he went about doing good to the bodies and to the souls of men his miracles were not destructive to mankind but healing and charitable He could if he had pleased by his miraculous power have confounded his enemies and have thundred out death and destruction against the Infidel world as his pretended Vicar hath since done against Hereticks But intending that his Religion should be propagated in human ways and that Men should be drawn to the profession of it by the bands of love and the cords of a man by the gentle and peaceable methods of Reason and perswasion he gave no example of a furious zeal and religious rage against those who despised his Doctrine It was propounded to men for their great advantage and they rejected it at their utmost peril It seemed good to the Author of this institution to compell no man to it by temporal punishments When he went about making proselytes he offered violence to no man only said If any man will be my disciple If any man will come after me And when his disciples were leaving him he does not set up an Inquisition to torture and punish them for their defection from the faith only says Will ye also go away And in imitation of this blessed Patern the Christian Church continued to speak and act for several Ages And this was the language of the holy Fathers Lex nova non se vindicat ultore gladio the Christian Law doth not avenge it self by the sword This was then the style of Councils Nemini ad credendum vim inferre to offer violence to no man to compell him to the Faith I proceed in the Second place to shew the Vnjustifiableness of this spirit upon any pretence whatsoever of zeal for God and Religion No case can be put with Circumstances of greater advantage and more likely to justify this spirit and temper than the case here in the Text. Those against whom the Disciples would have called for fire from heaven were Hereticks and Schismaticks from the true Church they had affronted our Saviour himself in his own person the honour of God and of that Religion which he had set up in the World and of Jerusalem which he had appointed for the place of his worship were all concerned in this case so that if ever it were warrantable to put on this fierce and furious zeal here was a case that seemed to require it But even in these circumstances our Saviour thinks fit to rebuke and discountenance this spirit Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of And he gives such a reason as ought in all differences of Religion how wide soever they be to deter men from this temper For the Son of man is not come to destroy mens lives but to save them that is this Spirit is utterly inconsistent with the great design of Christian Religion and the end of our Saviour's coming into the world And now what hath the Church of Rome to plead for her cruelty to men for the cause of Religion which the Disciples might not much better have pleaded for themselves in their case what hath she to say against those who are the objects of her cruelty and persecution which would not have held against the Samaritans Does she practice these severities out of a zeal for truth and for the honour of God and Christ and the true Religion Why upon these very accounts it was that the Disciples would have called for fire from Heaven to have destroyed the Samaritans Is the Church of Rome perswaded that those whom she persecutes are Hereticks and Schismaticks and that no punishment can be too great for such offenders So the Disciples were perswaded of the Samaritans and upon much better grounds Only the Disciples had some excuse in their case which the Church of Rome hath not and that was Ignorance And this Apology our Saviour makes for them ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of They had been bred up in the Jewish Religion which gave some indulgence to this kind of temper and they were able to cite a great Example for themselves besides they were then but learners and not throughly instructed in the Christian Doctrine But in the Church of Rome whatever the case of particular persons may be as to the whole Church and the Governing part of it this ignorance is wilful and affected and therefore inexcusable For the Christian Religion which they profess to embrace does as plainly teach the contrary as it does any other matter whatsoever and it is not more evident in the new Testament that Christ died for sinners than that Christians should not kill one another for the misbelief of any Article of revealed Religion much less for the disbelief of such Articles as are invented by men and imposed as the Doctrines of Christ You have heard what kind of Spirit it is which our Saviour here reproves in his Disciples It was a furious and destructive Spirit contrary to Christian charity and goodness But yet this may be said in mitigation of their fault that they themselves offered no violence to their enemies They left it to God and no doubt would have been very glad that he would have manifested his severity upon them by sending down fire from Heaven to have consumed them But there is a much worse Spirit than this in the world which is not only contrary to Christianity but to the common Principles of Natural Religion and even to Humanity it self Which by falshood and perfidiousness by secret plots and conspiracies or by open sedition and rebellion by an Inquisition or Massacre by deposing and killing Kings by fire and sword by the ruine of their Country and betraying it into the hands of Foreigners and in a word by dissolving all the bonds of humane Society and subverting the peace and order of the World that is by all the wicked ways imaginable doth incite men to promote and advance their Religion As if all the world were made for them and there were not only no other Christians but no other Men besides themselves as Babylon of old proudly vaunted I am and there is none besides me And as if the God whom the Christians worship were not the God of order but of confusion as if he whom we call the Father of mercies were delighted with cruelty and could not have a more pleasing sacrifice offered to him than a Massacre nor put a greater honour upon his Priests than to make them Judges of an Inquisition that is the Inventors and decreers of torments for men more righteous and innocent than themselves Thus to misrepresent God and Religion is to devest them of all their Majesty and Glory For if that of Seneca be true that sine bonitate nulla majestas without Goodness there can be no such thing as Majesty then to separate goodness and mercy from God compassion and charity from Religion is to make the two best things in the world God and Religion good for
Graces and Virtues which concern our duty towards one another That it is the sum and abridgement the accomplishment and fulfilling of the whole Law That without this whatever we pretend to in Christianity we are nothing and our Religion is vain That this is the greatest of all Graces and Virtues greater than Faith and Hope and of perpetual use and duration Charity never fails And therefore they exhort us above all things to endeavour after it as the Crown of all other Virtues Above all things have fervent charity among your selves saith St. Peter And St. Paul having enumerated most other Christian Virtues exhorts us above all to strive after this And above all these things put on charity which is the bond of perfection This St. John makes one of the most certain signs of our love to God and the want of it an undeniable argument of the contrary If a man say I love God and hateth his brother he is a lyar for he who loveth not his brother whom he hath seen how can he love God whom he hath not seen This he declares to be one of the best evidences that we are in a state of Grace and Salvation Hereby we know that we are passed from death to life because we love the brethren So that well might our blessed Saviour chuse this for the badge of his Disciples and make it the great Precept of the best and most perfect Institution Other things might have served better for pomp and ostentation and have more gratified the Curiosity or Enthusiasm or Superstition of mankind but there is no quality in the World which upon a sober and impartial consideration is of a more solid and intrinsick value And in the first Ages of Christianity the Christians were very eminent for this Vertue and particularly noted for it Nobis notam inurit apud quosdam it is a mark and brand set upan us by some saith Tertullian and he tells us that it was proverbially said among the Heathen Behold how these Christians love one another Lucian that great scoffer at all Religion acknowledgeth in behalf of Christians that this was the great Principle which their Master had instill'd into them And Julian the bitterest Enemy that Christianity ever had could not forbear to propound to the Heathen for an example the charity of the Galileans for so by way of reproach he calls the Christians who says he gave up themselves to humanity and kindness which he acknowledgeth to have been very much to the advantage and reputation of our Religion And in the same Letter to Arsacius the Heathen High Priest of Galatia he gives this memorable Testimony of the Christians that their Charity was not limited and confin'd onely to themselves but extended even to their Enemies which could not be said either of the Jews or Heathens His words are these It is a shame that when the Jews suffer none of theirs to beg and the impious Galileans relieve not onely their own but those also of our Religion that we onely should be defective in so necessary a Duty By all which it is evident that Love and Charity is not onely the great Precept of our Saviour but was in those first and best Times the general practice of his Disciples and acknowledged by the Heathens as a very peculiar and remarkable quality in them The application I shall make of this Discourse shall be threefold 1. With relation to the Church of Rome 2. With regard to our selves who profess the Protestant Reform'd Religion 3. With a more particular respect to the occasion of this Meeting First With relation to the Church of Rome Which we cannot chuse but think of whenever we speak of Charity and loving one another especially having had so late a discovery of their affection to us and so considerable a testimony of the kindness and charity which they design'd towards us such as may justly make the ears of all that hear it to tingle and render Popery execrable and infamous a frightful and a hateful thing to the end of the World It is now but too visible how grosly this great Commandment of our Saviour is contradicted not onely by the Practices of those in that Communion from the Pope down to the meanest Fryar but by the very Doctrines and Principles by the Genius and Spirit of that Religion