from God who is Truth it self and with whom no shadow of Falshood can dwell He that telleth Lyes says David in Psalm 101.7 shall not tarry in my Sight and if not in the Sight of a poor Mortal man who could sometimes lye himself how much less in the Presence of the Infinite and All-knowing God A Wise and Good Prince or Governour will not vouchsafe a Lyar the Countenance of his Eye and much less the Privilege of his Ear. The Spirit of God seems to write this upon the very Gates of Heaven and to state the Condition of Men's Entrance into Glory chiefly upon their Veracity In Psalm 15.1 Who shall ascend into thy Holy Hill says the Psalmist To which it is answered in vers 2. He that worketh Righteousness and that speaketh the Truth from his Heart And on the other side how Emphatically is Hell described in the Two last Chapters of the Revelation by being the great Receptacle and Mansion-house of Lyars whom we shall find there ranged with the vilest and most detestable of all Sinners appointed to have their Portion in that Horrid place Revel 21.8 The Unbelieving and the Abominable and Murderers and Whoremongers and Sorcerers and Idolaters and all Lyars shall have their part in the Lake which burns with Fire and Brimstone And in Revel 22.15 Without are Dogs and Sorcerers c. and whosoever loveth and maketh a Lye Now let those consider this whose Tongue and Heart hold no Correspondence Who look upon it as a Piece of Art and Wisdom and the Master-piece of Conversation to over-reach and deceive and make a Prey of a credulous and well-meaning Honesty What do such Persons think Are Dogs Whoremongers and Sorcerers such desirable Company to take up with for ever Will the Burning Lake be found so tolerable Or will there be any one to drop Refreshment upon the false Tongue when it shall be tormented in those Flames Or do they think that God is a Lyar like themselves and that no such Things shall ever come to pass but that all these fiery Threatnings shall vanish into Smoak and this dreadfull Sentence blow off without Execution Few certainly can lye to their own Hearts so far as to imagine this But Hell is and must be granted to be the Deceiver's Portion not only by the Judgment of God but of his own Conscience too And comparing the Malignity of his Sin with the Nature of the Punishment allotted for him all that can be said of a Lyar lodged in the very Nethermost Hell is this That if the Vengeance of God could prepare any Place or Condition worse than Hell for Sinners Hell it self would be too good for him And now to summ up all in short I have shewn what a Lye is and wherein the Nature of Falshood does consist that it is a Thing absolutely and intrinsecally Evil that it is an Act of Injustice and a Violation of our Neighbour's Right And that the Vileness of its Nature is equalled by the Malignity of its Effects It being this That first brought Sin into the World and is since the Cause of all those Miseries and Calamities that disturb it and further that it tends utterly to dissolve and overthrow Society which is the greatest Temporal Blessing and Support of Mankind and which is yet worst of all that it has a strange and particular Efficacy above all other Sins to indispose the Heart to Religion And lastly That it is as dreadfull in its Punishments as it has been pernicious in its Effects For as much as it deprives a Man of all Credit and Belief and consequently of all Capacity of being usefull in any Station or Condition of Life whatsoever and next that it draws upon him the Just and Universal Hatred and Abhorrence of all Men here and finally subjects him to the Wrath of God and Eternal Damnation hereafter And now if none of all these Considerations can recommend and endear Truth to the Words and Practices of Men and work upon their Double Hearts so far as to convince and make them sensible of the Baseness of the Sin and Greatness of the Guilt that Fraud and Falshood leaves upon the Soul Let them Lye and Cheat on till they receive a fuller and more effectual Conviction of all these Things in that Place of Torment and Confusion prepared for the Devil and his Angels and all his Lying Retinue by the Decree and Sentence of that God who in his Threatnings as well as in his Promises will be True to his Word and cannot Lye To whom be rendred and ascribed as is most due all Praise Might Majesty and Dominion both now and for evermore Amen FINIS BOOKS Newly printed for Tho. Bennet at the Half-Moon in St. Paul's Church-Yard AThenae Oxonienses or an Exact History of all the Writers and Bishops who have had their Education in the Ancient and Famous University of Oxford from 1500 to the End of the Year 1690 Representing the Birth Fortune Preferments and Death of all those Authors and Prelates the great Accidents of their Lives the Fate and Character of their Writings The Work being so compleat that no Writer of Note of this Nation for near Two hundred years past is omitted fol. 2 Vol. Dr. Pocock on Ioel. With the rest of his Commentaries A Critical History of the Text and Versions of the New Testament wherein is firmly Establish'd the Truth of those Acts on which the Foundation of Christian Religion is laid By Father Simon of the Oratory Together with a Refutation of such Passages as seem contrary to the Doctrine and Practice of the Church of England Memoirs of the Court of France by the late famous French Lady The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus the Roman Emperor Translated out of Greek into English with Notes by Dr. Casaubon To this Edition is added the Life of the said Emperor with an Account of Stoick Philosophy As also Remarks on the Meditations All newly written by the famous Monsieur and Madam Dacier The Works of the Learned or an Historical Account and Impartial Judgment of the Books newly Printed both Foreign and Domestick together with the State of Learning in the World Published Monthly by I. de la Crose a late Author of the Universal Bibliotheque This first Volume beginning in August last is compleated this present April with Indexes to the whole The Bishop of Chester's Charge to his Clergy at his Primary Visitation May 5. 1691. Five Sermons before the King and Queen by Dr. Meggot Dean of Winchestor Mr. Atterbury's Sermon before the Queen May 29. 1692. * In the Parliament 1653 it being put to the Vote whether they should support and encourage A godly and learned Ministery the latter word was rejected and the vote passed for a Godly and Faithful Ministery * A noted Independant Divine when Ol. Cromwel was sick of which sickness he dyed declared that God had Revealed to him that he should recover and live 30 years longer for that God had raised him up for a work which could not be done in less time But Oliver's Death being published two days after the said Divine publickly in Prayer expostulated with God the Defeat of his Prophecy in these words Lord thou hast lyed unto us yea thou hast lyed unto us * Very credibly reported to have been done in an Independant Congregation at Oxon. * Whensoever any Petition was put up to the Parliament in the year 1653. for the Taking away of Tythes the thanks of the House were still returned to them and that by the Name and Elogy of the well-affected Petitioners * U. C. A Colonel of the Army the perfidious cause of Penruddock 's Death and sometime after High-Sheriff of Oxfordshire openly and frequently affirmed the uselessness of the Vniversities and that three Colledges were sufficient to answer the occasions of the Nation for the breeding of men up to Learning so farr as it was either necessary or usefull * Cromwel a lively Copy of Jeroboam did so * Gaspar Streso Cromwell ☜ * Of which last see an Instance in the 13 Session of this Council In which it Decrees with a non obstante to Christ's express Institution of the Blessed Eucharist in both Kinds That the contrary Custom and Practice of receiving it only in one Kind ought to be accounted and observed as a Law and that if the Priest should Administer it otherwise he was to be Excommunicated * Colonel Axtell * He particularly mention'd those of Brooks and Calamy ☞
