labours and their works do follow them THe more attentively we consider the Christian Religion in any of its parts we find greater grounds for the confirmation both of its Author and excellency so infinitely does it surpass all those writings of that nature which the great Sages of the World have with so much superciliousness on their part and admiration from their respective followers I may add too all things considered not without meriting due praise from us delivered to their Scholars And this will appear evident and undeniable if we but parallel them in any of the chief heads for instance in the principles upon which our Religion does proceed the precepts it contains and the rewards it appoints which division will comprize the summ of what we profess In all which the great Masters of Heathen wisdom do plainly discover either a great deal of Ignorance or malice in prevaricating that light they had reflected upon them from Jewish tradition so that it may be well doubted whether their Symbolick Divinity were not design'd rather to concel their own Ignorance in what they pretended to than to secure the rites and mysteries thereof from the vulgar's profanation For example 1. Take first the Principles those truths that are the Basis and foundation of our Religion such as are the Being and Nature of God the Creation of the World the Fall of man and his Redemption by a Messias the Immortality of the Soul and the Resurrection 't is plain the whole Philosophick world had none or but a very imperfect knowledge of almost all of them However some of their lavish Charity have endeavour'd to squeeze as much from their writings Nay that they were not without some knowledge of our greatest Mysteries viz. of a Messias under their Daimono-Latria and even of the Trinity in Plato's Triad and the Resurrection of the body under the Indians Palin-genesis But no body that has any veneration either for the Scriptures or but for Truth in general but must see and acknowledge that all this is but tortur'd from them Nor may we deny this further that whatever Notions of this kind they had were but traditional in respect of their Origine and conjectural in reference to their ambiguity and uncertainty 2. The like is to be said of their Rules and Precepts of virtuous living For we may not detract thus much from them that they have recommended many excellent Institutes to their Sects You shall collect among them many very admirable sayings such as these To know our selves to abstain from vice to bear afflictions to do justly and speak truly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 do as we would be done by and many more Indeed for that kind of Divinity which was deducible from the Rules of common prudence and observation and depended not chiefly or solely upon Divine Revelation they have done extraordinary well And if they had not furnish'd us with so many famous examples of Vertue too it would not reflect so much upon the Professors of Christianity which in the spirituality of its precepts has as far exceeded all that they have writ as some of their Lives have most of ours though that be not to be imputed to our Religion unless it were justly chargeable upon the vitiosity or defect of its Principles or Rules Thus miserably however do we compensate the Divine culture and as if Nature abhorring so great a disparity betwixt mankind would thus ballance the Heathen with the Christian World by opposing their Imperfect Knowledge but severer Vertue to our diviner Laws but greater licentiousness in Practice Many of them having by as great proportions exceeded us in their endeavours after goodness as we do them in the knowledge and other means of it 3. Last of all which brings it to our present subject Christianity propounds nothing but upon the fairest and surest encouragement imaginable For the happiness of our Religion is both transcendently superiour to their discoveries and accompts of it and then also we are sufficiently and unquestionably assur'd hereof i.e. 't is not recommended to us upon plausible perswasions and inconclusive arguments but in the genuine sence of St. Paul's expressions 1 Corinth 2. 4. in demonstration of the Spirit and Power So that we see there is a kind of peculiar excellency in the Holy Scriptures above all the Systems of the greatest Moralists the foundation of our Obedience being laid upon clearer and better principles the practice of our obedience being carried higher by the spirituality of its commands and the rewards of our obedience being incomparably greater than what we can conceive much less could they promise or bestow 'T is the last of these that is contain'd in the Text and for which I am to be further accomptable to ye in the prosecution of the words I have read And I heard a voice from Heaven saying unto me Write Blessed c. Wherein we have these following particulars principally to be observed 1. The happiness of good men describ'd by its general nature they are blessed and by its integral parts they rest from their labours and their works do follow them 2. The Security and Evidence upon which this happiness is promis'd and asserted yea saith the Spirit 3. The time of its perfection and accomplishment partly in this life but not fully nor completely till death saying Blessed are the dead that dye in the Lord. 4. And lastly the Influence which the consideration of these premisses ought to have upon us both in Life and Death in reference to Obedience and Patience And I. To begin with the description of that happiness those rewards which are propounded to us for the encouragement of our Obedience and Patience Which are so great that I am utterly ignorant by what measures to describe them to ye The nature of that Celestial bliss as far transcending all our present felicities by which we should judge of it as it does the very capacity of our meriting it Sir Francis Bacon has observ'd We can have but a very imperfect accompt of those things which receed any whit near those extreams of Nothing and Infinity because either by their parvity or immensity they elude or confound our knowledge And especially the latter which choak the understanding and is like the beholding of the Sun whose light and lustre by which we discern other objects marrs and dimms our sight Such is the transcendent excellency of our future bliss at once the delight and amazement of our Intellectuals In the description whereof our highest expressions are so far from being hyperbolical that they amount but to a Litotes so that after our utmost endeavours we must content our selves with St. Pauls account of it in his First and Second Epistles to the Corinthians his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unutterable for that I take to be the meaning and not as we render it unlawful of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and also unconceiveable So inevitably should we diminish
the Light is made to attend the darkness Contrary to the methods observ'd by Nature where the causes are ever more worthy than their effects from their first beginning downward Now as he is pleas'd to transcend and deviate from the tracts and capacities of natural Agents thereby to assert his Prerogative and render his omnipotency more conspicuous to the world So is he no less delighted to use the same recesses in displaying his Grace evermore ushering in his mercies with the Black Rod thereby inhansing and endearing our subsequent refreshments And though the goodness of those celestial inhabitants and the happiness of their condition need neither foyl nor artifice to render that or their acknowledgements of the Divine favour greater Yet however if we consider these things as a reward and incouragement of our obedience the proceeding thus is but regular and necessary that we should do our work before we receive our wages and finish our undertaking before we demand satisfaction Earnest and Security Heaven has vouchsaf'd us but to deposite the whole in hand this were not to encourage but bribe our Obedience This were to destroy Morality and turn Vertue into Nature Nor yet is the Divine goodness less communicable in this life but we are not so capable of receiving it For look as in Nature neither the single excellency of the Object or the Agent alone is sufficient to produce any notable effect but both are requir'd So likewise in Religion all the effects of the divine grace and bounty though that be free and infinite are limited and determin'd by our capacities and reception So that while our Appetites those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as they are call'd in Scripture that are to be the receptacles of all this Glory are either replenish'd with the vain and sinful objects of this Life or are straitned and contracted by the weakness and imperfection of this dull and lumpish matter they must be rid of the one and devested of the other and then we should be instantly happy You have seen the happiness of the Christian man there are indeed encouragements of another nature namely earthly blessings and temporal rewards our whole present interest unless it happen to interfere at any time with the other Religion has descended to the securing of these too and that not only by moral designation but by a proper and natural efficiency so that we cannot better prosecute our present interest than by the methods of Religion And by this gracious and happy complication of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 together they are made to become helpful and assisting to each other serving reciprocally as a means or motive either to other But this encouragement is neither proper nor adequate to Christianity since it may be as well pursu'd by natural as by divine rules better perhaps by diabolical arts than either nothing experimentally so inriching men as sordidness oppression and other violences and frauds The Devil in all likelihood giving the fairest prospect and most likely possession of the Kingdoms and glory of this world But they are things I have shewn you of a nature infinitely more sublime that Christianity propounds to its observers The rewards of our Religion exceeding as well the capacities of our Nature as all those other things To the attainment whereof as all vicious practices are extremely contrary so have all the others Philosophick transactions been miserably vain Some weak and glimmering light the Heathen had of these things which it is not certain whether they collected from some fragments of tradition or extracted from the principles of natural reason but which way ever it came it was so weak and imperfect as serv'd to shadow not help to discover but eclipse the transcendent excellency of that State till as the Great Apostle of the Gentiles saith Life and Immortality were brought to light by the Gospel And indeed without this all other proposals were unsuitable to its professors and disproportionate to the difficulty and severities of Religion Cicero saith None ought to be deem'd a vertuous or a just man that will be allur'd or affrighted from his duty by any advantage or disadvantage whatever But who trow ye would abide both these upon no other consideration than barely to have acted according to the sentiments of right Reason or in hope to acquire an insignificant fame of Vertue of which they could have no knowledge or remembrance after death And for this cause I judge the Stoicks more absurd in their morals than the Epicureans considering the principles that is upon which they built For 't is the premise and not the inference of theirs that 's so urg'd by the Apostle Let us eat and drink 1 Cor. 15. 32. But now the Christian Religion propounds such overtures to our Obedience and Patience as may justly and reasonably encourage us thereunto IV. For a Conclusion let us take in the Importance of that Phrase of dying in the Lord which relates primarily to Martyrdome but must also be extended to as many as live and dye in the faith of the Holy Jesus The result of all is this That we would so consider this happiness as every of our great interest that we forfeit not our propriety therein by a vicious and sinful life There 's nothing else can render it hazardous or doubtful but that which indeed in the very nature of the thing renders it impossible Let us not repeat Esau's folly sell our birth-right for a trifle and for the sake of some pitiful lust proscribe our selves out of our celestial inheritance Neither let us contemn our happiness for being feasible Were wilful poverty and certain Martyrdome part of our duty and inseparable appendages of our Religion there is tentation enough in the proposals to make us conflict with the greatest difficulties and overcome them When Christianity was thus attended and had nothing else to recommend it self to the world besides the reasonableness of its injunctions with what holy violence did those blessed Saints storm Heaven and with a strange eagerness pursue Martyrdome But now as if the fervour of our Devotion were only kindled and maintain'd by Antiperistasis Now I say the Impediments are remov'd and Religion is become a part of our Civil obedience and made necessary to our secular interests and guarded with a great many other temporal Phylacteries men are yet more hardly wrought upon to be Religious the consideration of a single lust shall be able to weigh down all And if any would seem to have a greater zeal for it than ordinary as if they were in love with the troubles of Religion and not the thing they suffer their heat to spend it self in little piques and contentions and about things of none or ill moment in maintaining of parties and opposing their Superiours and not in Devotion Obedience Charity Humility and the like as they ought In short Christians let the thoughts of this blessedness excite our affections Heaven-ward and quicken our endeavours Let it animate us against all difficulties and buoy us up above all adversities Let it cheer us in our duty quiet us in affliction and comfort us in death That so living unto Christ we may at last dye in him and in the end be for ever blessed And now to accommodate all to our present case It has pleas'd God to take away this extraordinary man for such considering all things we must needs allow him and because 't was some we what early I think of Dr. Hammond's notion of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Text the sooner the better the better for him no doubt I had once thought to have given you his Character but I am not asham'd to tell you I found me not able to do it worthy of him And calling to mind a saying of one of the Roman Historians I soon desisted from any further attempt of it who when he was reckoning up some of the great men of that age Virgil and Ovid Livie and Salust and going to commend them stops and concludes thus But of men of Eminency as their admiration is great so is their censure full of difficulty As to those Relations that are more nearly interessed in this solemnity I would beseech them to remember that all Indecency and excess of Grief for our deceased friends must needs reflect upon the memory of the dead or the discretion of the survivers God enable them to bear it And supply this loss to them by his Grace and Providence Let me say and to the Church of England by increasing the number of such men of no worse Learning Integrity and Courage that are able and dare defend her against the encroachments of Popery and Fanaticisme Now to God only wise be Glory through Jesus Christ for ever Amen FINIS 1 Ep. c. 2. v. 9. 2 Ep. ch 12. v. 4. Joh. 17. 3. Phil. 1. 23. 1 Tim. 1. 10.
