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
Graces and Virtues which concern our duty towards one another That it is the sum and abridgement the accomplishment and fulfilling of the whole Law That without this whatever we pretend to in Christianity we are nothing and our Religion is vain That this is the greatest of all Graces and Virtues greater than Faith and Hope and of perpetual use and duration Charity never fails And therefore they exhort us above all things to endeavour after it as the Crown of all other Virtues Above all things have fervent charity among your selves saith St. Peter And St. Paul having enumerated most other Christian Virtues exhorts us above all to strive after this And above all these things put on charity which is the bond of perfection This St. John makes one of the most certain signs of our love to God and the want of it an undeniable argument of the contrary If a man say I love God and hateth his brother he is a lyar for he who loveth not his brother whom he hath seen how can he love God whom he hath not seen This he declares to be one of the best evidences that we are in a state of Grace and Salvation Hereby we know that we are passed from death to life because we love the brethren So that well might our blessed Saviour chuse this for the badge of his Disciples and make it the great Precept of the best and most perfect Institution Other things might have served better for pomp and ostentation and have more gratified the Curiosity or Enthusiasm or Superstition of mankind but there is no quality in the World which upon a sober and impartial consideration is of a more solid and intrinsick value And in the first Ages of Christianity the Christians were very eminent for this Vertue and particularly noted for it Nobis notam inurit apud quosdam it is a mark and brand set upan us by some saith Tertullian and he tells us that it was proverbially said among the Heathen Behold how these Christians love one another Lucian that great scoffer at all Religion acknowledgeth in behalf of Christians that this was the great Principle which their Master had instill'd into them And Julian the bitterest Enemy that Christianity ever had could not forbear to propound to the Heathen for an example the charity of the Galileans for so by way of reproach he calls the Christians who says he gave up themselves to humanity and kindness which he acknowledgeth to have been very much to the advantage and reputation of our Religion And in the same Letter to Arsacius the Heathen High Priest of Galatia he gives this memorable Testimony of the Christians that their Charity was not limited and confin'd onely to themselves but extended even to their Enemies which could not be said either of the Jews or Heathens His words are these It is a shame that when the Jews suffer none of theirs to beg and the impious Galileans relieve not onely their own but those also of our Religion that we onely should be defective in so necessary a Duty By all which it is evident that Love and Charity is not onely the great Precept of our Saviour but was in those first and best Times the general practice of his Disciples and acknowledged by the Heathens as a very peculiar and remarkable quality in them The application I shall make of this Discourse shall be threefold 1. With relation to the Church of Rome 2. With regard to our selves who profess the Protestant Reform'd Religion 3. With a more particular respect to the occasion of this Meeting First With relation to the Church of Rome Which we cannot chuse but think of whenever we speak of Charity and loving one another especially having had so late a discovery of their affection to us and so considerable a testimony of the kindness and charity which they design'd towards us such as may justly make the ears of all that hear it to tingle and render Popery execrable and infamous a frightful and a hateful thing to the end of the World It is now but too visible how grosly this great Commandment of our Saviour is contradicted not onely by the Practices of those in that Communion from the Pope down to the meanest Fryar but by the very Doctrines and Principles by the Genius and Spirit of that Religion which is wholly calculated for cruelty and persecution Where now is that mark of a Disciple so much insisted upon by our Lord and Master to be found in that Church And yet what is the Christian Church but the Society and Community of Christs Disciples Surely in all reason that which our Lord made the distinctive Mark and Character of his Disciples should be the principal mark of a true Church Bellarmine reckons up no less than fifteen marks of the rrue Church all which the Church of Rome arrogates to her self alone But he wisely forgot that which is worth all the rest and which our Saviour insists upon as the chief of all other A sincere Love and Charity to all Christians This he knew would by no means agree to his own Church But for all that it is very reasonable that Churches as well as particular Christians should be judged by their Charity The Church of Rome would engross all Faith to her self Faith in its utmost perfection to the degree and pitch of Infallibility And they allow no body in the world besides themselves no though they believe all the Articles of the Apostles Creed to have one grain of true Faith because they do not believe upon the Authority of their Church which they pretend to be the onely foundation of true Faith This is a most arrogant and vain pretence but admit it were true yet in the Judgement of St. Paul Though they had all Faith if they have not Charity they are nothing The greatest wonder of all is this that they who hate and persecute Christians most do all this while the most confidently of all others pretend to be the Disciples of Christ and will allow none to be so but themselves That Church which excommunicates all other Christian Churches in the world and if she could would extirpate them out of the world will yet needs assume to her self to be the only Christian Church As if our Saviour had said Hereby shall all men know that ye are my Disciples if ye hate and excommunicate and kill one another What shall he done unto thee thou false tongue thou empty and impudent pretence of Christianity Secondly With relation to our seves who profess the Protestant Reformed Religion How is this great Precept of our Saviour not onely shamefully neglected but plainly violated by us And that not only by private hatred and ill-will quarrels and contentions in our civil conversation and entercourse with one another but by most unchristian divisions and animosities in that common relation wherein we stand to one another as Brethren as Christians as Protestants Have we not all one
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
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
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
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
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
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.
time I have purposely reserved this for the last place because it is their last refuge and if this fail them they are gone To shew the weakness of this pretence we will if they please take it for granted that the Governours of the Church have in no Age more power than the Apostles had in theirs Now St. Paul tells us 2 Cor. 10.8 that the Authority which the Apostles had given them from the Lord was only for edification but not for destruction And the same St. Paul makes it the business of a whole Chapter to shew that the performing the publick service of God and particularly Praying in an unknown Tongue are contrary to edification from which premisses the conclusion is plain That the Apostles themselves had no Authority to appoint the service of God to be performed in an unknown Tongue and surely it is Arrogance for the Church in any Age to pretend to greater Authority than the Apostles had This is the summ of what our Adversaries say in justification of themselves in these points And there is no doubt but that men of wit and confidence will alwaies make a shift to say something for any thing and some way or other blanch over the blackest and most absurd things in the world But I leave it to the judgment of mankind whether any thing be more unreasonable than to tell men in effect that it is fit they should understand as little of Religion as is possible that God hath published a very dangerous Book with which it is not safe for the people to be familiarly acquainted that our blessed Saviour and his Apostles and the ancient Christian Church for more than six hundred years were not wise managers of Religion nor prudent dispensers of the Scriptures but like fond and foolish Fathers put a knife and a sword into the hands of their Children with which they might easily have foreseen what mischief they would do to themselves and others And who would not chuse to be of such a Church which is provided of such excellent and effectual means of Ignorance such wise and infallible methods for the prevention of knowledge in the people and such variety of close shutters to keep out the light I have chosen to insist upon this Argument because it is so very plain that the most ordinary capacity may judge of this usage and dealing with the souls of men which is so very gross that every man must needs be sensible of it because it toucheth men in the common rights of humane nature which belong to them as much as the light of heaven and the air we breath in It requires no subtilty of wit no skill in Antiquity to understand these Controversies between Us and the Church of Rome For there are no Fathers to be pretended on both sides in these Questions They yield we have Antiquity on ours And we refer it to the common sense of Mankind which Church that of Rome or Ours hath all the right and reason in the world on her side in these debates And who they are that tyrannize over Christians the Governours of their Church or ours who use the people like sons and freemen and who like slaves who feed the flock of Christ committed to them and who take the Childrens bread from them Who they are that when their Children ask bread for bread give them a stone and for an egg a serpent I mean the Legends of their Saints instead of the holy Scriptures which are able to make men wise unto salvation And who they are that lie most justly under the suspicion of Errours and Corruptions they who bring their Doctrine and Practices into the open light and are willing to have them tryed by the true touchstone the Word of God or they who shun the light and decline all manner of tryal and examination and who are most likely to carry on a worldly design they who drive a trade of such mighty gain and advantage under pretence of Religion and make such markets of the ignorance and sins of the people or we whom malice it self cannot charge with serving any worldly design by any allowed Doctrine or Practice of our Religion For we make no money of the mistakes of the people nor do we fill their heads with vain fears of new places of torment to make them willing to empty their purses in a vainer hope of being delivered out of them We do not like them pretend a mighty bank and treasure of Merits in the Church which they sell to the people for ready money giving them bills of Exchange from the Pope to Purgatory when they who grant them have no reason to believe they will avail them or be accepted in the other World For our parts we have no fear that our people should understand Religion too