TWELVE SERMONS Preached upon Several Occasions By ROBERT SOUTH D. D. The Second Volume Never before Printed LONDON Printed by I. H. for Thomas Bennet at the Half-Moon in St. Paul's Church-Yard 1694. TO THE University of Oxford Reverend and Learned Sirs THESE Discourses most of them at least having by the favour of your Patience had the Honour of your Audience and being now Published in another and more lasting way do here humbly cast themselves at your Feet imploring the yet greater Favour and Honour of your Patronage or at least the Benevolence of your Pardon Amongst which the Chief Design of some of them is to Assert the Rights and Constitutions of our Excellently Reformed Church which of late we so often hear Reproached in the modish Dialect of the Present Times by the Name of Little Things and that in order to their being laid aside not onely as Little but Superfluous But for my own part I can account nothing Little in any Church which has the stamp of undoubted Authority and the Practice of Primitive Antiquity as well as the Reason and Decency of the Thing it self to warrant and support it Though if the supposed Littleness of these matters should be a sufficient Reason for the laying them aside I fear our Church will be found to have more Little Men to spare than Little Things But I have observed all along that while this Innovating Spirit has been striking at the Constitutions of our Church the same has bin giving several Bold and Scurvy strokes at some of Her Articles too An Evident Demonstration to me that whensoever Her Discipline shall be destroyed Her Doctrine will not long survive it And I doubt not but it is for the sake of This that the former is so much maligned and shot at Pelagianism and Socinianism with several other Heterodoxies Cognate to and Dependent upon them which of late with so much Confidence and Scandalous Countenance walk about daring the World are certainly no Doctrines of the Church of England And none are abler and fitter to make them appear what they are and whither they tend than our Excellent and so well stocked Universities and if these will but bestirr themselves against all Innovators whatsoever it will quickly be seen that our Church needs none either to fill Her Places or to defend Her Doctrines but the Sons whom she Her self has brought forth and bred up Her Charity is indeed Great to Others and the Greater for that she is so well provided of all that can Contribute either to Her Strength or Ornament without them The Altar receives and protects such as fly to it but needs them not We are not so Dull but we perceive who are the Prime Designers as well as the Professed Actors against our Church and from what Quarter the Blow chiefly threatens us We know the Spring as well as we observe the Motion and Scent the Foot which pursues as well as see the Hand which is lifted up against us The Pope is an Experienced Workman He knows his Tools and knows them to be but Tools and knows withall how to use them aud that so that they shall neither know who it is that uses them or what he uses them for and we cannot in reason presume his Skill now in Ninety-three to be at all less than it was in Forty-one But God who has even to a Miracle protected the Church of England hitherto against all the Power and Spight both of her open and concealed Enemies will we hope continue to protect so Pure and Rational so Innocent and Self-denying a Constitution still And next under God we must rely upon the Old Church of England-Clergy together with the Two Universities both to Support and Recover Her declining state For so long as the Universities are Sound and Orthodox the Church has both Her Eyes open and while she has so 't is to be hoped that she will look about Her and consider again and again what she is to change from and what she must change to and where she shall make an End of Changing before she quits her Present Constitution Innovations about Religion are certainly the most Efficacious as well as the most Plausible way of compassing a Total Abolition of it One of the best and strongest Arguments we have against Popery is That it is an Innovation upon the Christian Church and if so I cannot see why that which we explode in the Popish Church should pass for such a piece of Perfection in a Reformed One. The Papists I am sure our shrewdest and most designing Enemies desire and push on This to their utmost and for that very Reason one would think that we if we are not besotted should oppose it to our Utmost too However let us but have our Liturgy continued to us as it is till the Persons are born who shall be able to mend it or make a Better and we desire no greater security against either the altering This or introducing Another The Truth is such as would new model the Church of England ought not onely to have a New Religion which some have been so long driving at but a New Reason likewise to proceed by Since Experience which was ever yet accounted one of the surest