and perhaps despiseth these under the notion of Morality and so presuming that he is a Saint too soon he never comes to be one at all such are the Seekers that shall not be able to enter Their seeking imports some striving but 't is such as though it be specious yet it is imperfect and will not succeed And hence the Third Proposition ariseth that I proposed to discourse III. THat there is a sort of Striving that will not procure an entrance implyed in these words For many will seek to enter in and shall not be able 'T is a dangerous thing to be flattered into a false peace and to take up with imperfect Godliness to reconcile the hopes of Heaven to our beloved sins and to judge our condition safe upon insufficient grounds This multitudes do and 't is the great danger of our days Men cannot be contented without doing something in Religion but they are contented with a little And then they reckon themselves godly before they are vertuous and take themselves to be Saints upon such things as will not distinguish a good man from a bad We seek after Marks of Godliness and would be glad to know how we might try our state The thing is of great importance and if the Signs we judge by are either false or imperfect we are deceived to our undoing Meer Speculative mistakes about Opinions do no great hurt but errour in the Marks and Measures of Religion is deadly Now there are sundry things commonly taken for signs of Godliness which though they are something yet they are not enough They are hopeful for beginnings but nothing worth when they are our end and rest They are a kind of seeking and imperfect striving but not such as overcometh the difficulties of the way or will procure us an entrance at the Gate Therefore to disable the flattering insufficient Marks of Godliness I shall discover in pursuance of the Third Proposition How far a man may strive in the exercises of Religion and yet be found at last among those seekers that shall not be able to enter And though I have intimated something of this in the general before yet I shall now more particularly shew it in the instances that follow And in these I shall discover a Religion that may be called Animal to which the natural man may attain 1. A Man may believe the Truths of the Gospel and assent heartily to all the Articles of the Creed and if he proceeds not he is no further by this than the faith of Devils Jam. 2. 19. 2. He may go on and have a great thirst to be more acquainted with Truth he may seek it diligently in Scripture and Sermons and good Books and knowing Company And yet do this by the motion of no higher Principle than an inbred Curiosity and desire of Knowledge and many times this earnestness after Truth proceeds from a proud affectation to be wiser than our Neighbours that we may pity their darkness or the itch of a disputing humour that we may out-talk them or a design to carry on or make a party that we may be called Rabbi or serve an Interest and the zeal for Truth that is set on work by such motives is a spark of that fire that is from beneath 'T is dangerous to a mans self and to the publick Weal of the Church and mankind but the man proceeds and is 3. Very much concern'd to defend and propagate his Faith and the Pharisees were so in relation to theirs Mat. 23. 15. and so have been many Professors of all the Religions that are or ever were Men naturally love their own Tenents and are ambitious to mould others judgements according to theirs There is glory in being an Instructor of other men and turning them to our ways and opinions So that here is nothing yet above Nature nothing but what may be found in many that seek and are shut out 4. Faith works greater effects than these and Men offer themselves to Martyrdom for it This one would think should be the greatest height and an argument that all the difficulties of the way are overcome by one that is so resolved and that the Gate cannot but be opened to him And so no doubt it is when all things else are sutable But otherwise these consequences by no means follow S. Paul supposeth that a man may give his Body to be burned and not have Charity without which his Martyrdom will not profit 1 Cor. 13. For one to deny his Religion or what he believes to be certain and of greatest consequence is dishonourable and base and some out of principles of meer natural bravery will die rather than they will do it and yet upon other accounts be far enough from being heroically vertuous Besides the desire of the glory of Martyrdom and Saintship after it may in some be stronger than the terrours of Death and we see frequently that men will sacrifice their lives to their Honour and Reputation yea to the most contemptible shadows of it And there is no passion in us so weak no lust so impotent but hath in many instances prevail'd over the fear of dying Every Appetite hath had its Martyrs and all Religions theirs and though a man give his Body to be burnt for the best and have not Charity viz. Prevalent love to God and Men it will not signifie So that Martyrdom is no infallible mark nor will it avail any thing except sincere endeavour to overcome the greater difficulties have gone before it Thus far Faith may go without effect and yet one step further 5. Men may confidently rely upon Christ for Salvation and be firmly perswaded that he hath justified and will make them happy They may appropriate him to themselves and be pleased mightily in the opinion of his being theirs And yet notwithstanding this confidence may be in the number of those seekers that shall not enter For Christ is the Author of Eternal life only to those that obey him Heb. 5. 9. and to obey him is to strive vigorously and constantly to overcome all our sinful Inclinations and Habits And those that trust he will save them though they have never seriously set about this work deceive themselves by vain presumption and in effect say that he will dissolve or dispense with his Laws in their favour For he requires us to deny our selves Mar. 8. 34. To mortifie the body Rom. 8. 13. To love enemies Mat. 5. 44. To be meek Mat. 11. 29. and patient Jam. 5. 8. and humble 1 Pet. 5. 7. and just Mat. 7. 12. and charitable Heb. 13. 16. and holy as he that called us is holy 1 Pet. 1. 15. And he hath promised to save upon no other terms For all these are included in Faith when 't is taken in the justifying sense and this is the Way of Happiness and Salvation If we walk not in this but in the paths of our own choosing our relying upon Christ is a mockery and will deceive
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
thee saith the Psalmist ver 9. are faln upon me Those that despise the Church and its Servants first despised God and Religion And 't is the interest that his Glory hath in its contempt that makes them in the Text so sensible and so earnest When men hate and contemn their Prince and his Government they will scarce dare to vent their spite immediately against him but do it against his Ministers and Favorites in like manner the contemptuous enemies of God carry themselves to him and to his Messengers and Servants they give him a little formality of complement and respect but pour all possible scorn and reproach upon them But 't is for his sake they are thus slain all the day long and He knows where the contempt and enmity begins so that when we are scorn'd on the account of Religion we may resent it and ought so far as to be earnest with God for deliverance because his honour is concern'd with ours But this will be matter of particular Application and Address and therefore I say no more of it in this place but descend to apply the discourse for our Instruction and Practice I Infer First That no Church upon Earth can secure it self from contempt This of the Jews was Gods own constitution a Church of his framing not only in the essentials but in the circumstances of it A Church inlightned by Prophets founded on Miracles and incouraged by the more than ordinary presence of God with them and yet even They were a reproach to their neighbours a scorn and derision to them that were round about them Psal 79. 4. Their souls were filled with the scorning of those that were at ease and with the contempt of the proud And the Christian Church that succeeds into all their priviledges and hath the addition of more and greater That also hath undergone heavy burdens of contempt ever since it appear'd in the world The Author of it was the Son of God God blessed for ever the brightness of his Fathers Glory and express image of his person and yet He was despised and rejected of men Isa 53. 