which is wholly calculated for cruelty and persecution Where now is that mark of a Disciple so much insisted upon by our Lord and Master to be found in that Church And yet what is the Christian Church but the Society and Community of Christs Disciples Surely in all reason that which our Lord made the distinctive Mark and Character of his Disciples should be the principal mark of a true Church Bellarmine reckons up no less than fifteen marks of the rrue Church all which the Church of Rome arrogates to her self alone But he wisely forgot that which is worth all the rest and which our Saviour insists upon as the chief of all other A sincere Love and Charity to all Christians This he knew would by no means agree to his own Church But for all that it is very reasonable that Churches as well as particular Christians should be judged by their Charity The Church of Rome would engross all Faith to her self Faith in its utmost perfection to the degree and pitch of Infallibility And they allow no body in the world besides themselves no though they believe all the Articles of the Apostles Creed to have one grain of true Faith because they do not believe upon the Authority of their Church which they pretend to be the onely foundation of true Faith This is a most arrogant and vain pretence but admit it were true yet in the Judgement of St. Paul Though they had all Faith if they have not Charity they are nothing The greatest wonder of all is this that they who hate and persecute Christians most do all this while the most confidently of all others pretend to be the Disciples of Christ and will allow none to be so but themselves That Church which excommunicates all other Christian Churches in the world and if she could would extirpate them out of the world will yet needs assume to her self to be the only Christian Church As if our Saviour had said Hereby shall all men know that ye are my Disciples if ye hate and excommunicate and kill one another What shall he done unto thee thou false tongue thou empty and impudent pretence of Christianity Secondly With relation to our seves who profess the Protestant Reformed Religion How is this great Precept of our Saviour not onely shamefully neglected but plainly violated by us And that not only by private hatred and ill-will quarrels and contentions in our civil conversation and entercourse with one another but by most unchristian divisions and animosities in that common relation wherein we stand to one another as Brethren as Christians as Protestants Have we not all one
or any man else could tell me but I took him to conduct and direct me the nearest way to York And therefore after all his impertinent talk after all his Motives of Credibility to perswade me to believe him and all his confident sayings which he gravely calls Demonstrations I stand stifly upon the shore and leave my learned and reverend Guide to take his own course and to dispose of himself as he pleaseth but firmly resolved not to follow him And is any man to be blamed that breaks with his Guide upon these Terms And this is truly the Case when a man commits himself to the Guidance of any Person or Church If by virtue of this Authority they will needs perswade me out of my senses and not to believe what I see but what they say that Vertue is Vice and Vice Vertue it they declare them to be so And that because they say they are Infallible I am to receive all their Dictates for Oracles tho never so evidently false and absurd in the Judgment of all Mankind In this case there is no way to be rid of these unreasonable People but to desire of them since one kindness deserves another and all Contradictions are alike easie to be believed that they would be pleased to believe that Infidelity is Faith and that when I absolutely renounce their Authority I do yield a most perfect submission and obedience to it Upon the whole matter all the Revelations of God as well as the Laws of men go upon this presumption that men are not stark fools but that they will consider their Interest and have some regard to the great concernment of their eternal salvation And this is as much to secure men from mistake in matters of Belief as God hath afforded to keep men from sin in matters of Practice He hath made no effectual and infallible provision that men shall not sin and yet it would puzzle any man to give a good Reason why God should take more care to secure men against Errors in belief than against sin and wickedness in their Lives I shall now only draw three or four Inferences from this Discourse which I have made and so conclude 1. That it is every mans Duty who hath ability and capacity for it to endeavour to understand the grounds of his Religion For to try Doctrines is to inquire into the grounds and reasons of them which the better any man understands the more firmly he will be established in the Truth and be the more resolute in the day of Trial and the better able to withstand the Arts and assaults of cunning Adversaries and the fierce storms of Persecution And on the contrary that man will soon be moved from his stedfastness who never examined the Grounds and Reasons of his belief When it comes to the Trial he that hath but little to say for his Religion will probably neither do nor suffer much for it 2. That all Doctrines are vehemently to be suspected which decline Trial and are so loath to be brought into the light which will hot endure a fair Examination but magisterially require an implicite Faith Whereas Truth is bold and full of courage and loves to appear openly and is so secure and confident of her own strength as to offer her self to the severest Trial and Examination But to deny all liberty of Enquiry and Judgment in matters of Religion is the greatest injury and disparagement to Truth that can be and a tacite acknowledgment that she lies under some disadvantage and that there is less to be said for her than for Error I have often wonder'd why the People in the Church of Rome do not suspect their Teachers and Guides to have some ill design upon them when they do so industriously debar them of the means of Knowledge and are so very loath to let them understand what it is that we have to say against their Religion For can any thing in the world be more suspicious than to perswade men to put out their eyes upon promise that they will help them to a much better and more faithful Guide If any Church any Profession of men be unwilling their Doctrines should be exposed to Trial it is a certain sign they know something by them that is faulty and which will not endure the light This is the account which our Saviour gives us in a like case It was because mens deeds were evil that they loved darkness rather than light For every one that doth evil hateth the light neither cometh he to the light lest his deeds should be reproved But he that doth the truth cometh to the light that his deeds may be made manifest that they are wrought in God 3. Since Reason and Christianity allow this liberty to private persons to judg for themselves in matters of Religion we should use this priviledg with much modesty and humility with great submission and deference to our Spiritual Rulers and Guides whom God hath appointed in his Church And there is very great need of this Caution since by experience we find this liberty so much abused by many to the nourishing of Pride and Self-conceit of Division and Faction and those who are least able to judge to be frequently the most forward and confident the most peremptory and perverse and instead of demeaning themselves with the submission of Learners to assume to themselves the authority of Judges even in the most doubtful and disputable matters The Tyranny of the Roman Church over the Minds and Consciences of men is not to be justified upon any account but nothing puts so plausible a colour upon it as the ill use that is too frequently made of this natural Privilege of mens judging for themselves in a matter of so infinite concernment as that of their eternal happiness But then it is to be consider'd that the proper remedy in this Case is not to deprive men of this Privelege but to use the best means to prevent the abuse of it For though the inconveniences arising from the ill use of it may be very great yet the mischief on the other hand is intolerable Religion it self is liable to be abused to very bad purposes and frequently is so but it is not therefore best that there should be no Religion And yet this Objection if it be of any force and be pursued home is every whit as strong against Religion it self as against mens liberty of judging in matters of Religion Nay I add farther that no man can judiciously embrace the true Religion unless he be permitted to judge whether that which he embraces be the true Religion or not 4. When upon due Trial and Examination we are well setled and established in our Religion let us hold fast the prosession of our Faith without wavering and not be like Children tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of Doctrine through the sleight of men and the cunning craftiness of those who lye in wait to deceive
Friend How can he possibly use him more barbarously than to feast upon his living flesh and bloud It is one of the greatest wonders in the world that it should ever enter into the minds of men to put upon our Saviour's words so easily capable of a more convenient sense and so necessarily requiring it a meaning so plainly contrary to Reason and Sense and even to Humanity it self Had the ancient Christians owned any such Doctrine we should have heard of it from the Adversaries of our Religion in every page of their Writings and they would have desired no greater advantage against the Christians than to have been able to hit them in the teeth with their feasting upon the natural flesh and Bloud of their Lord and their God and their best Friend What endless triumphs would they have made upon this Subject And with what confidence would they have set the cruelty used by Christians in their Sacrament against their God Saturn's eating his own Children and all the cruel and bloudy Rites of their Idolatry But that no such thing was then objected by the Heathens to the Christians is to a wise man instead of a thousand Demonstrations that no such Doctrine was then believed 3. It is scandalous also upon account of the cruel and bloudy consequences of this Doctrine so contrary to the plain Laws of Christianity and to one great end and design of this Sacrament which is to unite Christians in the most perfect love and charity to one another Whereas this Doctrine hath been the occasion of the most barbarous and bloudy Tragedies that ever were acted in the World For this hath been in the Church of Rome the great burning Article and as absurd and unreasonable as it