and best Improvements of Reason has been always for acquiescing in Things settled with sober and mature Advice and in the present case also with the very Blood and Martyrdom of the Advisers themselves without running the Risque of New Experiments which though in Philosophy they may be commendable yet in Religion and Religious Matters are generally fatal and pernicious The Church is a Royal Society for settling Old Things and not for finding out New In a word we serve a Wise and Unchangeable God and we desire to do it by a Religion and in a Church as like Him as may be without Changes or Alterations And now as in so Important a matter I would Interest both Universities so I do it with the same Honour and Deference to Both as abhorring from my Heart the Pedantick Partiality of preferring one before the other Since if my Relation to One should never so much encline me so to do I must sincerely declare that I cannot see how to place a Preference where I can find no Preheminence And therefore as they are both Equal in Fame and Learning and all that is Great and Excellent so I hope to see them always one in Iudgment and Design Heart and Affection without any Strife Emulation or Contest between them except this One which I wish may be perpetual viz. Which of the Two Best Universities in the World shall be most serviceable to the Best Church in the World by their Learning Constancy and Integrity But to Conclude There remains no more for me to doe but to beg Pardon of that August Body to which I belong if I have offended in assuming to my self the Honour of mentioning my Relation to a Society which I could never reflect the
assurance conclude That he who is not frequently upon his Knees before he comes to that holy Table Kneels to very little purpose when he is there But then Fourthly Because Prayer is not only one of the highest and hardest Duties in it self but ought to be more than ordinarily servent and vigorous before the Sacrament Let the Body be also called in as an Assistant to the Soul and Abstinence and Fasting added to promote and heighten her Devotions Prayer is a kind of Wrestling with God and he who would win the Prize at that Exercise must be severely dieted for that purpose The truth is Fasting was ever acknowledged by the Church in all Ages as a singular Instrument of Religion and a particular Preparative to the Sacrament And hardly was there ever any thing Great or Heroick either done or attempted in Religion without it Thus when Moses received the Law from God it was with Fasting Deut. 9. 9. When Christ entred upon the great Office of his Mediatorship it was with Fasting Matth. 4. 2. And when Paul and Barnabas were separated to that high and difficult Charge of Preaching to the Gentiles Acts 13. 2. still it was managed with Fasting And we know the Rubrick of our own Church always almost enjoyns a Fast to prepare us for a Festival Bodily Abstinence is certainly a great help to the Spirit and the Experience of all wise and good Men has ever found it so The Ways of Nature and the Methods of Grace are vastly different Good Men themselves are never so surprized as in the midst of their Jollities nor so fatally over-taken and caught as when the Table is made the Snare Even our first Parents ate themselves out of Paradise and Iob's Children junketted and feasted together often but the Reckoning cost them dear at last The Heart of the Wise says Solomon is in the House of Mourning and the House of Fasting adjoyns to it In a word Fasting is the Diet of Angels the Food and Refection of Souls and the richest and highest Aliment of Grace And he who Fasts for the sake of Religion Hungers and Thirsts after Righteousness without a Metaphor Fifthly Since every Devout Prayer is designed to ascend and fly up to Heaven as Fasting according to St. Austin's Allusion has given it one Wing so let Alms-giving to the Poor supply it with another And both these together will not only carry it up Triumphant to Heaven but if need require bring Heaven it self down to the Devout Person who sends it thither As while Cornelius was Fasting and Praying to which he still joyned giving Alms an Angel from Heaven was dispatched to him with this happy Message Acts 10. 4. Thy Prayers and thine Alms are come up for a Memorial before God And nothing certainly can give a greater Efficacy to Prayer and a more peculiar Fitness for the Sacrament than an Hearty and Conscientious Practice of this Duty without which all that has been mentioned hitherto is nothing but Wind and Air Pageantry and Hypocrisie For if there be any truer Measure of a Man than by what he does it must be by what he gives He who is truly Pious will account it a Wedding-supper to Feed the Hungry and a Wedding-garment to Cloath the Naked And God and Man will find it a very unfit Garment for such a purpose which has not in it a Purse or Pocket for the Poor But so far are some from considering the Poor before the Sacrament that they have been observed