well We could wish with Moses that all the Lord's people were Prophets We should be heartily glad the people would read the holy Scriptures more diligently being sufficiently assured that it is their own fault if they learn any thing but what is good from thence We have no Doctrines or Practices contrary to Scripture and consequently no occasion to keep it close from the sight of the people or to hide any of the Commandments of God from them We leave these mean arts to those who stand in need of them In a word there is nothing which God hath said to men which we desire should be concealed from them Nay we are willing the people should examine what we teach and bring all our Doctrines to the Law and to the Testimony that if they be not according to this Rule they may neither believe them nor us 'T is onely things false and adulterate which shun the light and sear the touchstone We have that security of the truth of our Religion and of the agreeableness of it to the word of God that honest confidence of the goodness of our Cause that we do not forbid the people to read the best Books our Adversaries can write against it And now let any impartial man judge whether this be not a better argument of a good Cause to leave men at liberty to try the grounds of their Religion than the courses which are taken in the Church of Rome to awe men with an Inquisition and as much as is possible to keep the common people in Ignorance not onely of what their late Adversaries the Protestants but their chief and ancient Adversary the Scriptures have to say against them A man had need of more than common security of the skill and integrity of those to whom he perfectly resigns his understanding this is too great a Trust to be reposed in humane frailty and too strong a temptation to others to impose upon us to abuse our blindness and to make their own ends of our voluntary Ignorance and easie credulity This is such a folly as if a rich man should make his Physician his heir which is to tempt him either to destroy
SERMONS AND DISCOURSES Some of which Never before Printed BY JOHN TILLOTSON D. D. Dean of Canterbury Preacher to the Honourable Society of Lincolns-Inn and one of His Majesties Chaplains in Ordinary The Third Volume The Second Edition LONDON Printed for B. Aylmer at the Three Pigeons against the Royal Exchange in Cornhill and W. Rogers at the Sun against St. Dunstan's Church in Fleetstreet MDCLXXXVII The Texts of each Sermon SERMON I. LUke IX 55 56. But he turned and rebuked them and said 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 Pag. 1 SERMON II. 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 Pag. 37 SERMON III. 1 John IV. 1. Beloved believe not every Spirit but try the Spirits whether they are of God because many false Prophets are gone out into the World Pag. 69 SERMON IV. Hebrews VI. 16. And an Oath for confirmation is to them an end of all strife Pag. 113 SERMON V. Luke XX. 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 Pag. 157 SERMON VI. 2 Cor. V. 6. Wherefore we are always confident knowing that whilst we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord. Pag. 215 DISCOURSE VII A Perswasive to Frequent Communion in the Holy Sacrament On 1 Cor. XI 26 27 28. Pag. 251 DISCOURSE VIII A Discourse against Transubstantiation Pag. 305 SERMON IX X. Joshua XXIV 15. If it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord chuse you this day whom you will serve Pag. 373 405 SERMON XI Jeremiah XIII 23. Can the Ethiopian change his Skin or the Leopard his spots then may ye also do good that are accustomed to do evil Pag. 441 SERMON XII Matthew XXIII 13. Woe unto you Scribes and Pharisees Hypocrites for ye shut up the Kingdom of Heaven against Men and ye neither go in your selves neither suffer ye them that are entring to go in Pag. 469 IMPRIMATUR C. Alston November 17. 1685. A SERMON Preached before the Honourable House of Commons Novemb. 5. 1678. LUKE IX 55 56. But he turned and rebuked them and said 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 AMONG many other things which may justly recommend the Christian Religion to the approbation of mankind the intrinsick goodness of it is most apt to make impression upon the Minds of serious and considerate men The Miracles of it are the great external evidence and confirmation of its truth and Divinity but the morality of its doctrines and precepts so agreeable to the best reason and wisest apprehensions of mankind so admirably fitted for the perfecting of our natures and the sweetning of the spirits and tempers of men so friendly to human Society and every way so well calculated for the peace and order of the World These are the things which our Religion glories in as her crown and excellency Miracles are apt to awaken and astonish and by a sensible and over-powering evidence to bear down the prejudices of Infidelity but there are secret charms in goodness which take fast hold of the hearts of men and do insensibly but effectually command our love and esteem And surely nothing can be more proper to the occasion of this Day than a Discourse upon this Argument which so directly tends to correct that unchristian spirit and mistaken zeal which hath been the cause of all our troubles and confusions and had so powerfull an influence upon that horrid Tragedy which was designed now near upon fourscore years ago to have been acted as upon this Day And that we may the better understand the reason of our Saviour's reproof here in the Text it will be requisite to consider the occasion of this hot and furious zeal which appeared in some of his Disciples And that was this Our Saviour was going from Galilee to Jerusalem and being to pass through a Village of Samaria he sent messengers before him to prepare entertainment for him but the People of that Place would not receive him because he was going to Jerusalem the Reason whereof was the difference of Religion which then was between the Jews and the Samaritans Of which I shall give you this brief account The Samaritans were originally that Colony of the Assyrians which we find in the Book of Kings was upon the Captivity of the Ten Tribes planted in Samaria by Salmanassar They were Heathens and worshipped their own Idols till they were so infested with Lions that for the redress of this mischief they desired to be instructed in the worship of the God of Israel hoping by this means to appease the anger of the God of the Country and then they worshipped the God of Israel together with their own Idols for so it is said in the History of the Kings That they seared the Lord and served their own Gods After the Tribe of Judah were returned from the Captivity of Babylon and the Temple of Jerusalem was rebuilt all the Jews were obliged by a solemn Covenant to put away their Heathen Wives It happened that Manasses a Jewish Priest had married the Daughter of Sanballat the Samaritan and being unwilling to put away his Wife Sanballat excited the Samaritans to build a Temple upon Mount Gerizim near the City of Samaria in opposition to the Temple at Jerusalem and made Manasses his Son-in-law Priest there Upon the building of this new Temple there arose a great feud between the Jews and Samaritans which in process of time grew to so violent a hatred that they would not so much as shew common civility to one another And this was the reason why the Samaritans would not receive our Saviour in his journey because they perceived he was going to worship at Jerusalem At this uncivil usage of our Saviour two of his Disciples James and John presently take fire and out of a well-meaning zeal for the honour of their Master and of the true God and of Jerusalem the true place of his worship they are immediately for dispatching out of the way these Enemies of God and Christ and the true Religion these Hereticks and Schismaticks for so they called one another And to this end they desire our Saviour to give them power to call for fire from Heaven to consume them as Elias had done in a like case and that too not far from Samaria and it is not improbable that their being so near the place where Elias had done the like before might prompt them to this request Our Saviour
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
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
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
Obligation to this Duty not only from our Saviours Authority but likewise from our own Nature and from the Reasonableness and Excellency of the thing commanded Fifthly The great Example which is here propounded to our imitation as I have loved you that ye also love one another Sixthly and Lastly The Place and Rank which this Precept holds in the Christian Religion Our Saviour makes it the proper badge of a Disciple the distinctive mark and character of our Profession By this shall all men know that ye are my Disciples if ye love one another I. In what sense our Saviour calls this Commandment of loving one another a new Commaudment Not that it is absolutely and altogether New but upon some special accounts For it is a branch of the ancient and primitive Law of Nature Aristotle truly observes that upon grounds of natural kindted and likeness all men are friends and kindly disposed towards one another And it is a known Precept of the Jewish Religion to love our Neighbour as our selves In some sense then it is no new Commandment and so St. John who was most likely to understand our Saviour's meaning in this particular all his preaching and writing being almost nothing else but an inculcating of this one Precept explains this matter telling us that in several respects it was and it was not a new Commandment 1 Joh. 2.7 8. Brethren I write no new Commandment unto you but that which ye had from the beginning that is from ancient Times But then he corrects himself Again 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but yet a new Commandment I write unto you So that though it was not absolutely new yet upon divers considerable accounts it was so and in a peculiar manner proper to the Evangelical Institution and is in so express and particular a manner ascribed to the teaching of the Holy Ghost which was conferr'd upon Christians by the Faith of the Gospel as if there hardly needed any outward instruction and exhortation to that purpose 1 Thess 4.9 But as touching brotherly love ye need not that I write unto you for ye your selves are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 divinely taught and inspired to love one another This Commandment then of loving one another is by our Lord and Saviour so much enlarged as to the Object of it beyond what either the Jews or Heathens did understand it to be extending to all mankind and even to our greatest enemies so greatly advanced and heightned as to the Degree of it even to the laying down of our lives for one another so effectually taught so mightily encouraged so very much urged and insisted upon that it may very well be called a new Commandment for though it was not altogether unknown to Mankind before yet it was never so taught so encouraged never was such an illustrious Example given of it never so much weight and stress laid upon it by any Philosophy or Religion that was before in the world II. I shall endeavour to declare to you the Nature of this Commandment or the Duty required by it And that will best be done by instancing in the chief Acts and Properties of Love and Charity As humanity and kindness in all our carriage and behaviour towards one another for Love smooths the dispositions of men so that they