A SERMON Preached before the KING At White-hall November 23. 1684. BY GILBERT IRONSIDE D. D. VVarden of Wadham Coll. in Oxon and Chaplain in Ordinary to His MAJESTY PUBLISHED By His Majesties special Command OXFORD Printed by Leonard Lichfield Printer to the University for James Good Bookseller near the Theatre MDCLXXXV A SERMON Preached before the KING The 23 of November 1684. 1 Peter cap. 4. ver 15. Let none of you suffer as a Murderer or as a Thief or as an Evil-doer or as a Busie-body in other mens matters Yet if any man suffer as a Christian let him not be ashamed FROM which words we may observe Two things 1. A Prohibition of suffering in a bad cause Let no man suffer as a Murderer c. And t is a divine Prohibition for the discharge of our consciences upon the pain of sin 'T is the divine favour the Apostle aims at not time serving He gives this injunction as an Apostle not as a States-man as an Apostle that had the care over all the Christian Churches And if there be any thing extraordinary in that 't is the very Apostle that had a special charge Three times to feed the Sheep and Lambs of Christ Let no man says St. Peter suffer c. 2. The Support and Comfort and Honour that attends the Cross of Christ But if any man suffer as a Christian let him not be ashamed Of this last I shall not speak I hope in this distracted disputing luke-warm Age if yet Christianity it self shall come to be the Controversy which God of Heaven forbid there be not many among us that profess the name of Christ will want Blood nor their Blood Spirit enough to dye for him who dy'd for them when he was the Son of God The business here is to consider well what 't is to suffer as a Christian not to be too hasty and positive in pronouncing this or that Rule or Doctrine to be Christianity If any man suffer as a Christian i.e. according to Christ's Institution not the foolish no nor the wise Fancies of men Single or in Assemblies a Divine and Apostolieal Christian We need not nay we must not look for the Image of him any where but as we find it in Christ's and his Apostles drawing Even the Church it self when it represents Religion a right falls infinitely short of what is in the Bible as to the Lording it over our Faith and is not so hardy as to equal Her Institutions with Divine Precepts And we can never be sufficiently thankful to God for the Wisdom with which he inspir'd the Church of England in this Respect the modest and humble Wisdom of the Church of England indeed all true Wisdom is such a Wisdom from above First Pure and then Peaceable I wish the Church of Rome had continued so too But how many Articles of Faith and how many Precepts of Life have they added to Religion and required the belief and practice of them as necessary to Salvation the only cause of difference betwixt us We are content with the account of a Christian as we find it in Scripture and in that we read they were called Christians first at Antioch not at Rome however if any man say Loe here is Christ or there is Christ this is a good Christian that a good Catholick either in Greek or Latine Church believe them not unless you find them such and only and meerly such as he was when St. Peter said if any man suffer as a Christian such an one even in his greatest Sufferings ought not to be ashamed 'T is but a thin Expression according to the sound but the Figure speaks great things Let him look upon it as his Honour and Glory 1. Pet. 1.4 The spirit of Glory resteth upon you Let him esteem it as an Excellency a Preferment and the special gift of God To you t is given to suffer for the name of Christ Philip. 1.29 But of this comfortable encouragement I shall not speak My time shall be spent upon the first The Prohibition of suffering in a bad cause Let no man suffer as a Murderer or as a Thief those are words easy to be understood and so is the next an Evil-doer The Apostle having mentioned Thieves and Murderers to avoid a further enumeration of the other great Immoralities concludes them all in one word of Evil-doers and then further adds to secure the State as a Busy-body in other mens matters Beza tells us that the Syriack Version does not read those words as a Busy-body and he undertakes to give a reason for it because says he the humor of medling with other mens matters does not seem to be of the number of those faults that are usually punished or are punishable unless quòd soepe in rixas incidunt qui curiosè satagunt aliena unde postea majora mala oriantur Busy-bodies naturally fall into controversies whence greater Evils may arise and surely that alone if there were no other reason is a sufficient one for the Prohibition in the Text in an Apostle that writ for the peace of Christendome even in private concerns much more in publick and State Affairs In the Prohibition it self there are two things to be observed The one supposed The other infer'd 1. T is supposed there is a Power for the suppressing of Vice and Immorality and not only so but also in limiting the several Ranks and Orders and Imployments of men and coercing of them if as Busy-bodies they transgress and the Apostle reckons even such Constitutions lawful wholesome and necessary 2. This being the Magistrates power t is manifestly the Christian Subjects duty to avoid all the things here mentioned the last as well as the first and that not only in prudence as to worldly affairs but upon pain of sin and the displeasure of the King of Kings Let no man suffer not only as a Murderer and a Thief and an Evil-doer but as a Busy-body in other mens matters i. e. 