to give nothing to the Poor even at the Sacrament And those such that if Rich Cloaths might pass for a Wedding-garment none could appear better fitted for such a Solemnity than themselves yet some such I say I my self have seen at a Communion drop nothing into the Poor's Bason But good God! What is the Heart of such Worldlings made of and what a Mind doe they bring with them to so Holy an Ordinance An Ordinance in which none can be qualified to receive whose Heart does not serve them also to give From such indeed as have nothing God expects nothing but where God has given as I may say with both Hands and Men return with None such must know that the Poor have an Action of Debt against them and that God Himself will undertake and prosecute their Suit for them and if he does since they could not find in their Hearts to proportion their Charity to their Estates nothing can be more just than for God to proportion their Estates to their Charity and by so doing he cannot well give them a shrewder and a shorter Cut. In the mean time let such know further That whosoever dares upon so Sacred and Solemn an Occasion approach the Altar with Bowels so shut up as to leave nothing behind him there for the Poor shall be sure to carry something away with him from thence which will doe him but little good Sixthly Since the Charity of the Hand signifies but little unless it springs form the Heart and flows through the Mouth let the Pious Communicant both in Heart and Tongue Thoughts and Speech put on a Charitable Friendly Christian Temper of Mind and Carriage towards all Wrath and Envy Malice and Backbiting and the like are direct Contradictions to the very Spirit of Christianity and fit a Man for the Sacrament just as much as a Stomach over-flowed with Gall would help him to digest his Meat St. Paul often Rebukes and Schools such Disturbers of the World very sharply correcting a base Humour by a very generous Rule Phil. 2. 3. Let each says he esteem others better than themselves No Man doubtless shall ever be Condemned of God for not Iudging his Brother For be thy Brother or Neighbour never so wicked and ungodly satisfie thy self with this That another's Wickedness shall never Damn thee but thy own Bitterness and Rancour may and continued in certainly will Rather let his want of Grace give thee occasion to exercise Thine if thou hast any in Thinking and Speaking better of him than he deserves And if thy Charity proves mistaken assure thy self that God will accept the Charity and over-look the Mistake But if in Judging him whom thou hast nothing to doe with thou chancest to Judge one way and God and Truth to Judge another take heed of that Dreadfull Tribunal where it will not be enough to say That I thought this or I heard that and where no Man's mistake will be able to warrant an unjust Surmise and much less justifie a false Censure Such would find it much better for them to retreat inwards and view themselves in the Law of God and their own Consciences and that will tell them their own impartially that will fetch off all their paint and shew them a foul Face in a true Glass Let them read over their Catechism and lay aside Spight and Virulence Gossipping and Medling Calumny and Detraction and let not all about them be Villains and Reprobates because they themselves are Envious
will condemn him in the other And consequently he who places his Salvation upon this Ground will find himself like an imprisoned and condemned Malefactor who in the Night dreams that he is released but in the Morning finds himself led to the Gallows 4 ly and Lastly No Advantages from External Church-Membership or Profession of the true Religion can of themselves give a Man Confidence towards God And yet perhaps there is hardly any one Thing in the World which Men in all Ages have generally more cheated themselves with The Jews were an Eminent Instance of this Who because they were the Sons of Abraham as it is readily acknowledged by our Saviour Iohn 8. 37. And because they were entrusted with the Oracles of God Rom. 3. 2. Together with the Covenants and the Promises Rom. 9. 4. That is in other Words Because they were the True Church and Professors of the True Religion while all the World about them lay wallowing in Ignorance Heathenism and Idolatry they concluded from hence that God was so fond of them that notwithstanding all their Villainies and Immoralities they were still the Darlings of Heaven and the only Heirs Apparent of Salvation They thought it seems God and themselves linked together in so fast but withall so strange a Covenant that although they never performed their part of it God was yet bound to make good every Tittle of his And this made Iohn the Baptist set himself with so much Acrimony and Indignation to baffle this Senseless Arrogant Conceit of theirs which made them huff at the Doctrine of Repentance as a Thing below them and not at all belonging to them In Matth. 