are not apt to grate upon one another Next to rejoyce in the good and happiness of one another and to grieve at their evils and sufferings for Love unites the interests of men so as to make them affected with what happens to another as if it were in some sort their own case Then to contribute as much as in us lies to the happiness of one another by relieving one anothers wants and redressing their misfortunes Again tenderness of their good name and reputation a proneness to interpret all the words and actions of men to the best sense patience and forbearance towards one another and when differences happen to manage them with all possible calmness and kindness and to be ready to forgive and to be reconciled to one another to pray one for another and if occasion be at least if the publick good of Christianity require it to be ready to lay down our lives for our brethren and to sacrifice our selves for the furtherance of their Salvation III. We will consider the Degrees and measures of our Charity with regard to the various Objects about which it is exercised And as to the negative part of this Duty it is to be extended equally towards all We are not to hate or bear ill-will to any man or to do him any harm or mischief Love worketh no evil to his neighbour Thus much charity we are to exercise towards all without any exception without any difference And as to the positive part of this Duty we should bear an universal good-will to all men wishing every man's happiness and praying for it as heartily as for our own And if we be sincere herein we shall be ready upon all occasions to procure and promote the welfare of all men But the outward acts and testimonies of our Charity neither can be actually extended to all nor ought to be to all alike We do not know the wants of all and therefore our knowledg of persons and of their conditions doth necessarily limit the effects of our Charity within a certain compass and of those we do know we can but relieve a small part for want of ability Whence it becomes necessary that we set some rules to our selves for the more discreet ordering of our Charity such as these Cases of extremity ought to take place of all other Obligations of Nature and nearness of Relation seem to challenge the next place Obligations of kindness and upon the account of benefits received may well lay the next claim And then the Houshold of Faith is to be peculiarly considered And after these the merit of the persons and all circumstances belonging to them are to be weighed and valued Those who labour in an honest calling but are oppress'd with their charge those who are fallen from a plentiful condition especially by misfortune and the providence of God without their own fault those who have relieved others and have been eminently charitable and beneficial to mankind and lastly those whose visible necessities and infirmities of body or mind whether by age or by accident do plead for them All these do challenge our more especial regard and consideration IV. We will consider our Obligations to this Duty not only from our Saviour's Authority but likewise from our own Nature and from the reasonableness and Excellency of the thing commanded This is the Commandment of the Son of God who came down from Heaven with full Authority to declare the Will of God to us And this is peculiarly His Commandment which he urgeth upon his Disciples so earnestly and so as if he almost required nothing else in comparison of this Joh. 15.12 This is my Commandment that ye love one another
And vers 17. These things I command you that ye love one another As if this were the end of all his Precepts and of his whole Doctrine to bring us to the practice of this Duty And so St. John the loving and beloved Disciple speaks of it as the great Message which the Son of God was to deliver to mankind 1 Joh. 3.11 This is the Message which ye have heard from the beginning that ye should love one another And ver 23. This is his Commandment that we should believe on the Name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another as he gave us Commandment And chap. 4. v. 21. This Commandment have we from him that he who loveth God love his Brother also But besides the Authority of our Saviour we have precedent obligation to it from our own Nature and from the Reasonableness and Excellency of the thing it self The frame of our Nature disposeth us to it and our inclination to Society in which there can be no pleasure no advantage without mutual love and kindness And Equity also calls for it for that we our selves wish and expect kindness from others is conviction enough to us that we owe it to others The fulfilling of this Law is the great perfection of our Natures the advancement and enlargement of our Souls the chief ornament and beauty of a great mind It makes us like to God the best and most perfect and happiest Being in that which is the prime excellency and happiness and glory of the Divine Nature And the advantages of this temper are unspeakable and innumerable It freeth our souls from those unruly and Troublesom and disquieting Passions which are the great torment of our Spirits from Anger and Envy from Malice and Revenge from Jealousie and Discontent It makes our minds calm and cheerful and puts our souls into an easie posture and into good humour and maintains us in the possession and enjoyment of our selves It preserves men from many mischiefs and inconveniences to which enmity and ill-will do perpetually expose them It is apt to make Friends and to gain Enemies and to render every condition either pleasant or easie or tolerable to us So that to love others is the truest love to our selves and doth redound to our own unspeakable benefit and advantage in all respects It is a very considerable part of our Duty and almost equall'd by our Saviour with the first and great Commandment of the Law It is highly acceptable to God most beneficial to others and very comfortable to our selves It is the easiest of all Duties and it makes all others easie the pleasure of it makes the pains to signifie nothing and the delightful reflection upon it afterwards is a most ample reward of it It is a Duty in every man's power to perform how strait and indigent soeever his fortune and condition be The poorest man may be as charitable as a Prince he may have as much kindness in his heart though his hand cannot be so bountiful and munificent Our Saviour instanceth in the giving of a cup of cold water as a Charity that will be highly accepted and rewarded by God And one of the most celebrated Charities that ever was how small was it for the matter of it and yet how great in regard of the mind that gave it I mean the Widow 's two mites which she cast into the Treasury One could hardly give less and yet none can give more for she gave all that she had All these excellencies and advantages of Love and Charity which I have briefly recounted are so many Arguments so many obligations to the practice of this Duty V. We will consider the great Instance and Example which is here propounded to our imitation As I have loved you that ye also love one another The Son of God's becoming man his whole Life his bitter Death and Passion all that he did and all that he suffered was one great and continued proof and evidence of his mighty love to mankind The greatest Instance of love among men and that too but very rare is for a Man to lay down his life for another for his Friend but the Son of God died for all mankind and we were all his enemies And should we not cheerfully imitate the Example of that great Love and Charity the effects whereof are so comfortable so beneficial so happy to every one of us Had he not loved us and died for us we had certainly perish'd we had been miserable and undone to all eternity And to perpetuate this great Example of Charity and that it might be always fresh in our memories the great Sacrament of our Religion was on purpose instituted for the Commemoration of this great love of the Son of God in laying down his life and shedding his precious blood for the wicked and rebellious Race of mankind But I have not time to enlarge upon this noble Argument as it deserves VI. The last thing to be considered is the place and rank which this Precept and Duty holds in the Christian Religion Our blessed Saviour here makes it the proper badg and cognisance of our Profession By this shall all men know that ye are my Disciples if ye love one another The different Sects among the Jews had some peculiar Character to distinguish them from one another The Scholars of the several great Rabbi's among them had some peculiar Sayings and Opinions some Customs and Traditions whereby they were severally known And so likewise the Disciples of John the Baptist were particularly remarkable for their great Austerities In allusion to these distinctions of Sects and Schools among the Jews our Saviour fixeth upon this mark and character whereby his Disciples should be known from the Disciples of any other Institution A mighty love and affection to one another Other Sects were distinguish'd by little Opinions or by some external Rites and Observances in Religion but our Saviour pitcheth upon that which is the most real and substantial the most large and extensive the most useful and beneficial the most humane and the most divine quality of which we are capable This was his great Commandment to his Disciples before he left the World This was the Legacy he left them and the effect of his last Prayers for them And for this end among others he instituted the Sacrament of his blessed Body and Blood to be a lively remembrance of his great Charity to mankind and a perpetual bond of Love and Union amongst his Followers And the Apostles of our Lord and Saviour do upon all occasions recommend this to us as a principal Duty and Part of our Religion telling us That in Christ Jesus that is in the Christian Religion nothing will avail no not Faith it self unless it be enlivened and inspired by Charity That Love is the end of the Commandment 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the end of the Evangelical declaration the first Fruit of the Spirit the spring and root of all those