't would be monstrously shameful for Christians to be guilty of either of these things not only of gross heathen Immoralities but of the later sort also And there is an Emphasis in the words Let none of you Christians The Apostle here supposes that all these are to suffer and and the Magistrate would otherwise bear the Sword in vain I do not love to prove suppositions yet when Principles themselves are disputed or misunderstood or neglected or the Light and Evidence of them fought against and in a great measure quencht they may well be opened and the strength of them lay'd before the understandings of weak and prest upon the Consciences of corrupt men And of all principles Obedience to Magistrates the great Eye-sore and the Execution of Justice the support of the world will be alwayes necessary to be taught and prest upon the conscience I shall therefore consider from the words 1. The Power for the suppressing of Vice and Immorality Indeed a Toleration of Vice was
He is the Minister of God a Revenger to execute wrath upon them that do evil But what the vengeance we are forbid to do our selves is it lawful to demand at the hands of the Magistrate Yes we may if it be done for one of these three ends Either to correct and amend Offendors or to terrifie and keep others from offending or to secure Innocent persons These ends we find to be Reasons given in Scripture of punishments both in Civil and Ecclesiastical Courts The first end is to correct and amend Delinquents So when Hymenoeus and Alexander were delivered to Satan it was that they might learn not to blaspheme 1 Tim. 1. A second Reason of demanding Justice is to terrifie the Insolent and Proud persons So Deut. 17. When the Refractory person was adjudg'd to be slain 't was that all the people might hear and fear and do no more presumptuously The third end of calling in this vengeance from the Magistrate is the security of the Innocent So St. Paul delivers himself Gal. 5. I wish they were cut off that trouble you These are lawful and necessary Reasons and may and ought to sway with all good men and true But otherwise for the satisfaction of a revengeful humor as t is uncharitable in us to demand the execution of Justice so in the Judge or Magistrate t is not honourable to give it Nemo sapiens punit quia peccatur sed nè peccetur A wise man never inflicts punishments because offences have been committed but to prevent them for the future that they may not be However for the other Reasons mention'd the Magistrate is God's Minister to execute wrath upon them that do evil And the Apostle tells us he does not bear the sword in vain i. e. 't was not given him in vain and he ought not to bear it in vain So far I suppose we are all willing to go if not too willing to revenge all Immoralities against our selves in goods names or persons and you will say neither the world nor God's glory can subsist without this vengeance but we are also to consider there are also Immoralities against the first Table And truly all men have had some sense of many of them and condemn them and yet generally we use our Maker worse than we use our selves we are apt to be moe careless of preserving God's honour nay the honour of his Being than of securing our own conveniences or it may be humours The necessity of preserving Peace and Life make provision against all Immoralities amongst men in their Persons Goods and Names and a man shall be hang'd for stealing what is of little value As for Spiritual objects they lie out of sight they are seen only by Faith and therefore do not so much so powerfully and so constantly affect us God help us in it But I say some sense of Religion all men have and always had The Heathen took care to preserve the honour of Religion in general and would by no means endure any that did not own a Deity or blasphem'd it or robb'd it c. so far were they from that that sometimes they put men to death though in a mistake only as in the cafe of the great and divine Socrates and so severe were they in this point that it became capital in Athens to accuse a man of Atheism and not be able to prove it But now 't is a frightful consideration to take a view of the whole world from the beginning in the