A CALL To a General Reformation of Manners AND Manifesting in several Particulars the great Lets and Hinderances thereunto Preached at the Arch-Deacon of Sudbury's Visitation holden at Kentford in Suffolk in April last 1700. By CLEMENT HEIGHAM Esq now Rector of Barrow in Suffolk Prov. XXVIII 4. They that forsake the Law praise the Wicked but such as keep the Law contend with them LONDON Printed by John Darby for Richard Thurlbourn Bookseller in Cambridg 1700. To the Right Honourable and truly Noble CHARLES Lord Viscount Townshend Much Honoured and Noble Lord HIS Majesty's Proclamation against Immoralities and the Honourable Houses of Parliament piously concurring by some good Laws to assist and strengthen the Ministry in the suppressing of Vice as it gave me a secret Pleasure so it did encourage me to frame and preach this following Discourse and for exposing this Sermon in print to a more publick View I am not without hopes it may do some good upon such as shall cast their Eye upon it the Discourse being on an Argument wherein all good Men do agree but more especially it may let some that are in great Authority see that there are great Lets and Hinderances amongst us as to an universal Reformation of Manners and some of them are such Lets and Hinderances as only the Wisdom of the Nation in Parliament can remove And I am the more emboldned to make use of Your Lordship's Name and to crave Your Patronage not only upon the account of Your great Honour eminent Parts and most agreeable Virtue whereby You shine amongst our Nobility and do attract the Affections of all Good Men but because great Examples are powerful and have a mighty Influence to bear down Vice and to encourage Goodness And I am fully persuaded Your Lordship will in Your High Place endeavour to promote that Great Design which this Discourse points at which is to promote the true and lasting Happiness of our Church and State and which can be effected by no other means than by making the Almighty God our Patron and Friend which can only be by depressing Wickedness and encouraging Piety and universal Goodness And upon these accounts it is that I pray for Your Lordship's Health and Happiness in this Life and Your endless Glory hereafter and shall always approve my self Your Lordship's most honouring most Faithful and most Obedient Kinsman and Humble Servant CLEMENT HEIGHAM MATTHEW V. 16. Let your Light so shine before Men that they may see your Good VVorks and glorify your Father which is in Heaven THESE words have a reference to the three foregoing Verses in which our Saviour applies himself to his Disciples and all sorts of true Christians and requires them to set forth the Purity of their Doctrine and the Purity and Exactness of their Lives to that advantage that by the authority and soundness of their Doctrine and goodness of their Conversation the Nation or the World might be kept from putrefying or stinking And he compares the Christian Church to a City set upon a high illustrious place which is easily seen by all that travel near it which City if it be kept clean and beautiful will attract and draw Travellers to it but if otherwise it will make them shun and abhor it Wherefore our Saviour requires them all to set forth such an eminent Light to the World both by their Doctrine and sutable Life that by their bright shining Lustre the thick Mists of Ignorance and the grosser Darkness of Sin and Wickedness might be dispelled and that others seeing and beholding this Glorious State of the Christian Church might be invited thereby to glorify their Father which is in Heaven These words then of our Saviour with respect to their Connexion with the former Verses do contain First A Precept or Command to all sorts of Christians to preserve pure and sound Doctrine and to lead exemplary Lives sutable to their holy Faith and Doctrine Secondly The words contain a powerful Argument to enforce good Christian Practice that others seeing your good Lives may glorify your Heavenly Father or that the ignorant sinful part of the World may receive saving Influences by virtue derived from the Purity of your Doctrine and Goodness of your Lives and so Glory may redound to God First For the Precept or Command in general to all sorts of Christians to preserve pure and sound Doctrine to see that their Copy be pure and fair and good and this is of great import for if our Faith or any allowed Doctrines of our Christian Society be stained or corrupted especially if ill Practice in any kind be the natural consequence of such allowed Doctrines or matters of Faith this tends to destroy the great end of all Religion But God be thanked our Articles of Faith and the allowed Doctrines of our Church are sound and good neither is our Publick Worship of God corrupted so that the publick Assemblies are become Schools of Idolatry and Wickedness as perhaps may be with great truth said concerning some other Church that exalts it self and looks big in the eye of the World Here now if time would permit me I might take a very fair occasion to represent the Faith and Doctrine and Government of our Church which we all own our selves Members of and to set forth the Purity and Soundness of it and shew the agreement of it to all that was owned by the Primitive Church in its best estate to convince how full it is to all