be a form of Godliness but 't is nothing to the life and power And where we see not this effect of Religion let the professor of it be never so high and glorious in his profession we may yet conclude that either his Religion is not good or that he only pretends and really hath it not This I take to be a consideration of great moment and great certainty viz. That Christian Religion aims at the bettering and perfecting of our natures For the things it commands relate either to worship or virtue The instances of external worship are prayer and praise both which are high acts of gratitude and justice and they fit us for divine blessings and keep us under a sense of God and prepare us for union with him which is the highest perfection of which the creature is capable Thus the outward acts of worship tend to our happiness and the inward do infinitely the same These are Faith and Love and Fear Faith in God supports and relieves us in all afflictions and distresses The love of him is a pleasure and solace to us in all losses and disappointments since he is an object most filling and satisfying and one that cannot be lost except we wilfully thrust him from us Fear of God hath no torment 'T is no slavish dread of his greatness and Power but a reverence of his perfections and a lothness to offend him and this disposeth us also for the communications of his grace and love Psal 85. 9. And this it doth by congruity and its own nature which is to be said likewise of the others So that they would make those happy that practise them whether they had been positively enjoyn'd or not And though no express rewards had been annext unto them There are other two acts of worship which Christianity requires which are instituted and positive and respect Christ our Lord They are the Sacraments Baptism and the Lords Supper both which are holy Rites of high signification and seals of an excellent Covenant between God and us assuring us of pardon of sins and all divine favours upon the conditions of our Faith and repentance and more firmly obliging us to holy obedience and dependance The only way in which we can be happy Whence we see briefly that all the parts of worship which Christianity binds upon us tend to our perfection and Felicity And all the vertues that it commands do the same both those that respect us in a personal capacity and those others that relate to us as members of Societies Thus humility recommended Mat. 5. 3. Meekness blest ver 5. purity ver 8. are vertues that accomplish our particular persons and make us happy in our selves For of Pride cometh Contention Prov. 13. 10. And a great part of our troubles arise from stomach and self-will which humility cures Meekness also takes away the occasion of the numerous mischiefs we run into through the rage and disorder of our passions and 't is in it self a great beauty and ornament since it ariseth from the due order and government of our faculties Purity which comprehends temperance of all sorts frees us from the tormenting importunity of those desires that drag us out of our selves and expose us to sin and folly and temptation and make us exceeding miserable besides which it is a perfection that renders us like unto God and the blest Spirits of the highest rank And Christian vertues do not only accomplish and make us happy in our particular persons but they do the same in our publique capacities They dispose us to a quiet obedience to our governours without murmuring and complaining and thereby the publique peace is secured and all good things else in that But there are other vertues that Christianity enjoyns which have a more direct tendency to the happiness of others as Justice Mat. 7. 12. Charity 1 Cor. 13. Loyalty Rom. 13. and all other publique vertues may I think be comprehended under these Where there is no Justice every man preys upon another and no mans property is safe Where Charity is wanting Jealousies hatreds envying back-bitings and cruelties abound which render the world deplorably unhappy Where there is not Loyalty and conscionable submission to Governours the publick is upon every occasion of commotion involv'd in infinite miseries and disasters So that all the precepts of our Religion are in their own nature proper instruments to make us happy and they had been methods of Felicity to be chosen by all reasonable creatures though they had never been required by so great and so sacred an Authority These things I have said because I could not choose but take this occasion to recommend the excellency and reasonableness of our Religion And I have done it but only in brief hints because it ariseth but upon a Corollary from my main subject and from this I infer further III. That Christianity is the height and perfection of morality They both tend to the real bettering and accomplishment of humane nature But the rules and measures of moral Philosophy were weak and imperfect till Christ Jesus came He confirmed and enforced all those precepts of vertue that were written upon our hearts and cleared them from many corruptions that were grown upon them through ignorance and vice the glosses of the Jews and false conceits of the Gentiles and he inforced them anew by his Authority and the knowledge he gave of divine aids and greater rewards and punishments than were understood before yea he enlarged them in some instances such as loving enemies and forgiving injuries Thus Christ Jesus taught morality viz. the way of living like men And the 5th Chapter of Matthew is an excellent Lecture of this kind So that to disparage morality is to disgrace Christianity it self and to vilifie one of the ends of Christs coming into the world For all Religion and all duties respect either God our neighbour or our selves and the duties that relate to these two last are acknowledg'd moral vertues The Apostle St. James counted these Moralities of visiting the Widow and Fatherless to be the pure Religion and undefiled Jam. 1. 17. and the Prophet Micah intimates that those moral vertues of Justice and mercy were some of the main things that God required of us Micah 6. 8. Our Saviour saith that the whole Law is summ'd up in these two to love God with all our souls and our neighbour as our selves Matth. 22. 13. which latter contains the duties of morality And that which the grace of God in the Gospel teacheth according to St. Paul is to live soberly righteously and godly in this present world Tit. 2. 11. There is no godliness without morality All the fruits of the Spirit reckon'd up Gal. 5. 22. are moral vertues And when we are commanded to grow in grace 2 Pet. 3. 18. vertue is partly understood For one branch of what is call'd Grace in us is moral vertue produced by divine aids Christian principles and incouragements though 't is
true the world is extended to those duties that relate immediately to God also By which we see how ignorantly and dangerously those people talk that disparage morality as a dull lame thing of no account or reckoning Upon this the Religion of the second Table is by too many neglected and the whole mystery of the new Godliness is lay'd in frequent hearing and devout seraphick talk luscious fancies new lights incomes manifestations in-dwellings sealings and such like Thus Antinomianism and all kinds of Fanaticism have made their way by the disparagement of morality and men have learnt to believe themselves the chosen pretious people while their hearts have been full of malice and bitterness and their hands of violence while they despised dominions and spake evil of dignities rebell'd against the Government destroyed publique peace and endeavoured to bring all into misery and confusions 'T is this diabolical project of dividing morality from Religion that hath given rise and occasion to all these villanies And while the Practisers of such things have assumed the name of the only Godly Godliness it self hath been brought into disgrace by them and Atheism incouraged to shew it self in open defiance to Religion Yea through the indiscretions and inconsiderateness of some preachers the fantastry and vain babble of others and the general disposition of the people to admire what makes a great shew and pretends to more than ordinary spirituality things are in many places come to that pass that those who teach Christian vertue and Religion in plainness and simplicity without senseless phrases and fantastick affectations shall be reckon'd for dry moralists and such as understand nothing of the life and power of Godliness Yea those people have been so long used to gibberish and canting that they cannot understand plain sense and vertue is become such a stranger to their ears that when they hear it spoken of in a Pulpit they count the preacher a broacher of new divinity and one that would teach the way to heaven by Philosophy And he escapes well if they do not say That he is an Atheist or that he would reconcile us to Gentilism and Heathen Worship The danger and vanity of which ignorant humour the contempt of morality is apparent in the whole scope of my Discourse and therefore I add no more concerning it here but proceed to another Inference which is IV. That Grace and the new nature make their way by degrees on the Soul for the difficulties will not be removed nor the corrupt nature subdued all at once Habits that grow by repeated acts time and continuance will not be expelled in a moment No man can become greatly evil or good on a sudden The Path of the just shines more and more to a perfect day Prov. 4. 18. We do not jump from darkness into full light We are not fully sanctified and converted in an instant The day begins in an insensible dawn and the Kingdom of heaven is like a grain of Mustard seed Mat. 13. 31. It doth not start up presently to the stature of a tree The Divine birth begins like the Natural in an imperfect embryo There are some seeds of Knowledge and Goodness that God hath sown in our natures these are excited by the Divine Grace and Spirit to convictions which proceed to purposes these to resolutions and thence we pass to abstinence from all gross sins and the performance of outward Duties and so at last by degrees to vigorous attempts for the destruction of evil habits and inclinations When Grace is arrived to this eminent growth 't is very visible as the Plant is when 't is above the ground But the beginnings of Conversion are not ordinarily perceived So that to catechize men about the punctual time and circumstances of their Conversion is an idle device and a great temptation to vanity and lying Who can tell the exact moment when the night ends and the dawn enters 'T is true indeed the passage from the excesses of Wickedness which begins in some extraordinary horrors and convictions is sometimes very notable but 't is not so in all or most The time of St. Paul's conversion was eminent but that change was from great contrarieties and miraculous and therefore 't is not to be drawn into instance Both the beginnings and minute progressions of Grace are usually undiscerned We cannot see the Grass just putting out of the earth or actually growing but yet we find that it doth both And Grace is better known in its fruits than in its rise By their Fruits ye shall know them saith our Saviour Mat. 12. 33. and the same way we may know our selves V. We see that there is an Animal as well as a Divine Religion A Religion that is but the effect and modification of complexion natural fear and self-love How far these will go we have seen and how short it will prove in the end The not noting this hath been the sad occasion of deceiving many Some observing great heats of zeal and devotion in the modern Pharisees take these to be the Saints and good people believing all the glorious things which they assume to themselves When others that know them to be envious and malitious unjust and covetous proud and ungovernable and cannot therefore look on them as such choice holy people are apt to affirm all to be hypocrisie and feigning In which sentences both are mistaken for want of knowing that there is a meer Animal Religion that will produce very specious and glorious effects So that though the Pharisee Prays vehemently and Fasts severely and talks much of the love of God and delights greatly in hearing and pious Discourse and will suffer all things for what he calls his Conscience yet he is not to be concluded a Saint from hence because the meer Animal Religion may put it self forth in all these expressions And though this Professor be a bad man proud and covetous malicious and censorious Sacrilegious and Rebellious yet we cannot thence be assured that he is an Hypocrite in one sense viz. such an one as feigns all that he pretends But we may believe that he is really so affected with Hearing and Praying and devout Company as he makes shew and yet for all this not alter our opinion of his being an evil man since the Animal Religion will go as far as the things in which he glories There is nothing whereby the common people are drawn more easily into the ways of Sects and Separations than by the observation of the zeal and devotion of those of the factions These they take to be Religion and the great matters of Godliness and those the religious and only godly people And so first they conceive a great opinion of them and then follow them whithersoever they lead For the generality of men are tempted into Schism and Parties not so much by the arguments of dissenters as by the opinion of their Godliness which opinion is grounded upon things which may arise from
to suspend the exercise of it as oftentimes they do such men are to be reckon'd under the Character of Vitious and not barely erroneous and so are not to be counted among meer Dissenters in Opinion concerning whom I am now discoursing And that you may not rashly judge that your Brother speaks against his Conscience because he professeth the belief of things that to us seem very wild and absurd and so hate him as a time-server and an Hypocrite when heis but an innocently mistaken person I add this other Consideration viz. V. That we ought to make allowance for Education Authority and fair pretences which have a mighty power even over honest minds and do often unavoidably lead them into Errour For let us consider how easily we receive the first impressions and how deeply they sink into our souls Childhood refuseth no folly examines no absurdity Education makes it any thing The first is entertained as best and what-ever offers after is execrated and despised if it be not like it This is the condition of all Man-kind in their tender age and the far greatest part carry the apprehensions to their graves that they sucked in infancy And hence it comes about that there is nothing more impossible or ridiculous even in dreams and distracted imaginations than the things which have been entertain'd by great numbers of men as Sacred There are no conceits in Bedlam more wild and extravagant than many about Religion which have been believ'd firmly and zealously promoted and fiercely contended for even to Blood and Desolation by mighty Nations and whole Empires by Princes and People by Great men and Learned by Devout and Prudent in long Successions from Father to Son many Ages together And all these follies have been first imposed by Education and confirmed by Authority and Custom The power of which is very great and very few have strength enough in their Understandings to overcome it And in matters of Religion they are afraid to use their Reasons against those Follies which are taught to be Divine Dictates above all humane Intellect and not to be tryed or examined by it Upon which accounts it hath been that Man-kind hath been more extravagantly mad in many Tenents about Religion than in any thing else whatsoever For in other things the use of Reason is permitted but in Religion it hath been almost Universally denyed Thus then the far greatest part of men are slaves to the Principles in which they were bred and our constitution infirmity and circumstances are such that very few can help it and errour in the most is in a manner unavoidable at least in the weaker sort and Herd of men For they have no doubts about what they have been always Taught