3. they hid their faces from him and esteemed him not as Isaiah Prophesyed and the event made good He came unto his own and they received him not yea they rejected him with contempt They reproach'd him in his Life as a Wine-bibber a Glutton a friend of Publicans and sinners In his Doctrines as a Deceiver and Blasphemer In his Miracles as a Conjurer and Magician and one that cast out Devils by Belzebub in his Declarations and rightful claims as an ignominious Impostor And at his Death they loaded him with all the marks of contempt and reproach imaginable Seiz'd him with Swords and Staves like a Murderer or a Thief condemn'd him by a publique cry as one not fit to live upon the earth Away with him Crucifie him crucifie him Buffeted him Spit upon him hung him up on an infamous tree as a vile person between two notorious Malefactors And if the Master had such usage what were the servants to expect If He be call'd Belzebub what must they look for Matth. 10. 25. They could expect no other than contempt and reproach and they had it in full measure The Apostles and immediate Messengers of the holy Jesus were accounted as madmen bablers deceivers of the people and setters forth of strange Gods their way and Doctrines foolishness cunningly devised fables every where spoken against Their persons treated infamously with Whips and publique scorns And the disciples that were made by their Ministry and endeavours had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings bonds and imprisonment and were forced to wander about in Sheep-kins and Goat-skins destitute afflicted tormented as the Apostle speaks to the Hebrews Heb. 11. They suffered reproach from the carnal proud their enemies without Jews and Heathens and from the spiritual proud that pretended to be within the Gnosticks those vile Fanaticks of the first times who boasted that they were more knowing and more spiritual than all others that they better understood yea only understood the mysterie of Religion they spoke swelling words of vanity had mens persons in admiration heap'd up teachers crept into houses led captive silly women despised dominions spoke evil of dignities caused divisions separated themselves as they are described by the Apostles These despised the true Church and all the sober members of it as people of a low Form and utterly unacquainted with the heights and spiritualities of the Gospel and therefore they scorn'd their company and communion and went out from among them I need not further prosecute the relation of the Churches usage in those old times These last accounts lead my thoughts to our own and perhaps there have been none from the beginning which more sadly prove that no Church can be secure from contempt than these By the blessing of God we enjoy a Constitution Apostolical in its Doctrine Primitive in its Government decent in its Ceremonies grave and pious in its Liturgy We have the Scriptures the Creeds the Sacraments the main Ordinances and Duties of the first and purest times we are freed from Idolatries Superstitions and other corruptions of the Roman Church on this hand and clear from the vanities and Enthusiasms that have overspread some pretended Protestants on that our Church hath rejected the painted bravery of the one and provided against the sordid slovenliness of the other Her cloathing is decent and not gaudy Hath all that which may assist reverence without any thing that can directly minister to vanity or superstition It is a Church reformed by grave Councils and not by popular Tumults fram'd to primitive patterns and not to modern phancies conducted by Reverend Prelates and not left to the pride and ignorance of Novices or factious multitudes And now one would think that such a Church as this might escape the contempt of the Proud and that it would be rever'd at least among the professors of the same Faith and Religion But alas how much otherwise is our case we are exceedingly contemn'd our soul is exceedingly filled with the scorning of those that are at ease and with the conptempt of the proud Never any Church had more just reason to take up this sad complaint of the Text than this For its Government the most Apostolical and most Catholick is decryed by the spiritual proud as Antichristian and Tyrannical Its worship the purest and most primitive reproach'd as Idolatrous and avoided by them as the Plague Its Liturgy the best in the world loaded with contempt and made a common Theme of derision Its discipline made void by every one that pleaseth observ'd by very few out of Conscience and by none out of Fear Its penalties the greatest its Excommunications that were so justly terrible heretofore slighted and despised as if they were but meer Buggs and Scare-crows Its Ceremonies those few comely Rites it enjoyes declam'd against with loud outcries as superstitious and abominable and its
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
place seems to cross all that hath been said about the Difficulties of Religion And 't is true it hath such an appearance but 't is no more For the words look as cross to the expressions of the same Divine Author concerning the straitness of the Gate and narrowness of the Way as to any thing I have delivered from those infallible sayings Therefore to remove the semblance of contrariety which the objected Text seems to have to those others and to my Discourse we may observe That when our Saviour saith that his yoke is easie the word we read is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifieth very good excellent gracious and the meaning I suppose is That his Precepts had a native beauty and goodness in them That they are congruous and sutable to our reasonable Natures and apt instruments to make us happy In which sense this expression hath no antipathy to the Text or to any thing I have said And whereas 't is added My Burden is light I think by this we are to understand That his Commands are not of that burdensome nature that the Ceremonies of the Jewish Laws were Those were very cumbersome and had nothing in their nature to make them pleasant and agreeable whereas his Religion had no expensive troublesome Rites appendant to it nor did it require any thing but our observation of those Laws which eternal Reason obligeth us to and which of our selves we should choose to live under were we freed from the intanglements of the World and interests of Flesh So that neither doth this Objection signifie any thing against the scope of my Discourse ANd now I come to Apply what I have said and the things I have to add will be comprehended under these two Generals 1. Inferences and 2. plain Advice in order to practice I begin with the Inferences and Corollaries that arise from the whole Discourse And 1. We may collect What is the state of Nature and What the state of Grace We have seen that 't is the great business of Religion to overcome evil Inclinations and the prevailing influence of sense and passion and evil customs and example and worldly affections And therefore the state of Nature consists in the power and prevalency of These This is that the Scripture calls the Old man Eph. 4. 22. The Image of the earthy 1 Cor. 15. Flesh Gal. 5. 17. Death Rom. 7. 24. Darkness Joh. 3. 19. and old leven 1 Cor. 5. 7. On the contrary The state of Grace is a state of sincere striving against them which if it keeps on ends in Victory And this is call'd Conversion Acts 3. 19. and Renovation while 't is in its first motions And the Divine Nature 2 Pet. 1. 4. the Image of the Heavenly 1 Cor. 15. 20. The Spirit Gal. 5. 16. Light Ephes 5. 8. and Life 1 Joh. 3. 14. when 't is arriv'd to more compleatness and perfection For our fuller understanding this we may consider That Grace is taken 1. for Divine favour 2. for Christian Vertue As it signifies Divine favour so it is used 1. For those helps and aids God affords us viz. the Gospel Joh. 1. 17. and the influences of his Spirit 1 Cor. 12. 