3. v. 9. Think not says he to say within your selves we have Abraham to our Father This he knew lay deep in their Hearts and was still in their Mouths and kept them Insolent and Impenitent under Sins of the highest and most clamorous Guilt though our Saviour himself also not long after this assured them that they were of a very different Stock and Parentage from that which they boasted of and that whosoever was their Father upon the Natural Account the Devil was certainly so upon a Moral In like manner how vainly do the Romanists pride and value themselves upon the Name of Catholicks of the Catholick Religion and of the Catholick Church though a Title no more applicable to the Church of Rome than a Man's Finger when it is swelled and putrefied can be called his whole Body a Church which allows Salvation to none without it nor awards Damnation to almost any within it And therefore as the former Empty Plea served the sottish Iews so no wonder if this equally serves these to put them into a Fools Paradise by feeding their Hopes without changing their Lives and as an Excellent Expedient first to assure them of Heaven and then to bring them easily to it and so in a word to save both their Souls and their Sins too And to shew how the same Cheat runs through all Professions though not in the same Dress none are more powerfully and grosly under it than another Sort of Men who on the Contrary place their whole Acceptance with God and indeed their whole Religion upon a Mighty Zeal or rather out-cry against Popery and Superstition verbally indeed uttered against the Church of Rome but really meant against the Church of England To which Sort of Persons I shall say no more but this and that in the Spirit of Truth and Meekness namely That Zeal and Noise against Popery and real Services for it are no such inconsistent Things as some may imagine indeed no more than Invectives against Papists and solemn Addresses of Thanks to them for that very Thing by which they would have brought in Popery upon us And if those of the Separation do not yet know so much thanks to them for it we of the Church of England do and so may they themselves too in due time I speak not this by way of Sarcasm to reproach them I leave that to their own Consciences which will do it more effectually but by way of Charity to warn them For let them be assured that this whole Scene and Practice of theirs is as really Superstition and as false a Bottom to rest their Souls upon as either the Iews alledging Abraham for their Father while the Devil claimed them for his Children or the Papists relying upon their Indulgences their Saints Merits and Supererogations and such other Fopperies as can never settle nor indeed so much as reach the Conscience and much less recommend it to that Iudge who is not to be flamm'd off with Words and Phrases and Names though taken out of the Scripture it self Nay and I shall proceed yet further It is not a Man's being of the Church of England it self though undoubtedly the purest and best reformed Church in the World indeed so well reformed that it will be found a much easier Work to alter than to better its Constitution I say it is not a Man's being even of this Excellent Church which can of it self clear Accounts between God and his Conscience Since bare Communion with a good Church can never alone make a good Man For if it could I am sure we should have no bad ones in ours and much less such as would betray it So that we see here that it is but too manifest that Men of all Churches Sects and Perswasions are strangely apt to flatter and deceive themselves with what they believe and what they profess and if we throughly consider the Matter we shall find the Fallacy to lie in this That those Religious Institutions which God designed only for Means Helps and Advantages to promote and further Men in the Practice of Holiness they look upon rather as a Privilege to serve them instead of it and really to commute for it This is the very Case and a fatal Self-imposture it is certainly and such an one as defeats the Design and destroys the Force of all Religion And thus I have shewn four several uncertain and deceitfull Rules which Men are prone to judge of their Spiritual Estate by But now have we any better or more certain to substitute and recommend in the Room of them Why yes if we believe the Apostle a Man 's own Heart or Conscience is that which above all other Things is able to give him Confidence towards God And the Reason is because the Heart knows that by it self which nothing in the World besides can give it any knowledge of and without the Knowledge of which it can have no Foundation to build any true Confidence upon Conscience under God is the only competent Judge of what the Soul has done and what it has not done what Guilt it has contracted and what it has not as it is in 1 Corinth 2. 11. What Man knoweth the Things of a Man save the Spirit of Man which is in him Conscience is its own Counsellor the sole Master of its own