the Body which united compose separated destroy it I am not of the papists Opinion who would make the Spiritual above the Civil State in power as well as dignity but rather subject it to the Civil yet thus much I dare affirm That the Civil which is superiour is upheld and kept in being by the Ecclesiastical and Inferiour as it is in a Building where the upper part is supported by the lower the Church resembling the foundation which indeed is the lowest part but the most considerable The Magistracy cannot so much protect the Ministery but the Ministers may doe more in serving the Magistrate A tast of which truth you may take from the Holy Warr to which how fast and eagerly did men go when the Priest perswaded them that whosoever dyed in that Expedition was a Martyr Those that will not be convinced what a help this is to the Magistracy would find how considerable it is if they should chance to clash this would certainly eat out the other For the Magistrate cannot urge obedience upon such potent grounds as the Minister if so disposed can urge disobedience As for instance if my Governor should command me to do a thing or I must die or forfeit my Estate and the Minister steps in and tells me that I offend God and ruin my soul if I obey that command it 's easie to see a greater force in this persuasion from the advantage of its ground And if Divines once begin to curse Meros we shall see that Levi can use the Sword as well as Simeon and although Ministers do not handle yet they can employ it This shews the imprudence as well as the danger of the Civil Magistrate's exasperating those that can fire mens consciences against him and arm his Enemies with Religion For I have read heretofore of some that having conceived an irreconcilable hatred of the Civil Magistrate prevailed with men so far that they went to resist him even out of conscience and a full persuasion and dread upon their spirits that not to do it were to desert God and consequently to incurr damnation Now when mens rage is both heightned and sanctified by Conscience the War will be fierce for what is done out of Conscience is done with the utmost Activity And then Campanella's Speech to the King of Spain will be found true Religio semper vicit praesertim Armata Which sentence deserves seriously to be considered by all Governours and timely to be understood lest it comes to be felt 2. If the safety of Government is founded upon the truth of Religion then this shews the danger of any thing that may make even the true Religion suspected to be false To be false and to be thought false is all one in respect of men who act not according to Truth but Apprehension As on the contrary a false Religion while apprehended true has the force and efficacy of truth Now there is nothing more apt to induce men to a suspicion of any Religion than frequent innovation and change For since the object of Religion God the subject of it the soul of man and the business of it Truth is always one and the same Variety and Novelty is a just presumption of Falsity It argues sickness and distemper in the mind as well as in the body when a man is continually turning and tossing from one side to the other The wise Romans ever dreaded the least Innovation in Religion Hence we find the advice of Mecoenas to Augustus Caesar in Dion Cassius in the 52 Book where he counsels him to detest and persecute all Innovators of Divine Worship not only as contemners of the Gods but as the most pernicious disturbers of the State For when men venture to make changes in things sacred it argues great boldness with God and this naturally imports little belief of him which if the people once perceive they will take their Creed also not from the Magistrates Laws but his example Hence in England where Religion has been still Purifying and hereupon almost always in the Fire and the Furnace Atheists and Irreligious persons have took no small advantage from our changes For in King Edward the sixth's time the Divine Worship was twice altered in two new Liturgies In the first of Queen Mary the Protestant Religion was persecuted with Fire and Faggot by Law and publick counsell of the same persons who had so lately established it Upon the coming in of Queen Elizabeth Religion was changed again and within a few daies the publick Council of the Nation made it death for a Priest to convert any man to that Religion which before with so much eagerness of Zeal had been restored So that it is observed by an Author that in the space of twelve years there were four changes about Religion made in England and that by the publick Council and Authority of the Realm which were more than were made by any Christian state throughout the world so soon one after another in the space of fifteen hundred years before Hence it is that the Enemies of God take occasion to blaspheme and call our Religion Statism and now adding to the former those many changes that have hapned since I am afraid we shall not so easily claw off that name Nor though we may satisfie our own consciences in what we profess be able to repell and clear off the objections of the rational world about us which not being interested in our changes as we are will not judge of them as we judge but debate them by impartial Reason by the Nature of the thing the general Practice of the Church against which New Lights suddain Impulses of the Spirit Extraordinary Calls will be but weak arguments to prove any thing but the madness of those that use them and that the Church must needs wither being blasted with such Inspirations We see therefore how fatal and ridiculous Innovations in the Church are And indeed when changes are so frequent it is not properly Religion but Fashion This I think we may build upon as a sure ground That where there is continual Change there is great shew of Uncertainty and Uncertainty in Religion is a shrewd motive if not to deny yet to doubt of its Truth Thus much for the first Doctrine I proceed now to the second viz. That the next and most effectual way to destroy Religion is to Embase the Teachers and Dispensers of it in the handling of this I shall shew 1. How the Dispensers of Religion the Ministers of the word are embased or rendred vile 2. How the Embasing or Vilifying them is a means to destroy Religion 1. For the first of these the Ministers and Dispensers of the Word are rendred base or vile two ways 1. By divesting them of all Temporal Privileges and Advantages as inconsistent with their Calling It is strange since the Priests Office heretofore was always Splendid and almost Regal that it is now looked upon as a piece of Religion to make it
of the thing as the Credit of him that gives it Observe an excellent passage to this purpose in Eccl. 9.14 15. We have an account of a little City with few men in it besieged by a great and potent King and in the 15. v. we read that there was found in it a poor Wise man and he by his wisdom delivered the City A worthy service indeed and certainly we may expect that some honourable Recompence should follow it a Deliverer of his Country and that in such distress could not but be advanced but we find a contrary event in the next words of the same verse Yet none remembred that same poor man why what should be the reason Was he not a man of parts and Wisdom and is not Wisdom honourable Yes but he was poor But was he not also successfull as well as wise true but still he was poor And once grant this and you cannot keep off that unavoidable sequel in the next verse The poor man's wisdom is despised and his words are not heard We may believe it upon Solomon's word who was Rich as well as Wise and therefore knew the force of both and probably had it not been for his Riches the Queen of Sheba would never have come so far only to have heard his Wisdom Observe her behaviour when she came Though upon the hearing of Solomon's Wisdom and the resolution of her hard Questions she expressed a just admiration yet when Solomon afterward shew'd her his Palace his Treasures and the Temple which he had built 1 Kings 10.5 it is said there was no more spirit in her What was the cause of this certainly the magnificence the pomp and splendour of such a Structure it struck her into an Ecstasie beyond his wise Answers She estemed this as much above his Wisdom as Astonishment is beyond bare Admiration She admired his Wisdom but she adored his Magnificence So apt is the mind even of wise persons to be surprized with the superficies or circumstance of things and value or undervalue Spirituals according to the manner of their External Appearance When Circumstances fail the substance seldom long survives cloaths are no part of the Body yet take away cloaths and the Body will die Livy observes of Romulus that being to give Laws to his new Romans he found no better way