is more Christians have been murthered for the denyal of it than perhaps for all the other Articles of their Religion And I think it may generally pass for a true observation that all Sects are commonly most hot and furious for those things for which there is least Reason for what men want of Reason for their opinions they usually supply and make up in Rage And it was no more than needed to use this severity upon this occasion for nothing but the cruel fear of death could in probability have driven so great a part of mankind into the acknowledgment of so unreasonable and senseless a Doctrine O blessed Saviour I thou best Friend and greatest lover of mankind who can imagine thou didst ever intend that men should kill one another for not being able to believe contrary to their senses for being unwilling to think that thou shouldst make one of the most horrid and barbarous things that can be imagin'd a main Duty and principal Mystery of thy Religion for not flattering the pride and presumption of the Priest who says he can make God and for not complying with the folly and stupidity of the People who are made to believe that they can eat him 4. Upon account of the danger of Idolatry which they are certainly guilty of if this Doctrine be not true and such a change as they pretend be not made in the Sacrament for if it be not then they worship a Creature instead of the Creatour God blessed for ever But such a change I have shewn to be impossible or if it could be yet they can never be certain that it is and consequently are always in danger of Idolatry and that they can never be certain that such a change is made is evident because according to the express determination of the Council of Trent that depends upon the mind and intention of the Priest which cannot certainly be known but by Revelation which is not pretended in this case And if they be mistaken about this change through the knavery or crossness of the Priest who will not make God but when he thinks fit they must not think to excuse themselves from Idolatry because they intended to worship God and not a Creature for so the Persians might be excus'd from Idolatry in worshipping the Sun because they intend to worship God and not a Creature and so indeed we may excuse all the Idolatry that ever was in the world which is nothing else but a mistake of the Deity and upon that mistake a worshipping of something as God which is not God II. Besides the infinite scandal of this Doctrine upon the accounts I have mentioned the monstrous absurdities of it make it insupportable to any Religion I am very well assur'd of the grounds of Religion in general and of the Christian Religion in particular and yet I cannot see that the foundations of any revealed Religion are strong enough to bear the weight of so many and so great absurdities as this Doctrine of Transubstantiation would load it withall And to make this evident I shall not insist upon those gross contradictions of the same Body being in so many several places at once of our Saviour's giving away himself with his own hands to every one of his Disciples and yet still keeping himself to himself and a thousand more of the like nature but to shew the absurdity of this Doctrine I shall only ask these few Questions 1. Whether any man have or ever had greater evidence of the truth of any Divine Revelation than any man hath of the falshood of Transubstantiation Infidelity were hardly possible to men if all men had the same evidence for the Christian Religion which they have against Transubstantiation that is the clear and irresistible evidence of sense He that can once be brought to contradict or deny his senses is at an end of certainty for what can a man be certain of if he be not certain of what he sees In some circumstances our senses may deceive us but no Faculty deceives us so little and so seldom And when our senses do deceive us even that errour is not to be corrected without the help of our senses 2. Supposing this Doctrine had been delivered in Scripture in the very same words that it is decreed in the Council of Trent by what clearer evidence or stronger Argument could any man prove to me that such words were in the Bible than I can prove to him that bread and wine after consecration are bread and wine still He could but appeal to my eyes to prove such words to be in the Bible and with the same reason and justice might I appeal to several of his senses to prove to him that the bread and wine after consecration are bread and wine still 3. Whether it be reasonable to imagine that God should make that a part of the Christian Religion which shakes the main external evidence and confirmation of the whole I mean the Miracles which were wrought by our Saviour and his Apostles the assurance whereof did at first depend upon the certainty of sense For if the senses of those who say they saw them were deceived then there might be no Miracles wrought and consequently it may justly be
of gross Hypocrisie who pretend a further obligation of Conscience in this matter I shall give this plain Demonstration which relies upon Concessions generally made on all hands and by all Parties No Protestant that I know of holds himself obliged to go and Preach up his Religion and make Converts in Spain or Italy Nor do either the Protestant Ministers or Popish Priests think themselves bound in conscience to Preach the Gospel in Turky and to confute the Alcheran to convert the Mahometans And what is the Reason because of the severity of the Inquisition in Popish Countreys and of the Laws in Turky But doth the danger then alter the obligation of Conscience No certainly but it makes men throw off the false pretence and disguise of it But where there is a real obligation of Conscience danger should not deter men from their Duty as it did not the Apostles which shews their case to be different from ours and that probably this matter was stated right at first So that whatever is pretended this is certain that the Priests and Jesuites of the Church of Rome have in truth no more obligation of conscience to make Converts here in England than in Sueden or Turky where it seems the evident danger of the attempt hath for these many years given them a perfect discharge from their duty in this particular I shall joyn the Third and Fourth Observations together That though the true Religion may have several prejudices and objections against it yet upon examination there will be found those real advantages on its side that it may safely be referred to any considerate mans choice If it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord chuse you this day whom you will serve If it seem evil unto you Intimating that to some persons and upon some accounts it may appear so But when the matter is truly represented the choice is not difficult nor requires any long deliberation Chuse you this day whom you will serve Let but the Cause be fully and impartially heard and a wise man may determine himself upon the spot and give his Verdict without ever going from the Bar. The true Religion hath always layen under some prejudices with partial and inconsiderate men which commonly spring from one of these two Causes either the Prepossessions of a contrary Religion or the contrariety of the true Religion to the vicious inclinations and practices of men which usually lyes at the bottom of all prejudice against Religion Religion is an enemy to mens beloved lusts and therefore they are enemies to Religion I begin with the first which is as much as I shall be able to compass at this time I. The Prepossessions of a false Religion which commonly pretends two advantages on its side Antiquity and Vniversality and is wont to object to the true Religion Novelty and Singularity And both these are intimated both before and after the Text Put away the gods which your Father served on the other side of the flood and in Egypt And chuse you this day whom you will serve whether the gods which your Fathers served on the other side of the flood or the gods of the Amorites in whose land ye dwell Idolatry was the Religion of their Fathers and had spread it self over the greatest and most ancient Nations of the world and the most famous for Learning and Arts the Chaldeans and Egyptians and was the Religion of the Amorites and the Nations round about them So that Joshua represents the Heathen Religion with all its strength and advantage and do's not dissemble its confident pretence to Antiquity and Vniversality whereby they would also insinuate the Novelty and Singularity of the worship of the God of Israel And it is very well worthy our observation that one or both of these have always been the Exceptions of false Religions especially of Idolatry and Superstition against the true Religion The ancient Idolaters of the World pretended their Religion to be ancient and universal that their Fathers served these Gods and that the worship of the God of Israel was a plain Innovation upon the Ancient and Catholick Religion of the world and that the very first rise and original of it was within the memory of their Fathers and no doubt they were almost perpetually upon the Jews with that pert question Where was your Religion before Abraham and telling them that it was the Religion of a very small part and corner of the world confined within a little Territory But the great Nations of the world the Egyptians and Chaldeans famous for all kind of knowledge and wisedom and indeed all the Nations round about them worshipped other Gods And therefore it was an intolerable arrogance and singularity in them to condemn their Fathers and all the world to be of a Religion different from all other Nations and hereby to separate themselves and make a Schism from the rest of mankind And when the Gospel appeared in the world which the Apostle to the Hebrews to prevent the scandal of that word calls the time of Reformation the Jews and Heathen still renewed the same Objections against Christianity The Jews urged against it not the ancient Scriptures and the true word of God but that which they pretended to be of much greater Authority the unwritten Word the ancient and constant Traditions of their Church and branded this new Religion with the name of Heresie After the way saith St. Paul that you call Heresie so worship I the God of my Fathers believing all things that are written in the Law and in the Prophets By which we see that they of the Church of Rome were not the first who called it Heresie to reject humane Traditions and to make the Scriptures the Rule of Faith This was done long before by their reverend Predecessors the Scribes and and Pharisees And the Gentiles they pretended against it both Antiquity and Vniversality the constant belief and practice of all Ages and almost all Places of the World Sequimur majores nostros qui feliciter secuti sunt suos says Symmachus We follow our Fore-fathers who happily followed theirs But you bring in a new Religion never known nor heard of in the World before And when the Christian Religion was most miserably depraved and corrupted in that dismal night of Ignorance which overspread these Western parts of the World about the Ninth and Tenth Centùries and many pernicious Doctrines and Superstitious Practices were introduced to the wofull defacing of the Christian Religion and making it quite another thing from what our Saviour had left it and these Corruptions and Abuses had continued for several Ages No sooner was a Reformation attempted but the Church of Rome make the same outcry of Novelty and Singularity And though we have substantially answered it a thousand times yet we cannot obtain of them to forbear that threadbare Question Where was your Religion before Luther I shall therefore apply my self to answer these two Exceptions with