9. In this sense we are deliver'd from the state of Nature by Baptism viz. We are intitled to divine helps which is a kind of regeneration for we are born in a condition of impotence and weakness and destitution of spiritual assistances This is the world of meer nature But then in Baptism we are brought into the world of the Spirit that is are put under its influences and are assured of its aids and so are morally born again Not that this Regeneration alone will save us without our endeavours it imports only an external relation and right to priviledges and by these we may be powerfully assisted in our striving if we use them But then 2. Grace as it signifies divine favour implies his special love and kindness such as he vouchsafes to holy and vertuous men so that we may observe that there may be a distinction between a state of Grace and a state of salvation A state of Grace in the former sense is a condition assisted by the influences of Gods Spirit and all baptized persons are in that But if they use not those helps they are not in Gods special favour and so not in a state of Salvation But when those assistances are duly imployed and join'd with our sincere endeavour then the person so using them is in a state of Salvation also and in God's special love and favour Thus of the state of Grace in the first sense as taken for divine favour 2. The word is also used for Christian Vertue 2 Pet. 3. 18. and Vertue is call'd Grace because 't is wrought in us by the assistance of Gods Spirit and the light of the Gospel which are divine favours and to be in a state of grace in this sense is to be a virtuous man which supposeth divine aids and intitles to divine love These things I have taken an occasion thus briefly to state because there is oft-times much confusion in means discourses about Grace and Nature from which much trouble and many controversies have arisen And by what I have said also in these brief hints the doctrine of our Church in the office of Baptism may be understood clearly and will appear to be very sound and true notwithstanding the petty exceptions of confident Dissenters II. I may infer That the great Design of Religion and the Gospel is to perfect humane nature The perfection of our natures consists in the subjection and subordination of the affections and passions to the Mind as it is enlightned and directed by the divine Laws and those of Reason This is the state of integrity in which we were first made and we lost it by the rebellion of our senses and inferiour powers which have usurpt the government of us ever since Here is the imperfection and corruption of our natures Now Religion designs to remove and cure these and to restore us to our first and happy state It s business is not to reform our looks and our language or to model our actions and gestures into a devout appearance not only to restrain the practice of open prophaneness and villany nor to comfort us with the assurance of Gods loving us we know not why But to cure our ill natures to govern our passions to moderate our desires to throw out pride and envy and all uncharitable surmisals with the other spiritual sorts of wickedness and thereby to make us like unto God in whom there is no shadow of sin or imperfection and so to render us fit objects of his delight and love So that whatever doth not tend to the making us some way or other really better better in our selves and better in all Relations as fathers and children and husbands and wives and subjects and governours and neighbours and friends is not Religion It may
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
the meer Animal Religion and very commonly do so This they understand not and by this ignorance are betrayed into the snare of Separation to the disturbance of the Peace of the Church and their own great hurt and inconvenience Whereas could they be made to know and consider that complexion and natural passions may bring forth all these fruits they might be secured by this means against the tempting imposture and learn that Meekness and Patience Affability and Charity Justice and a Peaceable humble temper are better arguments of Saintship than all these Thus a great mischief might be prevented and there is another that might be remedied by the same Observation The inconvenience is this While the enemies of Factions object Hypocrisie to them affirming that all they do and say is meer personating and pretence they confirm and settle those people in their way for many of them know that they are in earnest and consequently that their opposers are mistaken in their judgements concerning them by which they are better establisht in their own good opinion and hardned against conviction whereas did they consider such things as I have suggested about the Animal Religion and grant to them that they may be serious believe themselves infinitely and feel all those Warmths which they pretend and yet be evil men and far enough from being Godly Did they shew them that all their zeal and Devotion and more and greater than theirs may arise from a principle that hath nothing Divine and supernatural in it They would thereby strike them in the right vein and bring them down from the high perch whereon by their false marks they had placed themselves and thereby disabuse them and prevent the abuse of others VI. We see how we may know our state whether it be that of Grace and Life or the other sad one of Unregeneracy and Death The state of Grace is a motion towards the recovery of the Divine Image and a victory over our selves and all corrupt inclinations and affections The state of Unregeneracy and Death is the continuance under the power and prevalency of sense passion and evil habits Now when 't is question'd by our selves in which of these states we are it must be supposed that we are arrived at something of Religion For the grosly wicked cannot but know what their condition is And the way I would propose to those others who are yet uncertain is this viz. To take notice Whether they really design and make any progress in Goodness Every motion indeed cannot be felt or perceived but if we go on though never so insensibly time will shew that we are grown If we consider what are our particular defects and studiously apply proper instruments to remove them if we find success in those indeavours and that we are better this year than we were the former That our Passions are better governed and our inordinate affections more restrained and our evil habits and inclinations less powerful with us 't is an infallible sign that we live and are in a state of Grace that we shall at last arrive to a perfect man in Christ Jesus Eph. 4. 13. and shall attain if we faint not 2 Cor. 4. 1. Whereas on the other hand if we come to some hopeful pitch and stand still there if sin and temptation be as powerful with us now as they were a year ago and our inclinations and passions just at the same pass we are in a bad state and dead While the Plant grows it lives and may become a great tree though at present it be but small whereas that whose stature is bigger and more promising if it proceeds not decays and comes to nothing Though we are imperfect if we are striving and going towards perfection God overlooks our Infirmities and pardons them for Christ's sake This is our sincerity and an effect of true Faith But if on the other hand we think our selves well and do not always attempt forwards our state is bad and our sins will be imputed Be our pretences what they will our Faith is not sincere and will not stead us When we get to a certain pitch in Religion and make that our state 't is an argument that our Religion was meerly Animal and but a mode of complexion self-love and natural fear When we overcome some sins and are willing to spare and cherish others 't is a sign that we are not sincere in our attempts upon any and that what we have done was not performed upon good and divine motives Sincerity is discovered by growth and this is the surest mark that I know of Tryal So that we have no reason to presume though as we think we have gone a great way if we go not on Nor on the other side have we any to despair though our present attainments are but small if we are proceeding The buds and tenderest blossoms of Divine Grace are acceptable to God when the fairest leaves of the meer Animal Religion are nothing in his esteem This is a great advantage we have from the Gospel that imperfection will be accepted where there is sincerity whereas according to the measures of exact and regorous Justice no man could be made happy in the high degree of glory but he that was perfect and whose victories were absolute VII It may be collected from our Discourse Wherein the