to procure an esteem and reverence to them than by first procuring it to himself by splendour of Habit and Retinue and other signs of Royalty And the wise Numa his Successor took the same course to enforce his Religious Laws namely by giving the same Pomp to the Priest who was to dispense them Sacerdotem creavit insignique eum veste curuli Regiâ sellâ adornavit That is he adorned him with a rich Robe and a royal chair of State And in our Judicatures take away the Trumpet the Scarlet the Attendance and the Lordship which would be to make Justice Naked as well as Blind and the Law would lose much of its Terror and consequently of its Authority Let the Minister be abject and low his interest inconsiderable the Word will suffer for his sake The Message will still find reception according to the Dignity of the Messenger Imagine an Ambassadour presenting himself in a poor freize Jerkin and tattered cloaths certainly he would have but small Audience his Embassy would speed rather according to the weakness of him that brought than the Majesty of him that sent it It will fare alike with the Ambassadors of Christ the People will give them Audience according to their Presence A notable example of which we have in the Behaviour of some to Paul himself 1 Cor. c. 10. v. 10. Hence in the Jewish Church it was cautiously provided in the Law that none that was blind or lame or had any remarkable defect in his body was capable of the Priestly Office because these things naturally make a person contemned and this presently reflects upon the Function This therefore is the first way by which the low despised condition of the Ministers tends to the destruction of the Ministery and Religion namely because it subjects their Persons to scorn and consequently their Calling and it is not imaginable that men will be brought to Obey what they cannot Esteem 2. The Second way by which it tends to the ruine of the Ministery is because it discourages men of fit Parts and Abilities from undertaking it And certain it is that as the calling dignifies the man so the man much more advances his calling As a Garment though it warms the Body has a return with an advantage being much more warmed by it And how often a good cause may miscarry without a wise manager and the Faith for want of a Defender is or at least may be known 'T is not the Truth of an Assertion but the skill of the Disputant that keeps off a baffle not the Justness of a Cause but the Valour of the Souldiers that must win the Field When a Learned Paul was converted and undertook the Ministery it stopp'd the mouths of those that said None but poor weak Fisher-men Preached Christianity and so his Learning silenced the scandal as well as strengthned the Church Religion placed in a soul of exquisite knowledge and abilities as in a Castle finds not only habitation but defence And what a learned Foreign Divine said of the English Preaching may be said of all Plus est in Artifice quà m in Arte. So much of moment is there in the Professors of any thing to depress or raise the Profession What is it that kept the Church of Rome strong athletick and flourishing for so many Centuries but the happy succession of the choicest wits engaged to her service by sutable preferments And what strength do we think would that give to the True Religion that is able thus to establish a False Religion in a great measure stands or falls according to the abilities of those that assert it And if as some observe mens desires are usually as large as their Abilities what course have we took to allure the former that we might engage the latter to our assistance But we have took all Ways to affright and discourage Scholars from looking towards this sacred calling For will men lay out their Wit and Iudgment upon that employment for the undertaking of which both will be questioned would men not long since have spent toylsome days and watchfull nights in the laborious quest of knowledge preparative to this work at length to come and dance attendance for approbation upon a Iuncto of petty Tyrants acted by Party and Prejudice who denyed Fitness from Learning and Grace from Morality will a man exhaust his livelihood upon Books and his Health the best part of his life upon Study to be at length thrust into a poor Village where he shall have his due precariously and entreat for his own and when he has it live poorly and contemptibly upon it while the same or less
labour bestowed upon any other calling would bring not only comfort but splendor not only maintenance but abundance 'T is I confess the duty of Ministers to endure this condition but neither Religion nor Reason does oblige either them to approve or others to choose it Doubtless Parents will not throw away the towardness of a child and the expence of Education upon a Profession the labour of which is encreased and the rewards of which are vanished To condemn promising lively parts to contempt and penury in a despised calling what is it else but the casting of a Moses into the mud or the offering a Son upon the Altar and instead of a Priest to make him a Sacrifice Neither let any here reply That it becomes not a Ministerial spirit to undertake such a calling for reward for they must know that it is one thing to undertake it for a reward and not to be willing to undertake it without one It is one thing to perform good works only that we may receive the recompense of them in Heaven and another thing not to be willing to follow Christ and forsake the world if there were no such recompence But besides suppose it were the duty of Scholars to choose this calling in the midst of all its discouragements Yet a prudent governour who knows it to be his wisdom as well as his duty to take the best course to advance Religion will not consider mens duty but their practice not what they ought to do but what they use to do and therefore draw over the best qualified to this service by such ways as are most apt to perswade and induce men Solomon built his Temple with the Tallest Cedars and surely when God refused the defective and the maimed for sacrifice we cannot think that he requires them for the Priest-hood When learning abilities and what is excellent in the world forsake the Church we may easily foretel its ruine without the gift of Prophecy And when ignorance succeeds in the place of learning weakness in the room of judgment we may be sure Heresie and Confusion will quickly come in the room of Religion For undoubtedly there is no way so effectual to betray the Truth as to procure it a weak Defender Well now instead of raising any particular Uses from the Point that has been delivered let us make a brief Recapitulation of the whole Government we see depends upon Religion and Religion upon the Encouragement of those that are to dispense and assert it For the further Evidence of which truths we need not travel beyond our own Borders but leave it to every one impartially to Judge whether from the very first day that our Religion was unsettled and Church Government flung out of doors the Civil Government has ever been able to fix upon a sure foundation We have been changing even to a Proverb The indignation of Heaven has been rolling and turning us from one form to another till at length such a giddiness seized upon government that it fell into the very dregs of Sectaries who threatned an equal ruine both to Minister and Magistrate and how the State has Symphathized with the Church is apparent For have not our Princes as well as our Priests been of the lowest of the People Have not Coblers Draymen Mechanicks governed as well as Preached Nay have not they by Preaching come to Govern was ever that of Solomon more verified that Servants have Rid while Princes and Nobles have gone on Foot But God has been pleased by a miracle of mercy to dissipate this confusion and Chaos and to give us some openings some dawnings of liberty and settlement But now let not those who are to rebuild our Ierusalem think that the Temple must be built last For if there be such a thing as a God and Religion as whether men believe it or no they will one day find and feel assuredly he will stop our Liberty till we restore him his worship Besides it is a sensless thing in reason to think that one of these interests can stand without the other when in the very order of Natural causes Government is preserved by Religion But to return to Ieroboam with whom we first began He laid the foundation of his