Toleration of all foolish foul sensless Sects of Religion When the Devil could not perswade men to take away all Religion humane Reason was too strong for that and the knowledge of the Creation of the world by Tradition was too fresh upon the minds of men and we hear nothing of Atheism before the flood he perswaded their easy and corrupt understandings to bear with different Religions So the Children of God and the Daughters of men had a Mungrel Religion before the flood After the flood the Assyrians had many Religions in their Empire the Persians more the Groecians more then they the Romans exceeded all Aug. de Civitat Dei li. 18. cap. 51. When Rome had obtain'd Sovereignty over all Nations She enthrall'd her self to all their Errors of Religion Et magnam sibi videbatur assumpssisse Religionem quia nullam respuebat falsitatem Leo Mag. Sermone de Petro Paulo entertaining all She thought She could not miss of the right Indeed the Romans sometimes were careful to have no new Religion brought in and did not like the Setters forth of new Gods but it was for fear of some great Alteration to grow thereby amongst the people otherwise they cared not what Religion men were of so they disturb'd not the publick peace As for the grounds and reasons of this Toleration it is wonderful to behold the Vanity of them some were so wickedly fancyful as to think God was pleas'd with this Variety So Themistius the Philosopher perswaded Valens the Emperour Socrates li. 4. c. 32. That the true God was delighted with the several tho false opinions men had of him thinking they must reverence him the more being so hard to be understood Upon what grounds the Samaritans went is not mention'd But we have the Story in the 2. of Kings c. 17. And their Tolleration of Idolatrous Religion seems to be only from a sottish Compliance When God sent Lyons among them says the Text which slew them and a Priest of God taught them v. 27. how they should serve the Lord. In 33. v. the issue was They feared the Lord and served their own Gods too after the manner of the Nations v. 41. 't is repeated So these Nations feared the Lord and served their Graven Images both their Children and their Childrens Children And so it lasted till our Saviours days who therefore told the woman of Samaria They Worshipped they knew not what Herod seems to go beyond these tho perhaps out of the same Principle with a great deal of base flattery added to it For Josephus l. 14. Antiq. c. 13.14 reports He built a Temple to Caesar whilst he repair'd the Temple of God Nay St. Austine tells us Rhetoria â—… that he heard of a sort of Hereticks Qui mirabili vanitate omnes Hoereticos laudabant benè sentire vera dicere asserebant and well he might add quòd ita est absurdum ut mihi incredibile videatur Out of Frensy or perhaps Atheism they prais'd all sorts of Hereticks Aug. Ad Quodvult-Deum Hoeresis 72. and justified what they said to be true tho never so contrary one to the other Appelles the Heretick in Eusebius had somewhat like this Fancy Libro 5 to cap. 13. fo No man was to be questioned for his Faith but that it was sufficient at any rate to believe in him that was Crucified excluding only downright Infidels But above all Julian the Apostate fathom'd the depth of this Wile of Satan
for ideò permisit libertatem Religionis quia sic sperabat posse interire Christianos Out of perfect spight he gave way to a general Toleration thinking thereby to destroy Christianity it self Aug. Epist 156. This is a true account of the world of old Heathen Jewish and Christian and 't is a sad one As for latter Ages there have been many pretences to Toleration of which I need not speak Only one thing is observable of all Ages namely That it has been the Custome of all false Teachers to plead for a Toleration themselves but never to afford it to the Orthodox Professors witness the Jews the Roman Tyrants the Arrians the Donatists not to speak of the present Age how unmercyful were they Pass we therefore from the History to our Duty as we shall be able to gather it out of Scripture and the Opinion of the Ancient Church truly Orthodox and Catholick abstracting from the particular Controversies now on foot in any part of the Christian world And I humbly conceive we may certainly conclude against a Toleration in general of any Religion that is false in the substance of it For as for Ceremonies and Circumstances who will insist upon them so as to make a Schism but use them as he finds them as St. Austin practis'd and advis'd But if Religion in the substance of it be false 't is an undeniable Maxim that what we must not do our selves we are forbidden to suffer in others we may not allow in others a sin which we are forbidden to commit our selves Non est innocens nisi qui cum scit prohibere non potest He is not to be esteemed innocent who knows a thing to be a sin unless he cannot help it from being