and have little or no capacity inclination or opportunity to Examine So that 't is morally impossible for them to free themselves from the prejudices they lie under And consequently we ought not to judge them Insincere because they profess things incredible and ridiculous or hate them for believing them when 't is so difficult and so almost impossible that they should do otherwise And yet we are further to consider how much those that differ from us and err in the things in which they differ are to be allowed upon the account of the Authority and Example of many learned wise pious and devout Men that instruct and incourage them in their way and deeply threaten any diversion from it This is a mighty prejudice when 't is on the side of Errour and no doubt many honest minds are carried away by it We are naturally apt to follow others especially those that we esteem and 't is reasonable to do so in things that we are not so well able to judge of our selves and modest to permit our judgements to be inclin'd by the sense of those that are wiser and better So that He may be a good man and a lover of Truth that yet is much Mistaken in his Opinion which in such a case as this is his Unhappiness not his Fault And I may add the other thing mention'd viz. that we ought to allow our erring brother for the fair and specious pretences which many errours plead for themselves as Antiquity Piety Consent of Churches Reverend Names Spirituality Gods Glory Gospel-light and Liberty and many other such which sound well and sway much with many very pious people who are taken with the pretence but are not able to discern the fallacy and so swallow the errour for the sake of those fine Names wherewith it is gilded In which case also there is Infirmity and Misfortune that require our Pity and our Charity but nothing that can justifie our Rage or Hatred Yea why should we not Love him for the Zeal and Respect he hath to those good things the shadows of which have deceived him rather than Hate him for his weakness in Mistaking And for those that are so Rigid to the Infirmities of Mistaken Judgements I wish they would Consider VI. That in many things they may err themselves and therefore shall have need of the Charity of others There is none of us I hope so immodest as to say or think that he is mistaken in nothing If any do that person errs more than most of those whose Errours he censures And if he acknowledgeth that he errs in some things though he knows not the particulars he is himself concerned in the plea for Charity towards the erroneous If we were infallible and all our Opinions were Certainties and Demonstrations we might then have more pretence for our Stifness and Severities But to confess the Infirmities of our own understandings and to give no candid allowances to other mens failings this is utterly inexcusable and contrary to our own interests For in this rigorous way every man condemns himself and puts a weapon into every other mans hand to destroy him Let him that is without Errour throw the first Stone at the Erroneous but if he begins that is obnoxious himself what favour can he expect The same reason he hath to Assault those before him all the rest have to Pelt him So that to hate and reproach our Brother for his supposed Errours is besides the other evil things very unwise and unpolitick and contrary to the principles of Safety and Self-love If this were well consider'd Interest might perhaps effect that in some which sense of Duty cannot Now in all this I have no intention to make Apologies for Errour but to lay sure grounds for Universal Love and what I have said is not for the Interest of any particular Sect but it is the joynt concern of all parties in Religion since they all equally need each others Charity If any man be Angry and think I would have him be too kind to the Erroneous he will I hope be pacified when he considers that I also design to make them kind to him and the kindness I plead for respects mens Persons and Vertuous Qualities and my
consequence from it And thus also are our differences heightned and rendred almost incurable If then we have any kindness for Charity and Christian Love let us take care of such dis-ingenuous practices A true Catholick should not take any Name to himself but that of a Christian nor Reproach any other with any Style of Infamy He should not and cannot in Modesty or Justice charge his brother with any Opinion which he will not own though he never so clearly see that it may be concluded from what he believes and teacheth If men would learn to be thus Fair and Candid to each other our Differences would be reduced to a narrower Circle and there might be some hopes that Peace and Love would revive and flourish in our Borders IF any now should ask me Whether this Doctrine of Universal Love do not tend to Universal Toleration I should answer that thus far it doth viz. that all private persons should Tolerate each other and bear with their brothers Infirmities That every man should allow another that Liberty which he desires himself in things wherein the Laws of God and the Land have left him Free and permit him his own Opinion without Censure or Displeasure Such a Toleration I think Christianity requires in Private men But as to the Publick I do by no means think it Modest for Us to determine what the Government should do And in This case 't is as unfit as in Any whatsoever since this matter depends upon the Consideration of so many Things that 't is very Difficult to state the Bounds of Just Permission and Restraint Leaving That therefore to Their Prudence whom Providence hath called to determine in It I shall only say that so much Toleration as may consist with the Interests of Religion and Publick Safety may be Granted But such a Liberty as is prejudicial to any of These should not be expected For Christianity and all other Considerations oblige the Government to provide for the Common Good And were the Duty of Catholick Charity duly practised and Private Christians once perswaded to Tolerate one another it might then be safer for the Government to give a Larger publick Toleration than possibly now is fit In the mean while without troubling our selves with fansies about the Duty of our Governours Let us mind our Own especially this great one of Charity and Christian Love And if we mind this and practise sutably God will be Glorified and Religion Advanced the Church will be Edified and our Souls Comforted Government will be Established and the Peace of the world Promoted And the Peace of God which passeth all Understanding will keep our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus To whom with God the Father and God the Holy Ghost be ascribed all Glory and Worship henceforth and for ever SERMON III. Christian Loyalty Preach'd on the KING'S MARTYRDOME The Second Edition SERMON III. A FAST SERMON ON THE King's Martyrdom ROM XIII 2. And they that resist shall receive to themselves Damnation AS there are some Ages and Times that are more infested than others with unhappy influences from the Heavens and noxious reeks from the Earth which by poysoning the Air Roots and Herbs convey that pestilential venome into mens bodies that even wearies Death and gluts the Grave with its slaughters and was matter of our late miseries In like manner there are Times when poysonous Doctrines from the Pulpit and malign humours in the Populace infect the Publick Air and spread a fatal Contagion into mens Principles and Manners which flies like Infection and destroys like the Plague And if ever Times were under cross and unlucky Aspects if ever there were a publick Spirit of Phrensie and mischief in the World in any days since the first certainly this Lot is fallen upon ours wherein mens Principles and Practices contend which shall out-do the other in the degree of Evil And 't is hard to say which are worse Mens actions or opinions We are fallen into Times wherein among some 't is a piece of Gallantry to defie God and a kind of Wit to be an Atheist among others 't is Religion to be Humorous and Phantastick and Conscience to be Turbulent and Ungovernable Nor have mens Practices come short of the malignity of their Belief but if possible have out-done it Atheism hath not rested in the judgement but proceeded to all enormities and debauches And we had not been called to the sad solemnity of this Day if Rebellion had stopt in Opinion But alas the venome of the Asp hath swoln into deadly Tumors and those seditious Principles have shot their poysonous arrows into the vitals of the publick Body We yet feel the smart of those wounds and the Generations to come will wear the scars and the marks of our misery and our guilt What is past we may lament but cannot help What we may do and what we ought is to inform our selves better of the Duty we owe to God and those he hath appointed over us and to endeavour the suppressing those principles and affections which breathed the Plagues that destroyed the Nation and would again burn us up in hotter Flames than those And if that fatal Fire which so lately prey'd upon our Peace and our Properties our Religion and our Government our Persons and our Friends hath not yet convinced us of the evils and danger of Resistance yet there is another and a greater one as certain and more fatal threatned by the Apostle They that resist shall receive to themselves damnation Which words were spoken in the days of NERO who besides that he was an Heathen was a Persecutor and a Tyrant and the most infamous instance in Nature and yet this Monster is not excepted as to the Tribute of Obedience Whereas had this been said in the days of such a Prince as our CHARLES the First it might have been supposed that the vertue of the person claimed the reverence and subjection and not the character of the Prince And that 't was damnable to resist because he was Good not because he was Supream because he was a Nursing Father of the Church not because the Ruling Father of his Countrey 'T was an happy coincidence therefore to secure the Authority of the Magistrate which answers the greatest pretensions of Rebellion If Religion be pretended an Heathen must not be resisted If Tyranny 't is damnation to oppose a Nero. They that resist shall receive 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the wrath and judgement of God which implies the guilt and expresseth the danger Now to resist lawful Authority is so sinful and so dangerous principally upon this three-fold account RESISTANCE 1. Affronts the Authority of God 2. 'T is contrary to the Spirit of Religion And 3. Destructive to the Interest of Societies The two former express the Guilt and the latter both the Sin and the Punishment Of each in order 1. RESISTANCE is an affront to the authority of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Lord sets up Kings saith
faith on earth Implying that in the last Times there shall be remarkable fallings from the Faith and a general Reign of unbelief which cannot be without great defection in manners also And St. Paul 2 Tim. 3. 1. tells us That the last days should be perillous that men should be Lovers of their own selves Covetous Boasters Proud Blasphemers and our Apostle in the Text Scoffers walking after their own lusts Now we are not to think that the holy Writers suppos'd that these evils were not in other days as well as in the last No the same catalogue of Vices runs through all Ages which more or less are infected with them But the meaning I conceive is That in the latter they should be more notorious and more numerous acted in higher degrees of impudence and with more circumstances of guilt There is no doubt but there were always scoffers but never such nor so many as in the last days The last of the world simply and not only those of the Jewish State scoffers walking after their own lusts viz. as absolute slaves to their Appetites and Passions For the word Lusts takes in all unruly desires and inclinations In treating of the words I shall shew 1. What sort of Scoffers we may suppose here meant 2. What is the evil and malignity of the humour 3. What are the consequences and effects of it And thence 4. Pass to improvement for practice FOr the First Who are the scoffers meant I take direction in it from the character annext Scoffers walking after their own lusts Now the lusts of men would be boundless and are impatient of any check or stop They hate all restraints that are laid upon them and the greatest restraints of appetite are from Religion Religion hinders men most from walking after their own lusts and these are most resolv'd on that so that we may suppose the scoffers in the Text who walk after their own lusts to be scoffers at Religion which would hinder and disturb them most in that course And that they were such appears from the following verse in which they argue scoffingly against the Christian belief and expectations Saying Where is the promise of his coming for since the Fathers fell a-sleep all things continue as they were from the beginning vers 4. Now generally the less impudent sort of sinners endeavour to reconcile Religion to their Lusts by walking in some of the forms of godliness so did the Pharisees among the Jews and divers Hereticks among the ancient Christians and their modern successors do the same still But there are an other sort who are more bold and impatient they will not give themselves the trouble of reconciling Religion to their Lusts but take the shorter course of opposing it in favour of them This some do by ingaging their parts and knowledge gravely and seriously to reason it out of the world but these are the few Reason is a severe thing and doth as little comport with mens Lusts as Religion And the same Lusts that make them willing to reason against Religion make them incapable of it For debauchery is almost as great an enemy to mens intellectuals as to their morals And therefore others and the most go an easier way and fight against Religion by scoffing and buffoonry This is the game the Devil seems to be playing in the present Age. He hath tryed the power and rage of the mighty and the wit and knowledge of the learned but these have not succeeded for the destruction of Religion And therefore now he is making an experiment by an other sort of enemies and sets the Apes and Drollers upon it And certainly there was never any other Age in which sacred and serious things have been so rudely and impudently assaulted by the prophane abuses of Jesters and Buffoons who have been the contempt of all wise Times but are the darlings and wits of these O the Invention the rare invention of this happy Age How easie hath it made the way to this glorious reputation 'T is but laughing gracefully at the Fopps the grave the learned the religious Fopps and a man cannot fail of being a Wit in spight of ignorance and impertinence Away with the pedantry and dull formalities of former days we are Wits upon terms more generous and more easie Our Age hath more spirit and flame our conversation yes our vertuous conversation hath refined and improved us We see the folly and ignorance of our fore-fathers and laugh at the Tales with which crafty Priests abused their easiness and credulity Spiritual substance Immortal souls Authority of Scripture Fictions Ideas Phantomes Iargon Here is demonstration against the spiritual Trade and spiritual men The rest of the work is for Songs and Plays for the wit and humour of agreeable conversation Thus far we are come and the infection spreads so that there is scarce a little vain Thing that hath a mind to be modish but sets up for a derider of God and of Religion and makes a scoff of the most serious thoughts and profession of the wisest men of all Ages Heaven and Hell are become words of sport and Devils and Angels Fairyes and Chimaera's 'T is Foppish to speak of Religion but in Railery or to mention such a thing as Scripture except it be to burlesque and deride it 'T is dreadful to consider and a man may tremble to describe this monstrous humour of many in our Age which I believe hath out-done all former in the heights of this amazing sort of wickedness and sadly proves that in the last days shall come Scoffers and such as have not been from the beginning For though former Ages no doubt have had deriders of Religion yet in those times they hid their heads and did it covertly behind the curtain in their privacies and among their Confidents But in these they face the Sun and impudently vent their folly in all companies and places as if it were a matter of renown and glory and they expected to be counted Hero's for it Thus we see what sort of Scoffers they are that are to come in the last days impudent deriders of Religion because they are resolved on walking after their own Lusts I come II. To shew the malignity and aggravations of this humour 1. 'T is an open defiance of God and a direct opposition of his Glory His glory namely the derivative consists in those praises and acknowledgements that are due to his perfections and those are paid in the exercises of Religion so that to buffoon this is to shoot the arrows of our scorn directly at the Throne of God Indeed all sins are oppositions of him and of his Glory but in most they are so in the consequence of the sin not in the intention of the sinner The Drunkard the Oppressor and the unclean person design only their own satisfactions not any immediate affront to their Maker But the Scoffer with prodigious impudence doth that He derides the love and obedience fear and