Government in destroying though doubtless he coloured it with the name of Reforming God's worship but see the issue Consider him Cursed by God maintaining his usurped title by continual vexatious wars against the Kings of Iudah smote in his posterity which was made like the dung upon the face of the Earth as low and vile as those Priests whom he had employed Consider him branded and made odious to all after-ages And now when his Kingdom and glory was at an end and he and his Posterity rotting under ground and his Name stinking above it Judge what a worthy prize he made in getting of a Kingdom by destroying the Church Wherefore the sum of all is this to advise and desire those whom it may concern to consider Ieroboam's punishment and then they will have little heart to Ieroboam's sin A SERMON Preached at LAMBETH-CHAPEL on the 25 th of November Upon the Consecration of the Right Reverend Father in God Dr. IOHN DOLBEN Lord Bishop of ROCHESTER TO THE Right Reverend Father in GOD JOHN Lord Bishop of ROCHESTER Dean of the Cathedral Church of WESTMINSTER AND Clerk of the Closet to His Majesty My Lord THough the interposal of my Lord of Canterbury's Command for the Publication of this mean Discourse may seem so far to determine as even to take away my Choice yet I must own it to the World that it is solely and entirely my own Inclination seconded by my Obligations to your Lordship that makes this that was so lately an humble attendant upon your Lordship's Consecration now ambitious to Consecrate it self with your Lordship's Name It was my Honour to have lived in the same College with your Lordship and now to belong to the same Cathedral where at present you credit the Church as much by your Government as you did the school formerly by your Wit Your Lordship even then grew up into a constant Superiority above others and all your After-greatness seems but a Paraphrase upon those Promising beginnings for whatsoever you are or shall be has been but an easie Prognostick from what you were It is your Lordship's unhappiness to be cast upon an Age in which the Church is in its Wane and if you do not those glorious things that our English Prelates did two or three hundred years since it is not because your Lordship is at all less than they but because the Times are worse Witness those magnificent Buildings in Christ-Church in Oxford begun and carried on by your Lordship when by your Place you governed and by your Wisdom encreased the Treasure of that Colledge and which must eternally set your Fame above the reach of Envy and Detraction these great Structures you attempted at a time when you returned poor and
upon what is below it The Sun is said to rule the day and the Moon to rule the night but do they not Rule them only by enlightning them Doctrine is that that must prepare men for Discipline and men never go on so chearfully as when they see where they go Nor is the dullness of the Scholar to extinguish but rather to inflame the charity of the Teacher for since it is not in men as in vessels that the smallest capacity is the soonest filled where the labour is doubled the value of the work is enhaunced for it is a sowing where a man never expects to reap any thing but the Comfort and Conscience of having done vertuously And yet we know moreover that God sometimes converts even the dull and the slow turning very Stones into Sons of Abraham where besides that the difficulty of the Conquest advances the Trophee of the Conquerer it often falls out that the backward Learner makes amends another way recompencing Sure for Sudden expiating his want of Docility with a deeper and a more rooted Retention Which alone were argument sufficient to enforce the Apostle's injunction of being instant in season and out of season even upon the highest and most exalted Ruler in the Church He that sits in Moses chair sits there to Instruct as well as to Rule and a General 's office engages him to Lead as well as to Command his Army In the first of Ecclesiastes Solomon represents himself both as Preacher and King of Israel and every soul that a Bishop gains is a new accession to the extent of his Power he preaches his Jurisdiction wider and enlarges his spiritual Diocess as he enlarges mens apprehensions The Teaching part indeed of a Romish Bishop is easie enough whose Grand business is onely to teach men to be Ignorant to instruct them how to know Nothing or which is all one to know upon Trust to believe implicitly and in a word to see with other mens eyes till they come to be lost in their own souls But our Religion is a Religion that dares to be understood that offers it self to the search of the Inquisitive to the inspection of the severest and the most awakened Reason for being secure of her substantial Truth and Purity she knows that for her to be seen and lookt into is to be embraced and admired as there needs no greater argument for men to love the light than to see it It needs no Legends no Service in an unknown tongue no inquisition against Scripture no purging out the heart and sence of Authors no altering or bribing the voice of Antiquity to speak for it it needs none of all these laborious Artifices of ignorance none of all these cloaks and coverings The Romish Faith indeed must be covered or it cannot be kept warm and their Clergy deal with their Religion as with a great Crime if it is discovered they are undone But there is no Bishop of the Church of England but accounts it his Interest as well as his Duty to comply with this Precept of the Apostle Paul to Titus These things teach and exhort Now this Teaching may be effected two ways 1. Immediately by himself 2. Mediately by others And first immediately by himself Where God gives a Talent the Episcopal Robe can be no Napkin to hide it in Change of Condition changes not the abilities of Nature but makes them more illustrious in their exercise and the Episcopal dignity added to a good Preaching faculty is like the erecting of a stately Fountain upon a Spring which still for all that remains as much a Spring as it was before and flows as plentifully onely it flows with the circumstance of greater State and Magnificence Height of place is intended only to stamp the endowments of a private condition with Lustre and Authority And thanks be to God neither the Church's profess'd enemies nor her pretended friends have any cause to asperse her in this respect as having over her such Bishops as are able to silence the Factious no less by their Preaching than by their Authority But then on the other hand let me add also That this is not so absolutely necessary as to be of the vital Constitution of this Function He may teach his Diocess who ceases to be able to preach to it for he may do it by appointing Teachers and by a vigilant exacting from them the care and the instruction of their respective Flocks He is the Spiritual Father of his Diocess and a Father may see his Children taught though he himself does not turn Schoolmaster It is not the gift of every Person nor of every Age to harangue the multitude to Voice it high and loud Dominari in Concionibus And since Experience fits for Government and Age usually brings Experience perhaps the most Governing years are the least Preaching years In the 2. Second place therefore there is a teaching Mediately by the Subordinate ministration of others in which since the Action of the Instrumental agent is upon all grounds of Reason to be ascribed to the Principal He who ordains and furnishes all his Churches with able Preachers is an Universal Teacher he instructs where he cannot be Present he speaks in every mouth of his Diocess and every Congregation of it every Sunday feels his Influence though it hears not his Voice That Master deprives not his Family of their food who orders a faithfull Steward to dispense it Teaching is not a Flow of Words nor the draining of an Hour-glass but an effectual procuring that a man comes to know something which he knew not before or to know it better And therefore Eloquence and Ability of Speech is to a Church-Governour as Tully said it was to a Philosopher Si afferatur non repudianda si absit non magnopere desideranda and to find fault with such an one for not being a Popular Speaker is to blame a Painter for not being a good Musician To Teach indeed must be confess'd his Duty but then there is a Teaching by Example by Authority by restraining Seducers and so removing the Hindrances of knowledge And a Bishop does his Church his Prince and Countrey more Service by ruling other mens Tongues than he can by imploying his own And thus much for the first Branch of the great Work belonging to a Pastor of the Church which was to Teach and to Exhort 2. The second is to Rule Expressed in these words Rebuke with all Authority By which I doubt not but the Apostle principally intends Church-Censures and so the Words are a Metonymy of the Part for the Whole giving an instance in Ecclesiastical Censures instead of all other Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction A Jurisdiction which in the Essentials of it is as old as Christianity and even in those Circumstantial Additions of secular encouragement with which the Piety and Wisdom of Christian Princes always thought necessary to support it against the Encroachments of the injurious World much Older and more Venerable than