all the brevity and clearness I can And I doubt not to make it appear that as to the point of Vniversality though that be no-wise necessary to justifie the truth of any Religion ours is not inferior to theirs if we take in the Christians of all Ages and of all parts of the World And as to the point of Antiquity that our Faith and the Doctrines of our Religion have clearly the advantage of theirs all our Faith being unquestionably ancient their 's not so 1. As to the Point of Vniversality Which they of the Church of Rome I know not for what reason will needs make an inseparable property and mark of the true Church And they never slout at the Protestant Religion with so good a grace among the ignorant People as when they are bragging of their Numbers and despising poor Protestancy because embraced by so few This pestilent Northern Heresie as of late they scornfully call it entertained it seems only in this cold and cloudy Corner of the World by a company of dull stupid People that can neither penetrate into the proofs nor the possibility of Transubstantiation whereas to the more refined Southern Wits all these difficult and obscure Points are as clear as their Sun at Noon-day But to speak to the thing it self If Number be necessary to prove the truth and goodness of any Religion ours upon enquiry will be found not so inconsiderable as our Adversaries would make it Those of the Reformed Religion according to the most exact calculations that have been made by learned men being esteemed not much unequal in number to those of the Romish persuasion But then if we take in the ancient Christian Church whose Faith was the same with ours and other Christian Churches at this day which all together are vastly greater and more numerous than the Roman Church and which agree with us several of them in very considerable Doctrines and Practices in dispute between us and the Church of Rome and all of them in disclaiming that fundamental point of the Roman Religion and Summ of Christianity as Bellarmine calls it I mean the Supremacy of the Bishop of Rome over all Christians and Churches in the World then the Number on our side will be much greater than on theirs But we will not stand upon this advantage with them Suppose we were by much the sewer So hath the true Church of God often been without any the least prejudice to the truth of their Religion What think we of the Church in Abraham's time which for ought we know was confined to one Family and one small Kingdom that of Melchisedec King of Salem What think we of it in Moses his time when it was confined to one People wandering in a Wilderness What of it in Elijah's time when besides the two Tribes that worshipped at Jerusalem there were in the other ten but seven thousand that had not bowed their knee to Baal What in our Saviour's time when the whole Christian Church consisted of twelve Apostles and seventy Disciples and some few Followers beside How would Bellarmine have despised this little Flock because it wanted one or two of his goodliest marks of the true Church Vniversality and Splendor And what think we of the Christian Church in the height of Arianism and Pelagianism when a great part of Christendom was over-run with these Errors and the number of the Orthodox was inconsiderable in comparison of the Hereticks But what need I to urge these Instances As if the Truth of a Religion were to be estimated and carried by the major Vote which as it can be an Argument to none but Fools so I dare say no honest and wise man ever made use of it for a solid proof of the truth and goodness of any Church or Religion If multitude be an Argument that men are in the right in vain then hath the Scripture said Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil For if this Argument be of any force the greater Number never go wrong 2. As to the Point of Antiquity This is not always a certain Mark of the true Religion For surely there was a time when Christianity began and was a new Profession and then both Judaism and Paganism had certainly the advantage of it in Point of Antiquity But the proper Question in this Case is Which is the true Ancient Christian Faith that of the Church of Rome or Ours And to make this matter plain it is to be considered that a great part of the Roman Faith is the same with Ours as namely the Articles of the Apostles Creed as explained by the first four General Councils And these make up our whole Faith so far as concerns matters of meer and simple Belief that are of absolute necessity to Salvation And in this Faith of Ours there is nothing wanting that can be shewn in any ancient Creed of the Christian Church And thus far Our Faith and theirs of the Roman Church are undoubtedly of equal Antiquity that is as ancient as Christianity it self All the Question is as to the matters in difference between us The principal whereof are the twelve new Articles of the Creed of Pope Pius the IV concerning the Sacrifice of the Mass Transubstantiation the Communion in one kind only Purgatory c. not one of which is to be found in any ancient Creed or Confession of Faith generally allowed in the Christian Church The Antiquity of these we deny and affirm them to be Innovations and have particularly proved them to be so not only to the answering but almost to the silencing of our Adversaries And as for the negative Articles of the Protestant Religion in opposition to the Errors and Corruptions of the Romish Faith these are by accident become a part of our Faith and Religion occasioned by their Errors as the renouncing of the Doctrines of Arianism became part of the Catholick Religion after the rise of that Heresie So that the Case is plainly this We believe and teach all that is contained in the Creeds of the ancient Christian Church and was by them esteemed necessary to Salvation and this is Our Religion But now the Church of Rome hath innovated in the Christian Religion and made several Additions to it and greatly corrupted it both in the Doctrines and Practices of it And these Additions and Corruptions are their Religion as it is distinct from ours and both because they are Corruptions and Novelties we have rejected them And our rejection of these is our Reformation And our Reformation we grant if this will do them any good not to be so ancient as their Corruptions All Reformation necessarily supposing Corruptions and Errors to have been before it And now we are at a little better leisure to answer that captious Question of theirs Where was your Religion before Luther Where-ever Christianity was in some places more pure in others more corrupted but especially in these Western parts of Christendom overgrown for several Ages with
manifold Errors and Corruptions which the Reformation hath happily cut off and cast away So that though our Reformation was as late as Luther our Religion is as ancient as Christianity it self For when the Additions which the Church of Rome hath made to the ancient Christian Faith and their Innovations in practice are pared off that which remains of their Religion is ours and this they canot deny to be every tittle of it the ancient Christianity And what other Answer than this could the Jews have given to the like Question if it had been put to them by the ancient Idolaters of the World Where was your Religion before Abraham but the very same in substance which we now give to the Church of Rome That for many Ages the Worship of the one true God had been corrupted and the Worship of Idols had prevailed in a great part of the World that Abraham was raised up by God to reform Religion and to reduce the Worship of God to its first Institution in the doing whereof he necessarily separated Himself and his Family from the Communion of those Idolaters So that though the Reformation which Abraham began was new yet his Religion was truly ancient as old as that of Noah and Enoch and Adam Which is the same in substance that we say and with the same and equal reason And if they will still complain of the Newness of our Reformation so do we too and are heartily sorry it began no sooner but however better late than never Besides it ought to be considered that this Objection of Novelty lies against all Reformation whatsoever though never so necessary and though things be never so much amiss And it is in effect to say that if things be once bad they must never be better but must always remain as they are for they cannot be better without being reformed and a Reformation must begin sometime and whenever it begins it is certainly new So that if a real Reformation be made the thing justifies it self and no Objection of Novelty ought to take place against that which upon all accounts was so fit and necessary to be done And if they of the Church of Rome would but speak their mind out in this matter they are not so much displeased at the Reformation which we have made because it is new as because it is a Reformation It was the humour of Babylon of old as the Prophet tells us that she woud not be healed Jer. 51.9 and this is still the temper of the Church of Rome they hate to he reformed and rather than acknowledge themselves to have been once in an Error they will continue in it for ever And this is that which at first made and still continues the breach and Separation between us of which we are no-wise guilty who have onely reformed what was amiss but they who obstinately persist in their errors and will needs impose them upon us and will not let us be of their Communion unless we will say they are no Errors II. The other Prejudice against the true Religion is the contrariety of it to the vicious inclinations and practices of Men. It is too heavy a yoke and lays too great a restraint upon humane Nature And this is that which in truth lies at the bottom of all Objections against