succeed and prevail generally upon any whole people it would make them more barbarous than any Nation in the world ever yet was For be Religion what it will Government hath Strength Security and Reverence from it Take this off and the fears of it and no Laws can be put in execution and without this Government is a meer name and nothing For there can be no assurance of the truth of fact where there is no restraint from Religion upon Lying and false witness and suppose but this that there is no reckoning or account hereafter every man may say and testifie what is for the advantage of his Lusts for no humane Laws can reach him and then Laws will be useless or hurtful and all Government will quickly be at an end For though as things are under the acknowledgements of Religion there is much lying false-witness and injustice in the world yet let all the Restraints of Conscience and Religion be removed and things will be incomparably worse No mans Life or property will be safe mankind would worry and prey upon one another and we should ere long fall a-sunder into a condition of dissolution and wildness So that the Scoffers at Religion are declared enemies of humane Nature and strive to turn us out into the state of Savages and Cannibals 3. The humour is exceedingly rude and uncivil 'T is ill manners to flout and deride what is esteemed by our Betters especially if that esteem be in the highest degree of veneration Now Religion hath publick acknowledgements of greatest respects from all Ages and all Nations from the Princes and the people from the Mighty and the Learned from the best and the most from the deepest Inquirers and acutest Discerners So that to Scoff at Religion as if it were ridiculous and contemptible is rudely to affront all these and to publish them for a pack of fools and madmen 'T is to make Fopps of all our Forefathers and Idiots of the Founders of our Laws and Government 'T is to defie every man we meet except the Atheist and the Scoffer and to proclaim all mankind besides to be a set of simpletons and superstitious Sneaks Let such men quit all pretences to civility and breeding they are ruder than Toryes and wild Americans and were they treated according to their deserts from mankind they would meet every where with Chains and Strappadoes 4. To Scoff Religion is ridiculously proud and immodest And the scorner supposeth that he sees more with one twinkle of his eye than the wisest most learned and most considering part of mankind have seen in all their most serious and laborious observations Certainly if Religion be a deceit it is not so thin and transparent a one as to be presently looked through by every whiffler and swilling Buffoon If it is an Imposture 't is such a one as hath impos'd upon the wisdom of all Ages upon all the old World and upon the greatest part of the present And be it what it will it hath made it self very plausible by the helps of reason and Arts of Learning and it would be very Strange if after all it should be detected and made so naked by every one that can laugh and break a Jest It would be wonderful if the Mystery hid from Ages the Grand cheat of Religion should at last be found out by Raileurs and Songsters That it should so long have been conceal'd from the wise and prudent in all their disquisitions and reasonings and be reveal'd at last to Debauchees and Jesters amid the wild inspirations of Wine and Ale Suppose the worst and let Religion be as false and as ridiculous as can be imagin'd the Scoffers that deride it are impudent to pretend that They have found it out They find the folly and falshood of Religion Let them find new Fashions or new Oaths things suitable to their genius and capacities But for shame let not them talk of discoveries about Religion Or if they must be medling here let them first learn their Catechisms and know what Religion is And when they understand what they Scoff at let them Scoff on if they can 5. To deride Religion is a dangerous and unsafe practice For the Scoffer is not sure that he is wiser than all mankind that hath reverence for it He hath no demonstration to prove Religion false and ridiculous Nor is he absolutely certain that there is no Immortality or future judgement So that suppose it should prove true at last that there will be a general day of account and men shall be summon'd by Christ Jesus to be judg'd according to his Gospel for a state of eternal happiness or woe what is the case of the Scoffer then yea what will it be at that day will his mirth hold when the Judge shall appear or will his Wit recreate and support him when he shall be call'd to the Bar will he have any heart to droll when the Sentence is past or will he applaud himself in having made Hell his sport when he feels it will he shew himself good company among the Devils and his Angels or make pastime of Heaven and Religion amid the flames of Brimstone I say 't is possible at least that what we have heard of a day of Judgement and a future state of Heaven and Hell Angels and Devils may be real And if it be the Scoffer is undone to Eternity undone So that he is extreamly a fool to venture so great a stake as the life and happiness of his Soul for evermore upon a confidence that may deceive him yea he doth it upon a presumption that hath not as much as any good probabilities to incourage it For if Religion be not certain yet most of the appearances lie that way and no wise man would hazard his soul against such shews of truth especially when the gain for which he runs the risque must needs be very little and the loss will be infinite and irreparable If Religion proves false the Scoffer gains the satisfaction of a little merriment and sport and it may be of being taken for a Wit among his companions But if it be true he loseth the vision and enjoyment of God and the eternal happiness and perfection of his soul he falls under the vengeance of the most High and into the power of Devils under the stings of Conscience and into the pains of Hell Now what man in his wits would run the venture of such fatal losses and miseries for such trivial Nothings of advantage He were mad that would stake his Estate and Life to get a pin or a feather in a case wherein he could have no assurance and he were more so that would do it when there was odds against him If there were ten thousand probabilities on the part of Infidelity without certainty no wise man would lay all his Interests upon it when no more could be got by it than the pleasure of a little laughing But to do it when so many
Doctrines both Christ and his Apostles continually appealed Here is the firm reasonable Foundation of the Christian certainty The truths we believed are confirmed by Miracles than which there can be no greater evidence But now the Roman Church destroys this ground of certainty by a multitude of lying wonders which they impudently obtrude upon the belief of the people for proof and confirmation of their false and corrupt Religion the immediate consequence of which is a suspicion thereby brought upon the true Miracles and here is way made for Scepticism and uncertainty in the greatest and most Sacred Christian Doctrines And besides the Church of Rome having introduced among these many doubtful uncertain and many certainly false opinions and imposed them upon the faith of its votaries under the same obligations as it doth the most fundamental Articles what can be the consequence but that those who discover the errour or uncertainty of some of those pretended propositions of Faith should doubt all the rest And indeed since the main assurance is placed in the Infallibility of that Church for which there is so no reason and so much plain evidence to the contrary Since themselves cannot tell where that boasted Infallibility is whether in Pope or Council if we should allow them any such it follows that their Faith is precarious and hath no foundation at all In like manner the Sects among us resolve all their assurance either into a bare belief or the testimony of a private Spirit for their ground of crediting the Scriptures is but this Testimony and consequently whatever they receive from hence bottoms here The Papists believe the Scripture on the Testimony of the Church and these believe them on the Testimony of the Spirit that is in earnest the suggestions and resolutions of their own viz. they believe because they will believe and they find themselves inclin'd unto it And upon the same reason when the imagination and humour alters they may cease to believe or believe the contrary And there is not any thing in the world more various and uncertain than the suggestions and impulses of a private Spirit Besides the Sects also have vastly multiplied Articles of Faith and made all their private opinions sacred calling them Gospel truths precious truths saving truths and the like when they are but uncertainties at the best and usually false and sensless imaginations by which way also they expose the whole body of Christian Principles to suspicion and so weaken the Faith of some and destroy the Faith of others But the Church of England secures the certainty of our Faith by resolving it into the Scriptures the true seats of Infallibility and the belief of that into the Testimony of the Spirit in the true sense viz. that Testimony that God gave by his Spirit to Christ and his Apostles in those miraculous works he enabled them to perform They did not only bear witness of themselves that as our Saviour argues with the Jews Luk. 11. 48. would not have signified much The Father bore witness with them John 15. 8. and the works they performed by his power were the sure testimony Believe me for the works sake saith our Saviour Here is the ground of certainty And the Church of England entertains no Articles of Faith but those principles that have been so confirm'd that is none but what are evidently contain'd in the Holy Scriptures Whereas the Roman Church to mention no other have made the absurd Doctrine of Transubstantiation sacred though it is not only not contained in Scripture but contrary to the reason and even to the sound senses of mankind And if neither reason nor so much as our senses may be believ'd what assurance can we have of any thing A ground is here laid for everlasting Scepticism and uncertainty And the Sects have laid the same in their numerous silly tenents that are contrary to some of the most fundamental principles of Reason Nothing of which can with any shew be objected against this Church 6. The Faith delivered to the Saints was Catholick 'T was deliver'd to all the Saints entertain'd by all and was not only the opinion and belief of a prevailing Faction or of particular men in Corners The Commission given the Disciples was to go and teach all Nations and to preach the Gospel to every creature and accordingly it was widely diffused and all that profest the name of Christ were instructed in his Faith and Religion in all the articles and duties of it that were essential and necessary In these they joyn'd in holy love and communion till Sects came among them that introduced damnable Heresies contrary to the doctrine they had received These divided from the Unity of the pure Catholick Church and separated themselves from it gathering into select companies of their own under pretence of more Truth and Holiness After this manner the Church of Rome which had for some ages been eminent in the Catholick Church did at last corrupt and introduce divers unsound doctrines and usages unknown to the Ancient Catholicks and being great and powerful it assumed the name of the Catholick Church to it self and condemn'd all other Christians as Hereticks when it was it self but a grand Sect against whose depraved doctrines and ways there was a Church in all ages that did protest For the Greek Churches which are of as large extent as theirs never assented to them and divers other Christians in all times bore Testimony against those errours and depravations This Sect was large and numerous indeed but 't is not the number but the principles make the Catholick Principles conformable to those that were deliver'd to the Saints From these they have departed And the lesser Sects among us have done the same by the many vain additions that they have made to the Faith and their unjust Separation from that Church which retains the whole body of Catholick Doctrines and main Practices without the mixture of any thing Heretical or unlawful A Church that doth not damn all the world besides her own members as the Roman Church and divers of the Sects do but extends her Charity to all Christians though many of them are under great mistakes and so is truly Catholick both in her Principles and Affections I mean the Church of England as now established by Law which God preserve in its purity Amen FINIS A SERMON Preached at the FUNERAL OF M r. Jos Glanvil Late Rector of BATH and Chaplain in Ordinary to His Majesty Who dyed at his Rectory of Bath the fourth of November 1680. and was Buried there the Ninth of the same Month. By Jos Pleydell Arch-Deacon of Chichester LONDON Printed for Henry Mortlock at the Sign of the Phoenix in St. Pauls Church-yard and the White Hart in Westminster-Hall 1681. REVEL XIV Ver. 13. And I heard a voice from Heaven saying unto me Write Blessed are the dead which dye in the Lord from henceforth yea saith the Spirit that they may rest from their