Father hath not one God created us And are we not in a more peculiar and eminent manner Brethren being all the children of God by faith in Jesus Christ Are we not all members of the same Body and partakers of the same Spirit and Heirs of the same blessed Hopes of eternal life So that being Brethren upon so many accounts and by so many bonds and endearments all united to one another and all travelling towards the same heavenly Country why do we fall out by the way since we are Brethren Why do we not as becomes Brethren dwell together in unity but are so apt to quarrel and break out into heats to crumble into Sects and Parties to divide and separate from one another upon every slight and trifling occasion Give me leave a little more fully to expostulate this matter but very calmly and in the spirit of meekness and in the name of our dear Lord who loved us all at such a rate as to die for us to recommend to you this new Commandment of his that ye love one another Which is almost a new Commandment still and hardly the worse for wearing so seldom it is put on and so little hath it been practised among Christians for several Ages Consider seriously with your selves ought not the great matters wherein we are agreed our union in the Doctrines of the Christian Religion and in all the necessary Articles of that Faith which was once delivered to the Saints in the same Sacraments and in all the substantial parts of God's worship and in the great Duties and Vertues of the Christian life to be of greater force to unite us than difference in doubtful Opinions and in little Rites and Circumstances of worship to divide and break us Are not the things about which we differ in their nature indifferent that is things about which there ought to be no difference among wise men Are they not at a great distance from the life and essence of Religion and rather good or bad as they tend to the Peace and Unity of the Church or are made use of to Schism and Faction than either necessary or evil in themselves And shall little scruples weigh so far with us as by breaking the Peace of the Church about them to endanger our whole Religion Shall we take one another by the throat for an hundred pence when our common Adversary stands ready to clap upon us an Action of ten thousand talents Can we in good earnest be contented that rather than the Surplice should not be thrown out Popery should come in and rather than receive the Sacrament in the humble but indifferent posture of kneeling to swallow the Camel of Transubstantiation and adore the Elements of Bread and Wine for our God and Saviour and rather than to submit to a Set Form of Prayer to have the Service of God perform'd in an unknown Tongue Are we not yet made sensible at least in this our Day by so clear a Demonstration as the Providence of God hath lately given us and had not He been infinitely merciful to us might have proved the dearest and most dangerous Experiment that ever was I say are we not yet convinced what mighty advantages our Enemies have made of our Divisions and what a plentiful harvest they have had among us during our Differences and upon occasion of them and how near their Religion was to have entred in upon us at once at those wide breaches which we had made for it And will we still take counsel of our Enemies and chuse to follow that course to which of all other they who hate us and seek our ruine would most certainly advise and direct us Will we freely offer them that advantage which they would be contented to purchase at any rate Let us after all our sad experience at last take Warning to keep a stedfast eye upon our chief Enemy and not suffer our selves to be diverted from the consideration and regard of our greatest danger by the petty provocations of our Friends so I chuse to call those who dissent from us in lesser matters because I would fain have them so and they ought in all reason to be so But however they behave themselves we ought not much to mind those who only fling dirt at us whilst we are sure there are others who fly at our throats and strike at our very hearts Let us learn this wisdom of our Enemies who though they have many great differences among themselves yet they have made a shift at this time to unite together to destroy us And shall not we do as much to save our selves fas est ab hoste doceri It was a Principle among the ancient Romans a brave and a wise People donare inimicitias Reip. to give up and sacrifice their private enmities and quarrels to the publick good and the safety of the Common-wealth And is it not to every considerate man as clear as the Sun at Noonday that nothing can maintain and support the Protestant Religion amongst us and found our Church upon a Rock so that when the rain falls and the winds blow and the floods beat upon it it shall stand firm and unshaken That nothing can be a Bulwark of sufficient force to resist all the arts and attempts of Popery but an establisht National Religion firmly united and compacted in all the parts of it Is it not plain to every eye that little Sects and separate Congregations can never do it but will be like a Foundation of sand to a weighty Building which whatever shew it may make cannot stand long because it wants Union at the Foundation and for that reason must necessarily want strength and firmness It is not for private persons to undertake in matters of publick concernment but I think we have no cause to doubt but the Governors of our Church notwithstanding all the advantages of Authority and we think of reason too on our side are Persons of that Piety and Prudence that for Peace sake and in order to a firm Union among Protestants they would be content if that would do it not to insist upon little things but to yield them up whether to the infirmity or importunity or perhaps in some very few things to the plausible exceptions of those who differ from us But then surely on the other side men ought to bring along with them a peaceable disposition and a mind ready to comply with the Church in which they were born and baptized in all reasonable and lawful things and desirous upon any terms that are tolerable to return to the Communion of it a mind free from passion and prejudice from peevish exceptions and groundless and endless scruples not apt to insist upon little cavils and objections to which the very best things and the greatest and clearest Truths in the world are and always will be liable And whatever they have been heretofore to be henceforth no more children tossed to and fro and carried about with
And above all let us resolve to live according to the excellent Rules and Precepts of our holy Religion let us heartily obey that Doctrine which we profess to believe We who enjoy the Protestant Religion have all the means and advantages of understanding the Will of God free liberty and full scope of enquiring into it and informing our selves concerning it We have all the opportunities we can wish of coming to the knowledge of our Duty The Oracles of God lie open to us and his Law is continually before our eyes his word is nigh unto us in our mouths and in our hearts that is we may read it and meditate upon it that we may do it The Key of Knowledge is put into our hands so that if we do not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven it is we our selves that shut our selves out And where there is nothing to hinder us from the knowledge of our Duty there certainly nothing can excuse us from the practice of it For the End of all knowledge is to direct men in their duty and effectually to engage them to the performance of it The great business of Religion is to make men truly good and to teach them to live well And if Religion have not this effect it matters not of what Church any man lists and enters himself for most certainly A bad man can be saved in none Though a man know the right way to Heaven never so well and be entred into it yet if he will not walk therein he shall never come thither Nay it will be an aggravation of this man's unhappiness that he was lost in the way to Heaven and perished in the very road to Salvation But if we will in good earnest apply our selves to the practice of Religion and the obedience of God's holy Laws his Grace will never be wanting to us to so good a purpose I have not time to recommend Religion to you at large with all its advantages I will comprise what I have to say in a few words and mind them at your peril Let that which is our great concernment be our great care To know the Truth and to do it To fear God and keep his Commandments Considering the Reasonableness and the Reward of Piety arid Vertue nothing can be wiser and considering the mighty assistance of God's Grace which he is ready to afford to us and the unspeakable satisfaction and delight which is to be had in the doing of our duty nothing can be easier Nothing will give us that pleasure while we live nothing can minister that true and solid comfort to us when we come to die There is probably no such way for a man to be happy in this World to be sure there is no way but this to escape the intolerable and endless miseries of another World Now God grant that we may all know and do in this our day the things that belong to our peace for his Mercies sake in Jesus Christ To whom with the Father and the Holy Ghost be all Honour and Glory now and for ever Amen A SERMON PREACHED At the Assises held at KINGSTON upon THAMES July 21. 1681. TO THE Right Worshipful and my honoured Friend JOSEPH REEVE Esq High Sherif of the County of SURREY SIR WHen I had perform'd the Service which you were pleased to call me to in the preaching of this Sermon I had no thoughts of making it more publique And yet in this also I was the more easily induced to comply with your desire because of the suitableness of the Argument to the Age in which we live wherein as men have run into the wildest extremities in other things so particularly in the matter of Oaths some making conscience of taking any Oaths at all and too many none at all of breaking them To convince the great mistake of the one extreme and to check the growing evil and mischief of the other is the chief design of this Discourse To which I shall be very glad if by God's blessing it may prove any-wise serviceable I am Sir Your very faithful and humble Servant Jo. Tillotson The Lawfulness AND Obligation of OATHS A SERMON Preach'd at the Assises held at Kingston upon Thames July 21. 1681. HEB. VI. 16. And an Oath for confirmation is to them an end of all strife THE Necessity of Religion to the support of humane Society in nothing appears more evidently than in this That the obligation of an Oath which is so necessary for the maintenance of peace and justice among men depends wholly upon the sence and belief of a Deity For no reason can be imagined why any man that doth not believe a God should make the least conscience of an Oath which is nothing else but a solemn appeal to God as a witness of the truth of what we say So that whoever promotes Atheism and Infidelity doth the most destructive thing imaginable to human Society because he takes away the reverence and obligation of Oaths And whenever that is generally cast off human Society must disband and all things run into disorder The just sense whereof made David cry out to God with so much earnestness as if the World had been cracking and the frame of it ready to break in pieces Psal 12. Help Lord for the righteous man ceaseth and the faithful fail from among the children of men Intimating That when Faith fails from among men nothing but a particular and immediate interposition of the Divine Providence can preserve the World from falling into confusion And our Blessed Saviour gives this as a sign of the end of the Worâ—d and the approaching dissolution of all things when faith and truth shall hardly be found among men Luke 18.8 When the Son of man comes shall he find Faith on the earth This state of things doth loudly call for his coming to destroy the World which is even ready to dissolve and fall in pieces of it self when these bands and pillars of humane Society do break and fail And surely never in any age was this sign of the coming of the Son of man more glaring and terrible than in this degenerate Age wherein we live when almost all sorts of men seem to have broke loose from all obligations to faith and truth And therefore I do not know any Argument more proper and useful to be treated of upon this Occasion than of the Nature and Obligation of an Oath which is the utmost security that one man can give to another of the truth of what he says the strongest tye of fideility the surest ground of Judicial proceedings and the most firm and sacred bond that can be laid upon all that are concerned in the administration of publick Justice upon Judge and Jury and Witnesses And for this reason I have pitched upon these Words In which the Apostle declares to us the great use and necessity of Oaths among men an Oath for confirmation is to them an end of all strife He had said before