the purposes of a good Christian Life and to manifest plainly that neither our Holy Worship and Services are corrupted nor doth the Church of England give any one License to Sin But this is a large Field to enter into and our Faith and Doctrine and way of Worship and Government hath been sufficiently set forth and justified by many Learned Men of our own Communion and sealed and confirmed by the Blood of Holy Martyrs And therefore I shall say no more of the Copy but I shall insist upon that which our Faith and Doctrine and Discipline points at which is to influence all Christians so to live as our Faith and Doctrine and Government enjoins them to do and thereby to manifest to the eye of the World the Excellency and Goodness of their Faith and Doctrine by their regular and holy Practices For what will a good Copy signify to them whose Lives do not write after it and so adorn it What doth it signify to talk of a good Way of Worship if we do not frequent it and join in it as devout Worshippers too What doth it signify to commend our holy Religion which requires strict Sobriety Chastity and Modesty of Life and a due Fear and Veneration of God and yet at the same time to lie wallowing in the Sins that are contrary to all this What doth it signify to commend the Government of the Church and yet at the same time to despise and disobey it At the rate that most Christians live
they do but blot and disgrace their Copy tho otherwise never so very beautiful and comely Wherefore then to excite you all to manifest the Goodness of your Faith and Doctrine by your exemplary Lives This I shall do in the following Method 1st I shall urge those Motives to Good Life which our Common Christianity affords us 2ly And that with respect to this solemn Occasion I shall point out those several Complaints that are made of some special Lets and Hinderances to an universal good Practice amongst us and I shall shew what those Lets and Hinderances are and what must be the Cure and Remedy 3ly I shall shew that to lead good Lives our selves and to remove all those Lets and Hinderances to others is the only way to bring Glory to god Honour and Reputation to our Holy Church with Safety and Prosperity to this Nation 1st Then for the Motives to Good Life which our Common Christianity affords us and to comprize them as short as I can You all know when you were Baptized what strict Obligations that laid upon you to live well and some of you know what farther additions you have voluntarily made by receiving Confirmation at the Bishop's hands and after that often receiving the Holy Communion And who could now think that any person having passed under all these means of Grace should yet be only a Christian in Title and Name Let me persuade all such Christians if there be any such here present that they live according to their Christian Profession For it is only so doing that can assure the sincerity of their Faith it is only so doing that must inspirit and enliven their hopes of another and better Life it is only so doing that can manifest their growth in Grace it is only so doing that can assure their Victory compleat and that the Seed of God abideth prevailingly in their Hearts It is only a holy and regular Practice that can discover the efficacy of all our means of Grace and that the end of Christ's Death is answered by us and this alone will convince Beholders that we are truly the Sons of God and shall be Members of the Church Triumphant in the next Life as we are living Members of Christ here It is this alone that must dispel all our Fears and Doubts when we come to die and a good Christian Practice will do it beyond the best Confessor in the World And besides all this a sincere good Christian Life will help you to find Truth and to keep close to it when you have it for indeed it is a love to Sin that makes men uncertain in a good Religion and 't is a godly Life that will prove the excellency of your Doctrine to others beyond all the best penn'd Discourses in the World for a good Life is an Argument to sense and convinceth the eye of the Beholder Man cannot see the Heart but we may read Men in their Lives We know the Tree is alive by the Fruit. Indeed there are many external Acts of Worship and Duty which a mere Hypocrite may perform with great applause but when there is a thorow Change wrought in our Manners from all that is bad to all that is good this is a visible demonstration that the Almighty Spirit of God hath been working in us and that we are become the Children of God When from an intemperate Life we are become strictly sober when from malicious haughty and fierce and uncharitable we are come meek and humble and merciful when from the love of the World we are become heavenly-minded when from impatience under Crosses and Troubles we are become resigned and submissive to the Will of God in all things and so from all Vices to the contrary Graces and Virtues this is a visible demonstration of a mighty Change wrought in us by the Power of God This is a plain discovery that the very Body of Sin grows weak and is destroyed by a Divine Omnipotent Power and that the Grace of God is strong and lively and prevails over all our Corruptions These are the Motives that might be enlarged upon to a Volume but I can only point at those Heads which I doubt not but you can