any Constitution that had divested the Church of it But to speak directly to the Thing before us We see here the great Apostle employing the utmost of his Authority in commanding Titus to use his and what he said to Him he says to every Christian Bishop after him Rebuke with all Authority This Authority is a Spiritual Sword put into the hands of every Church-Ruler and God put not this Sword into his hands with an intent that he should keep it there for no other purpose but only for Fashion-sake as men use to wear one by their sides Government is an Art above the Attainment of an ordinary Genius and requires a wider a larger and a more Comprehending Soul than God has put into every Body The Spirit which animates and acts the Universe is a Spirit of Government and that Ruler that is possessed of it is the Substitute and Vicegerent of Providence whether in Church or State Every Bishop is God's Curate Now the Nature of Government contains in it these three parts 1. An Exaction of Duty from the Persons placed under it 2. A Protection of them in the performance of their Duty 3. Coercion and Animadversion upon such as neglect it All which are in their Proportion ingredients of that Government which we call Ecclesiastical 1. And first it implies Exaction of Duty from the Persons placed under it for it is both to be confessed and lamented that men are not so ready to Offer it where it is not exacted Otherwise what means the Service of the Church so imperfectly and by halves read over and that by many who profess a Conformity to the Rules of the Church What makes them mince and mangle that in their Practice which they could swallow whole in their Subscriptions Why are the Publick Prayers curtail'd and left out Prayers composed with Sobriety and injoyned with Authority onely to make the more room for a long crude impertinent upstart Harangue before the Sermon Such persons seem to Conform the signification of which Word they never make good onely that they may despise the Church's Injunctions under the Church's Wing and Contemn Authority within the protection of the Laws Duty is but another English Word for Debt and God knows that it is well if men pay their Debts when they are call'd upon But if Governors do not remind men of and call them to Obedience they will find that it will never come as a Free-will offering no not from many who even serve at the Altar 2. Government imports a Protection and Encouragement of the Persons under it in the Discharge of their Duty It is not for a Magistrate to frown upon and brow-beat those who are hearty and exact in the management of their Ministry and with a Grave insignificant Nod to call a well Regulated and Resolved Zeal Want of Prudence and Moderation Such Discouraging of men in the ways of an Active Conformity to the Church's Rules is that which will crack the Sinews of Government for it weakens the Hands and damps the Spirits of the Obedient And if onely Scorn and Rebuke shall attend men for asserting the Church's Dignity and taxing the murther of Kings and the like many will choose rather to neglect their Duty safely and creditably than to get a broken Pate in the Church's Service onely to be rewarded with that which shall Break their Hearts too 3. The third thing implied in Government is Coercion and Animadversion upon such as neglect their Duty Without which Coercive Power all Government is but Toothless and Precarious and does not so much command as beg obedience Nothing I confess is more becoming a Christian of what Degree soever than Meekness Candor and Condescension but they are Vertues that have their proper Sphere and Season to act and shew themselves in and consequently not to interfere with others Different indeed in their Nature but altogether as Necessary in their Use. And when an insolent despiser of Discipline nurtur'd into Impudence and Contempt of all Order by a long Risque of Licence and Rebellion shall appear before a Church Governour Severity and Resolution are that Governour 's Vertues and Justice it self is his Mercy for by making such an one an example as much as in him lies he will either Cure him or at least Preserve others Were indeed the Consciences of men as they should be the Censures of the Church might be a sufficient Coercion upon them but being as most of them now-adays are Hell and Damnation-proof her bare Anathema's fall but like so many Bruta fulmina upon the Obstinate and Schismatical who are like to think themselves shrewdly hurt forsooth by being cut off from that Body which they choose not to be of and so being punished into a Quiet enjoyment of their beloved Separation Some will by no means allow the Church any further power than onely to Exhort and to Advise and this but with a Proviso too that it extends not to such as think themselves too Wise and too Great to be Advised according to the Hypothesis of which persons the Authority of the Church and the obliging force of all Church-Sanctions can bespeak men onely thus These and these things it is your duty to doe and if you will not doe them you may as well let them alone A strict and efficacious Constitution indeed which invests the Church with no power at all but where men will be so very Civil as to obey it and so at the same time pay it a Duty and do it a Courtesie too But when in the Judgment of some men the Spiritual Function as Such must render a Churchman though otherwise never so discreet and qualified yet merely because he is a Churchman unfit to be intrusted by his Prince with a share of that Power and Jurisdiction which in many circumstances his Prince has judged but too necessary to secure the Affairs and Dignity of the Church and which every thriving Grasier can think himself but ill dealt with if within his own Countrey he is not mounted to It is a sign that such discontented Persons intend not that Religion shall advise them upon any other Terms than that they may Ride and Govern their Religion But surely all our Kings and our Parliaments understood well enough what they did when they thought fit to prop and fortifie the Spiritual Order with some power that was Temporal and such is the present state of the World in the judgment of any observing Eye that if the Bishop has no other defensatives but Excommunication no other power but that of the Keys he may for any notable effect that he is like to do upon the factious and contumacious surrender up his Pastoral Staff shut up the Church and put those Keys under the Door And thus I have endeavoured to show the Three things included in the general Nature of Government but to prescribe the manner of it in particular is neither in my Power nor Inclination onely I suppose the Common