been a thing evil in it self and forbidden by the Law of Nature would not have been done Secondly Another undeniable Argument from the Text of the lawfulness of Oaths is that God himself in condescension to the Custome of men who use to confirm and give credit to what they say by an Oath is represented by the Apostle as confirming his promise to us by an Oath verse 13. When God made the promise to Abraham because he could swear by none greater he swears by himself For men verily swear by the greater and an oath for confirmation is to them an end of all strife Wherein God willing more abundantly to shew unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel confirmed it by an oath which he certainly would not have done had an oath been unlawful in it self For that had been to comply with men in an evil practice and by his own example to give countenance to it in the highest manner But though God condescend to represent himself to us after the manner of men he never does it in any thing that is in its own nature evil and sinful Thirdly From the great Usefulness of Oaths in humane affairs to give credit and confirmation to our word and to put an end to Contestations Now that which serves to such excellent purposes and is so convenient for humane society and for mutual security and confidence among men ought not easily to be presumed unlawful till it be plainly proved to be so And if we consider the nature of an oath and every thing belonging to it there is nothing that hath the least appearance of evil in it There is surely no evil in it as it is an act of Religion nor as it is an Appeal to God as a witness and avenger in case we swear falsly nor as it is a confirmation of a doubtful matter nor as it puts an end to strife and controversie And these are all the essential ingredients of an Oath and the ends of it and they are all so good that they rather commend it than give the least colour of ground to condemn it I proceed in the Second place to shew the weakness and insufficiency of the grounds of the contrary opinion whether from Reason or from Scripture First from Reason They say the necessity of an Oath is occasioned by the want of truth and fidelity among men And that every man ought to demean himself with that faithfulness and integrity as may give credit and confirmation to his word and then Oaths will be needless This pretence will be fully answered if we consider these two things 1. That in matters of great importance no other obligation besides that of an oath hath been thought sufficient amongst the best and wisest of men to assert their fidelity to one another Even the best men to use the words of a great Author have not trusted the best men without it As we see in very remarkable instances where Oaths have pass'd between those who might be thought to have the greatest confidence in one another As between Abraham and his old faithful servant Eliezer concerning the choice of a Wife for his Son Between Father and Son Jacob and Joseph concerning the burial of his Father in the Land of Canaan Between two of the dearest and most intimate Friends David and Jonathan to assure their friendship to one another and it had its effect long after Jonathans death in the saving of Mephibosheth when reason of State and the security of his Throne seem'd to move David strongly to the contrary for it is expresly said 2 Sam. 21.7 that David spared Mephibosheth Jonathan's Son because of the oath of the Lord that was between them implying that had it not been for his Oath other considerations might probably have prevail'd with him to have permitted him to have been cut off with the rest of Saul's Children 2. This Reason which is alledged against Oaths among men is much stronger against God's confirming his promises to us by an Oath For he who is truth it self is surely of all other most to be credited upon his bare word and his oath needless to give confirmation to it and yet he condescends to add his oath to his word and therefore that reason is evidently of no force Secondly From Scripture Our Saviour seems altogether to forbid swearing in any case Matth. 5.33 34. Ye have heard that it hath been said to them of old time thou shalt not forswear thy self but I say unto you swear not at all neither by heaven c. But let your communication be yea yea and nay nay for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil And this Law St. James recites chap. 5. vers 12. as that which Christians ought to have a very particular and principal regard to above all things my brethren swear not And he makes the breach of this Law a damning sin lest ye fall into condemnation But the authority of our Saviour alone is sufficient and therefore I shall only consider that Text. And because here lies the main strength of this opinion of the unlawfulness of Oaths it is very fit that this Text be fully consider'd and that it be made very evident that it was not our Saviour's meaning by this prohibition wholly to forbid the use of Oaths But before I enter upon this matter I will readily grant that there is scarce any Errour whatsoever that hath a more plausible colour from Scripture than this which makes the case of those who are seduced into it the more pityable But then it ought to be consider'd how much this Doctrine of the unlawfulness of oaths reflects upon the Christian Religion since it is so evidently prejudicial both to humane Society in general and particularly to those persons that entertain it neither of which ought rashly to be supposed and taken for granted concerning any Law delivered by our Saviour Because upon these terms it will be very hard for us to vindicate the divine wisdom of our Saviour's Doctrine and the Reasonableness of the Christian Religion Of the inconvenience of this Doctrine to humane Society I have spoken already But besides this it is very prejudicial to them that hold it It renders them suspected to Government and in many cases incapable of the common benefits of Justice and other privileges of humane Society and exposeth them to great penalties as the constitution of all Laws and Governments at present is and it is not easie to imagine how they should be otherwise And which is very considerable in this matter it sets those who refuse Oaths upon very unequal terms with the rest of Mankind if where the estates and lives of men are equally concern'd their bare testimonies shall be admitted without an Oath and others shall be obliged to speak upon Oath Nothing being more certain in experience than that many men will lie for their interest when they will not be perjured God having planted in the natural Consciences of
the meaning of St. James when he cautions Christians so vehemently against common swearing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for so some of the best ancient Copies read it lest ye fall into hypocrisie that is lest ye lye and be perjured by using your selves to rash and inconsiderate swearing And men expose themselves to this danger to no purpose Oaths in common discourse being so far from confirming a man's word that with wise men they much weaken it For common swearing if it have any serious meaning at all argues in a man a perpetual distrust of his own reputation and is an acknowledgement that he thinks his bare word not to be worthy of credit And it is so far from adorning and filling a man's discourse that it makes it look swoln and bloated and more bold and blustring than becomes persons of gentle and good breeding Besides that it is a great incivility because it highly offends and grates Upon all sober and considerate persons who cannot be presumed with any manner of ease and patience to hear God affronted and his great and glorious Name so irreverently to stup one very slight occasion And it is no excuse to men that many times they do it ignorantly and not observing and knowing what they do For certainly it is no extenuation of a fault that a man hath got the habit of it so perfect that he commits it when he does not think of it Which consideration should make men oppose the beginnings of this Vice lest it grow into a habit very hard to be left Nemo novit nisi qui expertus est quam sit difficile consuetudinem jurandi extinguere saith St. Austin No man knows but he that hath tryed how hard it is to get rid of this custome of Swearing But yet it is certain men may do it by resolution and great care of themselves For he that can chuse whether he will speak or not can chuse whether he will swear or not when he speaks Major consuetudo majorem intentionem flagitat The more inveterate a custom is the greater care should be used to break our selves of it In short This practice is so contrary to so plain a Precept of our Saviour and by the breach whereof we incur so great a danger as St. James assures us that it must be a great charity that can find out a way to reconcile a common custome of swearing with a serious belief of the Christian Religion Which I would to God those who are concerned would seriously lay to heart Especially since this Sin of all others hath the least of Temptation to it Profit or Pleasure there is none in it nor any thing in mens natural tempers to incite them to it For tho some men pour out Oaths so freely as if they came naturally from them yet surely no man is born of a swearing constitution All that can be pretended for it is Custom and Fashion But to shew that this is no excuse it is very observable that it is particularly in the matter of Oaths and Perjury that the Holy Ghost gives that caution Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil And lastly it deserves to be considered that this sin is so much the greater because of the frequent returns of it in those that are accustomed to it So that altho it were but small in it self as it is not yet the frequent practice of this sin would quickly mount it up to a great score 2. Secondly To represent the heinousness of the sin of Perjury But before I aggravate this Crime it is fit to let men know how many ways they may be guilty of it 1st When a man asserts upon oath what he knows to be otherwise Or promiseth what he does not intend to perform In both these cases the very act of swearing is Perjury And so likewise when a man promiseth upon oath to do that which it is unlawfull for him to do because this oath is contrary to a former obligation 2dly When a man is uncertain whether what he swear to be true This likewise is Perjury in the act though not of the same degree of guilt with the former because it is not so fully and directly against his knowledge and conscience For men ought to be certain of the truth of what they assert upon oath and not to swear at a venture And therefore no man ought positively to swear to the truth of any thing but what he himself hath seen or heard This being the highest assurance men are capable of in this World In like manner he is guilty of perjury in the same degree who promiseth upon oath what he is not morally and reasonably certain he shall be able to perform 3dly They are likewise guilty of Perjury who do not use great plainness and simplicity in oaths but answer aequivocally and doubtfully or with reservation of something in their minds thinking thereby to salve the truth of what they say And we all know who they are that make use of these arts and maintain them to be lawfull to the infinite scandal of the Christian Religion and prejudice of humane Society by doing what in them lies to destroy all Faith and mutual Confidence among men For what can be a greater affront to God than to use his Name to deceive men And what can more directly overthrow the great end and use of oaths which are for confirmation and to put an end to Strife Whereas by these arts the thing is left in the same uncertainty it was before and there is no decision of it For there is hardly any form of words can be devised so plain as not to be lyable to Equivocation To be sure a man when he swears may always reserve something in his mind which will quite alter the sense of whatever he can say or promise upon oath And this may be laid down for a certain Rule That all departure from the simplicity of an oath is a degree of Perjury and a man is never a whit the less forsworn because his perjury is a little finer and more artificial than ordinary And though men think by this device to save themselves harmless from the guilt of so great a Sin they do really increase it by adding to their iniquity the impudent folly of mocking God and deceiving themselves And whereas it is pleaded in the favour of mental reservation that the whole Proposition as made up of what is exprest in words and of that which is reserved in the mind is true For instance if a man being ask'd upon Oath whether he be a Priest shall answer he is not reserving in his mind that he is not a Priest of Bacchus or some such thing the whole Proposition is true and then they say a man may swear to that which is true without danger of perjury This is of no force because though the whole proposition be true it is deceitfull and contrary to that sincerity which ought to be in an oath And the