Religion Men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil But this Argument will require a Discourse by it self and therefore I shall not now enter upon it onely crave your patience a little longer whilst I make some Reflections upon what hath been already delivered You see what are the Exceptions which Idolatry and Superstition have always made and do at this day still make against the true Religion and how slight and insignificant they are But do we then charge the Church of Rome with Idolatry Our Church most certainly does so and hath always done it from the beginning of the Reformation in her Homilies and Liturgy and Canons and in the Writings of her best and ablest Champions And though I have as impartially as I could consider'd what hath been said on both sides in this Controversy yet I must confess I could never yet see any tolerable defence made by them against this heavy charge And they themselves acknowledge themselves to be greatly under the suspicion of it by saying as Cardinal Perron and others do that the Primitive Christians for some Ages did neither worship Images nor pray to Saints for fear of being thought to approach too near the Heathen Idolatry And which is yet more divers of their most learned men do confess that if Transubstantiation be not true they are as gross Idolaters as any in the World And I hope they do not expect it from us that in complement to them and to acquit them from the charge of Idolatry we should presently deny our senses and believe Transubstantiation and if we do not believe this they grant we have Reason to charge them with Idolatry But we own them to be a true Church which they cannot be if they be guilty of Idolatry This they often urge us withall and there seems at first sight to be something in it And for that reason I shall endeavour to give so clear and satisfactory an answer to it as that we may never more be troubled with it The truth is we would fain hope because they still retain the Essentials of Christianity and profess to believe all the Articles of the Christian Faith that notwithstanding their Corruptions they may still retain the true Essence of a Church as a man may be truly and really a man though he have the plague upon him and for that reason be fit to be avoided by all that wish well to themselves But if this will not do we cannot help it Therefore to push the matter home Are they sure that this is a firm and good consequence That if they be Idolaters they cannot be a true Church Then let them look to it It is they I take it that are concerned to prove themselves a true Church and not we to prove it for them And if they will not understand it of themselves it is fit they should be told that there is a great difference between Concessions of Charity and of Necessity and that a very different use ought to be made of them We are willing to think the best of them but if they dislike our Charity in this point nothing against the hair 〈◊〉 they will forgive us this Injury we will not offend them any more But rather than have any farther difference with them about this matter we will for quietness sake compound it thus That till they can clearly acquit themselves from being Idolaters they shall never more against their wills be esteemed a true Church And now to draw to a Conclusion If it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord and to worship him only to pray to him alone and that only in the name
I shall only observe to you that after the discovery of this Plot the Authors of it were not convinced of the evil but sorry for the miscarriage of it Sir Everard Digby whose very original Papers and Letters are now in my hands after he was in Prison and knew he must suffer calls it the best Cause and was extremely troubled to hear it censured by Catholicks and Priests contrary to his expectation for a great sin Let me tell you says he what a grief it is to hear THAT so much condemned which I did believe would have been otherwise thought of by Catholicks And yet he concludes that Letter with these words In how full joy should I dye if I could do any thing for the Cause which I love more than my life And in another Letter he says he could have said something to have mitigated the odium of this business as to that Point of involving those of his own Religion in the common ruine I dare not says he take that course that I could to make it appear less odious for divers were to have been brought out of danger who now would rather hurt them than otherwise I do not think there would have been three worth the saving that should have been lost And as to the rest that were to have been swallow'd up in that destruction he seems not to have the least relenting in his mind about them All doubts he seems to have look'd upon as temptations and intreats his Friends to pray for the pardoning of his not sufficient striving against temptations since this business was undertook Good God! that any thing that is called Religion should so perfectly strip men of all humanity and transform the mild and gentle race of mankind into such Wolves and Tygers that ever a pretended zeal for Thy glory should instigate men to dishononr Thee at such a rate It is believed by many and not without cause that the Pope and his Faction are the Antichrist I will say no more than I know in this matter I am not so sure that it is he that is particularly designed in Scripture by that Name as I am of the main Articles of the Christian Faith But however that be I challenge Antichrist himself whoever he be and whenever he comes to do worse and wickeder things than these But I must remember my Text and take heed of imitating that Spirit which is there condemned whilst I am inveighing against it And in truth it almost looks uncharitably to speak the truth in these matters and barely to relate what these men have not blush'd to do I need not nay I cannot aggravate these things they are too horrible in themselves even when they are express'd in the softest and gentlest words I would not be understood to charge every particular person who is or hath been in the Roman Communion with the guilt of these or the like practises But I must charge their Doctrines and Principles with them I must charge the Heads of their Church and the prevalent teaching and governing part of it who are usually the contrivers and abetters the executioners and applauders of these cursed Designs I do willingly acknowledg the great Piety and Charity of several persons who have lived and died in that Communion as Erasmus Father Paul Thuanus and many others who had in truth more goodness than the Principles of that Religion do either incline men to or allow of And yet he that considers how universally almost the Papists in Ireland were engaged in that Massacre which is still fresh in our memories will find it very hard to determine how many degrees of innocency and good nature or of coldness and indifferency in Religion are necessary to overballance the fury of a blind zeal and a misguided Conscience I doubt not but Papists are made like other men Nature hath not geneally given them such savage and cruel dispositions but their Religion hath made them so Whereas true Christianity is not only the best but the best-natur'd Institution in the world and so far as any Church is departed from good nature and become cruel and barbarous so far is it degenerated from Christianity I am loth to say it and yet I am confident 't is very true That many Papists would have been excellent Persons and very good Men if their Religion had not hindered them if the Doctrines and Principles of their Church had not perverted and spoiled their natural Dispositions I speak not this to exasperate You worthy Patriots and the great Bulwark of our Religion to any unreasonable or unnecessary much less unchristian Severities against them No let us not do like them let us never do any thing for Religion that is contrary to it But I speak it to awaken your care thus far That if their Priests will always be putting these pernicious Principles into the minds of the People effectual Provision may be made that it may never be in their Power again to put them in Practice We have found by Experience that ever since the Reformation they have been continually pecking at the Foundations of our Peace and Religion When God knows we have been so far from thirsting after their Blood that we did not so much as desire their disquiet but in order to our own necessary safety and indeed to theirs And God be praised for those matchless Instances which we are able to give of the generous humanity and Christian temper of the English Protestants After Q. Marys Death when the Protestant Religion was restored Bishop Bonner notwithstanding all his Cruelties and Butcheries was permitted quietly to live and dye amongst us And after the Treason of this Day nay at this very time since the discovery of so barbarous a Design and the highest Provocation in the World by the treacherous Murder of one of His Majesty's Justices of the Peace a very good Man and a most excellent Magistrate who had been active in the discovery of this Plot I say after all this and notwithstanding the continued and insupportable insolence of their Carriage and Behaviour even upon this occasion no Violence nay not so much as any incivility that I ever heard of hath been offer'd to any of them I would to God they would but seriously consider this one difference between our Religion and theirs and which of them comes nearest to the Wisdom which is from above which is peaceable and gentle and full of mercy And I do heartily pray and have good hopes that upon this occasion God will open their eyes so far as to convince a great many among them that that cannot be the true Religion which inspires men with such barbarous minds I have now done and if I have been transported upon this Argument somewhat beyond my usual temper the Occasion of this Day and our present circumstances will I hope bear me out I have expressed my self all along with a just sense and with no unjust severity concerning these horrid Principles and
