in all respects are best for us and which if we were perfectly left to our own liberty ought in all reason to be our free and first choice And hath made the folly and inconvenience of sin so grosly palpable that every man may see it before-hand that will but consider and at the beginning of a bad course look to the end of it and they that will not consider shall be forced from wofull experience at last to acknowledge it when they find the dismal effects and mischievous consequences of their vices still meeting them at one turn or other And now by all that hath been said upon this Argument I hope we are satisfied that Religion is no such intolerable yoke and that upon a due and full consideration of things it cannot seem evil unto any of us to serve the Lord nay on the contrary that it is absolutely necessary both to our present peace and our future felicity And that a religious and vertuous life is not only upon all accounts the most prudent but after we are entred upon it and accustomed to it the most pleasant course that any man can take and however inconsiderate men may complain of the restraints of Religion that it is not one jot more our duty than it is our privilege and our happiness And I cannot think that upon sober consideration any man could see reason to thank God to be released from any of his Laws or to have had the contrary to them enjoyned Let us suppose that the Laws of God had been just the Reverse of what they now are that he had commanded us under severe penalties to deal falsly and fraudulently with our neighbour to demean our selves ungratefully to our best friends and benefactors to be drunk every day and to pursue sensual pleasures to the endangering of our health and life How should we have complained of the unreasonableness of these Laws and have murmured at the slavery of such intolerable impositions And yet now that God hath commanded us the contrary things every way agreeable to our reason and interest we are not pleased neither What will content us As our Saviour expostulates in a like case whereunto shall I liken this generation It is like unto Children playing in the Market-place and calling unto their Companions we have piped unto you and ye have not danced we have mourned and ye have not lamented This is perfectly childish to be pleased with nothing neither to like this nor the contrary We are not contented with the Laws of God as they are and yet the contrary to them we should have esteemed the greatest grievance in the World And if this be true that the Laws of God how contrary soever to our vicious inclinations are really calculated for our benefit and advantage it would almost be an affront to wise and considerate men
to importune them to their interest and with great earnestness to persuade them to that which in all respects is so visibly for their advantage Chuse you therefore this day whom you will serve God or your lusts And take up a speedy resolution in a matter of so great and pressing a concernment chuse you this day Where there is great hazard in the doing of a thing it is good to deliberate long before we undertake it but where the thing is not only safe but beneficial and not only hugely beneficial but highly necessary when our life and our happiness depends upon it and all the danger lies in the delay of it there we cannot be too sudden in our resolution nor too speedy in the execution of it That which is evidently safe needs no deliberation and that which is absolutely necessary will admit of none Therefore resolve upon it out of hand to day whilest it is called to day lest dny of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin In the days of your youth and health for that is the acceptable time that is the day of salvation Before the evil day comes and you be driven to it by the terrible apprehension and approach of death when men fly to God only for fear of his wrath For the greatest Atheists and Infidels when they come to dye if they have any of that reason left which they have used so ill have commonly right opinions about God and Religion For then the considence as well as the comfort of Atheism leaves them as the Devil uses to do Witches when they are in distress Then with Nebuchadnezzar when they are recovered from being beasts they look up to heaven and their understanding returns to them Then they believe a God and cannot help it they believe and tremble at the thoughts of him Thus Lucretius one of their great Authors observes that when men are in distress Acrius advertunt animos ad Religionem The thoughts of Religion are then more quick and pungent upon their minds Nam verae voces tum demum pectore ab imo Eliciuntur eripitur persona manet res Mens words then come from the bottom of their hearts the mask is taken off and things then appear as in truth they are But then perhaps it may be too late to make this choice Nay then it can hardly be choice but necessity Men do not then chuse to serve the Lord but they are urged and forced to it by their fears They have served their lusts all their life long and now they would fain serve themselves of God at the hour of death They have done what they can by their insolent contempt and defiance of the Almighty to make themselves miserable and now that they can stand out no longer against him they are contented at last to be beholding to him to make them happy The mercies of God are vast and boundless but yet methinks it is too great a presumption in all reason for men to design before-hand to make the mercy of God the sanctuary and retreat of a sinfull life To draw then to a Conclusion of this Discourse If safety or pleasure or liberty or wisdom or vertue or even happiness it self have any temptation in them Religion hath all these baits and allurements What Tully says Philosophy is much more true of the Christian Religion the Wisdom and Philosophy which is from above nunquam satis laudari poterit cui qui pareat omne tempus aetatis sine molestia degere possit We can never praise it enough since whoever lives according to the rules of it may pass the whole age of his life I may add his whole duration this life and the other without trouble Philosophy hath given us several plausible rules for the attaining of peace and tranquility of mind but they fall very much short of bringing men to it The very best of them fail us upon the greatest occasions But the Christian Religion hath effectually done all that which Philosophy pretended to and aimed at The Precepts and Promises of the Holy Scriptures are every way sufficient for our comfort and for our instruction in righteousness to correct all the errours and to bear us up under all the evils and adversities of humane life especially that holy and heavenly Doctrine which is contained in the admirable Sermons of our Saviour quem cum legimus quem Philosophum non contemnimus whose excellent discourses when we reade what Philosopher do we not despise None of the Philosophers could upon sure grounds give that encouragement to their Scholars which our Saviour does to his Disciples take my yoke upon you and learn of me and ye shall find rest to your souls For my yoke is easie and my burthen is light This is the advantage of the Christian Religion sincerely believed and practised that it gives perfect rest and tranquillity to the mind of man It frees us from the guilt of an evil conscience and from the power of our lusts and from the slavish fear of death and of the vengeance of another World It builds our comfort upon a rock which will abide all storms and remain unshaken in every condition and will last and hold out for ever He that heareth these sayings of mine and doth them saith our Lord I will liken him to a wise wan who built his house upon a rock In short Religion makes the life of man a wise design regular and constant to its self because it unites all our resolutions and actions in one great end Whereas without Religion the life of man is a wild and fluttering and inconsistent thing without any certain scope and design The vicious man lives at randome and acts by chance For he that walks by no rule can carry on no settled and steady design It would pity a man's heart to see how hard such men are put to it for diversion and what a burden time is to them and how solicitous they are to devise ways not to spend it but to squander it away For their great grievance is consideration and to be obliged to be intent upon any thing that is serious They hurry from one vanity and folly to another and plunge themselves into drink not to quench their thirst but their guilt and are beholding to every vain man and to every trifling occasion that can but help to take time off their hands Wretched and inconsiderate men who have so vast a work before them the happiness of all eternity to take care of and provide for and yet are at a loss how to employ their time So that Irreligion and Vice makes life an extravagant and unnatural thing because it perverts and overthrows the natural course and order of things For instance according to nature men labour to get an Estate to free themselves from temptations to rapine and injury and that they may have wherewithall to supply their own wants and to relieve the needs of others But now the