Power of Godliness consists viz. In a progress towards perfection and an intire victory over all the evils of our Natures The Forms of Godliness are not only in the ceremonies of Worship and external actions of feigned Piety But all the fine things of the Animal Religion are of this kind and they are the worst sort By the grosser Forms men hardly deceive others by these they effectually gull themselves So that many that vehemently oppose Forms are the greatest Formalists Forms of Worship may well agree with the Power of Godliness whenas zeal against Forms may be a Form it self whatever makes shew of Religion and doth not make us better that 's a Form at least to us There are Spiritual Forms as well as those of the other sort and these are most deadly Poyson is worst in Aqua Vitae He that speaks his Prayers ex tempore with vehemence and loudness if he strive not against ill nature and self-will is as much a Formalist as he that tells his Prayers by his Beads and understands not one word he saith And those that run away from Forms in Churches meet more dangerous ones in Barns and private corners Orthodox Opinions devout Phrases set Looks melting Tones affected Sighs and vehement Raptures are often meer Forms of Godliness that proceed from the Animal Religion which it self is a Form likewise O that the observers of so many motes in their Brethrens eyes would learn to throw out the Beams of their own The Form of Godliness that pretends it self to be no more is not so hurtful But the Forms that call themselves the Power are deadly 'T is
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
simplicity of Life and Faith and 't was most peoples business to chatter like Pyes rather than to live like Christians or like Men. If Religion had been computed by mens talk and dispute about it those later days of the declining World had been its best and this in its growth and ways of highest improvement when all things else were verging to their Set and Period But alas the Tongue was the most if not the only religious Member And many of the Pretenders like the Aegyptian Temples were fair without but Beasts and Serpents and Crocodiles within Or like the Bird of Paradise they had Wings to flye in the Clouds of Imagination but no Feet to walk on the Ground of a vertuous practice Yea some had found the way to swim to Heaven in the Current of their appetites and to reconcile Covetousness Rapine Cruelty and Spiritual Pride with the glorious names of the Elect the People of God the Church of Christ and the good Party Religion with Rebellion and Sacriledge with Saintship Men had learnt to be godly without goodness and Christians without Christianity They were lovers of God and yet haters of their Brother haters of open Prophaneness but not of spiritual wickedness Very godly though cruel and unjust True penitents though they returned to their sins as soon as they had complain'd and wept Their hearts were good though their actions were dishonest and they had the root of the matter in them though that root were a dry stump and had no branches They were regenerated but not reformed converted but not a jot the better Devout Worshippers but bad Neighbours Lovers of God but no haters of Covetousness Had power in Heaven but none over themselves They were Gods Servants though they obeyed their appetites and his children though no better than those that are of their Father the Devil Thus had men got the knack to be religious without religion and were in the way to be saved without salvation These were gross disorders whereby Religion was taken from its foundation of Vertue and Holy living and placed in emotions raptures and swelling words of vanity And when these had kindled the imagination and raised the fansie to the Clouds to flutter there in mystical non-sense and when that was mounted on the Wings of the Wind and got into the Revelations to loosen the seals pour out the vials and phantastically to interpret the fates of Kingdoms when it flew into the Tongue in an extravagant ramble and abused the Name and Word of God mingling it with canting unintelligible babble I say when the diseased and disturbed phansie thus variously displayed it self many made themselves believe that they were acted by the Spirit and that those wild agitations of sick Imaginations were divine motions And when this fire was descended from the fansie to the affections and these being exceedingly moved by those vain and proud conceits caused tremblings and foamings convulsions and ecstasies in the body all which are but natural diseases if not worse and just like those odd ecstatical motions of the Devils Priests when they came foaming from his Altars these I say the wild phantasticks had learnt to ascribe to the blessed and adorable Spirit And when their phansies being full of turgid notions and their bodies in an ecstasie they dream'd of strange sights voices and wonderful discoveries which were nothing but the unquiet agitations of their own disordered brains These also were taken for divine Revelations and the effects of the Spirit of God shewing it self miraculously in them Briefly and in sum Every humour and phantastick unaccountable motion was by some represented as the work of that Spirit to which they are most opposite Thus when warm and brisk sanguine presented a cheerful Scene and filled the imagination with pleasant Dreams these were divine Illapses the Joys and Incomes of the Holy Ghost When heated Melancholy had kindled the busie and active phansie the Enthusiast talks of Illuminations New Lights Revelations and many wonderful fine things which were ascribed to the same Spirit and when Phlegm prevailed and had quencht the phantastick Fire rendring the Mad man more dull and unactive then the Spirit was withdrawn and the man under spiritual darkness and desertion And when again Choler was boyled up into rage and fury against every thing that was not of the Fanatique genius this also was presumed to be an Holy Fervour kindled by that Spirit whose real Fruits are gentleness and love And now after that which I have said on this occasion it may perhaps be necessary to add that I hope none here will be so uncharitable or so unjust as to think that I go about to disparage the Spirit of God and its influence which as I ought I adore and reverence and because I do so I think it fit to represent and shame the blasphemous abuses of it which would expose the most Divine things to scorn and make them ridiculous And that the Holy Spirit hath been thus traduced and injured and is still by great numbers among us 't would be shameful not to acknowledge And I add that my zeal and reverence for the realities make me thus justly sharp against the Counterfeits Nor do I think that folly and phantastry is to be spared because they wear the stollen Livery of things venerable and sacred Therefore to go on such a Religion had the corruption of it bred among us A Religion conceived in the Imagination and begot by Pride and Self-Love which gilded the Professors of it with all the glorious names and priviledges of the Gospel And when they had encircled their Heads with their own phantastick rays and swoln their Imaginations into a Tympany of ridiculous greatness they scornfully contemned all but their Darling-selves under the notion of the Formal the Moral and the Wicked and proudly pitied the poor and carnal World that is all that were not of their conceited pitch and elevation And having thus dignified themselves and debased others they herded together drew the Church into their little Corners and withdrew from the communion of others who had less conceit though more Christianity They bid us stand off lest we should have polluted them by our unhallowed approaches and having made us as the Heathen and the Publican they cried Come out from among them The true Church soundness of Judgement purity of Doctrine and of Worship if men would believe them was confined to their clans just as they wee to the Corners of Africa of old when their Friends the Donatists were there Thus did the Votaries of each Sect swell in their Imaginations till some other sort as well conceited as themselves endeavoured to take their Plumes from them and to appropriate those glorious prerogatives to their own party And this went for the power of Godliness and the spirituality of Religion under pretence of which all reverence to things sacred was destroyed For when this Spirit had got into the Pulpit and set up the Cry of