and sacred Majesty they use to treat and converse with there They find the same Holy consternation upon themselves that Iacob did at his Consecrated Bethel which he called the Gate of Heaven And if such places are so then surely a daily expectation at the Gate is the readiest way to gain admittance into the House It has been the advice of some Spiritual Persons that such as were able should set apart some certain place in their dwellings for their private Devotions only which if they constantly performed there and nothing else their very entrance into it would tell them what they were to doe in it and quickly make their Chamber-thoughts their Table-thoughts and their jolly worldly but much more their sinfull thoughts and purposes fly out of their hearts For is there any man whose heart has not shook off all sense of what is Sacred who finds himself no otherwise affected when he enters into a Church than when he enters into his Parlour or his Chamber if he does for ought I know he is fitter to be there always than in a Church The mind of man even in Spirituals Acts with a Corporeal Dependance and so is help'd or hinder'd in its Operations according to the different Quality of External Objects that incurr into the Senses And perhaps sometimes the sight of the Altar and those Decent preparations for the work of Devotion may compose and recover the wandring mind much more effectually than a Sermon or a rational Discourse For these things in a manner preach to the Eye when the Ear is dull and will not hear and the Eye dictates to the Imagination and that at last moves the Affections And if these little impulses set the great Wheels of Devotion on work the largeness and height of that shall not at all be prejudiced by the smalness of its occasion If the fire burns bright and vigorously it is no matter by what means it was at first kindled there is the same force and the same refreshing vertue in it kindled by a spark from a flint as if it were kindled by a Beam from the Sun I am far from thinking that these External things are either parts of our Devotion or by any strength in themselves direct causes of it but the grace of God is pleased to move us by ways sutable to our Nature and so Sanctify these sensible inferiour helps to greater and higher purposes And since God has placed the Soul in a Body where it receives all things by the Ministry of the outward Senses he would have us secure these Cinque-ports as I may so call them against the Invasion of vain thoughts by suggesting to them such Objects as may prepossess them with the contrary For God knows how hard a lesson Devotion is if the senses prompt one thing when the heart is to utter another And therefore let no man presume to think that he may present God with as acceptable a Prayer in his shop and much less in an Alehouse or a Tavern as he may in a Church or in his Closet unless he can rationally promise himself which is impossible that he shall find the same Devout motions and impresses upon his Spirit there that he may here What says David in Psalm 77.13 Thy way O God is in the Sanctuary It is no doubt but that Holy Person continued a strict and most Pious communion with God during his wandrings upon the Mountains and in the Wilderness but still he found in himself that he had not those kindly warm meltings upon his heart those raptures and ravishing transports of Affection that he used to have in the fix'd and Solemn place of God's Worship See the two first verses of the 63 Psalm Entituled a Psalm of David when he was in the Wilderness of Iudah How Emphatically and Divinely does every word proclaim the truth that I have been speaking of O God says he thou art my God early will I seek Thee My Soul thirsteth for thee my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty Land where no water is to see thy Power and thy Glory so as I have seen thee in the Sanctuary Much different was his wish from that of our Non-conforming Zealots now-a-days which expresses it self in another kind of Dialect as When shall I enjoy God as I used to do at a Conventicle When shall I meet with those blessed breathings those Heavenly Hummings and Hawings that I used to hear at a private meeting and at the end of a Table In all our worshippings of God we return him but what he first gives us and therefore he preferrs the service offered him in the Sanctuary because there he usually vouchsafes more helps to the Piously disposed person for the discharge of it As we value the same kind of Fruit growing under one Climate more than under another because under one it has a directer and a warmer influence from the Sun than under the other which gives it both a better Savour and a greater worth And perhaps I should not want a further Argument for the confirmation of the truth discours'd of if I should appeal to the experience of many in this Nation who having been long bred to the Decent way of Divine Service in the Cathedrals of the Church of England were afterwards driven into foreign Countries where though they brought with them the same Sincerity to Church yet perhaps they could not find the same enlargements and flowings out of spirit which they were wont to find here Especially in some Countries where their very Religion smelt of the Shop and their Ruder and Courser methods of Divine Service seemed only adapted to the Genius of Trade and the Designs of Parsimony though one would think that Parsimony in God's Worship were the worst husbandry in the World for fear God should proportion his Blessings to such Devotions 2. The other Reason why God preferrs a Worship paid him in places solemnly Dedicated and set apart for that purpose is because in such places it is a more direct service and testification of our Homage to him For surely If I should have something to ask of a great Person it were a greater respect to wait upon him with my Petition at his own House than to desire him to come and receive it at mine Set Places and Set Hours for Divine Worship as much as the Laws of Necessity and Charity permit us to observe them are but parts of that due Reverence that we owe it for he that is strict in observing these declares to the World that he accounts his attendance upon God his greatest and most important Business and surely it is infinitely more reasonable that we should wait upon God than God upon us We shall still find that when God was pleased to vouchsafe his people a meeting he himself would prescribe the Place When he commanded Abraham to Sacrifice his Only and Beloved Isaac the place of the Offering was not left undetermined and to the Offerer's Discretion
so Does it not look like the greatest Paradox and Prodigy in Nature for any one to pretend it lawfull to equivocate or lye for it To face God and Out-face Man with the Sacrament and a Lye in ones Mouth together Can a good Intention or rather a very wicked one so mis-called sanctifie and transform Perjury and Hypocrisie into Merit and Perfection Or can there be a greater Blot cast upon any Church or Religion whatsoever it be than by such a Practice For will not the World be induced to look upon my Religion as a Lye if I allow my self to lye for my Religion The very Life and Soul of all Religion is Sincerity And therefore the good ground in which alone The Immortal Seed of the Word sprang up to Perfection is said in St. Luke 8.15 to have been those That received it into an honest Heart that is a Plain Clear and Well-meaning Heart an Heart not doubled nor cast into the various Folds and Windings of a dodging shifting Hypocrisie For the Truth is the more spiritual and refined any Sin is the more hardly is the Soul cured of it because the more difficultly convinced And in all our spiritual Maladies Conviction must still begin the Cure Such Sins indeed as are acted by the Body do quickly shew and proclaim themselves and it is no such hard matter to convince or run down a Drunkard or an unclean Person and to stop their Mouths and to answer any Pretences that they can alledge for their Sin But Deceit is such a Sin as a Pharisee may be guilty of and yet stand fair for the Reputation of Zeal and Strictness and a more than Ordinary Exactness in Religion And though some have been apt to account none sinfull or vicious but such as wallow in the Mire and Dirt of gross Sensuality yet no doubt Deceit Falshood and Hypocrisie are more directly contrary to the very Essence and Design of Religion and carry in them more of the express Image and Superscription of the Devil than any bodily Sins whatsoever How did that false fasting imperious self-admiring or rather self-adoring Hypocrite in St. Luke 18.11 Crow and Insult over the poor Publican God I thank thee says he that I am not like other Men and God forbid say I that there should be many others like him for a glistering Out-side and a noysome Inside for Tything Mint and Cummin and for devouring Widows Houses that is for taking ten Parts from his Neighbour and putting God off with One. After all which had this Man of Merit and Mortification been called to Account for his Ungodly swallow in gorging down the Estates of helpless Widows and Orphans it is odds but he would have told you that it was all for Charitable Uses and to afford Pensions for Spies and Proselytes It being no ordinary Piece of spiritual good Husbandry to be