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
was very sudden and so sudden that in all probability he himself hardly perceived it when it happened for he died in his sleep so that we may say of him as it is said of David after be had served his generation according to the will of God he fell asleep I confess that a sudden death is generally undesirable and therefore with reason we pray against it because so very few are sufficiently prepared for it But to him the constant employment of whose life was the best preparation for death that was possible no death could be sudden nay it was rather a favour and blessing to him because by how much the more sudden so much the more easie As if God had designed to begin the reward of the great pains of his life in an easie death And indeed it was rather a translation than a death and saving that his body was left behind what was said of Enoch may not unfitly be applied to this pious and good man with respect to the suddenness of his change he walked with God and was not for God took him And God grant that we who survive may all of us sincerely endeavour to tread in the steps of his exemplary piety and charity of his labour of love his unwearied diligence and patient continuance in doing good that we may meet with that encouraging commendation which he hath already received from the mouth of our Lord. Well done good and faithfull servant enter thou into the joy of thy Lord. Now the God of peace that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus Christ that great shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the everlasting covenant make you perfect in every good work to do his will working in you always that which is pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ To whom be glory for ever Amen A SERMON Preached at the FUNERAL Of the Reverend BENJAMIN WHICHCOT D. D. May 24th 1683. 2 COR. V. 6. Wherefore we are always confident knowing that whilst we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord. THese Words contain one of the chief grounds of encouragement which the Christian Religion gives us against the fear of death For our clearer understanding of them it will be requisite to consider the Context looking back as far as the beginning of the Chapter where the Apostle pursues the argument of the foregoing Chapter which was to comfort and encourage Christians under their afflictions and sufferings from this consideration that these did but prepare the way for a greater and more glorious reward Our light affliction which is but for a moment worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory And suppose the worst that these sufferings should extend to death there is comfort for us likewise in this case ver 1. of this Chapter For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved we have a building of God c. If our earthly house of this tabernacle he calls our body an earthly earthly house and that we may not look upon it as a certain abode and fixed habitation he doth by way of correction of himself add that it is but a tabernacle or tent which must shortly be taken down And when it is we shall have a building of God a house not made with hands eternal in the heavens This is a description of our heavenly habitation in opposition to our earthly house or tabern 〈◊〉 It is a building of God not like those houses or tabernacles which men build and which are liable to decay and dissolution to be taken down or to fall down of themselves for such are those houses of clay which we dwell in whose foundations are in the dust but an habitation prepared by God himself a house not made with hands that which is the immediate work of God being in Scripture opposed to that which is made with hands and effected by humane concurrence and by natural means And being the immediate work of God as it is excellent so it is lasting and durable which no earthly thing is eternal in the heavens that is eternal and heavenly For in this we groan earnestly that is while we are in this body we groan by reason of the pressures and afflictions of it Desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven If so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked Desiring to be clothed upon that is we could wish not to put off these bodies not to be stripp'd of them by death but to be of the number of those who at the coming of our Lord without the putting off these bodies shall be changed and clothed upon with their house which is from heaven and without dying be invested with those spiritual and glorious and heavenly bodies which men shall have at the Resurrection This I doubt not is the Apostle's meaning in these Words in which he speaks according to a common opinion among the Disciples grounded as St. John tells us upon a mistake of our Saviour's words concerning him If I will that he tarry till I come upon which St. John tells us that there went a Saying among the brethren that that disciple should not die that is that he should live till Christ's coming to Judgment and then be changed and consequently that Christ would come to Judgment before the end of that Age. Suitable to this common opinion among Christians the Apostle here says in this we groan earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven if so be that being clothed we shall no be found naked It hath puzzled Interpreters what to make of this passage and well it might for whatever be meant by being clothed how can they that are clothed be found naked But I think it is very clear that our Translatours have not attained the true sense of this passage 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is most naturally rendred thus if so be we shall be found clothed and not naked That is if the coming of Christ shall find us in the body and not devested of it if at Christ's coming to Judgement we shall be found alive and not dead And then the sense of the whole is very clear and current we are desirous to be clothed upon with our house from heaven that is with our spiritual and immortal bodies if so be it shall so happen that at the coming of Christ we shall be found alive in these bodies and not stripp'd of them before by death And then it follows For we burthened that is with the afflictions and pressures of this life not that we would be unclothed that is not that we desire by death to be devested of these bodies but clothed upon that is if God see it good we had rather be found alive and changed and without putting off these bodies have immortality as it were superinduced that so mortality might be swallowed up of life The plain sense is that he
the Sacrament set himself seriously to be humbled for his sins and to repent of them and to beg God's grace and assistance against them and after the receiving of it does continue for some time in these good resolutions though after a while he may possibly relapse into the same sins again this is some kind of restraint to a wicked life and these good moods and sits of repentance and reformation are much better than a constant and uninterrupted course of sin even this righteousness which is but as the morning cloud and the early dew which so soon passeth away is better than none And indeed scarce any man can think of coming to the Sacrament but he will by this consideration be excited to some good purposes and put upon some sort of endeavour to amend and reform his life and though he be very much under the bondage and power of evil habits if he do with any competent degree of sincerity and it is his own fault if he do not make use of this excellent means and instrument for the mortifying and subduing of his lusts and for the obtaining of God's grace and assistence it may please God by the use of these means so to abate the force and power of his lusts and to imprint such considerations upon his mind in the receiving of this holy Sacrament and preparing himself for it that he may at last break off his wicked course and become a good man But on the other hand as to those who neglect this Sacrament there is hardly any thing left to restrain them from the greatest enormities of life and to give a check to them in their evil course nothing but the penalty of humane Laws which men may avoid and yet be wicked enough Heretofore men used to be restrained from great and scandalous vices by shame and fear of disgrace and would astain from many sins out of regard to their honour and reputation among men But men have hardned their faces in this degenerate Age and those gentle restraints of modesty which governed and kept men in order heretofore signifie nothing now adays Blushing is out of fashion and shame is ceased from among the Children of men But the Sacrament did always use to lay some kind of restraint upon the worst of mer and if it did not wholly reform them it would at least have some good effect upon them for a time If it did not make men good yet it would make them resolve to be so and leave some good thoughts and impressions upon their minds So that I doubt not but it hath been a thing of very bad consequence to discourage men so much from the Sacrament as the way hath been of late years And that many men who were under some kind of check before since they have been driven away from the Sacrament have quite let loose the reins and prostituted themselves to all manner of impiety and vice And among the many ill effects of our past confusions this is none of the least That in many Congregations of this Kingdom Christians were generally difused and deterred from the Sacrament upon a pretence that they were unfit for it and being so they must necessarily incur the danger of unworthy receiving and therefore they had better wholly to abstain from it By which it came to pass that in very many Places this great and solemn Institution of the Christian Religion was almost quite forgotten as if it had been no part of it and the remembrance of Christ's death even lost among Christians So that