say when I consider these and then look upon Man as a reasonable Creature apprehensive of Duty and interest and apt to be moved by hopes and fears I cannot but wonder and be astonisht to think that notwithstanding all this the far greater part of men should finally miscarry and be undone 'T is possible some such Considerations might be the occasion of the question propounded to our Saviour in the verse immediately foregoing the Text. Lord are there Few that be saved God is Love and all the Creatures are His and Man a nobler sort He is the Lover of Men and Thou art the Redeemer of Men and though Man hath offended yet God is propense to pardon and in Thee he is reconciled He is desirous of our Happiness and Thou art come into the world to offer and promote it and the Holy Ghost is powerful and ready to assist our endeavours We were made for happiness and we seek it And Lord are there Few that be saved The Text is Christ's return to the Question Strive to enter in at the strait Gate for many I say unto you will seek to enter and shall not be able In which words we have three things I An Answer imply'd strait is the Gate II A duty exprest strive to enter III A Consideration to engage our greater care and diligence in the Duty For many will seek to enter and shall not be able By the Gate we may understand the entrance and all the way of Happiness and that is Religion By the straitness of it the Difficulties we are to encounter By striving earnest and sincere endeavour By seeking an imperfect striving And from the words thus briefly explain'd These Propositions offer themselves to our Consideration I. There are many and great difficulties in Religion The Gate is strait II. The difficulties may be overcome by striving Strive to enter III. There is a sort of striving that will not procure an entrance For many will seek to enter in and shall not be able I begin with the First in order viz. That there are many and great difficulties in Religion And to what I have to say about it I premise this negative Consideration That The Difficulties of Religion do not lye in the Understanding Religion is a plain thing and easie to be understood 'T is no deep subtilty or high-strain'd notion 't is no gilded fancy or elaborate exercise of the brain 'T is not plac'd in the clouds of Imagination nor wrapt up in mystical cloathing But 't is obvious and familiar easie and intelligible First preach't by Fishermen and Mechanicks without pomp of speech or height of speculation addrest to Babes and Plebeian heads and intended to govern the wills of the honest and sincere and not to exercise the wits of the notional and curious So that we need not mount the wings of the wind to fetch Religion from the stars nor go down to the deep to fetch it up from thence For 't is with us and before us as open as the day and as familiar as the light The great Precepts of the Gospel are cloathed in Sun-beams and are as visible to the common eye as to the Eagle upon the highest perch 'T is no piece of wit or subtilty to be a Christian nor will it require much study or learned retirement to understand the Religion we must practise That which was to be known of God was manifest to the very Heathen Rom. 1. 19. The Law is light saith Solomon Prov. 6. 13. And 't is not only a single passing glance on the eye but 't is put into the heart and the promise is that we shall all know him from the greatest to the least Our duty is set up in open places and shone upon by a clear Beam 'T was written of old upon the plain Tables of Habakkuk Hab. 2. 2. So that the running Eye might see and read And the Religion of the H. Jesus like himself came into the world with Rays about its Head Religion I say is clear and plain and what is not so may concern the Theatre or the Schools may entertain mens Wits and serve the Interests of Disputes but 't is nothing to Religion 't is nothing to the Interest of mens Souls Religion was once a Mystery but the Mystery is revealed And those things that we yet count Mysteries are plainly enough discover'd as to their being such as we believe them though we cannot understand the manner how and 't is no part of Religion to enquire into that but rather It injoyns us meekly to acquiesce in the plain declarations of Faith without bold scrutiny into hidden things In short I say the difficulties of Religion are not in the Understanding In prompto facili est aeternitas said the Father The affairs of eternity depend on things Easie and Familiar And I premise this to prevent dangerous mistakes But though Religion be so facile and plain a thing to be understood yet the way to Heaven is no broad or easie Path The Gate is strait enough for all that and I now come to shew what are the real difficulties of Religion and whence they arise I. One great Difficulty ariseth from the depravity of our Natures The Scripture intimates That we are conceived in sin Psalm 55. 5. Transgressours from the Womb Isaiah 48. 8. Children of Wrath Ephes 2. 3. And we find by Experience that we bring vile Inclinations into the World with us Some are naturally Cruel and Injurious Proud and Imperious Lustful and Revengeful Others Covetous and Unjust Humourfome and Discontented Treacherous and False And there is scarce an instance of habitual vice or villany but some or other are addicted to it by their particular Make and Natures I say their Natures for certainly it is not true what some affirm to serve their Opinions in contradiction to Experience That Vices are not in Mens natural Propensions but instill'd by corrupt Education evil Customes and Examples For we see that those whose Education hath been the same do yet differ extreamly from each other in their inclinations And some whose Breeding hath been careless and loose who have seen almost nothing else but Examples of Vice and been instructed in little besides the arts of Vanity and Pleasure I say there are such who notwithstanding these their unhappy circumstances discover none of those vile Inclinations and Propensions that are in others whose Education hath been very strict and advantageous This I think is enough to shew that many of our evil habits are from Nature and not from Custom only And yet I cannot say that Humane nature is so debaucht that every Man is inclin'd to every Evil by it For there are those who by their Tempers are averse to some kind of Vices and naturally disposed to the contrary Vertues some by their Constitutions are inclined to hate Cruelty Covetousness Lying Impudence and Injustice and are by Temper Merciful Liberal Modest True and Just There are kinds of Vices which
HIS was that they may be perswaded to conform theirs unto it and though mens understandings are convinced already that Charity is their Duty yet there is but too much need to represent some of the vast heap of injunctions that make it so to incline their Wills I shall therefore briefly lay together a few of the chief instances of this kind that you may have the distincter sense of the reasons of your Duty and from them the most powerful motives to enforce it In order to this let us consider in short the Injunctions of Christ and the teachings of his Apostles Our Saviour urgeth it as his New Commandment John 13. 34. and inculcates it again under the obliging form of his Command John 15. 12. He makes it a distinguishing note of his Disciples John 13. 35. and enjoyns them to love their Enemies Mat. 5. 24. He mentions it as the great qualification of those on his Right hand that shall be received into his Kingdom Mat. 25. 34 35. and the want of it as the reason of the dreadful Curse pronounced upon those miserable ones on the Left at the solemn Judgement ver 41 42. St. Paul calls Love the fulfilling of the Law Rom. 13. 8 9 10. and sets it in the first place among the fruits of the Spirit Gal. 5. 22. yea reckons it five times over under other Names in the Catalogue viz. those of Peace Long-suffering Gentleness Goodness Meekness ver 22 23. He advanceth it above all Gifts and Graces 1 Cor. 13. above the Tongues of Men and Angels ver 1. and above Prophecie and Mysteries and Knowledge and Faith ver 2. And the beloved Disciple St. John who lay in the Bosom of his Dear Lord and seems to partake most of his Spirit is transported in the commendation of this Grace He tells us that God is love 1 John 4. 7. and repeats it again ver 16. He makes it an Argument of our being born of God and Knowing Him ver 7. and the want of this an evidence of not Knowing God ver 8. He counts it the mark of Discipleship aâ—d the contrary a sign of one that abideth in Death 1 John 3. 14. He calls him a Murtherer that hates another ver 15. and a Lyar if he pretends to Love God and loveth not his Brother 1 John 4. 20. In fine he out-speaks the greatest heights of Praise when he saith God is Love and he that loveth dwelleth in God and God in him 1 John 4. 16. I might represent further that we are commanded to Love without dissimulation Rom. 12. 9. to be kindly affectioned one towards another ver 10. to put on the Breast-plate of Faith and Love 1 Thess 5. 8. to be pitiful and courteous 1 Pet. 3. 8. to provoke one another to love and to good works Heb. 10. 24. to serve one another Gal. 5. 13. to love as Brethren 1 Pet. 3. 8. We are minded of Christ's New Commandment 1 Joh. 3. 23. and of the Message which was from the beginning That we should love one another ver 11. and are urged by the consideration of Gods loving us 1 John 4. 1. Thus the Apostles exhort and teach and they Pray that our Love may abound Phil. 1. 9. and 1 Thess 3. 12. and give solemn Thanks for it when they have found it 2 Thess 1. 3. And now considering the expresness of all these places I cannot see but that any Duty of Religion may be more easily evaded than this and those who can fansie themselves Christians and yet continue in the contrary Spirit and Practice may conceit themselves religious though they live in the constant commission of the greatest sins And if such can quiet their Consciences and shuffle from all these plain Recommendations and Injunctions they have found a way to escape all the Laws of God and may when they please become Christians without Christianity For the evidence I have suggested to prove the necessity of this Duty doth not consist in half Sentences and doubtful Phrases in fancied Analogies and far-fetcht Interpretations but in plain Commands and frequent Inculcations in earnest Intreaties and pressing Importunities in repeated Advices and passionate Commendations And those whom all these will not move are Incapable of being perswaded against their humour or their interest to any Duty of Religion So that though I see never so much eagerness for an Opinion or Heat for an indifferent Circumstance without the conscience of Christian Love I shall never call that forwardness for those little things Zeal or Religion Yea though those warm men should sacrifice their Lives to their beloved Trifles I should not think them Martyrs but fear rather that they went from one Fire to another and a Worse And in this I have the great Apostle to warrant me who saith Though I give my body to be burned and have not Charity it profiteth me nothing 1 Cor. 13. 3. Thus of the First Head the Necessity of the duty I Come to the II. the Extent Our Love ought 1. To be extended to all Mankind The more general it is the more Christian and the more like unto the Love of God who causeth his Sun to shine and his Rain to fall upon the Good and upon the Evil. And though our Arms be very short and the ordinary influence of our kindness and good will can reach but to a very few yet we may pray for all men and desire the good of all the world and in these we may be charitable without bounds But these are not all Love obligeth us to relieve the Needy and help the Distressed to visit the Sick and succour the Fatherless and Widows to strengthen the Weak and to confirm the Staggering and Doubting to encourage the Vertuous and to reprove the Faulty and in short to be ready in all the offices of Kindness that may promote the good of any man Spiritual or Temporal according to the utmost of our power and capacity The good man is Merciful to his Beast and the Christian ought to be Charitable to his Brother and his Neighbour and every man is our Brother and every one that Needs us is our Neighbour And so our Love ought to extend to all men universally without limitation though with this distinction II. That the more especial Objects of our Love ought to be those that agree with us in a common Faith Gal. 6. 10. that is All Christians as Christians and because such Whatever makes our Brother a Member of the Church Catholick that gives him a title to our nearer affections which ought to be as large as that Our Love must not be confin'd by names and petty agreements and the interests of Parties to the corners of a Sect but ought to reach as far as Christianity it self in the largest notion of it To love those that are of our Way Humour and Opinion is not Charity but Self-love 't is not for Christ's sake but our own To Love like Christians is to Love his Image
from whom we are so called And that consists not in demure Looks and affected Phrases in melting Tones and mimick Gestures in Heats and Vehemence in Rapture and Ecstasie in systems of Opinion and scrupulosity about Nothing But in Faith and Patience Innocence and Integrity in Love to God and Charity to all the World in a modest sweetness and humble Deportment in a peaceable Spirit and readiness to obey God and Those He hath set over Us Where-ever These are there is the Image of our Lord and There ought to be our Love though the persons thus affected are Ignorant of many things and err in many though they differ from us in some Opinions we count Orthodox and walk not in the particular ways or Circumstances which We esteem Best And thus briefly of the Extent of the Duty we ought to Love ALL MEN but especially ALL Christians I descend to the Third general viz. III. The Excellency of Christian Love which I represent in the following particulars I. IT is the Image of God and of all the graces renders us most like our Maker For God is love and the Lover of men and his tender Mercies are over all his Works And the most sutable apprehension we can form of his Being is to look on him as an Omnipotent Omniscient Immutable Goodness And is it not a glorious Excellency that makes Men like the fountain of all perfection Our unhappy first Parents lost Paradise by aspiring to be like God in Knowledge and if we endeavour to be like him in Love we shall be in the way of gaining a better Paradise than they lost II. LOVE is the Spirit of Angels Glorified Souls and the best of Men. There is nothing by which the Angelical nature is so much distinguish'd from the Diabolical as Love and Goodness for the Devils have Spiritual and Immortal natures and great degrees of Power and Knowledge and those perhaps not much inferiour to what is to be found in some of the better Spirits so that the great difference is not in the excess of natural perfections which the Angels of Light have above those of Darkness but in this that the former abound in Love Sweetness and Benignity and the latter in Malice Cruelty and Revenge these are the very Image of Satan and Spirit of Hell Whereas all the Celestial Inhabitants live in the joyful exercise of uninterrupted Love and endearments Nor is that Love confined to the blessed and glorified Company but it sheds it self abroad upon the nether world and they are Ministring Spirits for our good Heb. 1. 14. They so far Love us that they can stoop from Heaven to serve us There is Joy there at the Conversion of a Sinner and no doubt there is Love to converted Saints and care and pity for all the rest of Men. For the spirits of the just made perfect are freed from their froward humours and pettish natures their mistaken Zeal and fondness of Opinions which straitned their Affections while they were on Earth and now they are inlarged by the vast improvements of their Knowledge and accomplishment of their Vertue by a fuller sense of Divine Love and of their Duty by the genius of their company and the imployment of the happy Place So that in Heaven all are truly Catholick in their Affections And the better any man is the more he is so upon Earth The good man makes not himself his center nor are his thoughts wholly engrost about his own concernments but he is carefully solicitous for the general benefit and never so much pleased as when he is made an instrument of Divine Goodness to promote the interests of his Christian brethren 'T was an high strain of Love in Moses exprest towards the Transgressing Israelites when he was content to be blotted out of Gods Book rather than that their Sin should not be blotted out Exod. 32. 32. And St. Paul was no less Zealously affectionate towards the Jews when he said he could wish himself accursed from Christ viz. separated from Christian communion as a most vile and abject person for their sakes Rom. 9. 3. These were spirits whom Religion and Divine Love had enlarged and the more any man advanceth in Christianity the nearer he approacheth to this generous heroick temper III. LOVE is an eminent branch of the Divine Life and Nature Love is of God and every one that Loveth is born of God saith the Apostle 1 John 4. 7 8. The Divine Nature in us is the Image of God Pourtray'd and lively drawn upon the regenerated Soul and I noted before that Love is the vital Image of our Maker 't is His spirit infused into us and growing in us and upon that account to be preferred before all Gifts and natural Perfections as St. Paul hath done it in the mentioned 1 Cor. 13. And the common Gifts of the Spirit differ from this special Grace as the Painters Picture doth from his Son His Counterfeit may indeed in a superficial appearance to the Eye resemble him more than his Child but yet it is but an empty shadow destitute and incapable of his Life and Nature So there are a sort of Gifts that have a spiritual appearance and may to those that see things at distance or have not their senses exercised seem more like the divine nature than this modest vertue But those that come near them and are better able to discern perceive that in themselves they are without the Divine Life and Motion and are meer Lifeless Pictures And here I dare say that the happiest faculty to Preach Plausibly and Pray with Fluency and Eloquence to Discourse Devoutly and readily to Interpret Scripture if it be not joyned with a benign and charitable spirit is no participation of the God-like life and nature nor indeed any more Divine than those common gifts and natural parts which those that think highly of themselves upon these accounts despise For very Evil men have been eminent in these accomplishments and Wicked Spirits are without question endowed with them and they are of themselves arguments of nothing but a faculty of Imitation a devotional Complexion and warm Imagination Whereas on the other hand Charity and Christian Love are good Evidence of a Renewed state and nature Our Saviour made it a Character Joh. 13. and the Apostle concludes from it 1 John 3. 14. By this we know that we are passed from death to life because we love the Brethren And if this be a Mark and St. John be not mistaken I doubt that some who are very gracious by many Signs of their own will want one of Christs to prove their comfortable presumption IV. LOVE is the bond and tye of Christian Communion How can two walk together except they are agreed The Church is a Body consisting of many Members which unless they Unite and send their mutual supplies one to another the whole is distempered and in the ready way to Death and Dissolution Now Charity is that vital Cement whereby they