That since a Set-form of Prayer leaves the Soul wholly free to imploy its Affections and Devotions in which the Spirit of Prayer does most properly consist it follows that the Spirit of Prayer is thereby in a singular manner helped promoted and enlarged And since on the other hand the Extempore-way withdraws and takes off the Soul from imploying its Affections and engages it chiefly if not wholly about the use of its Invention it as plainly follows that the Spirit of Prayer is by this means unavoidably cramp'd and hindred and to use their own word stinted Which was the Proposition that I undertook to prove But there are two Things I confess that are extreamly hindred and stinted by a Set-form of Prayer and equally furthered and enlarged by the Extempore-way which without all doubt is the true Cause why the former is so much decried and the latter so much extolled by the Men whom we are now pleading with The first of which is Pride and Ostentation the other Faction and Sedition 1. And first for Pride I do not in the least question but the chief Designs of such as use the Extempore-way is to amuse the unthinking Rabble with an Admiration of their Gifts their whole Devotion proceeding from no other principle but only a Love to hear themselves talk And I believe it would put Lucifer himself hard to it to out-vye the Pride of one of those fellows pouring out his Extempore-stuff amongst his ignorant whining factious Followers listning to and applauding his copious Flow and Cant with the ridiculous Accents of their impertinent Groans And the truth is Extempore-prayer even when best and most dextrously performed is nothing else but a business of Invention and Wit such as it is and requires no more to it but a teeming Imagination a bold Front and a ready Expression and deserves much the same Commendation were it not in a matter too serious to be suddain upon which is due to Extempore Verses only with this difference That there is necessary to these latter a competent measure of Wit and Learning whereas the former may be done with very little Wit and no Learning at all And now can any sober person think it reasonable that the publick Devotions of a whole Congregation should be under the Conduct and at the Mercy of a pert empty conceited Holder-forth whose chief if not sole intent is to Vaunt his spiritual Clack and as I may so speak to pray Prizes whereas Prayer is a Duty that recommends it self to the Acceptance of Almighty God by no other Qualification so much as by the profoundest Humility and the lowest Esteem that a man can possibly have of himself Certainly the Extemporizing faculty is never more out of its Element than in the Pulpit Though even here it is much more excusable in a Sermon than in a Prayer For as much as in that a Man addresses himself but to Men Men like himself whom he may therefore make bold with as no doubt for so doing they will also make bold with him Besides the peculiar advantage attending all such suddain Conceptions that as they are quickly Born so they quickly Die It being seldom known where the Speaker has so very fluent an Invention but the Hearer also has the Gift of as fluent a Memory 2 ly The other thing that has been hitherto so little befriended by a Set-form of Prayer and so very much by the Extempore-way is Faction and Sedition It has been always found an Excellent way of girding at the Government in Scripture-phrase And we all know the Common Dialect in which the great Masters of this Art used to pray for the King and which may justly pass for only a cleanlier and more refined kind of Libelling him in the Lord. As that God would turn his Heart and open his Eyes As if he were a Pagan yet to be converted to Christianity with many other sly virulent and malicious Insinuations which we may every day hear of from those Mints of Treason and Rebellion their Conventicles and for which and a great deal less some Princes and Governments would make them not only eat their Words but the Tongue that spoke them too In fine let all their Extempore Harangues be considered and duly weighed and you shall find a Spirit of Pride Faction and Sedition predominant in them all The only Spirit which those Impostors do really and indeed pray by I have been so much the longer and the earnester against this intoxicating bewitching Cheat of Extempore-prayer being fully satisfied in my Conscience that it has been all along the Devil's Master-piece and prime Engine to overthrow our Church by For I look upon this as a most unanswerable Truth That whatsoever renders the publick Worship of God contemptible amongst us must in the same degree weaken and discredit our whole Religion And I hope I have also proved it to be a Truth altogether as clear That this Extempore-way naturally brings all the Contempt upon the Worship of God that both the Folly and Faction of Men can possibly expose it to And therefore as a thing neither subservient to the true Purposes of Religion nor grounded upon Principles