many Congregations in England might justly have taken up the complaint of the Woman at our Saviour's Sepulchre they have taken away our Lord and we know not where they have laid him But surely men did not well consider what they did nor what the consequences of it would be when they did so earnestly dissuade men from the Sacrament 'T is true indeed the danger of unworthy receiving is great but the proper inference and conclusion from hence is not that men should upon this consideration be deterred from the Sacrament but that they should be affrighted from their sins and from that wicked course of life which is an habitual indisposition and unworthiness St. Paul indeed as I observed before truly represents and very much aggravates the danger of the unworthy receiving of this Sacrament but he did not deter the Corinthians from it because they had sometimes come to it without due reverence but exhorts them to amend what had been amiss and to come better prepared and disposed for the future And therefore after that terrible declaration in the Text Whosoever shall eat this bread and drink this cup of the Lord unworthily is guilty of the body and bloud of the Lord he does not add therefore let Christians take heed of coming to the Sacrament but let them come prepared and with due reverence not as to a common meal but to a solemn participation of the body and bloud of Christ but let a man examine himself and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup. For if this be a good reason to abstain from the Sacrament for fear of performing so sacred an action in an undue manner it were best for a bad man to lay aside all Religion and to give over the exercise of all the duties of piety of prayer of reading and hearing the Word of God because there is a proportionable danger in the unworthy and unprofitable use of any of these The prayer of the wicked that is of one that resolves to continue so is an abomination to the Lord. And our Saviour gives us the same caution concerning hearing the Word of God take heed how you hear And St. Paul tells us that those who are not reformed by the Doctrine of the Gospel it is the savour of death that is deadly and damnable to such persons But now will any man from hence argue that it is best for a wicked man not to pray nor to hear or read the Word of God lest by so doing he should endanger and aggravate his condemmation And yet there is as much reason from this consideration to persuade men to give over praying and attending to God's Word as to lay aside the use of the Sacrament And it is every whit as true that he that prays unworthily and hears the Word of God unworthily that is without fruit and benefit is guilty of a great contempt of God and of our blessed Saviour and by his indevout prayers and unfruitfull hearing of God's Word does further and aggravate his own damnation I say this is every whit as true as that he that eats and drinks the Sacrament unworthily is guilty of a high contempt of Christ and eats and drinks his own Judgment so that the danger of the unworthy performing this so sacred an action is no otherwise a reason to any man to abstain from the Sacrament than it is an Argument to him to cast
that Covenant which we entred into by Baptism and are going solemnly to renew and confirm by our receiving of this Sacrament we are at least in some degree and in the main qualified to partake of this holy Sacrament and the way for us to be more fit is to receive this Sacrament frequently that by this spiritual food of God's appointing by this living bread which comes down from heaven our souls may be nourished in goodness and new strength and vertue may be continually derived to us for the purifying of our hearts and enabling us to run the ways of God's commandments with more constancy and delight For the way to grow in grace and to be strengthned with all might in the inner man and to abound in all the fruits of righteousness which by Christ Jesus are to the praise and glory of God is with care and conscience to use those means which God hath appointed for this end And if we will neglect the use of these means it is to no purpose for us to pray to God for his grace and assistence We may tire our selves with our devotions and fill heaven with vain complaints and yet by all this importunity obtain nothing at God's hand Like lazy beggars that are always complaining and always asking but will not work will do nothing to help themselves and better their condition and therefore are never like to move the pity and compassion of others If we expect God's grace and assistence we must work out our own Salvation in the carefull use of all those means which God hath appointed to that end That excellent degree of goodness which men would have to fit them for the Sacrament is not to be had but by the use of it And therefore it is a preposterous thing for men to insist upon having the end before they will use the means that may further them in the obtaining of it 2. The total want of a due preparation not only in the degree but in the main and substance of if though it render us unfit at present to receive this Sacrament yet does it by no means excuse our neglect of it One fault may draw on another but can never excuse it It is our great fault that we are wholly unprepared and no man can claim any benefit by his fault or plead it in excuse or extenuation of this neglect A total want of preparation and an absolute unworthiness is Impenitency in an evil course a resolution to continue a bad man not to quit his lusts and to break off that wicked course he hath lived in But is this any excuse for the neglect of our duty that we will not fit our selves for the doing of it with benefit and advantage to our selves A father commands his son to ask him blessing every day and is ready to give it him but so long as he is undutifull to him in his other actions and lives in open disobedience forbids him to come in his sight He excuseth himself from asking his father blessing because he is undutifull in other things and resolves to continue so This is just the case of neglecting the duty God requires and the blessings he offers to us in the Sacrament because we have made our selves incapable of so performing the one as to receive the other and are resolved to continue so We will not do our duty in other things and then plead that we are unfit and unworthy to do it in this particular of the Sacrament 3. The proper Inference and conclusion from a total want of due preparation for the Sacrament is not to cast off all thoughts of receiving it but immediately to set about the work of preparation that so we may be fit to receive it For if this be true that they who are absolutely unprepared ought not to receive the Sacrament nor can do it with any benefit nay by doing it in such a manner render their condition much worse this is a most forcible argument to repentance and amendment of life There is nothing reasonable in this case but immediately to resolve upon a better course that so we may be meet partakers of those holy Mysteries and may no longer provoke God's wrath against us by the wilfull neglect of so great and necessary a duty of the Christian Religion And we do wilfully neglect it so long as we do wilfully refuse to fit and qualifie our selves for the due and worthy performance of it Let us view the thing in a like case A Pardon is graciously offered to a Rebel he declines to accept it and modestly excuseth himself because he is not worthy of it And why is he not worthy because he resolves to be a Rebel and then his pardon will do him no good but be an aggravation of his crime Very true and it will be no less an aggravation that he refuseth it for such a reason and under a pretence of modesty does the most imprudent thing in the world This is just the case and in this case there is but one thing reasonable to be done and that is for a man to make himself capable of the benefit as soon as he can and thankfully to accept of it but to excuse himself from accepting of the benefit offered because he is not worthy of it nor fit for it nor ever intends to be so is as if a man should desire to be excused from being happy because he is resolved to play the fool and to be miserable So that whether our want of preparation be total or only to some degree it is every way unreasonable If it be in the degree only it ought not to hinder us from receiving the Sacrament If it be total it ought to put us immediately upon removing the impediment by making such preparation as is necessary to the due and worthy receiving of it And this brings me to the IV. Fourth and last thing I proposed viz. What preparation of our selves is necessary in order to the worthy receiving of this Sacrament Which I told you would give me occasion to explain the Apostle's meaning in the last part of the Text But let a man examine himself and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup. I think it very clear from the occasion and circumstances of the Apostle's discourse concerning the Sacrament that he does not intend the examination of our state whether we be Christians or not and sincerely resolved to continue so and consequently that he does not here speak of our habitual preparation by the resolution of a good life This he takes for granted that they were Christians and resolved to continue and persevere in their Christian profession But he speaks of their actual fitness and worthiness at that time when they came to receive the Lord's Supper And for the clearing of this matter we must consider what it was that gave occasion to this discourse At the 20th verse of this Chapter he sharply reproves their irreverent and
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
long before his death Greater love than this hath no man that a man lay down his life for his friend ye are my friends if ye do whatsoever I command you It is a wonderfull love which he hath expressed to us and worthy to be had in perpetual remembrance And all that he expects from us by way of thankfull acknowledgment is to celebrate the remembrance of it by the frequent participation of this blessed Sacrament And shall this charge laid upon us by him who laid down his life for us lay no obligation upon us to the solemn remembrance of that unparallel'd kindness which is the fountain of so many blessings and benefits to us It is a sign we have no great sense of the benefit when we are so unmindfull of our benefactour as to forget him days without number The Obligation he hath laid upon us is so vastly great not only beyond all requital but beyond all expression that if he had commanded us some very grievous thing we ought with all the readiness and chearfulness in the world to have done it how much more when he hath imposed upon us so easie a commandment a thing of no burthen but of immence benefit when he hath onely said to us Eat O friends and drink O beloved when he onely invites us to his table to the best and most delicious Feast that we can partake of on this side heaven If we seriously believe the great blessings which are there exhibited to us and ready to be conferred upon us we should be so far from neglecting them that we should heartily thank God for every opportunity he offers to us of being made partakers of such benefits When such a price is put into our hands shall we want hearts to make use of it Methinks we should long with David who saw but the shadow of these blessings to be satisfied with the good things of God's house and to draw near his altar and should cry out with him O when shall