Virtue is Vice and Vice Virtue he would hereby take away the very foundation of Religion and how can I look upon him any longer as a Judg in matters of Religion when there can be no such thing as Religion if he have judged and determined right Secondly The Scripture plainly allows this liberty to particular and private Persons to judg for themselves And for this I need go no farther than my Text which bids men try the Spirits whether they be of God I do not think this is spoken only to the Pope or a General Council but to Christians in general for to these the Apostle writes Now if St. John had believed that God had constituted an infallible Judge in his Church to whose Sentence and Determination all Christians are bound to submit he ought in all reason to have referred Christians to him for the trial of Spirits and not have left it to every man's private judgment to examine and to determine these things But it seems St. Paul was likewise of the same mind and though he was guided by an infallible Spirit yet he did not expect that men should blindly submit to his Doctrine Nay so far is he from that that he commends the Bereans for that very thing for which I dare say the Church of Rome would have check'd them most severely namely for searching the Scriptures to see whether those things which the Apostles delivered were so or not This liberty St. Paul allowed and though he was inspired by God yet he treated those whom he taught like men And indeed it were a hard case that a necessity of believing Divine Revelations and rejecting Impostures should be imposed upon Christians and yet the liberty of judging whether a Doctrine be from God or not should be taken away from them Thirdly Our Adversaries themselves are forced to grant that which in effect is as much as we contend for For though they deny a liberty of judging in particular points of Religion yet they are forced to grant men a liberty of judging upon the whole When they of the Church of Rome would perswade a Jew or a Heathen to become a Christian or a Heretick as they are pleased to call us to come over to the Communion of their Church and offer Arguments to induce them thereto they do by this very thing whether they will or no make that man Judge which is the true Church and the true Religion Because it would be ridiculous to perswade a man to turn to their Religion and to urge him with Reasons to do so and yet to deny him the use of his own judgement whether their Reasons be sufficient to move him to make such a change Now as the Apostle reasons in another case If men be fit to judge for themselves in so great and important a matter as the choice of their Religion why should they be thought unworthy to judge in lesser matters They tell us indeed that a man may use his judgement in the choice of his Religion but when he hath once chosen he is then for ever to resign up his judgment to their Church But what tolerable reason can any man give why a man should be fit to judge upon the whole and yet unfit to judge upon particular Points especially if it be considered that no man can make a discreet judgment of any Religion before he hath examined the particular Doctrines of it and made a judgment concerning them Is it credible that God should give a man judgment in the most fundamental and important matter of all viz. To discern the true Religion and the true Church from the false for no other end but to enable him to chuse once for all to whom he should resign and inslave his judgment for ever which is just as reasonable as if one should say That God hath given a man eyes for no other end but to look out once for all and to pitch upon a discreet person to lead him about blindfold all the days of his life I come now to the III. Thing I propounded which is To Answer the main Objection of our Adversaries against this Principle and likewise to shew that there is no such Reason and necessity for an universal Insallible Judge as they pretend Now their great Objection is this If every man may judge for himself there will be nothing but confusion in Religion there will be no end of Controversies so that an universal infallible Judge is necessary and without this God had not made sufficient provision for the assurance of men's Faith and for the Peace and unity of his Church Or as it is expressed in the Canon Law aliter Dominus non videretur fuisse discretus otherwise our Lord had not seem'd to be discreet How plausible soever this Objection may appear I do not despair but if men will lay aside prejudice and impartially consider things to make it abundantly evident that this ground is not sufficient to found an Infallible Judge upon And therefore in answer to it I desire these following particulars may be considered Firft That this which they say rather proves what God should have done according to their fancy than what he hath really and actually done My Text expresly bids Christians to try the Spirits which to any man's sense does imply that they may judge of these matters But the Church of Rome says they may not because if this liberty were permitted God had not ordered things wisely and for the best for the peace and unity of his Church But as the Apostle says in another case What art thou O man that objectest against God Secondly If this reasoning be good we may as well conclude that there is an universal infallible Judge set over the whole world in all Temporal matters to whose Authority all mankind is bound to submit Because this is as necessary to the peace of the World as the other is to the peace of the Church And men surely are every whit as apt to be obstinate and perverse about matters of Temporal Right as about matters of Faith But it is evident in fact and experience that there is no such universal Judge appointed by God over the whole World to decide all Cases of temporal Right and for want of him the World is fain to shift as well as it can But now a very acute and scholastical man that would argue that God must needs have done whatever he fancies convenient for the World should be done might by the very same way of Reasoning conclude the necessity of an universal infallible Judge in Civil matters as well as in matters of Religion And their aliter Dominus non videretur fuisse discretus otherwise God had not seem'd to be discreet is every whit as cogent and as civil in the one Case as the other Thirdly There is no need of such a Judge to assure men in matters of Religion Because men be sufficiently certain without him I hope it may be certain
not seen and yet have believed hath no where said blessed are they that have seen and yet have not believed much less blessed are they that believe directly contrary to what they see To conclude this Discourse By what hath been said upon this Argument it will appear with how little truth and reason and regard to the interest of our common Christianity it is so often said by our Adversaries that there are as good arguments for the belief of Transubstantiation as of the Doctrine of the Trinity When they themselves do acknowledge with us that the Doctrine of the Trinity is grounded upon the Scriptures and that according to the interpretation of them by the consent of the ancient Fathers But their Doctrine of Transubstantiation I have plainly shewn to have no such ground and that this is acknowledged by very many learned men of their own Church And this Doctrine of theirs being first plainly proved by us to be destitute of all Divine Warrant and Authority our Objections against it from the manifold contradictions of it to Reason and Sense are so many Demonstrations of the falshood of it Against all which they have nothing to put in the opposite Scale but the Infallibility of their Church for which there is even less colour of proof from Scripture than for Transubstantiation it self But so fond are they of their own Innovations and Errours that rather than the Dictates of their Church how groundless and absurd soever should be call'd in question rather than not have their will of us in imposing upon us what they please they will overthrow any Article of the Christian Faith and shake the very foundations of our common Religion A clear evidence that the Church of Rome is not the true Mother since she can be so well contented that Christianity should be destroyed rather than the Point in question should be decided against her THE Protestant Religion Vindicated from the Charge of Singularity and Novelty IN A SERMON Preached before the KING At WHITE-HALL April the 2d 1680. JOSHUA XXIV 15. If it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord chuse you this day whom you will serve THese are the words of Joshua who after he had brought the People of Israel thorough many difficulties and hazards into the quiet possession of the promised land like a good Prince and Father of his Country was very sollicitous before his death to lay the firmest foundation he could devise of the future happiness and prosperity of that People in whose present settlement he had by the blessing of God been so succesfull an instrument And because he knew no means so effectual to this end as to confirm them in the Religion and Worship of the true God who had by so remarkable and miraculous a Providence planted them in that good Land he summons the people together and represents to them all those considerations that might engage them and their posterity for ever to continue in the true Religion He tells them what God had already done for them and what he had promised to do more if they would be faithfull to him And on the other hand what fearfull calamities he had threatned and would certainly bring upon them in case they should transgress his Covenant and go and serve other Gods And after many Arguments to this purpose he concludes with this earnest Exhortation at the 14th verse Now therefore fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and in truth and put away the Gods which your father served on the other side of the flood and in Egypt and serve ye the Lord. And to give the greater weight and force to this Exhortation he do's by a very eloquent kind of insinuation as it were once more set them at liberty and leave them to their own election It being the nature of man to stick more stedfastly to that which is not violently imposed but is our own free and deliberate choice And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord chuse you this day whom you will serve Which words offer to our consideration these following Observations 1. It is here supposed that a Nation must be of some Religion or other Joshua do's not put this to their choice but takes it for granted 2. That though Religion be a matter of choice yet it is neither a thing indifferent in it self nor to a good Governour what Religion his people are of Joshua do's not put it to them as if it were an indifferent matter whether they served God or Idols he had sufficiently declared before which of these was to be preferred 3. The true Religion may have several prejudices and objections against it If it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord intimating that upon some accounts and to some persons it may appear so 4. That the true Religion hath those real advantages on its side that it may safely be referr'd to any considerate mans choice And this seems to be the true Reason why Joshua refers it to them Not that he thought the thing indifferent but because he was fully satisfied that the truth and goodness of the one above