usefully improve in your own private Thoughts and Meditations which God grant you all may I now proceed to the Second thing proposed which is to point out some special great Le ts and Hinderances to an universal Reformation of Manners amongst us And these I shall set forth by way of Complaints and they are such as do require redress and the first Complaint that I shall mention is 1. Against the Guides of our Church as if some of these Lights did not burn so clear in their Conversations as they ought to do So far as this may be true there ought to be speedy Remedies applied Nam quo magis quisque eminet eo gravius nocet malo exemplo si se perverse gerit Vult ergo Christus Apostolos eo majore studio intentos esse ad piè sanctéque vivendum quam quoslibet è vulgo obscuros homines quia omnium oculi in eos quasi in lucernas conjecti sunt nec ullo modo ferendos esse nisi vitae integritas doctrinae cujus sunt ministri respondeat No doubt Ministers ought rather to the more strict than other Men because the consequence thereof is greater for it the Shepherd wanders no doubt but the Sheep will go astray And besides all this Cum Pastorum vita merito despicitur eorum doctrina verba consequenter contemnentur He that leads and idle Life may preach with Truth and Reason as did the Pharisees but not as Christ or as one having Authority Thus speaks the excellent Bishop Taylor in his Rules and Advices to the Clergy But I come not here as an Informer against Men of the same sacred Character with my self and such as generally speaking are the greatest Supporters of Religion in this Kingdom I say the greatest Supporters of Religion in this Nation for with reverence be it spoken to a higher Order it is not a Triennial Light tho shining never so clear that will dispel our Darkness but it is these lesser Lamps always burning and shining in our Villages by holy Instructions and godly charitable Lives that must dispel our Fogs of Ignorance and practical Wickedness Second Complaint Is of the want of constant catechizing of Children and Servants or rather I think there is a great want of a useful and profitable way of instructing young people It is certainly a great mistake to think that merely the asking the Questions of the Church Catechism and receiving the Answers will ever make any great improvement no nor reading an Exposition upon some Article of Faith or other matters This will not do but it is applying our selves particularly to every particular catechized Person by practical Questions and receiving their Answers confirmed by them by Proofs of Scripture that must settle firm Grounds of Religion in
Oaths you are by no means to spare any tho never so great but if after gentle and neighbourly Admonitions they still persist in ill you are to present them for your Obligations to God and your own Souls are above any temporal Tie any worldly Respects Do well and right and let the World sink And indeed unless Parish-Officers will be watchful to discover Offenders and then perform their Oaths all hopes of a General Reformation of Manners must be at an end and the Land must still groan under the burden of Wickedness Fifth Complaint Is concerning the great want of family-Family-Religion among the Generality of Christians and the not imploying the Lords-day profitably in our Houses as well as in the Church Next to the sacred Ministry there is nothing would conduce more to the reforming a corrupt World and to the keeping up a due sense of God and serious Religion than the due care of Masters and Mistresses and Parents to discharge all that Duty which both Nature and Grace teacheth them that is to pray in and with their Families and to instruct them and to restrain and govern those Children and Servants that are under their care and charge And if those Housholders whose daily necessities will not allow them much time for these Imployments upon the other days of the week would imploy the Lords-day carefully both in the publick Assemblies and in their private Houses to benefit themselves and those that belong to their care we might then hope to see Sin restrained and Goodness universally planted But until Families shall become Nurseries of Religion and Good-manners and shall become like little Churches and sacred places both for good Instruction and holy Worship no great Reformation is to be expected Some may perhaps call this Puritanism but call it what they will I take it to be an infallible truth that it is exemplary Godliness that can only restore and preserve the Church Sixth Complaint Is of the Sacrilegious Inclinations of Persons in our Communion and that which unavoidably follows the making the Church poor is the contempt of the Sacred Function But this may seem to some a very remote Hinderance as to the reforming the World but it is not so for what great things can be expected where the Ministers Maintenance is either wholly precarious or if it be settled by Law it is very strait poor and necessitous And a mean or precarious Livelihood too often cramps the Tongue of the Preacher and makes it afraid to speak plain and what is worse it hinders study and begets servile and base Compliances And in plain English scandalous Livings too often make scandalous Priests and where it is so what Reformation can there be hoped for Our greatest and best Men saw this Mishief