I come and appear before thee My soul longeth yea even fainteth for the courts of the Lord and my flesh cryeth out for the living God And if we had a just esteem of things we should account it the greatest infelicity and judgment in the world to be debarred of this privilege which yet we do deliberately and frequently deprive our selves of We exclaim against the Church of Rome with great impatience and with a very just indignation for robbing the People of half of this blessed Sacrament and taking from them the cup of blessing the cup of salvation and yet we can patiently endure for some months nay years to exclude our selves wholly from it If no such great benefits and blessings belong to it why do we complain of them for hindring us of any part of it But if there do why do we by our own neglect deprive our selves of the whole In vain do we bemoan the decay of our graces and our slow progress and improvement in Christianity whilst we wilfully despise the best means of our growth in goodness Well do we deserve that God should send leanness into our souls and make them to consume and pine away in perpetual doubting and trouble if when God himself doth spread so bountifull a Table for us and set before us the bread of life we will not come and feed upon it with joy and thankfulness A DISCOURSE AGAINST TRANSVBSTANTIATION Concerning the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper one of the two great positive Institutions of the Christian Religion there are two main Points of difference between Vs and the Church of Rome One about the Doctrine of Transubstantiation in which they think but are not certain that they have the Scripture and the words of our Saviour on their side The other about the administration of this Sacrament to the People in both kinds in which we are sure that we have the Scripture and our Saviour's Institution on our side and that so plainly that our Adversaries themselves do not deny it Of the first of these I shall now treat and endeavour to shew against the Church of Rome That in this Sacrament there is no substantial change made of the Elements of Bread and Wine into the natural Body and Bloud of Christ that Body which was born of the Virgin Mary and suffered upon the Cross for so they explain that hard word Transubstantiation Before I engage in this Argument I cannot but observe what an unreasonable task we are put upon by the bold confidence of our Adversaries to dispute a matter of Sense which is one of those things about which Aristotle hath long since pronounc'd there ought to be no dispute It might well seem strange if any man should write a Book to prove that an Egg is not an Elephant and that a Musket-bullet is not a Pike It is every whit as hard a case to put to maintain by a long Discourse that what we see and handle and taste to be Bread is Bread and not the Body of a man and what we see and taste to be Wine is Wine and not Bloud And if this evidence may not pass for sufficient without any farther proof I do not see why any man that hath confidence enough to do so may not deny any thing to be what all the World sees it is or affirm any thing to be what all the World sees it is not and this without all possibility of being farther confuted So that the business of Transubstantiation is not a controversie of Scripture against Scripture or of Reason against Reason but of downright Impudence against the plain meaning of Scripture and all the Sense and Reason of Mankind It is a most Self-evident Falshood and there is no Doctrine or Proposition in the World that is of it self more evidently true than Transubstantiation is evidently false And yet if it were possible to be true it would be the most ill-natur'd and pernicious truth in the World because it would suffer nothing else to be true it is like the Roman-Catholick Church which will needs be the whole Christian Church and will allow no other Society of Christians to be any part of it So Transubstantiation if it be true at all it is all truth and nothing else is true for it cannot be true unless our Senses and the Senses of all mankind be deceived about their proper objects and if this he true and certain then nothing else can be so for if we be not certain of what we see we can be certain of nothing And yet notwithstanding all this there are a Company of men in the World so abandon'd and given up by God to the efficacy of delusion as in good earnest to believe this gross and palpable Errour and to impose the belief of it upon the Christian World under no less penalties than of temporal death and eternal damnation And therefore to undeceive if possible these deluded Souls it will be necessary to examine the pretended grounds of
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
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
by a vigorous resolution and an unwearied diligence and a patient continuance in well doing might win and wear a more glorious Crown and be fit to receive a more ample reward from his bounty and goodness yea in some sense I may say from his justice For God is not unrighteous to forget our work and labour and love He will fully consider all the pains that any of us take in his service and all the difficulties that we struggle with out of love to God and clashing of our duty with our inclination is I hope fully answered Since God hath provided so powerfull and effectual a remedy against our natural impotency and infirmity by the Grace of the Gospel And though to those who have wilfully contracted vicious habits a religious and vertuous course of life be very difficult yet the main difficulty lyes in our first entrance upon it And when that is over the ways of goodness are as easy as it is sit any thing should be that is so excellent and that hath the encouragement of so glorious a reward Custome will reconcile men almost to any thing but there are those charms in the ways of wisedom and vertue that a little acquaintance and conversation with them will soon make them more delightfull than any other course And who would grudge any pains and trouble to bring himself into so safe and happy a condition After we have tryed both courses of Religion and Profaneness of Vertue and Vice we shall certainly find that nothing is so wise so easie and so comfortable as to be vertuous we are inwardly convinced we ought to do Nor would I desire more of any man in this matter than to follow the soberest convictions of his own mind and to do that which upon the most serious consideration at all times in prosperity and affliction in sickness and health in the time of life and at the hour of death he judgeth wisest and safest for him to do I proceed to the Branch of the Objection that the Laws of Religion and particularly of the Christian Religion are a heavy yoke laying too great a restraint upon humane nature and entrenching too much upon the pleasures and liberty of it There was I confess some pretence for this Objection against the Jewish Religion which by the multitude of its positive Institutions and external observances must needs have been very burthensome And the same Objection lyes against the Church of Rome who as they have handled Christianity by the unreasonable number of their needless and senseless Ceremonies have made the yoke of Christ heavier than that of Moses and the Gospel a more carnal Commandment than the Law So that Christianity is lost among them in the trappings and accoutrements of it with which instead of adorning Religion they have strangely disguised it and quite stifled it in the crowd of external Rites and Ceremonies But the pure Christian Religion as it was delivered by our Saviour hath hardly any thing in it that is positive except the two Sacraments which are not very troublesome neither but very much for our comfort and advantage because they convey and confirm to us the great blessings and privileges of our Religion In other things Christianity hath hardly imposed any other Laws upon us but what are enacted in our Natures or are agreeable to the prime and fundamental Laws of it nothing but what every man's reason either dictates to him to be necessary or approves as highly fit and reasonable But we do most grosly mistake the nature of pleasure and liberty if we promise them to our selves in any evil and wicked course For upon due search and tryal it will be found that true pleasure and perfect freedom are no where to be found but in the practice of vertue and in the service of God The Laws of Religion do not abridge us of any pleasure that a wise man can desire and safely enjoy I mean without a greater evil and trouble consequent upon it The pleasure of commanding our appetites and governing our passions by the rules of Reason which are the Laws of God is infinitely to be preferred before any sensual pleasure whatsoever Because it is the pleasure of wifedom and discretion and gives us the satisfaction of having done that which is best and fittest for reasonable Creatures to do Who would not rather chuse to govern himself as Scipio did amidst all the temptations and opportunities of sensual pleasure which his power and victories presented to him than to wallow in all the delights of sense Nothing is more certain in reason and experience than that every inordinate appetite and affection is a punishment to it self and is perpetually crossing its own pleasure and defeating its own satisfaction by over-shooting the mark it aims at For instance Intemperance in eating and drinking instead of delighting and satisfying nature doth but load and cloy it and instead of quenching a natural thirst which it is extremely pleasant to do creates an unnatural one which is troublesome and endless The pleasure of Revenge as soon as it is executed turns into grief and pity guilt and remorse and a thousand melancholy wishes that we had retrained our selves from so unreasonable an Act. And the same is as evident in other sensual excesses not so fit to be dedescribed We may trust Epicurus for this that there can be no true pleasure without temperance in the use of pleasure And God and Reason have set us no other bounds concerning the use of sensual pleasures but that we take care not to be injurious to our selves or others in the kind or degree of them And it is very visible that all sensual excess is naturally attended with a double inconvenience As it goes beyond the limits of nature it begets bodily pains and diseases As it transgresseth the rules of Reason and Religion it breeds guilt and remorse in the mind And these are beyond comparison the two greatest evils in this world a diseased body and a discontented mind And in this I am sure I speak to the inward feeling and experience of men and say nothing but what every vicious man finds and hath a more lively sense of than is to be expressed by words When all is done there is no pleasure comparable to that of Innocency and freedom from the stings of a guilty conscience This is a pure and spiritual pleasure much above any sensual delight And yet among all the delights of sense that of health which is the natural consequent of a sober and chaâ—te and regular life is a sensual pleasure far beyond that of any Vice For it is the life of life and that which gives a gratefull relish to all our other enjoyments It is not indeed so violent and transporting a pleasure but it is pure and even and lasting and hath no guilt and regret no sorrow and trouble in it or after it which is a worm that infallibly breeds in all vicious and unlawfull pleasures and
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