are United and the Soul by which the common body lives that whereby the League between the members is preserved and health with it When this decays sad symptoms and mortal evils follow We see in Nature the great Fabrick of the World is maintained by the mutual Friendship and conspiracy of its parts which should they universally fall out and break the bond of Amity that is between them should they act their Antipathies upon each other yea should they but cease to serve one another for the general good the whole frame would be dissolved and all things shuffled into their old Chaos and Abyss And the greatest evils that have or can happen to the Church have been the effects of the Decay of Charity and those intestine Divisions that have grown up in it From these she hath always suffered more than from external persecutions The flames within have consumed her when those from without have only sindg'd her garments V. LOVE is the most Catholick grace and upon that account the most excellent since that which promotes the good of the whole is better than any private perfection for which reason things in nature will quit their particular interests when the common good so requireth as heavy bodies will ascend and light bodies descend to prevent a chasm and breach in Nature Now of all the divine vertues there is none of so large an influence as Love 't is a grace designed for the good of the community as the principle of self-Love is for the preservation of particular beings This stirs up our endeavours for the good of others and especially for the general good The Church receives no wound but Love feels the smart of it nor is any member of it afflicted but Love is grieved This is the very Spirit of our dear Lord who was touched with a feeling of our Infirmities And to these I add this last VI. LOVE commends Christianity to those without and cleanseth the Profession of it from many Spots it hath contracted within The generality of men are not able to judge of Religions themselves but usually reckon of them as they do of their Professors Whatever is excellent or else unworthy in a Votary of Religion redounds to the credit or disparagement of the Religion he hath adopted So that were the charity and goodness of Christianity transcribed into the lives of Christians it would ravish the eyes of all Beholders and out-shine all other Professions Men would more easily be perswaded to believe that Religion to be from God whose Professors they saw to be so God-like Love and goodness prevail where nothing else will these win and captivate the Soul And such conquests are better and more noble than either those of Arts or Arms which only bring the body under 'T is but small credit to any Religion to cut its way by the Sword or gain upon the world by Power or Policy That which opens it self a passage by its native loveliness and beauty is the most Illustrious and makes the surest and most generous Conquests And were Christendom but Christian in this regard and the Professors of the true Religion truly Religious that is abounding in that charity and goodness which Christianity enjoyns our Religion would spread its wings through the World and all contrary Professions would lie in the dust before it Whereas the Divisions and fatal feuds of Paganized degenerated Christendom are now the great partition-Wall between Us and the Heathen-World yea they are more particularly the great scandal of the Reformation and make us the scorn of Those of Rome And O that They that speak and pray much against the Beast would not prove instrumental to uphold his Throne We expect and hope for glorious times when the Man of Sin is faln and doubtless there shall be such But then the glory of those times consists not in external rule or dominion of the Church but in the Universal Restauration of it to its primitive Simplicity and Purity Then will the Church be Glorious indeed when all Christians shall unite upon the Foundation of an Holy Life and the joynt Profession of the few plain Fundamentals of Faith When they shall make real Goodness the Object of their affections towards each other and all Differences in Opinions and dispensable Practices the Objects of their mutual Forbearance When such times as these shall come then doth the Reign of Christ begin And this is the true and wish't Millennium Now we cannot expect those glorious days which are to Commence upon the Fall of Anti-christ till we see all Christians sincerely set upon Destroying what is Anti-christian in themselves Anti-christ will not be overthrown by our declaiming against Him and spitting the fire of Rage at the Infallible Chair It will be to better purpose for us to examine what of Anti-christianism remains in our selves And while Rancour and Bitterness Rage and Animosities upon the Account of Difference in smaller Opinions are in our Borders Anti-christ hath a Throne among us and there is nothing could be so Effectual a Blow at the Root of Anti-christianism as the exercise of Charity and Catholick Goodness And when we see these take place then may we Triumphantly sing forth BABYLON IS FALN I Come now Fourthly to the Means of attaining this excellent and Catholick Temper And I propose them by way of DIRECTION CONSIDERATION and CAUTION The DIRECTIONS are these I. Acknowledge worth in any man Whatever is good is from God and He is to be lov'd and owned in all things as well in the Paint upon the Butter-flies wing as in the glorious uniform lustre of the Sun as well in the composure of the little Ant as in the vast Bodies of the Whale or Elephant In the least Herb under our feet as well as in the Stupendous Fabrick of the Heavens over us And moral Perfections are to be acknowledg'd as well as these natural ones We are to love Vertue in an Heathen and whatever is Well or Worthy in those whose Apprehensions are most distant from our own And we must take care that we make not our Relish the Measure of Worth and Goodness Say not this is excellent because 't is agreeable to your particular Palates and that on the other hand is Vile and Loathsom because 't is distastful to your Gust and Genius There are various kinds and degrees of Excellency which differently affect the diversity of Tempers and Constitutions And at the best we are Imperfectly good and therefore cannot be the Measure of it Let us then be so Ingenuous as to own the vertue and the goodness that is in all parties and Opinions Let us commend and love it This will be a means to sweeten our Spirits and to remove the Animosities we are apt to conceive against the Persons of Dissenters and 't will ingage them on the other hand to a greater kindness for us and so Lessen our Distance and Disagreements There is a kind of Spirit among some which is so
He that is extreme in his Principles must needs be narrow in his Affections whereas he that stands on the middle path may extend the arms of his Charity to those on both sides It is indeed very natural to most to run into extremes and when men are faln Out with a Practice or Opinion they think they can never remove to too great a distance from it being frighted by the steep before them they run so far back till they fall into a precipice behind them Every Truth is near an Errour for it lies between two Falshoods and he that goes far from One is apt to slip into the other and while he flies from a Bear a Lyon meets him So that the best way to avoid the Danger is to steer the middle Course in which we may be sure there is Charity and Peace and very probably Truth in their Company Thus of my Directions FOr CONSIDERATIONS I 'le propose such as shew the Unreasonableness of our Enmities and Disagreements upon the account of different Opinions which will prove that our Affections ought to meet though our Judgements cannot My first is this I. Love is part of Religion but Opinions for the sake of which we lose Charity are not so The First I have proved already and for the other we may consider That Religion consists not in knowing many things but in practising the few plain things we know THE NECESSARY PRINCIPLES OF FAITH LYE IN A LITTLE ROOM This is Life Eternal to know thee the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent Saith he that best knew what was Eternal Life and what necessary unto it Joh. 17. 3. And the Apostle St. Paul draws up all into the same two Principles He that cometh unto God must know that he is and that he is a Rewarder of them that diligently seek him Heb. 11. 6. St. Peter was pronounced blessed upon the single Profession that Jesus was Christ the Son of the Living God Mat. 16. 16. and the Eunuch was baptized upon the same Act. 8. 37. St. Paul reckons these as the only Necessaries to Salvation Rom. 10. 9. If thou confess with thy Mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in thy heart that God hath raised him from the Dead thou shalt be save And St. John to the same purpose Whosever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God This Faith indeed must suppose the general Principles of natural Religion and produce the Real Fruits of Righteousness to make it effectual to its end and these supposed the Apostles speak as if it contain'd all that is essentially necessary to be believed and known in order to our Happiness Thus the Fundamentals of belief are few and plain For certainly the Divine Goodness would not lay our Eternal Interests in Difficulties and multitudes things hard to be understood and retained The difficult work of Religion is not in the Understanding but in the Affections and Will So that the Principles in which Religion consists are the clearly revealed Articles in which we are agreed For the others about which we differ and dispute though some of them may be consequences of those and good helps to the practice of Religion yet I should be loth to make them a necessary and essential part of it For he that saith they are concludes all men under a state of Ruine and Damnation who either do not know or are not able to receive them An uncharitableness that is as bad as Heresie if it be not one it self The sum is Religion lies in few Principles I mean as to the Essence of it and that principally consists in Practice So the Prophet reckons Mic. 6. 8. He hath shewed thee O man what is good and what doth the Lord require of thee but to do Justice and love Mercy and to walk humbly with thy God And St. James gives an Account of Religion like it Jam. 1. 17. True Religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this to Visit the Widow and Fatherless in their Afflictions and to keep himself unspotted from the World Religion is an Holy Life and Charity is a main branch of that But Opinions are no vital part nor do they appertain to the substance of it And shall we lose a Limb for an Excrescence or an Ornament An Essential of Religion for that which is but accessary and extrinsick Charity for an Opinion I think 't is not reasonable and I hope you think so likewise But I offer to your Consideration II. Charity is certainly our Duty but many of the Opinions about which we fall out are uncertainly true viz. as to us The main and Fundamental Points of Faith are indeed as firm as the Centre but the Opinions of men are as fluctuating as the Waves of the Ocean The Root and body of a Tree is fast and unshaken while the Leaves are made the sport of every Wind And Colours sometimes vary with every position of the Object and the Eye though the Light of the Sun be an uniform Splendour The Foundation of God standeth sure but men often build upon it what is very Tottering and uncertain The great Truths of Religion are easily discernable but the smaller and remoter ones require more sagacity and acuteness to descry them and the best sight may be deceived about such obscure and distant Objects And methinks 't is very strange that men should be so excessively confident of the Truth and Certainty of their Opinions since they cannot but know the Weakness of Humane understanding in general and cannot but often have found the Fallibility of their own The Apostle tells us that we know but in part 1 Cor. 13. 9. and makes Confidence an Argument of Ignorance 1 Cor. 8. 2. If any man think that he knoweth any thing he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know And Solomon reckons it as an argument of Folly The Fool rageth and is confident and there is nothing that discovers it more For let us consider The Scripture hath not been so clear and express in defining lesser Points and the words in which they are thought to be Lodged are many times figurative and obscure and of various meaning spoken only by the by or agreeably to forms of speech or customs that we do not know or by way of condescension to common Apprehension And therefore we see that Interpretations are infinite and there is no sort of men less agreed than Commentators All Opinions plead Scripture and many pretend to reason and most to Antiquity The Learned and the Prudent Churches and Councils Confessors and Fathers the former and the latter Ages the Vertuous and the Devout the Credulous and the Inquisitive they have all differ'd in the lesser matters of Belief And every man differs from almost every other in some thing and every man differs often from himself in many things Age hath altered our Judgements or we are children still Our Affections change our Thoughts and our Imaginations shift the Scene