long ago and that not only Churchmen but some others of Great Name And here I cannot but mention one a great Light and Prelate of our Church the famous Bishop Jewel In a Sermon of his before the then Queen we have these words What may be guessed at their Intent who decay the Provisions of the House of God and so basely esteem the Ministers of the Gospel altho in other things they do well altho they seem to rejoice at the Prosperity of Sion and to seek the safety of the Lord 's Anointed yet needs must it be that by these means foreign Power shall again be brought in upon us such things shall be done unto us as we before suffered in the times of Popery And saith the same Bishop Jewel the Parsonages and Vicarages are the very Castles and Towers of defence for the Lord's Temple and if they be not better furnished with a due Maintenance and made more secure against Contempt we must expect God's Judgment upon us and this noble Realm shall be subject to foreign Nations These words to me are very remarkable as falling from so great a Man I wish they were not prophetical but yet when all is said 't is not to be expected that the contempt of the Ministry should wholly cease For the Sacred Order by their Office being bound to cry down the ways of Sin which corrupt Nature cries up the work of the Ministry being to promote Sobriety Righteousness and Holiness and to plant those Graces in the Hearts and Lives of Men which corrupt Nature and the Devil strive against This is so unthankful a work to irritate and disturb Mens Consciences as close and sound Preaching must needs do to press against the bent of Mens strong Inclinations and to commend to them what they most hate this is a work which will not procure to him much Honour and Esteem that is imployed in it in this irreligious Age. And our Saviour hath told us long ago what we must expect from a wicked World if we will be faithful in our places The World cannot hate you but me it hateth because I testify of it that the Works thereof are evil I confess it may seem very strange to a thinking Man that in a civilized Nation a Man of God should be despised a Man of God by his sacred Character and Message and whose Office it is to guide and conduct Souls to Heaven Little do Christians consider how much they owe to the main body of the despised Clergy By them you are baptized by them you are instructed in all saving Knowledg by their Prayers your Souls do receive aid and assistance from Heaven by their Prayers Judgments are kept off from a People at their hands you often receive the Bread of Life and by them your departing Souls are commended to God and if there were any Magistrates here I would tell them and justify it too that the Peace and Prosperity of the Kingdom is more owing to the Pulpit and an orthodox regular Clergy than to all the Courts of Judicature 'T is not the Magistrates Sword alone that would preserve you if the daily and weekly Labours of the Ministry did not instil good Principles and keep the Consciences of men awake and make men more afraid of Sin than all your Axes and Rods can do It is the Ministers Labours that dispel that Ignorance so far as it is dispelled amongst us It is the Ministers faithful Labours that break the force of mens Corruptions and make them more dutiful to God and submissive to their Governours And therefore if the Parsonages and Vicarages be the very Castles and Towers of defence for the Lord's Temple and the greatest security for the State too sure then it highly concerns all Orders of Men to assist and protect them and to contribute all they can to secure them from contempt and to strengthen them in their great work of promoting Religion and depressing Vice and all manner of Wickedness I have now done with the great Lets and Hinderances of an universal Reformation of Manners and it is no difficult thing to point out what must be the Cure 1. A devout faithful and laborious Ministry supported with a due
Maintenance and made more secure against contempt 2. The Officers of Parishes must be such as fear God and that understand the weight of an Oath and the great consequences of discharging it 3. Family Religion must be kept up 4. Children and Servants must be well instructed 5. The Spiritual Courts must give their utmost assistance to the Ministry 6. A Religious Magistracy must give their helping hand to punish Vice and encourage Goodness And when all these shall mutually conspire to promote the great ends of Religion we may then hope for a new face of things we may then hope for a new Earth wherein dwelleth Righteousness we shall then behold the Kingdom of our Lord and Saviour exalted amongst us which is the hearty desire of all Good Men. I proceed now to my third an last point which is to shew That to lead good Lives our selves and to remove all those Lets and Hinderances which keep others from doing the same is the only way to bring Glory to God Honour and Reputation to our Holy Church and true Happiness and Safety to our Church and Nation 1. Then to promote universal Goodness by our living well and discouraging Vice brings Glory to God as it doth sensibly and experimentally commend the ways of God to a poor ignorant brutish World It lets the World see that the ways of Religion are ways of Pleasantness and all her Paths are Peace A good Christian Life as