of Reason nor lastly sutable to the Practice of Antiquity ought by all means to be exploded and cast out of every sober and well-ordered Church or that will be sure to throw the Church it self out of Doors And thus I have at length finished what I had to say of the first Ingredient of a Pious and Reverential Prayer which was Premeditation of Thought prescribed to us in these words Let not thy mouth be rash nor thy heart be hasty to utter any thing before God Which excellent Words and most wise Advice of Solomon whosoever can reconcile to the Expediency Decency or Usefulness of Extempore-prayer I shall acknowledge him a Man of greater Ability and Parts of Mind than Solomon Himself The other Ingredient of a Reverential and duly qualified Prayer is a pertinent Brevity of Expression mentioned and recommended in that part of the Text Therefore let thy Words be few But this I cannot dispatch now and therefore shall not enter upon at this time Now to God the Father God the Son and God the Holy Ghost Three Persons and One God be rendred and ascribed as is most due all Praise Might Majesty and Dominion both now and for evermore Amen A DISCOURSE AGAINST Long and Extempore-Prayers In Behalf of the LITURGY OF THE Church of ENGLAND Upon the same Text. ECCLES V. 2. Be not rash with thy mouth and let not thine heart be hasty to utter any thing before God for God is in Heaven and thou upon Earth therefore let thy words be few I Formerly began a Discourse upon these Words and observed in them these three Things 1. That whosoever appears in the House of God and particularly in the way of Prayer ought to reckon himself in a more especial manner placed in the sight and presence of God And 2 ly
a pleasure and this will appear upon these three Accounts 1. That it is seldom or never that any Man comes to such a Degree of Impiety as to take pleasure in other men's Sins but he also shews the World by his Actions and Behaviour that he does so 2. That there are few Men in the World so inconsiderable but there are some or other who have an Interest to serve by them And 3 ly That the Natural Course that one Man takes to serve his Interest by another is by applying himself to him in such a way as may most gratifie and delight him Now from these Three things put together it is not only easie but necessary to inferr That since the Generality of Men are wholly acted by their present Interest if they find those who can best serve them in this their Interest most likely also to be gained over so to doe by the sinfull and vile Practices of those who address to them no doubt such Practices shall be pursued by such Persons in order to the Compassing their desired Ends. Where Greatness takes no delight in Goodness we may be sure there shall be but little Goodness seen in the Lives of those who have an Interest to serve by such an one's Greatness For take any Illustrious potent Sinner whose Power is wholly employ'd to serve his Pleasure and whose chief Pleasure is to see others as bad and wicked as himself and there is no question but in a little time he will also make them so and his Dependants shall quickly become his Proselytes They shall Sacrifice their Vertue to his Humour spend their Credit and Good name nay and their very Souls too to serve him and that by the worst and basest of Services which is by making themselves like Him It is but too notorious how long Vice has reigned or rather raged amongst us and with what a bare face and a brazen forehead it walks about the Nation as it were Elato Capite and looking down with Scorn upon Vertue as a contemptible and a mean thing Vice could not come to this pitch by chance But we have sinned a pace and at an higher strain of Villainy than the Fopps our Ancestors as some are pleas'd to call them could ever arrive to So that we daily see Maturity and Age in Vice joyned with Youth and Greenness of Years A manifest Argument no doubt of the great Docility and Pregnancy of Parts that is in the present Age above all the former For in respect of Vice nothing is more usual now-a-days than for Boys illico nasci Senes They see their Betters delight in ill things they observe Reputation and Countenance to attend the Practice of them and this carries them on furiously to that which of themselves they are but too much inclin'd to and which Laws were purposely made by Wise men to keep them from They are glad you may be sure to please and preferr themselves at once and to serve their Interest and their Sensuality together And as they are come to this Height and Rampancy of Vice in a great measure from the Countenance of their Betters and Superiors so they have took some steps higher in the same from this That the Follies and Extravagances of the Young too frequently carry with them the Suffrage and Approbation of the Old For Age which naturally and unavoidably is but one Remove from Death and consequently should have nothing about it but what looks like a decent Preparation for it scarce