the other was so evident that there was no danger that any prudent man should make a wrong choice If it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord chuse you this day whom you will serve intimating that the plain difference of the things in competition would direct them what to chuse 5. The Example of Princes and Governours hath a very great influence upon the people in matters of Religion This I collect from the Context And Joshua was sensible of it and therefore though he firmly believed the true Religion to have those advantages that would certainly recommend it to every impartial mans judgment yet knowing that the multitude are easily imposed upon and led into error he thought fit to encline and determine them by his own example and by declaring his own peremptory resolution in the case Chuse you this day whom you will serve as for me I and my house will serve the Lord. Laws are a good security to Religion but the Example of Governours is a living Law which secretly overrules the minds of men and bends them to a compliance with it Non sic inflectere sensus Humanos edicta valent ut vita Regentis The Lives and Actions of Princes have usually a greater sway upon the minds of the People than their Laws All these Observations are I think very natural and very considerable I shall not be able to speak to them all but shall proceed so far as the time and your patience will give me leave First It is here supposed that a Nation must be of some Religion or other Joshua do's not put it to their choice whether they would worship any Deity at all That had been too wild and extravagant a supposition and which it is likely in those days had never entered into any mans mind But he takes it for granted that all people will
time I have purposely reserved this for the last place because it is their last refuge and if this fail them they are gone To shew the weakness of this pretence we will if they please take it for granted that the Governours of the Church have in no Age more power than the Apostles had in theirs Now St. Paul tells us 2 Cor. 10.8 that the Authority which the Apostles had given them from the Lord was only for edification but not for destruction And the same St. Paul makes it the business of a whole Chapter to shew that the performing the publick service of God and particularly Praying in an unknown Tongue are contrary to edification from which premisses the conclusion is plain That the Apostles themselves had no Authority to appoint the service of God to be performed in an unknown Tongue and surely it is Arrogance for the Church in any Age to pretend to greater Authority than the Apostles had This is the summ of what our Adversaries say in justification of themselves in these points And there is no doubt but that men of wit and confidence will alwaies make a shift to say something for any thing and some way or other blanch over the blackest and most absurd things in the world But I leave it to the judgment of mankind whether any thing be more unreasonable than to tell men in effect that it is fit they should understand as little of Religion as is possible that God hath published a very dangerous Book with which it is not safe for the people to be familiarly acquainted that our blessed Saviour and his Apostles and the ancient Christian Church for more than six hundred years were not wise managers of Religion nor prudent dispensers of the Scriptures but like fond and foolish Fathers put a knife and a sword into the hands of their Children with which they might easily have foreseen what mischief they would do to themselves and others And who would not chuse to be of such a Church which is provided of such excellent and effectual means of Ignorance such wise and infallible methods for the prevention of knowledge in the people and such variety of close shutters to keep out the light I have chosen to insist upon this Argument because it is so very plain that the most ordinary capacity may judge of this usage and dealing with the souls of men which is so very gross that every man must needs be sensible of it because it toucheth men in the common rights of humane nature which belong to them as much as the light of heaven and the air we breath in It requires no subtilty of wit no skill in Antiquity to understand these Controversies between Us and the Church of Rome For there are no Fathers to be pretended on both sides in these Questions They yield we have Antiquity on ours And we refer it to the common sense of Mankind which Church that of Rome or Ours hath all the right and reason in the world on her side in these debates And who they are that tyrannize over Christians the Governours of their Church or ours who use the people like sons and freemen and who like slaves who feed the flock of Christ committed to them and who take the Childrens bread from them Who they are that when their Children ask bread for bread give them a stone and for an egg a serpent I mean the Legends of their Saints instead of the holy Scriptures which are able to make men wise unto salvation And who they are that lie most justly under the suspicion of Errours and Corruptions they who bring their Doctrine and Practices into the open light and are willing to have them tryed by the true touchstone the Word of God or they who shun the light and decline all manner of tryal and examination and who are most likely to carry on a worldly design they who drive a trade of such mighty gain and advantage under pretence of Religion and make such markets of the ignorance and sins of the people or we whom malice it self cannot charge with serving any worldly design by any allowed Doctrine or Practice of our Religion For we make no money of the mistakes of the people nor do we fill their heads with vain fears of new places of torment to make them willing to empty their purses in a vainer hope of being delivered out of them We do not like them pretend a mighty bank and treasure of Merits in the Church which they sell to the people for ready money giving them bills of Exchange from the Pope to Purgatory when they who grant them have no reason to believe they will avail them or be accepted in the other World For our parts we have no fear that our people should understand Religion too well We could wish with Moses that all the Lord's people were Prophets We should be heartily glad the people would read the holy Scriptures more diligently being sufficiently assured that it is their own fault if they learn any thing but what is good from thence We have no Doctrines or Practices contrary to Scripture and consequently no occasion to keep it close from the sight of the people or to hide any of the Commandments of God from them We leave these mean arts to those who stand in need of them In a word there is nothing which God hath said to men which we desire should be concealed from them Nay we are willing the people should examine what we teach and bring all our Doctrines to the Law and to the Testimony that if they be not according to this Rule they may neither believe them nor us 'T is onely things false and adulterate which shun the light and sear the touchstone We have that security of the truth of our Religion and of the agreeableness of it to the word of God that honest confidence of the goodness of our Cause that we do not forbid the people to read the best Books our Adversaries can write against it And now let any impartial man judge whether this be not a better argument of a good Cause to leave men at liberty to try the grounds of their Religion than the courses which are taken in the Church of Rome to awe men with an Inquisition and as much as is possible to keep the common people in Ignorance not onely of what their late Adversaries the Protestants but their chief and ancient Adversary the Scriptures have to say against them A man had need of more than common security of the skill and integrity of those to whom he perfectly resigns his understanding this is too great a Trust to be reposed in humane frailty and too strong a temptation to others to impose upon us to abuse our blindness and to make their own ends of our voluntary Ignorance and easie credulity This is such a folly as if a rich man should make his Physician his heir which is to tempt him either to destroy
nothing How much righter apprehensions had the Heathen of the Divine Nature which they looked upon as so benign and beneficial to mankind that as Tully admirably says Dii immortales ad usum hominum fabrefacti penè videantur The nature of the immortal Gods may almost seem to be exactly framed for the benefit and advantage of men And as for Religion they always spake of it as the great band of humane Society and the foundation of truth and fidelity and justice among men But when Religion once comes to supplant moral Righteousness and to teach men the absurdest things in the world to lye for the truth and to kill men for God's sake when it serves to no other purpose but to be a bond of conspiracy to inflame the tempers of men to a greater fierceness and to set a keener edge upon their spirits and to make them ten times more the children of wrath and Cruelty than they were by nature then surely it loses its nature and ceases to be Religion For let any man say worse of Atheism and Infidelity if he can And for God's sake what is Religion good for but to reform the manners and dispositions of men to restrain humane nature from violence and cruelty from falshood and treachery from Sedition and Rebellion Better it were there were no revealed Religion and that humane nature were left to the conduct of its own principles and inclinations which are much more mild and merciful much more for the peace and happiness of humane Society than to be acted by a Religion that inspires men with so wild a fury and prompts them to commit such outrages and is continually supplanting Government and undermining the welfare of mankind in short such a Religion as teaches men to propagate and advance it self by means so evidently contrary to the very nature and end of all Religion And this if it be well considered will appear to be a very convincing way of reasoning by shewing the last result and consequence of such Principles and of such a Train of Propositions to be a most gross and palpable absurdity For example We will at present admit Popery to be the true Religion and their Doctrines of extirpating Hereticks of the lawfulness of deposing Kings and subverting Government by all the cruel and wicked ways that can be thought of to be as in truth they are the Doctrines of this Religion In this Case I would not trouble my self to debate particulars but if in the gross and upon the whole matter it be evident that such a Religion as this is as bad or worse than Infidelity and no Religion this is