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
31. 18. Thus of the first sort of proud Contemners of the Church There is another viz. 2. The Spiritual proud that are lifted up above measure in the thoughts of their priviledges and attainments Pride takes occasion from all things and when it hath not riches and worldly honours to raise it self upon it takes even Religion to serve its vanity It sets men upon the pinnacle yea it carries them into the clouds of imagination and thence they Scornfully look down upon all that are not of the same phanciful height They choose unto themselves singular wayes and heap up to themselves Teachers of their own they put on glorious shews of spirituality and strictness and make a more refined form of Godliness And then they phancy that they worship in a more acceptable and Spiritual manner that they have more knowledge of Gods mind and experience of his wayes than all others And so that they are his special favourites and more dear unto him than all the rest of mankind That they only have pure Ordinances and pretious truths while the rest of the Church are in darkness and the shadow of death cover'd with the night of Ignorance and Superstition and were it not for them fire and brimstone destruction and utter desolation would seize on the rest of men And being thus opinion'd of themselves they will not mingle with the wicked but gather into their Select companies and worship after their own fashion They despise the publick orders of the Church and contemn those that are not in the mode of singularity and separation But especially they look on the Ministers of the Church with the greatest and bitterest scorn they undervalue their abilities and defame their lives they talk of them as if there were nothing but ignorance and debauchery among them As if a man were forsaken of God and all goodness assoon as the Church had taken him into her service and bereft of all understanding and all sense of vertue and Godliness assoon as he undertook to Minister in the publique legal places of worship They greedily hunt after Stories to make them odious and contemptible and catch the vomit of Atheists and Drunkards to throw in their faces I mean they publish and authenticate the slanderous lies that those sots make in their more than bestial debauches what They intend for sport these propagate in malice they vent the scandalous tales among their friends for sad certainties and confirm them with sighs and solemn nods as the others did with Oaths and Dammee's as if they were troubled at the evil they report when as indeed they are then most tickled and pleased 'T is marrow and fatness to them to hear and tell stories of the Sons of the Church no one can oblige them more than he that so entertains them And when informations fail they have good inventions to supply that want so that no innocence can escape them No vertue is protection against them They 'l interpret every harmless action into a miscarriage and aggravate every the smallest miscarriage with all the most heinous circumstances of guilt and villany Yea where no blot is to be found none to be pretended there they vilifie the vertue of those unblamable persons as dull morality and them as strangers to the Spirit and Mysterie of Religion But besides these there is another sort of Proud that are occasions of the Church's contempt men that would have themselves thought to be the only friends to it That will not be satisfied with their brethrens subscriptions and declarations for the Articles and Constitutions of the Church except they will take Their Interpretations And unless you will be of their mind in every disputed Doctrine you must be publish'd enemies to the Church and suspicions will be raised upon you as secret adversaries and dangerous persons that undermine the foundations These would set the Church upon an indivisible point and have it stand like a steeple invers'd They would shut out those that have serv'd the Church to as good purpose as any of themselves that can do it and will in spight of their peevishness and conceited folly Such men as these act as if they thought the Church had not enemies enough they would make more divide from it if they could and would have themselves accounted the only members and pillars of it Whether this be the way to assert its honour and reputation or to lay the ground for more contempt let indifferent men judge and to their thoughts I leave it I come now to the other General viz. 2. The earnest Supplication Have mercy upon us O Lord This may be understood as a Petition both for 1. Pardon And 2. Deliverance 1. Common contempt is a Judgement of which sin is the ground and occasion and when men complain of Judgements they should remember their offences which if they do with hearty penitence and due humiliation they are then prepar'd for pardon and may and ought to apply themselves to God for it This is the first thing to be done in order to deliverance from any evil and particularly from this 'T is vain to seek for the removal of the effect while the cause is suffer'd to continue Allow'd sin is contempt thrown upon the Majesty of God and those that dishonour Him shall be lightly esteem'd He must first be restored to his honour by our humbling our selves and renouncing our sins and then He will be ready to deliver us in his time from the scorning of those that are at ease and the contempt of the proud For those that honour him he will honour 1. Sam. 2. 3. And when a mans waies please the Lord his enemies shall be at peace with him Prov. 16. 7. This seems to be the first thing implied in the Petition Have mercy upon us O Lord in the pardon of our sins The second is for deliverance from the contempt of which they complain and so the Supplication speaks thus Have mercy upon us O Lord and help us They do not trouble themselves with Appeals and Apologies unto men no 't is a small thing with them to be judged of mans judgement 1 Cor. 4. 3. but they make their application to Him that judgeth righteously if He approves 't is no matter who condemns if He honour let men vilifie and contemn at their peril The Church seeks His favour and his help for deliverance for vain is the help of man And it seems to be exceeding earnest and solicitous to procure it which is implied in the reiteration of the request Have mercy upon us O Lord have mercy Which earnestness we may not suppose to proceed only from tenderness of their own names and reputation as if their being disvalued were so very grievous a thing to them No there was more in it the honour of God was concern'd and they were vilified and despised because of their Relation to Him For his sake they suffer'd reproach Psal 69. 7. and the reproaches of them that reproached
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
to consider whether its pretended friends have not been and are not still great occasions of it The greatest part of Christians are incapable of judging concerning the truth or goodness of any Church or Constitution of Religion but are inclin'd in their opinion and affection by the general temper and practice of its professors and adherents Now 't is an almost universal principle among men that Religion and the Worship of God require the greatest seriousness and zeal where these are observ'd in peoples carriage to their particular Church the most are usually inclin'd to have respect for that on the other side when the members of any Church are cold and unconcern'd or wanton and irreverent in their Religion such a temper when it comes to be general draws popular contempt upon that Church and way This at present is the sad case of ours and I doubt it may be too truly said that there are no retainers to any Church in the world who are so little concern'd for it and the worship of God in it as the pretenders to the Church of England If we survey our several Congregations and consider our people we shall find but very few that carry themselves as if they had any conscientious affection to the Religion they profess If the Estimate be taken from those that are constant or frequent at the publick Prayers in Cathedrals or other Churches certainly the number must be acknowledg'd to be very small and if we reckon only such that carry but the appearance of serious Devotion it will be yet less so that the Church may almost be