Charitable at other Men's Cost But such Sons of Abraham how highly soever they may have the Luck to be thought of are far from being Israelites indeed for the Character that our Saviour gives us of such in the Person of Nathanael in Iohn 1.47 is That they are without Guile To be so I confess is generally reckoned of late Times especially a poor mean sneaking Thing and the contrary reputed Wit and Parts and Fitness for Business as the Word is Though I doubt not but it will be one Day found that only Honesty and Integrity can fit a Man for the main Business that he was sent into the World for and that he certainly is the greatest Wit who is wise to Salvation And thus much for the Second General Thing propos'd which was to shew the pernicious Effects of Lying and Falshood Come we now to the Third and Last which is to lay before you the Rewards or Punishments that will assuredly attend or at least follow this base Practice I shall mention Three As 1. An utter Loss of all Credit and Belief with sober and discreet Persons and consequently of all Capacity of being usefull in the Prime and Noblest Concerns of Life For there cannot be imagined in Nature a more forlorn useless and contemptible Tool or more unfit for any thing than a discovered Cheat. And let Men rest assured of this That there will be always some as able to discover and find out deceitfull Tricks as others can be to contrive them For God forbid that all the Wit and Cunning of the World should still run on the Deceiver's side and when such little Shifts and shuffling Arts come once to be ripped up and laid open how poorly and wretchedly must that Man needs sneak who finds himself both guilty and baffled too A Knave without Luck is certainly the worst Trade in the World But Truth makes the Face of that Person shine who speaks and owns it While a Lye is like a Vizard that may cover the Face indeed but can never become it nor yet does it cover it so but that it leaves it open enough for Shame It brands a Man with a lasting indelible Character of Ignominy and Reproach and that indeed so foul and odious that those usurping Hectors who pretend to Honour without Religion think the Charge of a Lye a Blot upon them not to be washed out but by the Blood of him that gives it For what Place can that Man fill in a Common-wealth whom no Body will either believe or employ And no Man can be considerable in himself who has not made himself usefull to others Nor can any Man be so who is uncapable of a Trust. He is neither fit for Counsel or Friendship for Service or Command to be in Office or in Honour but like Salt that has lost its Savour fit only to rot and perish upon a Dunghill For no man can rely upon such an One either with safety to his Affairs or without a slur to his Reputation since He that trusts a Knave has no other Recompence but to be accounted a Fool for his Pains And if he trusts himself into Ruine and Beggary he falls unpitied a Sacrifice to his own Folly and Credulity for He that suffers himself to be imposed upon by a known Deceiver goes partner in the Cheat and deceives himself He is despised and laugh'd at as a soft and easie Person and as unfit to be relyed upon for his Weakness as the other can be for his Falseness It is really a great Misery not to know whom to Trust but a much greater to behave ones self so as not to be Trusted But this is the Lyar's Lot He is accounted a Pest and a Nusance A Person marked out for Infamy and Scorn and abandon'd by all Men of Sense and Worth and such as will not abandon themselves 2 dly The second Reward or Punishment that attends the lying and deceitfull Person is the Hatred of all those whom he either has or would have Deceived I do not say that a Christian can lawfully hate any One and yet I affirm That
cause of all these mischiefs and thereupon to redeem his Father's Sacrilege gave more and richer things to Temples than his Father had Stollen from them Though by the way it may seem to be a strange method of repairing an injury done to the true God by adorning the Temples of the false See the same sad effect of Sacrilege in the great Nebuchadnezzar He plunders the Temple of God and we find the fatal doom that afterwards befell him he lost his Kingdom and by a new unheard-of Judgment was driven from the Society and converse of Men to table with the Beasts and to graze with Oxen the impiety and inhumanity of his sin making him a fitter companion for them than for those to whom Religion is more Natural than Reason it self And since it was his unhappiness to transmit his sin together with his Kingdom to his Son while Belshazzar was quaffing in the sacred Vessels of the Temple which in his pride he sent for to abuse with his impious Sensuality he sees his fatal Sentence writ by the finger of God in the very midst of his profane mirth And he stays not long for the Execution of it that very Night losing his Kingdom and his Life too And that which makes the Story direct for our purpose is that all this comes upon him for his profaning those sacred Vessels God himself tells us so much by the mouth of his Prophet in Dan. 5.23 where this only sin is charged upon him and particularly made the cause of his sudden and utter ruine These were Violaters of the First Temple and those that prophaned and abused the Second sped no better And for this take for instance that first born of sin and Sacrilege Antiochus the story of whose profaning God's House you may read in the 1. book of Maccab. 1 ch and you may read also at large what success he found after it in the 6th ch where the Author tells us that he never prospered aftewards in any thing but all his designs were frustrated his Captains slain his Armies defeated and lastly himself falls sick and dies a miserable death And which is most considerable as to the present business when all these Evils befell him his own conscience tells him that it was even for this that he had most Sacrilegiously pillaged and invaded God's House 1 Maccab 6. vers 12 13. Now I remember says he the Evils I did at Ierusalem how I took the Vessels of Gold and Silver I perceive therefore that for this cause these Evils are come upon me and behold I perish for grief in a strange land The Sinner's Conscience is for the most part the best Expositor of the mind of God under any Judgment or Affliction Take another notable instance in Nicanor who purposed and threatned to burn the Temple 1 Maccab. 7.35 and a curse lights upon him presently after His great Army is utterly ruined he himself slain in it and his head and right hand cut off and hung up before Ierusalem Where two things are remarkable in the Text. 1. That he himself was first slain a thing that does not usually befall a General of an Army 2. That the Iews prayed against him to God and desired God to destroy Nicanor for the injury done to his Sanctuary only naming no sin else And God ratify'd their Prayers by the judgment they brought down upon the head of him whom they prayed against God stopt his blasphemous Mouth and cut off his sacrilegious Hand and made them teach the world what it was for the most potent sinner under Heaven to threaten the Almighty God especially in his own House for so was the Temple But now lest some should puff at these instances as being such as were under a different Oeconomy of Religion in which God was more tender of the shell and ceremonious part of his Worship and consequently not directly pertinent to ours therefore to shew that all prophanation and invasion of things Sacred is an offence against the eternal Law of nature and not against any positive Institution after a time to Expire we need not go many Nations off nor many Ages back to see the Vengeance of God upon some Families raised upon the Ruines of Churches and enriched with the spoils of Sacrilege gilded with the name of Reformation And for the most part so unhappy have been the purchasers of Church-lands that the world is not now to seek for an argument from a long experience to convince it that though in such purchases Men have usually the cheapest Penny-worths yet they have not always the best bargains For the Holy thing has stuck fast to their sides like a fatal shaft and the Stone has cryed out of the Consecrated Walls they have lived within for a Judgment upon the head of the Sacrilegious intruder and Heaven has heard the cry and made good the curse So that when the Heir of a blasted family has rose up and promised fair and perhaps