reverence of the most High which is a direct contempt of his perfections Now scorn is one of the greatest indignities especially it is sore and provoking when one is contemn'd by his inferiours and more when they are his dependants that have their bread from his Bounty such is the case here in all possible degrees of aggravation vilest worms and lowest dust scoff at the highest Majesty and fullest perfection The universal King our Soveraign before whom Angels bow and Devils tremble is derided by the slaves of his Kingdom and Creation The general Father and Benefactor flouted by those that have their Being and all their comforts from his goodness and cannot live or move or breathe without him Acts 17. 28. Instead of lowest reverence gratitude and prostrations they lift up their heads in proud scorn and defiance of him and as the Royal Psalmist speaks of them Psal 73. 18. They set their mouth against the Heavens 2. This is a sin that is a step beyond Atheism it self 'T is greater impiety to say God is a careless or a contemptible Being than to say He is not As the Moralist tells us He would rather it should be affirm'd that there was no such man as Plutarch than that it should be believ'd that there was such a man but that he was a vile and worthless person Now to deride Religion while we allow there is a God is to say by immediate consequence either that he is a careless and idle Greatness that heeds not his Creatures and so worship is an impertinence or that he is so bad or so mean a Being that he deserves not to be worshipp'd that is that we owe him no acknowledgement of his Being or his Bounty and which is more that 't is ridiculous to pay him any To deny the existence of God is gross and unreasonable but to acknowledge that and to scoff at the expressions of love and veneration of him is down-right madness So that if the scoffer be not an Atheist he is the more inexcusable in his scoffing and if possible he is worse 3. The humour of deriding Religion is monstrousness in the soul All sin is deformity but this is Horrid For a man to have his parts and members misplaced His legs suppose on his shoulders his eyes in his neck and his arms growing out of his belly is frightful but there 's a misplacing in the soul that is more ugly Man hath such powers given him as scorn and derision and while they are exercised against sin and folly there is nothing amiss in them But when they are misplaced upon holiness and wisdom upon the greatest and the purest upon the most visible and most universally acknowledg'd perfections they are then an excess of deformity in the soul and such scorners are greater monsters than the man that hath horns and hoofs 4. It is a wickedness beyond the degeneracy of Devils We read that They fought against the Angels the Ministers of God Rev. 12. 7. but never that they derided them for their Ministeries They oppose Gods ends and interests in the world but we find them not scoffing at Him No they believe and tremble Jam. 2. 19. This Fear is not a vertue indeed in those Apostate spirits and yet it proceeds from a sense and apprehension of divine power and vengeance But the impious Scoffers at Religion have out-grown that and are more bold than all the Legions of darkness They have so little dread of the wrath of God that by their scoffs they endeavour to provoke and as it were to dare him to pour his displeasure on them As if they had a mind to challenge the field with Him and to try the reality and force of his power and terrours Thus briefly of the malignity and aggravations of the sin of Scoffing at Religion There will be an occasion of saying more of it in the sequel I therefore descend now III. To an account of some Effects and Consequences of it and shall confine my self here also within the bounds of that which is mention'd as the character of these Scoffers in the Text Walking after their own Lusts We have seen that mens lusts are the ground and occasion of their scoffing and I add that this again is a cause of the greater heights and boldness of their Lusts like Water and Ice they produce one another Mens lusts put them upon scoffing at that which should restrain them and this through the judgement of God and the nature of the thing brings them at last to walk after their lusts in such obsequiousness and intireness that they follow them 1. Without any check or restraint upon their Lusts 2. Without power to forsake or disobey them 3. Without or with very little hope of remedy or deliverance from the dominion and sad consequences of them These are all dreadful things and such as frequently if not mostly follow upon the impious humour of scoffing at Relgion As to the first The Scoffers walk after their own lusts 1. Without restraint or check from the Spirit of God This strives long with sinners but it will not always strive with them that strive against it Gen. 6. 3. When men move with their Lusts as those that are joyn'd to them the holy Spirit will let them alone Hos 4. 17. And this impiety in the very nature of it is of all sins most likely to provoke Him to a dereliction of the sinner Since it is the greatest most direct and most intolerable affront of the most High and if any thing be a fighting against the Holy Spirit a vexing yea a blaspheming of Him This is Moreover such a sinner becomes a subject incapable of His communications Nothing that is sacrâ—d or serious makes any impression upon such whiffling spirits 't were as good attempt writing on the water or painting with a Pencil on the air as to think of fastening any sober sense upon the scoffer And when it is come to this that the sinner hath made himself incapable of any benefit from the influences of the Spirit He withdraws his solicitations from that miserable person He will not plough upon a rock nor sow upon the sands So that the man hath the advantage now of not being disturb'd in his pursuits by the grand Enemy of his lusts but is suffer'd to run upon the wrath of God and everlasting torments without controul from Him 2. The scoffer gets this priviledge also to walk after his own Lusts without check from his Conscience This is an Inward Judge that summons censures and condemns and while there is such a Court and such transactions in the sinners breast he cannot walk after his lusts in quiet But the scoffer takes a course with Conscience 1. He debauches it And 2. He makes it stupid As to the First it may be consider'd That when He enters upon the trade of deriding Religion he doth not believe it to be really so contemptible and ridiculous only he follows a fashion and
both and then the scuffle grows warm of Pride against Hypocrisie and the self-conceit of one Sect against the Pride of another and all against sobriety and truth and thus is the Church divided the interest of Religion weakned and the world prepared for Atheism But 2. Another instrument and Device Satan useth to imbroil the Church is Fantastick heat under the name and notion of divine zeal Fire is a subtile and powerful Divider and no fire like that which is supposed to come from the Altar though it be but a passionate flame kindled in a fiery temper that is only tinctured with Religion For every thing that is hot and vehement about Religious matters wears the name and Livery of Zeal and Zeal when 't is directed by good Principles to the ends of sobriety and vertue is a noble and generous temper but when 't is actuated by ignorance and evil principles and hurried on by blind impulses to the ends of rage and animosity 't is a dangerous and killing evil And like a fire-brand in a Magazine of powder which destroys without distinction and blows up every thing that resists the fury of its motion This then being fair in its pretence and mischievous in its effects Satan useth in his designs of dividing He kindleth some little Religious warmths in eager and violent Constitutions and blows the Coals till natural passion be concerned and fired So that at last what was at first only a spark of Religion becomes a mighty flame of Rage Then breaks he out upon the Church with this holy Fire destroys that Charity which is the bond of peace and fills all with smoak and vapour darkness and confusion He Christens this Jehu-like fury a Zeal for God and declaims against every thing that is sober and temperate as luke-warmness and indifference He gets into the Populace who have many grains of Rage for one of Judgement and hurries the poor mistaken Bigot together with the proud Pharisaical Dissenter and the silly conceited Schismatick into the same unavoidable ruine to eternal ages From which c. SERMON XI THE ANTIQUITY OF OUR FAITH Stated and Cleared SERMON XI JUDE I. 3. Beloved when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common Salvation it was needful for me to write unto you and exhort you that you should earnestly contend for the Faith which was once delivered to the Saints OUr Saviour tells us in the Parable that where the Husbandman had sown the good Seed there the enemy scatter'd Tares where God by his Spirit and Messengers hath planted Sacred and Divine truths there Satan sets Errours Heresies and Doctrines not according to Godliness These were early in the Christian Church even in the original Purity and Simplicity of it There were then Deceivers Lying Spirits Seducers who separated themselves from the Communion of the Church crept into houses led captive silly men and silly women privily brought in damnable Heresies even to the denying the Lord that bought them turned many from the faith to follow fables dreams and sensless imaginations Such there were then and St. Paul tells us that there must be Heresies 1 Cor. 11. 19. The lusts and various corruptions of men in conjunction with the permissions of God make them unavoidable Some of the first we read of in the Christian Church were the Judaizing Christians who taught the necessity of retaining the Mosaical law the denyers of the Resurrection and the vile Gnosticks who under pretence of more knowledge and higher priviledges abused Christian Liberty to all licentiousness and vileness of living making shipwrack both of Faith and Conscience Against these St. Peter St. James St. John particularly write in their Epistles and this of our Apostle St. Jude is all directed against that Heresie In opposition to which writing of the Common Salvation he saith it was needful to write unto them the true Catholicks and exhort them that they should earnestly contend for the Faith which was once deliver'd to the Saints This was needful in his days and 't is certainly as necessary in ours in which all the old Heresies are revived with the addition of new on which account the subject is too seasonable and I chose it at this time as a Preface to the discourses I intend on all the main Principles of the Christian Religion as I have already treated in order on all the Principal heads of the Natural In the words read two main propositions are implyed 1. That there was a Faith anciently deliver'd to the Saints 2. That all Christians are bound to contend and earnestly for that Faith which was deliver'd to those Saints I begin with the First There was a Faith deliver'd to the Saints Now aimidst the great diversity and contrariety of opinions that at present are in the Christian Church each entitling it self to the Faith that was originally deliver'd to the Saints it may seem a matter of difficulty to determine which is the right the true Faith which difficulty doth not arise so much from the nature of the thing as it doth from mens corrupt interests and affections disputing about it And therefore abstracting from these I shall endeavour to set before you the chief Characters of the true Faith by which you may judge what that is and where it is to be found And 1. The Faith we treat of is an Ancient Primitive Faith Quod verum id prius Truth was from the beginning Divers of the Doctrines with which our Saviour hath enlightned every one that cometh into the world were before his personal appearance in it Before Abraham was I am saith He and Abraham saw his day the discovery of his great truths and ways He was the Author and Finisher of our Faith In him it begun and it was consummate in his personal teaching and instructions of his immediate Disciples and Apostles who by the Spirit deliver'd to us what they had received from him Natural Truths are more and more discover'd by time For many go to and fro and Science shall be encreased But those divine verities are most perfect in their fountain and original They contract impurities in their streams and remote derivations and the way to discover the corruptions is to stand upon the old ways and see how it was in the beginning By this Character of the Faith that of the Roman Church is condemn'd For all the Doctrines and usages of that Church that are denyed and opposed by ours are in comparison Novelties and Innovations and whatever Antiquity they pretend to they were not primitive Their Image-Worship Invocation of Saints Half-Communion and Prayer in an unknown tongue are directly palpably contrary to the Holy Scriptures Their pretended Infallibility and Universality their Indulgences Purgatory and Transubstantiation with divers others of their Doctrines and usages are by plain consequence condemn'd by those Sacred Writings which are the repository of the ancient Faith and Practice and both the one and the other were unknown to the first and
ways they must not be parted with or silenc't no all Laws and Constitutions of Government must be thwarted overthrown rather Love and Peace and all must be sacrificed to the Idols which being so what quietness can there be from hence what peace or temper among such principles These perpetually annoy and disturb the Church and to know what they do in the State let us consider Germany Scotland and 't is to be hoped though we have frail memories on this side we shall not forget how peaceable the Sectaries have been in England or not observe how quiet they are at this day Remember I hope we shall for Caution I urge no other remembrance I wish they themselves did not remember them so well as we find they do by many of the same actions and discourses That Kings hold from the people are only Trustees for them and may be resisted and deposed when they fail in that trust are Politicks that do not much tend to civil peace and we know whose Principles those were and we have no great reason to think they have quitted them I can give but brief hints of things that would afford matter enough to fill Volumes as both Popish and Sectarian disloyalty Rebellions and disturbances would do But into these mens secrets let not our Souls come The Church that we some of us at least profess our selves to be members of teacheth no unpeaceable doctrines is guilty of no such practices It imposeth no Articles on our belief as necessary to our Salvation but the Ancient Creeds no terms of Communion but such reasonable orders and decencies as are free from all appearance of Idolatry and Superstition or any thing else that is unlawful as will appear to any rational man that shall take the pains to consider and will judge impartially nothing that is more burthensome or grievous than the Rites and usages of the Primitive Christian Church were which assertions I have in this place lately proved and divers of our Divines in their books have fully done it to the shame of Fanatical Gainsayers As to the concerns of civil peace our Church with Christ and his Apostles teacheth active chearful conscientious obedience to the King and subordinate Rulers in all lawful things and quiet submission to the penalties of not obeying when the things required are unlawful plainly certainly so And that we are not in this nor in any case to resist Suitable to this have been the practices of the people of this peaceable Church Among whom there hath not yet been found a Rebel We never heard of a Church of England-man in the late wars against the King nor of a Sectary for him But 4. The Faith deliver'd to the Saints was a reasonable Faith the understanding of man is the Candle of the Lord Prov. 20. 27. The light of Reason is his light with this The true light hath enlightned every one that cometh into the world Joh. 1. 