tempted to say with him There is not one godly man left the righteous are minished from among the children of men There are indeed multitudes who will tell us they are of this Church when they give us no ground but their bare word to believe they are of any While they talk of owning and adhering to the Church they will not afford the solemn worship of it as much as their bodily presence as long as the Devil and their Lusts have employment for them elsewhere They carry themselves to it as to a matter of the greatest indifference will go to Church now and then when time lies upon their hands and they are in the humour for it and then again never think of Religion or Worship till another accident excites them And when they come to such Sacred places as this with what rude boldness do they enter Gods house and how much carelesness and irreverence do they express in their very looks and garb Confident negligence seems at present to be a fashion and the whole carriage after is sutable to this ill beginning What toying talking gazing laughing and other rude follies may we observe in the midst of the most solemn parts of worship and how much slightness and playsomness in speaking of serving God being devout saying prayers and such like serious things after it Now when these carriages are observ'd not to mention worse in those that say they are of the Church of England how readily doth it dispose the generality of men who judge by bare appearance to think amiss of the Church that is ordinarily thus treated by its members and to suppose most others that profess it to be of the same sort or not very different and so to despise the Church and all that adhere unto it This certainly is a very great occasion of her present contempt and if you would not be accessary to its increase and growth if it be capable of any more beware of this carelesness and irreverence to the Religion you profess If Religion be a real thing and not a meer imagination as nothing is more certain it then requires our greatest zeal and venerations and the most serious exercise of our faculties and endeavours no prostrations can be too low in the adoration of the God of Heaven no ingagement of soul too intense in praying for his blessing and praising him for his bounty no attention too serious in hearing of His Word no deportment too awful in His eye and special presence Let us all consider this and demean our selves in our worship as those that are in earnest Let the light of our zeal and devotion so shine before men that they seeing our works may glorifie God reverence the Church and vindicate it and us from the scorning of those that are at ease and the contempt of the proud Let us endeavour so to worship that the fervour of our piety may equal the truth of our profession and our actions in Religion may have some sutableness to our expectations from it And then though the Church and we are filled with contempt yet we shall be clear from any imputation of the guilt and our souls may be at ease though we are scorn'd by the Proud Preach'd at a Visitation SERMON VI. MORAL EVIDENCE OF A Life to Come The Second Edition SERMON VI. MATTH XXII 32. God is not the God of the dead but of the living NOtwithstanding the manifold and immediate Transactions of God with the people of the Jews yet were they a dull and stupid generation addicted very much to the matters of sense and indisposed to things of spiritual and invisible nature Yea there was a great and famous Sect among them that denied a Life to come and the Existence of immaterial beings For the Sadducees say there is no Resurrection neither Angels nor Spirit Acts 23. 8. These put the Question here to our Saviour in a case of a woman who successively had seven Husbands whose Wife she should be at the Resurrection from ver 22. to the 28. which captious Query they intended for an Argument against the Doctrine of another Life Christ answers directly to the objection by telling them their mistake of the state and condition of that Life since they neither marry nor are given in marriage that have attain'd unto it but are like the Angels of God ver 30. and then takes occasion to prove the Resurrection or Living again of the dead out of the writings of Moses the only Scripture the Sadducees allow'd ver 31 32. But as touching the Resurrection of the dead have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God saying I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob God is not the God of the dead but of the living The former clause of the verse cites the Scripture which is the ground of the Argument the latter is a principle of Reason and both together infer That there is a Resurrection Now the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Resurrection of the dead undertaken to be shewn was not the Resurrection of the body though that be a great truth also since the argument doth not reach this For one who believes that the soul lives after death may say That God is the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob though the body doth not rise for they are living in their souls which
the ends of malice and Self-love Which things being so in the present world it is fit that at last Providence should be disintangled and absolv'd that all the world may see the living creatures in the Wheels Ezek. 1. 20. and the eye that is in the Scepter as the Aegyptian Hieroglyphicks represented Providence That we may at length understand that its ways are equal Ezek. 18. 25. and that all the seeming inequalities prove the shortness of our Reasonings not the unevenness of its managements that its strangest and least accountable issues were the Results of Counsel and govern'd by an infinitely wise mind that shoots it self through all things That we may understand the difference between good and prosperous and the reason of the distance between vertue and success Why the fire out of the Bramble is permitted to devour the Cedar and the desert of the wicked is so often the lot of the just These expectations are reasonable and in a manner necessary that mankind may be convinced the events below were not Lotteries but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 full of Providence and that Providence acted by an infinite Wisdom Justice and Goodness That wickedness shall at last reap the misery it hath sown and dwell in the flames it hath kindled And afflicted Vertue lift up its head to receive the Crown and the Glories that are the rewards of its patience and appear to have shot it self up in another world when it was deprest in this And so all shall know that there was a God that judged in the Earth Psal 58. 11. And this is another reasonable account of the appointment of a Future Judgement 3. We may suppose it to be ordain'd for this also That secret wickedness may be disclos'd and shamed The Heart of man is as deep waters hath a smooth surface but is full of rocks and quicksands at the bottom The world is a Theatre and the greatest part of men are but Actors For as They cloathe themselves with Gold and Purple and put on great names and are fine things upon the Stage when behind the Curtain and in their retiremenâ—s they are but common men and like their ordinary Spectators Thus we dress our selves for publique converses set our looks and gild our language and put on the Livery of Wisdom and Saintship and appear what we would be thought not what we are But in our privacies and more familiar conversations in the loose and unconstrain'd order of our words and our actions we are quite another thing we are foolish and frivolous froward and impatient sordid and absurd And in the secret Chambers of our souls we are worse The fairest face would affright us if the skin were taken off it and shew us nothing but ghastliness and deformity And it would amaze us to see the In sides of those whose outward appearance is fair and plausible We now seek coverings for our shame and hide our follies and imperfections under handsome names devout shews and fair pretensions or excuse them by Necessity Temptation the Devil or Providence And though we see much sin and vileness assoon as we open our eyes and look out of doors Yet there is another and a worse world of wickedness shut up from our sight and hid in its own darkness in close designs and private actions in the corners of the heart and recesses of thoughts These make up a dark Region cover'd with fear and shame and the shadows of death open only to Him to whom all things are so and midnight is as bright as noon Psal 139. 