ever appears of late days but in the high Mode the flaunting Garb and utmost Gaudery of Youth with Cloaths as ridiculously and as much in the fashion as the person that wears them is usually grown out of it The Eldest equal the Youngest in the Vanity of their Dress and no other Reason can be given of it but that they equal if not surpass them in the Vanity of their Desires So that those who by the Majesty and as I may so say the Prerogative of their Age should even frown Youth into Sobriety and better Manners are now striving all they can to imitate and strike in with them and to be really vicious that they may be thought to be young The sad and apparent Truth of which makes it very superfluous to enquire after any further Cause of that monstrous Encrease of Vice that like a Torrent or rather a breaking in of the Sea upon us has of late years over-flowed and victoriously carried all before it Both the Honourable and the Aged have contributed all they could to the promotion of it and so far as they are able to give the best Colour to the worst of things This they have endeavoured and thus much they have effected That Men now see that Vice makes them acceptable to those who are able to make them considerable It is the Key that lets them into their very Heart and enables them to command all that is there And if this be the Price of Favour and the Market of Honour no doubt where the Trade is so quick and withall so certain Multitudes will be sure to follow it This is too manifestly our present Case All Men see it and wise and good Men lament it And where Vice push'd on with such mighty Advantages will stop its progress it is hard to judge It is certainly above all humane Remedies to controll the prevailing Course of it unless the great Governour of the World who quells the Rage and Swelling of the Sea and sets Barrs and Doors to it beyond which the proudest of its Waves cannot pass shall in his infinite Compassion to us doe the same to that Ocean of Vice which now swells and roars and lifts up it self above all Banks and Bounds of humane Laws and so by his Omnipotent Word reducing its Power and abasing its Pride shall at length say to it Hitherto shalt thou come and no further Which God in his good time effect To whom be rendred and ascribed as is most due all Praise Might Majesty and Dominion both now and for evermore Amen Natural Religion WITHOUT REVELATION SHEWN Only sufficient to render a Sinner inexcusable IN A SERMON PREACHED On ROMANS I. 20. Before the UNIVERSITY AT Christ-Church Oxon On Novemb. 2. 1690. ROM I. 20. latter Part. So that they are without excuse THis excellent Epistle though in the Front of it it bears a Particular Inscription yet in the Drift and Purpose of it is Universal as designing to convince all Mankind whom it supposes in pursuit of True Happiness of the Necessity of seeking for it in the Gospel and the Impossibility of finding it elsewhere All without the Church at that time were comprehended under the Division of Iews and Gentiles called here by the Apostle Greeks the Nobler and more Noted part being used for the whole Accordingly from the 2d Chapter down along he Addresses himself to the Iews shewing the Insufficiency of their Law to justifie or make them happy how much soever they
next Inference from the foregoing Principle of the Vicegerency of Conscience under God will shew us also the daring Impudence and down-right Impiety of many of those fulsome Pleas of Conscience which the World has been too often and too scandalously abused by For a man to sin against his Conscience is doubtless a great Wickedness But to make God himself a Party in the Sin is a much greater For this is to plead God's Authority against God's very Law which doubles the Sin and adds Blasphemy to Rebellion And yet such things we have seen done amongst us An horrid unnatural Civil War raised and carried on the purest and most primitively Reformed Church in the World laid in the Dust and one of the best and most innocent Princes that ever sat upon a Throne by a barbarous unheard-of Violence hurried to his Grave in a bloudy Sheet and not so much as suffered to rest there to this day and all this by Men acting under the most solemn Pretences of Conscience that Hypocrisie perhaps ever yet presumed to out-face the World with And are not the Principles of those Wretches still owned and their Persons Sainted by a Race of Men of the same stamp risen up in their stead the sworn mortal Enemies of our Church And yet for whose sake some Projectors amongst us have been turning every Stone to transform mangle and degrade its noble Constitution to the homely mechanick Model of those Republican imperfect Churches abroad Which instead of being any Rule or Pattern to us ought in all Reason to receive one from us Nay and so short-sighted are some in their Politicks as not to discern all this while that it is not the Service but the Revenue of our Church which is struck at and not any Passages of our