9. and one light is not contrary to another there is difference in degree but no opposition of Nature Faith and Reason accord Yea Faith is an act of Reason 't is the highest reason to believe in God and the belief of our reason is an act of Faith viz. Faith in the truth and goodness of God that would not give us faculties to delude and deceive us when we rightly exercise and employ them By Faith Reason is further enlightned and by the use of Reason Faith is applyed Religion and Reason sweetly agree and nothing can be Religious that is unreasonable Religion is a reasonable service And by this Character Popery is disproved also For that imposeth on the practice and minds of men things that are extreamly unreasonable and absurd as Articles of Religion Such are the worship of invisible beings by Images of Wood or Stone and especially the Doctrine of Transubstantiation which is full of Contradictions as that the same body can be in a thousand places at once that at the same time it may be bigger and less than it self that it may move towards and from it self That it may be divided not into parts but wholes These and numerous other absurdities and contradictions to the reason of mankind are contain'd in the sensless mystery of Popish Transubstantiation To defend which the Doctors of that Church are put upon this miserable shift of denying all reason in Religion even the greatest and most fundamental Article of it That the same thing can be and not be which some of them say is the only method to confute Hereticks And while Reason and our Faculties are acknowledg'd we cannot entertain their non-sence nor be answer'd in our just oppositions of their gross absurdities On the other side the Character of a reasonable Faith condemns the Sects the greatest part of whose Divinity is made up of sensless absurd notions set forth in unintelligible Fantastical Phrases and these they account the heights of spirituality and mystery upon which they value and boast themselves as the only knowing the only spiritual people When there is nothing in all their pretended heights and spiritualities but vain imagination and dreaming and in v. 8. of this Epistle they are described by this Character 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Dreamers And as the light of Sense and Reason dispels the vain Images of Dreams so these admitted would cure Fanatical impostures and delusions For which cause there is nothing they so vehemently declaim against as Reason under the notion of carnal and as an enemy to the Spirit and the things of it There is indeed a carnal Reason that is enmity to truth and goodness but that is not the reason of our minds but the reason of our appetite passion and corrupt interest which is not reason truly so called no more than an Ape is a man But for want of thus distinguishing the things that so differ Enthusiasts rail violently against all Reason as the grand adversary of the truths and mysteries of the Gospel Their Tenents that she calls so will not bear that light But the Church of England teacheth no opinions no mysteries that need such a desperate course to defend them Its Articles of Faith are all contain'd in the Ancient Christian Creeds which are no way opposite to Reason in any Article yea Reason either proves or defends them all So that we never give out at this weapon but are ready to use it upon all occasions against Atheists and Infidels of all sorts The Church of England owns no Religion but what is reasonable 5. The Faith deliver'd to the Saints was certain it was deliver'd to them by those that had it from the holy Spirit of God in the way of immediate inspiration Those holy men spake as they were inspired And that they were really so was no fond imagination or bold presumption but a truth assured by those mighty miracles they were enabled to perform Those are Gods Seal and the grand confirmation of a commission from him and to this proof of their
publick places of worship those sacred houses of God deserted as if their walls were infected and exchang'd for private corners Such contempt is pour'd upon this excellent Church and all this reproach it suffers from the spiritual proud who think themselves wiser than the Aged not because they keep but because they break the Laws and phancy they are inlightned enough to be a Law unto themselves without needing the Rules of other Governours than those of their own Imaginations In the last days shall come Scoffers walking after their own lusts 2 Pet. 3. 3. Pharisaical as well Dehauch'd Scoffers who walk after their phantastical as the others do after their carnal lusts and therefore despise and contemn all Laws that should bound and restrain them But the Church suffers contempt also from the other sort the carnal proud have her exceedingly in derision and make mouths at her And we are faln into an Age in which to be a Church and to profess Religion not this or that but any is occasion enough with some and God knows not a few for contempt and scorning The fool in old time said in his heart There no God Psal 14. 1. but that folly hath put off its modesty in ours and vile men now set more than their hearts against the Heavens Psal 73. 9. 'T is wit to deride Religion and modish accomplishment to make merriment of things Sacred As if we were past the dispensation of disputing against God and were so certain that he is not or not to be worshipped that there were no more to be done now but to laugh at the silly belief of his Existence and the vain folly of adoring Him To this height we are come and by it have out-done the impudence of all former times and what we are to expect if this bold impiety be not stopt is very sad but very easie to foresee What are the effects of it at present we know and the Church wofully feels in the extream contempt and scorn that is upon it And by reason of the one sort of proud contemners and the other it may too justly complain in the words of the Jewish Church in the Lamentations I am a derision to all my people and their Song all the day and in the language of the Prophet How do I sit solitary that was full of people my ways mourn because few come to my solemn Feasts my Gates are desolate My Priests sigh and the precious Sons of Sion comparable to fine Gold are esteem'd as earthen pitchers the work of the hands of the Potter My adversaries are the chief my enemies prosper all my persecutors overtake me between the straights They hiss and gnash their teeth and say We have swallowed her up Certainly this is the day we looked for we have found we have seen it This is our case and O Lord have mercy upon us have mercy upon us for none other fighteth for us but only thou O God II. SInce we cannot be secure from contempt let us endeavour not to deserve it nor give occasion to that hatred and scorn which is upon the Church and its members This I shall take liberty to address 1. To my Brethren of the Clergy and 2. To the people that are yet in communion with us 1. As for Vs we are sure to be the first and deepest sharers of the contempt that is upon the Church And how it is with us at this day by reason of it is easie to see but deplorable to consider I desire not to speak fond or over-weaning things but this I think I may say with justice That no Church in the world enjoyes a more truly learned and sober Clergy than this and with as much truth I may affirm That no Clergy upon earth undergoes so great a burden of contempt The Heathens of all times and places of the world have had reverence for their Priests the Jews and Turks sacred respect for theirs the people of the Greek Churches pay great venerations to the meanest of the Priesthood the Romanists are very respectful to them Yea even the several Classes of Sects among us reverence their Teachers So that the dueness of respect to the Ministers of Religion seems to be the common acknowledgement of mankind grounded upon the Relation they have to God as his Embassadours and Stewards of his Mysteries and the nobleness and importance of the business they are employed in the conducting the souls of men to everlasting happiness But we the Clergy of this Church and only we seem to be cut off from the common acknowledg'd rights of Priesthood as if there were an exception against us in the general Rule and all the Ministers of Religion were to be honour'd except those of the Church of England In all cases else greatness of Relation and dignity of employment give title to respect But in this where the Relation is to the highest and the business is about things most worthy and most necessary the practice is quite otherwise and we are exposed by our character and employment to disesteem and neglect 'T is true we are guilty of many sins and imperfections that may occasion disrespect but I hope not in proportion to the contempt that is upon us In judging of all others men make abatements in consideration of the weakness of humane nature But we are under the Law I mean as to mens censures and are judg'd by the strictest severities there is no mitigation no pardon for us and it will not be considered that we are but dust Yea every Mote in our eye is made a beam every infirmity is blown up to an height of villany and every vice of which any person among us is guilty is reflected upon the whole Order So that were it not for the right we expect at a juster Bar than that of mans judgement we were of all men the most miserable for we are treated here as if we had no claim to the civility and good nature of mankind but were either another race of creatures or out laws of this The Apostle suppos'd it reasonable we should be counted worthy of double honour but the world thinks single respect too much for us and treble contempt scarce enough We are gone over as the stones in the street by the carnal proud and reckon'd as the dirt of it by the spiritual Scorners Yea there are scarce any whose condition is so bad or so low but think themselves good enough and great enough to despise us We look not for the great honours and venerations of the world and 't is not fit we should but yet there is no man that is not stupid but would be sensible of such treatment and I think we ought to resent it since the ground of our reproach is contempt upon Religion if not upon the Author of it Abstract us from our relation to that and our Order may without boasting pretend to as much wisdom and knowledge ingenuity and vertue as other men Our
Education is as handsome and ingenuous and I know not why the parts of the Clergy should not be equal to those of other ways of breeding So that we might pass well enough in the world and for ought I know might meet tolerable reception in it were it not that God hath honour'd us with the dignity of being his immediate Servants and hath employ'd us in the affairs of Souls But for this I can see no cause why we should not be as capable of the qualities that procure respect as others that have a competent measure of it And therefore upon the whole matter I must say that we are so far from having honour for our office and our work sake that we are lessened by them and if a Minister meet respective entertainment in the world the kindness is extorted by some personal advantages he owns and not given him for his character and Function no he 's taken down and is so much less in consideration of it So that God himself is affronted and Religion vilified by the excessive unreasonable contempt that is put upon the dispensers of his Truths and Laws And 't is pity that our concernment in this matter will not permit us without incurring more reproach roundly to reprove this indignity to our Lord and theirs who hath sent us in the most important errand to them But alas all we can do without the loud imputation of Preaching up our selves is to bear our Reproach in silence and to mourn in secret for that horrid Atheism and Scorn of all Religion or of the best which is the occasion of it and certainly where there is contempt of the Priesthood above board there is disvalue of Religion under it disrespect to one doth suppose and will soon produce irreverence to the other Upon the whole we see how great reason we have to be cautious that we contribute not to the contempt that is on Religion and our selves and justifie this impious barbarous Age in it And there is no better advice can be given to secure us from it than that of St. Paul to Timothy 1 Tim. 4. 16. Take heed unto thy self and to the doctrine It concerns us first to take heed of our selves to our Lives and Conversations We have many observers whose malice makes them critical and curious They lay in wait for our haltings and are glad at heart when they have caught an opportunity to revile us we are encompast on all hands by those envious pryers by the debauch'd on the one side and the Schismatical on the other The roaring Lyon is before us and the wily Serpent in the next ambush one would fain have an occasion from our miscarriages to tear and violate the honour of all Religion and the other to spit its venome against that which we profess It behoves us therefore to beware and to walk circumspectly not as fools but as wise because the daies are so evil In order hereunto I humbly recommend these Cautions in paticular that we take care not to be found guilty of 1. Pharisaism 2. Immorality or 3. Negligence in our calling 1. Pharisaick righteousness and Phantastick heights of zeal beget great respects and venerations among the vulgar but contempt among those of better-understanding and there is nothing whereby Religion hath been more expos'd in the present Age than this Plain unaffected righteousness and sincerity is accountable in all times and hath still reputation among the most knowing but the flanting shews of the Pharisee are despised assoon as they are understood Our Righteousness then must exceed his not in pomp and appearance but in reality and sincere practice There is no one that understands the nature of Religion the constitution of our Church and the temper of the Age but knows it to be the present interest both of Church and Religion that Pharisaism which is the general humour that runs through all the Proud Sects should be discountenanc'd and detected and therefore we should take heed that we do not encourage the spreading vanity by any conformity unto it Indeed there is no other way lesenow to make us popular and to Crown us with the applauses of the people and those who affect that sort of glory and reputation are under great temptation to square their discourse and lives according to those vain models but those Ministers deserve to be despis'd that are possest by that low spirited ambition and do not prefer the pleasing God and Conscience and the few wise men before the pacifying the humours and receiving the caresses and applauses of ignorant and giddy Phantasticks and there are no sort of men worse enemies to this Church than these who while they pretend to be of it promote this spirit and humour that destroyes it 2. We ought on this as on all accounts else to shun all Immoralities of practice Vice makes any one contemptible among good men and us despicable among all The worst have an abhorrence of Debauchery or any degree of Prophaneness in the Clergy The best things degenerated are worst 'T is true live we how we will the malicious world will find accusations against us but we must take care we do not justifie their reproaches Though as things are in the present Age we are disabled from doing much to promote Religion by our Doctrine yet we may disserve it much by our lives The best that we can say doth but little good but the least evil that we do is cause of great hurt and mischief Men are hardned by it in their Contempt of Religion and we are made incapable of doing it or them any considerable service Or if we do nothing that is morally evil yet such is the world now that advantage will be taken of the least appearance every thing shall be urg'd against us that the wit of malice can make criminal And therefore it exceedingly concerns us to heed the Rule of the Apostle Avoid all appearances of evil 1 Thes 5. 22. we should take care not to come within the shadow of it We live in an Age in which 't is not enough for a Clergy-man to be innocent there is much wisdom and prudence necessary to keep that from having a stain upon it And though we be as harmless as Doves yet we shall not be thought to be so except we are as wise as Serpents Men were never more careless of their own conversations and never more exact observers and censurers of ours so that nothing will secure us in this Age from the tongues set on fire of Hell our only course is to be as much as we can out of their way And as far as our profession will give leave to draw our selves up into privacy and retirement For the Sea is too rough for us to be abroad upon it The summ is 'T is not possible for us to avoid contempt but we may avoid being accessary unto it if we take care that our Religion be not Pharisaical nor our practice immoral in reality or