12. And he will provide that so it shall be to all the world that all sin may be as odious as it is ugly and unobserv'd impiety may not still lie hid in the secrecie and silence it hath sought But that its whispers may be proclaim'd by a voice more loud than Thunder and its conceal'd deformities be brought into the open day That those hidden iniquities which hitherto have escap'd may be whipt with the scorpions of guilt and shame and the divine purity and patience may appear in their Glory and proper lustre And for this Reason also God hath appointed a Day wherein He will Judge the secrets of men That sin may not be the more secure for being close But that it may be feared and shunn'd in Grots as well as in most publique places And I may add That those actions of vertue that no eye sees but that which sees all things and those unknown tendencies and anhelations of divine souls after the adorable object of their Love may be solemnly celebrated and rewarded Again 4. Such a Day is fit and is appointed that all rights and claims may be determined The great Controversies are which and where is the True Church and Religion And if we attend to the Zeal and the confidence the loud talk and bold claims of each of the pretenders All are in the truth and All mistaken Every Sect is in the right if it may be judg'd by the fondness of its own assurance and every one is out by the sentence of all the rest Here 's Religion sayes one Nay but it 's here sayes the next and a third gives the Lie to them both And then they scuffle and contend till they have talk'd themselves out of sense out of charity and out of breath And when they would say on but know not what when their passions are rais'd but their Reasons lost They fall to pelt each other with hard names They squabble and strive and damn one another by turns They gather parties to help up the Cry and fill all places with the noise of their quarrels and triumph and crow after a conquest in Imagination And after all this bustle and all this ado They sit down where they begun Nothing is gain'd on either side but an addition of malice and bitter zeal more rancour and more damning sentences while they are for the most part as far from Truth as from agreement This is the state of the contending world nor can we expect it should be otherwise while Ignorance and Malice Interest and Passion inspire the quarrels Or if Controversies should be ended the Vote would doubtless be cast on the side of Folly and Falshood for their adherents are most numerous and most loud while the friends of Truth and Reason are meek and modest thinly scatter'd among the Herd and still liable to be over-born and out-nois'd by the Tumult But the coming Day will set all right and effectually resolve Pilate's Question What is Truth And then no doubt The meek and the peaceable the charitable and the just who did not dispute but live who were not swoln with rage and notions but big of Charity and universal kindness for mankind Then shall These be declar'd the rightful Heirs of the Kingdom when the presumed Sons of it who hugg'd themselves as the only favourites of Heaven and warm'd their hands by their own fantastick Fires who flew aloft on the wings
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
justifying implys more viz. an entire obedience to the Gospel Such a Faith as this is that which St. James writes so earnestly against as dead and unsignifying of it self alone to the purpose of Justification and acceptance with God Again the imputed Righteousness of Christ is a great truth rightly understood but by divers Sectaries 't is abused to this false notion that all Righteousness that Christ wrought is formally and properly ours as if we had done it So that we may be holy and vertuous by his holiness though we have none of our own contrary to that of St. John Little Children let no man deceive you he that doth righteousness is righteous even as he is righteous 1 Joh. 3. 7. But these fancy they are righteous without doing Righteousness if they can lay hold on Christ roll upon him as they phrase it and firmly believe that he is theirs they are then compleatly righteous by the imputation of his though they have none of their own which Solifidian Antinomian Notions that are lately spread among the Sects place Religion in the fancy as the Popish Doctrines do in some external services and as effectually as theirs take away the necessity of real reformation and true goodness I might add a great deal more under this head as their Doctrines of Infirmities by which they excuse themselves in their Spiritual sins their decrying morality as a dull low graceless thing the immoral practices of Schism Disobedience c. that they indulge and defend themselves in These are impurities that are contrary to that Faith which was once deliver'd to the Saints But now the Church of England teacheth all the duties we owe to God our Neighbour and our selves in the just latitude and extent of them It hath no shifts or evasions of Repentance and Reformation It allows no hopes of Salvation but upon those terms It teacheth no practice that is impious or immoral nor indulgeth any whoever is an evil man in this Church knows he is so by his own Principles he is condemn'd and hath no hopes of Salvation but what are grounded on effectual Repentance and Reformation 3. The Faith deliver'd to the Saints is peaceable Those Saints were so Sheep Lambs Doves Such was their Lord the Prince of Peace and his Religion the wisdome from above pure and peaceable By this Character also Popery is confuted which tends to the destruction both of Ecclesiastical and civil peace The former the peace of the Church they pretend to have best provided for by the Supremacy and Infallibility they have erected in theirs And by these all Controversies in Religion are they tell us quickly ended But the misery on 't is that that which should end the Controversies is it self one and the greatest They have an effectual Engine for Union but they themselves are not agreed where it is and they are incurably divided about this their ground of uniting For some place the Supremacy and Infallibility in the Pope some in the Council some in both and this hath not been only the opposition of petty Doctors and Disputers but Church is against Church The French and the German for one and the Spaniard and the Italian for another Yea Pope hath decreed against Pope in this matter and Pope and General Council against Pope and General Council Lo here is the Catholick Union the certain and infallible way of ending Controversies in Religion A way they have but they cannot find it Yea they are together by the ears about that Infallible way of ending all strife And notwithstanding this rare receipt that is in their hands the disease the great differences and disputes of their several disorders remains still uncured And indeed that Church hath laid a foundation for everlasting differences and disagreements by bringing numerary speculative and doubtful Tenents into their Creeds an Engine for endless divisions There is no possible uniting but upon the few main certain Articles contain'd in the Primitive Creeds Additions to these are the chief grounds of the Divisions of Christendome So that the Roman Church provides not for Ecclesiastical Peace but destroys it by its disputable Articles of Faith and further so by its other intollerable terms of Communion the various Idolatries and Superstitions it imposeth by which they drive the best and most intelligent Christians from them And so are themselves the Schismaticks They make the breaches in the Church they complain of And for civil peace 't is clear in all Histories that the Popes and their Agents and Emissaries especially the Jesuites have been the great embroylers and Incendiaries of Christendome The combustions and troubles of every nation in it can sadly witness this The fore-mention'd Doctrines of Deposing Kings and absolving the people from their Allegiance are principles of everlasting Rebellions and disturbance But let us look on the other side How is it with the Sects in respect of peaceableness why they may say unto strife Thou art our Mother and to Feuds and Animosities you have brought us into the world Unpeaceabless of principles and temper breed and maintain them They are