flourished for some time upon the stock of excellent parts and great favour yet at length a Cross event has certainly met and stopt him in the Career of his fortunes so that he has ever after withered and declined and in the end come to nothing or to that which is worse So certainly does that which some call blind Superstition take aim when it shoots a Curse at the Sacrilegious person But I shall not engage in the odious task of recounting the families which this sin has blasted with a Curse Only I shall give one Eminent instance in some persons who had Sacrilegiously procured the Demolishing of some places consecrated to Holy Uses And for this to shew the world that Papists can commit Sacrilege as freely as they can object it to Protestants it shall be in that great Cardinal and Minister of State Woolsey who obtained leave of Pope Clement the 7th to Demolish 40 Religious houses which he did by the service of Five men to whose conduct he committed the effecting of that business every one of which came to a sad and fatal end For the Pope himself was ever after an unfortunate Prince Rome being twice taken and sacked in his reign himself taken Prisoner and at length dying a miserable Death Woolsey as is known incurr'd a Praemunire forfeited his Honour Estate and Life which he ended some say by Poyson but certainly in great Calamity And for the Five Men employed by him two of them quarrelled one of which was slain and the other hang'd for it the third drown'd himself in a Well the fourth though Rich came at length to beg his Bread and the fifth was miserably Stabbed to death at Dublin in Ireland This was the Tragical end of a Knot of Sacrilegious persons from highest to lowest The consideration of which and the like passages one would think should make men keep their Fingers off from the Churches Patrimony though not out of Love to the Church which few men have yet at least out of Love to
themselves which I suppose few want Nor is that instance in one of another Religion to be passed over so near it is to the former passage of Nicanor of a Commander in the Parliament's Rebel-Army who coming to Rifle and Deface the Cathedral at Litchfield solemnly at the head of his Troops begged of God to shew some remarkable Token of his approbation or dislike of the work they were going about Immediately after which looking out at a Window he was Shot in the Forehead by a Deaf and Dumb man And this was on St. Chadd's day the name of which Saint that Church bore being dedicated to God in memory of the same Where we see that as he asked of God a sign so God gave him one Signing him in the Forehead and that with such a mark as he is like to be known by to all Posterity There is nothing that the United Voice of all History proclaims so loud as the certain unfailing Curse that has pursued and overtook Sacrilege Make a Catalogue of all the prosperous Sacrilegious persons that have been from the beginning of the world to this day and I believe they will come within a very narrow compass and be repeated much sooner than the Alphabet Religion claims a great interest in the world even as great as its Object God and the Souls of Men. And since God has resolved not to alter the course of Nature and upon Principles of Nature Religion will scarce be supported without the encouragement of the Ministers of it Providence where it loves a Nation concerns it self to own and assert the interest of Religion by blasting the spoilers of Religious Persons and Places Many have gaped at the Church Revenues but before they could swallow them have had their mouths stopt in the Church-yard And thus much for the Second Argument to prove the different respect that God bears to things Consecrated to Holy Uses namely His Signal Judgments upon the Sacrilegious Violaters of them 3. I descend now to the Third and Last thing proposed for the proof of the first Proposition which is To assign the ground and reason why God shews such a concern for these things Touching which we are to observe 1. Negatively that it is no Worth or Sanctity naturally inherent in the things themselves that either does or can procure them this esteem from God for by Nature all things have an equally common use Nature freely and indifferently opens the bosom of the Universe to all Mankind and the very Sanctum Sanctorum had originally no more Sacredness in it than the Valley of the Son of Hinnom or any other place in Iudaea Positively therefore the sole ground and reason of this different esteem vouchsafed by God to consecrated things and places is this That he has the sole property of them It is a known Maxim that in Deo sunt Iura omnia and consequently that he is the Proprietor of all things by that grand and transcendent Right founded upon Creation Yet notwithstanding he may be said to have a greater because a sole property in some things for that he permits not the use of them to Men to whom yet he has granted the free use of all other things Now this Property may be founded upon a double ground 1. God's own fixing upon and institution of a Place or Thing to his peculiar use When he shall say to the Sons of Men as he spoke to Adam concerning the Forbidden Fruit Of all things and places that I have enrich'd the Universe with you may freely make use for your own occasions But as for this spot of Ground this Person this Thing I have selected and appropriated I have enclosed it to my self and my own use and I will endure no Sharer no Rival or Companion in it He that invades them usurps and shall bear the guilt of his Usurpation Now upon this account the Gates of Sion and the Tribe of Levi became God's property He laid his hand upon them and said These are mine 2. The other ground of God's sole property in any thing or place is the Gift or rather the return of it made by Man to God by which Act he relinquishes and delivers back to God all his Right to the Use of that thing which before had been freely granted him by God After which Donation there is an absolute change and alienation made of the property of the thing Given and that as to the Use of it too Which being so alienated a man has no more to do with it than with a thing bought with another's Money or got with the sweat of another's Brow And this is the ground of God's sole property in Things Persons and Places now under the Gospel Men by free Gift consign over a Place to the Divine Worship and thereby have no more right to apply it to another use than they have to make use of another man's goods He that has Devoted himself to the Service of God in the Christian Priesthood has given himself to God and so can no more dispose of himself to another Employment than he can dispose of a thing that he has sold or freely given away Now in passing a thing away to another by Deed of Gift Two things are required 1. A Surrender on the Giver's part of all the property and right he has in the thing given and to the making of a a thing or place Sacred this Surrender of it by its right Owner is so Necessary that all the Rites of Consecration used upon a place against the Owner's Will and without his giving up his property make not that place Sacred forasmuch as the property of it is not hereby altered and therefore says the Canonist Qui sine voluntate Domini consecrat reverà desecrat the like judgment passed that learned Bishop Synesius upon a place so consecrated 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I account it not says he for any holy thing For we must know that Consecration makes not a place Sacred any more than Coronation makes a King but only Solemnly declares it so It is the Gift of the Owner of it to God which makes it to be solely God's and consequently Sacred After which every Violation of it is as really Sacrilege as to Conspire against the King is Treason before the Solemnity of his Coronation And moreover as Consecration makes not a thing Sacred without the Owner's gift so the Owner's gift of it self alone makes a thing Sacred without the Ceremonies of Consecration for we know that Tithes and Lands given to God are never and Plate Vestments and other Sacred Utensils are seldom Consecrated Yet certain it is that after the Donation of them to the Church it is as really Sacrilege to steal or alienate them from those Sacred Uses to which they were dedicated by the Donors as it is to pull down a Church or turn it into a Stable 2. As in order to the passing away a thing by Gift there is required a Surrender of all