it gives inward joy to the Practiser so it sweetly insinuates a good liking into the Beholders it strangely attracts the Affections of others and by a secret invisible force it charms the Passions and delights the Beholders The glorious Attire of Christian Graces such as Meekness Humility and Modesty of Mind fervent Piety to God and as fervent Charity to Man undisguised Friendship Sincerity in all our Dealings evenness and equality of Mind in all conditions and estates of our Life Conquest over Passions Contempt of the World and Sollicitousness for nothing but to keep up and maintain a joyful Entercourse betwixt God and our Souls Such a Divine Temper as this doth strangely affect and attract and must insinuate a good relish into all Beholders and it is my firm belief that were Persons that are of a good Communion but more exact in their Lives to the Reformed Copy that is before them it would mightily supercede the necessity of much writing to justify and recommend our way of Worship for were Mens inward Corruptions more subdued by the force of that Religion which they profess we should find little to do but to love God and love one another and the sweet Relish which ever attends a conscientious well-spent Life would so confirm and settle good Christians in their way that they would never doubt or stagger and many other Beholders that are unsteddy and unresolved would be more easily drawn to join with that Communion of Christians where they see a Divine Presence and Force and so much Comfort as a good Life produceth than by all other Arguments in the World And this leads to a second Consideration to enforce good Christian Practice in our selves and to discourage Vice in others 2. For it shews our Principles to be sound and good and that we firmly assent to them as such It convinceth the World that our Doctrine and way of Worship is from God This Men will be apt to believe when they see the powerful and visible Influences of it in the change of mens Manners from bad to good This satisfies men beyond all other Arguments that there is a Divine Presence amongst us and that there is a special Assistance and Blessing concurring with the means of Grace that we make use of and it doth most plainly evince that God's Grace is not bestowed upon us in vain I would to God that this most excellent Argument for so the Primitive Christians accounted it were not so much lost as it is as to its due force upon Beholders by the bad Examples of too many Christian Professors Those first and best Christians could boast of the Truth the Goodness and Excellency of their Religion and Soundness of their Doctrine from the admirable Efficacy and Power it had upon the Hearts and Lives of those that recieved it All this is plain from some memorable Passages in Lactantius's 3d Book de falsa Sapientia and also in several places of Origen too long here to be recited But 3ly It brings Glory to God and great Good to others as it demonstrates our Religion to be a practicable thing and that the hardest Duties may be performed Arguments alone will hardly invite the generality of People to serious and strict Religion where good Examples are wanting yea Examples will persuade more effectually than all the best framed Arguments in the World for men love to see whether the Ways be passable or no before they adventure themselves especially where Flesh and Blood tells them there are some Difficulties to encounter some Rocks and Uneasinesses to climb over and that they may happen to meet with much ill usage too in their Journy to Heaven even from such as pretend to be Friends and Fellow-Travellers But when men shall see by the Courage and Victory and good Examples of others that commend these ways of Religion that the worst of Difficulties may be overcome and are so by the same Flesh and Blood with themselves this animates and enlivens their Spirits and takes off all Objections arising in their Minds from the difficulty of the Attempt 4. A good Life and discouraging of Vice brings Glory to God as it declares to the World that we stedfastly believe that without a regular Piety and strict Obedience to the Laws of Christ none shall be saved This will visibly discover to the World what our Belief is and what our Opinions are This will manifest that we entertain no corrupt and dangerous Principles and we our selves might appeal to this as a Test if our Lives were but regularly pious and uniformly good for a Heresy or dangerous Error in the Judgment will for the most part appear in the Practice of him that owns it And let me tell you it will not be easy to convince any one that our Judgments in matters of Religion are sound if our Morals are bad and of this I am sure that few will be convinced that we believe a good Life to be absolutely necessary to Salvation if we do not lead good Lives our selves and shew also by our zeal our dislike of Wickedness in others 5. and lastly A thorow Reformation of Manners brings Glory to God as it gives the Almighty a free occasion to manifest himself in that great Attribute he most delights in which is in shewing mercy to a sinful Nation and disposing all things for the Happiness and Safety of it God will never look favourably upon us until our crying Sins be removed and therefore if we do believe that there is a Divine governing Providence which