broken from the Church and divided each from other and amongst themselves subdivided minc't almost into Atoms There is nothing but endless divisions animosities jarrings disputes among them The ways of peace they have not known they will not know They have causlesly separated from the Communion of the Church of England and for the same reasons must have left the Fellowship of the Saints mention'd in the Text and of all the Christians of the Primitive times to whom both in doctrine and many practices they are most unlike And upon the same principles new Sects grow out of them that divided first and more evils spring from those others from time to time to the worlds end I deny not but that there are diverse misled abused persons of peaceable and quiet Spirits drawn in among them and we are to pray and to endeavour that such may be regain'd and if the Government should think fit to abate some lesser things in consideration of such to satisfie and recover them it would be charity and kindness that I know not who would dislike But those that are of the right Sectarian stamp and temper will never rest or settle any where nor be satisfied with any concession God Almighty may change their hearts and minds by his power but nothing less can and all that we can do is to pray to him for them Nothing less than their whole wills and an entire subjection to their fancies will content them and if those were granted we could not be assured they would please them long nothing useth to do so They are Clouds carried about with winds Jude v. 12. Let the wind be where it will to day no one can say from what point it will blow to morrow They are acted by a private Spirit that is as little certain The opinions it suggests are numerous and all accounted divine and sacred Gods truth Gospel
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
appearance Not that it is sufficient for a Minister of the Gospel to be thus negatively righteous no besides other considerations we have a great charge upon us which will require a very active piety And therefore 3. We must take heed also that we are not negligent in the great business of our noble Calling That business is so worthy and so necessary that it requires the chief of our thoughts the flower of our time and the vigour of our endeavours to bestow less upon it is to neglect it and every neglect of that deserves a degree of contempt upon our selves Give thy self wholly to these things was the instruction of the Apostle 1 Tim. 4. 15. and our whole is little enough for who is sufficient for these things 2 Cor. 2. 16. and when we have done all we are unprofitable Servants Luke 17. 10. 'T is little we can do God knows to make the world wiser or better it is too wise in conceit to be taught and too bad in practice to be amended by us However we must labour and ply the Oar though the tyde be never so strong against us 'T is part of the patience of the Gospel to work even there where our labour for the present is in vain It will not be so always 1 Cor. 15. no it shall be rewarded by plentiful Glory hereafter though it were not incouraged by any visible success here Those rewards we publish and expect and for us to do the work of the Lord negligently is to put a slight upon them and upon Religion our selves and to invite contempt from others And there is none certainly that more justly deserves the extreamest degrees of it than he that loiters in the Lords Vineyard and is negligent in the Ministry of Souls I have exprest these cautions in a negative way but hope it will be understood that the positive duties are included When I say we are not to be Pharisaical in our Religion I intend also that we are to be very plain sober and sincere in it When I caution against immoral lives I imply that ours ought to be very virtuous and religious When I give the rule against negligence I have taken care to be understood to mean likewise that the greatest sedulity and diligence is our duty To have run out into full Comments upon these would have taken up more than my whole time I descend to the Second Head in the Apostle's Rule 2. We ought to take heed to our Doctrine if we would not deserve contempt We live in a ticklish Age for this also an Age of itching ears and curious palats men were never so eritical upon their teaching though 't is likewise sadly true that they were never so little careful to practise according to it In the variety and oppositions of opinions phancies humours and capacities an Angel from Heaven could not please all and as things are those that are not pleased with the Doctrine will contemn the Preacher So that avoid contempt we cannot but we shall not deserve it if our Doctrine be guided by our end and that is the Glory of God in the Salvation of those that hear us The business of Preaching is to instruct men in what they are to believe and do in order to their serving God and being happy This is the great Rule this the measure And the Discourses that are not directed by it may be witty Orations and learned entertainments but they are not good Sermons For every thing is to be judg'd by its fitness for its end If our Doctrines and publique instructions are squar'd by that we shall approve our selves unto God and Conscience though vain and phantastick men despise us and so we are to speak not as pleasing men but God 1 Thes 2. 4. There is nothing by which some Preachers have more exposed Religion and themselves than by propounding other ends and such mean ones as the gaining the reputation of being Witty Eloquent or Learned for when they miss their aim as they do always with the wise they fall under extream contempt with them The affectations of words and Metaphors and Cadencies andâ— ends of Greek and Latin are now the scorn oâ— the judicious and as much despis'd and almost as generally as they deserve They are banifh'd from conversation and are not endured in common matters for shame then let us not retain them in our Pulpits and defile sacred Subjects with them Let us leave those sorts of fooling when none but the ignorant can be deceiv'd by them into a good opinion of us and by their use we shall deceive our selves into the derision and Contempt of all that have either wit or judgement and which is infinitely worse into the displeasure and wrath of God 1. Our business in Preaching is the greatest and most important and therefore we should be very grave and serious in it to be slight flashy or affected in so solemn an affair is to shew our selves vain and contemptible triflers 2. We are to instruct all sorts the most ignorant as well as the more knowing in the matters of Faith and practice and therefore should design and endeavour to be as plain as we can both in our Doctrines and Expressions avoiding hard words and senseless phrases and speaking in the proper natural easie way which is most profitable for the ignorant and most acceptable with the wise 3. And for the accommodation of the memories as well as the understandings of the generality of hearers our Discourses should be in clear facile and distinct methods not involv'd in confusions nor spun out into nice divisions or numerous particulars 4. And because the main work is to perswade and direct an holy life our Sermons should mostly be practical and affectionate Not but that we may labour to explain establish and defend the great principles of Faith and practice especially in an Age in which such Shipwrack is made of both but then we must take care that those we teach are such indeed and that we vent not speculative notions and opinions as fundamentals of Religion We are not to be concern'd for any Doctrines in our Pulpits but for the great and certain Articles of Faith and Life As for our opinions this is not the place for them For it is not our business to make people in all points Orthodox and Knowing but to endeavour that they may be sincere and good which is wisdom to salvation These I take to be proper measures for Preaching and if he that directs himself by them be despised for his Doctrine he will have this comfort that the contempt he suffers is none of his fault I have done with what I intended for my Brethren of the Clergy namely for the younger sort for I presume not to instruct the elder and graver men I Am II. to apply the advice of this general Use to the people who yet profess themselves of our Church You see the contempt that is upon it and I beseech you