Liturgy but the Property of our Lands which these Reformers would have altered For I am sure no other Alteration will satisfie Dissenting Consciences no nor this neither very long without an utter Abolition of all that looks like Order or Government in the Church And this we may be sure of if we doe but consider both the inveterate Malice of the Romish Party which sets these silly unthinking Tools a-work and withall that monstrous Principle or Maxim which those who divide from us at least most of them roundly profess avow and govern their Consciences by Namely That in all matters that concern Religion or the Church though a Thing or Action be never so indifferent or lawfull in it self yet if it be commanded or enjoyned by the Government either Civil or Ecclesiastical it becomes ipso facto by being so commanded utterly unlawfull and such as they can by no means with good Conscience comply with Which one detestable Tenet or Proposition carrying in it the very Quintessence and vital Spirit of all Non-conformity absolutely casheirs and cuts off all Church Government at one stroke and is withall such an insolent audacious Defiance of Almighty God under the Mask of Conscience as perhaps none in former Ages who so much as wore the Name of Christians ever arrived to or made profession of For to resume the Scriptures afore-quoted by us and particularly that in 1 Pet. 2. 13. Submit your selves to every Ordinance of Man says the Spirit of God speaking by that Apostle But say these Men If the Ordinance of Man enjoyns you the Practice of any thing with reference to Religion or the Church though never so lawfull in it self you cannot with a good Conscience submit to the Ordinance of Man in that case That is in other words God says they must submit and they say they must not Again in the fore-mentioned Heb. 13. 17. The Apostle bids them and in them all Christians whatsoever to obey those who have the Rule over them speaking there of Church-Rulers for he tells them That they were such as watched for their Souls But says the Separatist If those who have the Rule over you should command you any thing about Church Affairs you cannot you ought not in Conscience to obey them For as much as according to that grand Principle of theirs newly specified by us Every such Command makes Obedience to a thing otherwise lawfull to become unlawfull and consequently upon the same Principle Rulers must not cannot be obeyed Unless we could imagine that there may be such a thing as Obedience on the one side when there must be no such thing as a Command on the other which would make pleasant sence of it indeed and fit for none but a Dissenting Reason as well as Conscience to assert For though these Men have given the World too many terrible Proofs by their own example That there may be Commands and no Obedience yet I believe it will put their little Logick hard to it to prove That there can be any Obedience where there is no Command And therefore it unanswerably follows That the Abetters of the fore-mentioned Principle plead Conscience in a direct and bare-faced contradiction to God's express Command And now I beseech you consider with your selves for it is no slight matter that I am treating of I say consider what you ought to judge of those insolent unaccountable Boasts of Conscience which like so many Fire-balls or Mouth-Granadoes as I may so term them are every day thrown at our Church The Apostle bids us prove all Things And will you then take Conscience at every turn upon its own word upon the forlorn Credit of every bold Impostor who pleads it Will you sell your Reason your Church and your Religion and both of them the best in the World for a Name and that a wrested abused mis-applied Name Knaves when they design some more than ordinary Villainy never fail to make use of this Plea and it is because they always find fools ready to believe it But you will say then What course must be taken to fence against this imposture Why truly the best that I know of I have told you before namely That whensoever you hear any of these fly sanctified Sycophants with turned up Eye and shrug of Shoulder pleading Conscience for or against any Thing or Practice you would forthwith ask them What Word of God they have to bottom that Iudgment of their Conscience upon For-as-much as Conscience being God's Vicegerent was never Commissioned by him to govern us in its own Name but must still have some Divine Word or Law to support and warrant it And therefore call for such a word and that either from Scripture or from manifest Universal Reason and insist upon it so as not to be put off without it And if they can produce you no such thing from either of them as they never can then rest assured that they are errant Cheats and Hypocrites and that for all their big Words the Conscience of such Men is so far from being able to give them any true Confidence towards God that it cannot so much as give them Confidence towards a wise and good Man no