committed And the Canon Law gives a Reason Decret parte 13. distinct 55. Non caretscrupulo occultoe Societatis qui manifesto crimini desinit obviare A man is to be suspected to have some secret Society and combination with that fault he does not hinder Besides there cannot but be a great Deformity and the Beauty of Holiness is quite lost by such a Toleration There is but one God and Christ and Truth and Faith and Church and t is great confusion to associate things not sociable Light and Darkness if it be in our power to hinder it and there be any liberty of Prudence to hinder it for there is an absolute and blind Power whereby indeed we may do such or such a thing without any good Reason all circumstances consider'd and without any good effect And there is a Power of Discretion with which all good and Religious things should be accompanied otherwise you may cast Pearls before Swine and they may turn and tear you in pieces And you may pluck up the Wheat with the Tares i.e. You may be the occasion of doing so For if the Hereticks which our Saviour means by Tares prevail in the Confusion and get the upper hand the Church may be destroyed However the Conclusion still stands We are not to tolerate diversities of Religions if we can with any Discretion and safety prevent it Otherwise a Toleration is not only lawful but necessary So in the case of Ambassadors who have been allways suffer'd in the Private use of their Religion One King cannot prescribe to an other Par in parem c So also in Reasons of State as when Kingdomes be Elective and obleige themselves and cannot without great Confusion help it and both Parties are intrusted in the Government So in case of Matches when Kings out of Reasons of State take Wives out of Kingly Families of a contrary Religion the absolute Lawfulness of which I think can never be questioned but is rather manifest from many Instances of Scripture such as Isaac and Rebecca Jacob and Rachel before the giving of the Law not to speak of David with Maacha the Daughter of the King of Jeshuron and Solomon with Pharaoh's Daughter after the giving of the Law which for fear of the sad effects of Idolatry did forbid such mixtures I am sure after the coming of the Gospel St. Paul requires the Believing Party to continue even with the Infidel who is said 1 Ep. Cor. 7. c. 9. v. to be bound by the Law so to do i. e. by the Law of Marriage Vide Bezam in locum and the Apostle is content for the making of a Marriage Lawful only with one Condition namely Arabs Interpres nimiū angustè restringit ad accipiendū maritum ex fidelium numero that it be in the Lord i. e. in the fear of the Lord. But these Exceptions and the like being provided for 't is certainly our Duty to God to suppress all erroneous Religions if it be in our Discreet Power so to do still observing the Apostles Rules which be these First What have we to do to judge those that be without or those that be not subject to the State in which we live They flatter the Pope that give him Jurisdiction over all the world As for those that be without no Christian may draw his Sword against Infidels only for the sake of Religion unless there be a special Warrant from God as the Children of Israel had for the Canaanites and Saul for the Amalekites But if the Unbeliever be a Member of the State in which he lives he is not to be suffer'd in the outward exercise of his Religion So Constantine the first Christian Emperour shut up the Temples of Idolaters and there is the same Reason against the Synagogues of the Jews and the Mosques of the Mahometans Secondly As for those that be within the Church by Baptism and Profession if they fall into Heresy or Schism they must be corrected and reform'd but still according to the respective offices Lines and Powers of men which are various The Minister must do his part and his office is to stand Sentinel and to discover the first Approaches He must try them which say they are Apostles and are not Rev. 2. He must blow the Trumpet and bid the People beware of false Prophets Math. 7. Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees Math. 16. Beware of Dogs Beware of Evil-workers Beware of the Concision Philip. 3. He must instruct in Meekness 2 Tim. 2. He must convince the Leaders and reprove them sharply If this prevail not He must use the Power of the Keys The Epistles of Christ to the 7 Churches of Asia are altogether to this purpose and that upon condition of removing the Candlestick out of its place in the 2d of the Rev. 14. I have a few things against thee to the Church of Pergamus because Thou hast them that hold the doctrine of Balaam who taught Baalak to cast a stumbling-block before the children of Israel and to commit for nication and that held the doctrine of the Nicolaitans which thing I hate said the Spirit to the Churches So likewise to the Church of Thyatira v. 20. I have a few things against