conviction enough to a wise man and as good as a Demonstration that this is not the true Religion and that it cannot be from God How much better Teachers of Religion were the old Heathen Philosophers In all whose Books and Writings there is not one Principle to be found of Treachery or Rebellion nothing that gives the least countenance to an Association or a Massacre to the betraying of ones Native Country or the cutting of his Neighbours throat for difference in opinion I speak it with grief and shame because the credit of our common Christianity is somewhat concerned in it that Panaetius and Antipater and Diogenes the Stoick Tully and Plutarch and Seneca were much honester and more Christian Casuists than the Jesuits are or the generality of the Casuists of any other Order that I know of in the Church of Rome I come now in the Third and last place to make some Application of this Discourse 1. Let not Religion suffer for those faults and miscarriages which really proceed from the ignorance of Religion and from the want of it That under colour and pretence of Religion very bad things are done is no argument that Religion it self is not good Because the best things are liable to be perverted and abused to very ill purposes nay the corruption of them is commonly the worst as they say the richest and noblest Wines make the sharpest Vinegar If the light that is in you saith our Saviour be darkness how great is that darkness 2. Let us beware of that Church which countenanceth this unchristian spirit here condemned by our Saviour and which teaches such Doctrines and warrants such Practices as are consonant thereto You all know without my saying so that I mean the Church of Rome in which are taught such Doctrines as these That Hereticks that is all who differ from them in matters of Faith are to be extirpated by fire and sword which was decreed in the third and fourth Lateran Councils where all Christians are strictly charged to endeavour this to the uttermost of their power Sicut reputari cupiunt haberi fideles as they desire to be esteemed and accounted Christians Next their Doctrines of deposing Kings and of absolving their subjects from obedience to them which were not only universally believed but practised by the Popes and Roman Church for several Ages Indeed this Doctrine hath not been at all times alike frankly and openly avowed but it is undoubtedly theirs and hath frequently been put in execution though they have not thought it so convenient at all turns to make profession of it It is a certain kind of Engine which is to be screw'd up or let down as occasion serves and is commonly kept like Goliah's Sword in the Sanctuary behind the Ephod but yet so that the High-Priest can lend it out upon an extraordinary occasion And for Practices consonant to these Doctrines I shall go no further than the horrid and bloody Design of this Day Such a Mystery of Iniquity as had been hid from ages and generations Such a Master-piece of Villany as eye had not seen nor ear heard nor ever before entred into the heart of man So prodigiously Barbarous both in the substance and circumstances of it as is not to be parallell'd in all the voluminous Records of Time from the foundation of the World Of late years our Adversaries for so they have made themselves without any provocation of ours have almost had the impudence to deny so plain a matter of fact but I wish they have not taken an effectual course by fresh Conspiracies of equal or greater horror to confirm the belief of it with a witness But I shall not anticipate what will be more proper for another Day but confine my self to the present Occasion I will not trouble you with the particular Narrative of this dark Conspiracy nor the obscure manner of its discovery which Bellarmin himself acknowledges not to have been without a Miracle Let us thank God that it was so happily discovered and disappointed as I hope their present design will be by the same wonderful and merciful providence of God towards a most unworthy People And may the lameness and halting of Ignatius Loyola the Founder of the Jesuits never depart from that Order but be a Fate continually attending all their villanous Plots and Contrivances
Practises but yet with great pity and tenderness towards those miserably seduced Souls who have been deluded by them and ensnared in them And I can truly say as the Roman Orator did of himself upon another occasion Me natura misericordem patria severum crudelem nec patria nec natura esse voluit My nature inclines me to be tender and compassionate a hearty zeal for our Religion and concernment for the publick welfare of my Country may perhaps have made me a little severe but neither my natural disposition nor the temper of the English Nation nor the Genius of the Protestant that is the true Christian Religion will allow me to be cruel For the future Let us encourage our selves in the Lord our God and commit our Cause and the keeping of our Souls to Him in well doing And under God let us leave it to the wisdom and care of His Majesty and His two Houses of Parliament to make a lasting Provision for the security of our Peace and Religion against all the secret contrivances and open attempts of these sons of violence And let us remember those words of David Psal 37.12 13 14 15. The wicked plotteth against the just and gnasheth upon him with his teeth The Lord shall laugh at him for he seeth that his day is coming The wicked have drawn out the sword and bent their how to cast down the poor and needy and to slay such as be of upright conversation Their sword shall enter into their own hearty and their bows shall be broken And I hope considering what God hath heretofore done and hath now begun to do for us we may take encouragement to our selves against all the Enemies of our Religion which are confederated against us in the words of the Prophet Isa 8. 9 10. Associate your selves O ye People and ye shall be broken in pieces and give ear all ye of far Countries Gird your selves and ye shall be broken in pieces Gird your selves and ye shall be broken in pieces Take counsel together and it shall come to nought Speak the word and it shall not stand FOR GOD IS WITH VS And now what remains but to make our most devout and thankful acknowledgments to Almighty God for the invaluable blessing of our Reformed Religion and for the miraculous Deliverance of this Day and for the wonderful Discovery of the late horrid and barbarous Conspiracy against our Prince our Peace and our Religion To Him therefore our most gracious and merciful God our Shield and our Rock and our mighty Deliverer Who hath brought us out of the land of Egypt and out of the House of bondage and hath set us free from Popish Tyranny and Superstition a yoke which neither we nor our Fathers were able to bear Who hath from time to time delivered us from the bloody and merciless designs of wicked and unreasonable men and hath render'd all the plots and contrivances the mischievous counsels and devices of these worse-than-Heathens of none effect Who did as upon this Day rescue our King and our Princes our Nobles and the Heads of our Tribes the Governours of our Church and the Judges of the Land from that fearful Destruction which was ready to have swallowed them up Who still brings to light the hidden things of darkness and hath hitherto preserved our Religion and Civil interests to us in despight of all the malicious and restless attempts of our Adversaries Vnto that great God who hath done so great things for us and hath saved us by a mighty Salvation Who hath delivered us and doth deliver us and we trust will still deliver us be glory and honour thanksgiving and praise from generation to generation And let all the people say Amen A SERMON PREACHED At the First General Meeting of the Gentlemen and others born within the County of YORK To my Honoured FRIENDS and COUNTRYMEN Mr. Hugh Frankland Mr. Leonard Robinson Mr. Abrah Fothergill Mr. William Fairfax Mr. Thomas Johnson Mr. John Hardesty Mr. Gervas Wilcockes Mr. George Pickering Mr. Edward Duffeild Mr. John Topham Mr. James Longbotham Mr. Nathan Holroyd Stewards of the Yorkshire Feast GENTLEMEN THIS Sermon which was first Preached and is now Published at your desires I dedicate to your Names to whose prudence and care the direction and management of this First general Meeting of our Country-men was committed Heartily wishing that it may be some way serviceable to the healing of our unhappy Differences and the restoring of Vnity and Charity among Christians especially those of the Protestant Reform'd Religion I am Gentlemen Your affectionate Country-man and humble Servant Jo. Tillotson A SERMON PREACHED At the first general Meeting of the Gentlemen and others in and near London who were born within the County of York JOHN XIII 34 35. A new Commandment I give unto you that ye love one another as I have loved you that ye also love one another By this shall all men know that ye are my Disciples if ye love one another AS the Christian Religion in general is the best Philosophy and most perfect Institution of Life containing in it the most entire and compleat System of moral Rules and Precepts that was ever yet extant in the World so it peculiarly excells in the Doctrine of Love and Charity earnestly recommending strictly enjoyning and vehemently and almost perpetually pressing and inculcating the excellency and necessity of this best of Graces and Vertues and propounding to us for our imitation and encouragement the most lively and heroical Example of kindness and charity that ever was in the Life and Death of the great Founder of our Religion the author and finisher of our Faith Jesus the Son of God So that the Gospel as it hath in all other parts of our Duty cleared the dimness and obscurity of natural light and supplied the imperfections of former Revelations so doth it most eminently reign and triumph in this great and blessed virtue of Charity in which all the Philosophy and Religions that had been before in the World whether Jewish or Pagan were so remarkably defective With great reason then doth our blessed Saviour call this a new Commandment and assert it to himself as a thing peculiar to his Doctrine and Religion considering how imperfectly it had been taught and how little it had been practised in the World before A new Commandment I give unto you that ye love one another as I have loved you that ye also love one another By this shall all men know that ye are my Disciples if ye love one another I shall reduce my Discourse upon these Words under these six Heads First To inquire in what sense our Saviour calls this Commandment of loving one another a new Commandment Secondly To declare to you the nature of this Commandment by instancing in the chief Acts and Properties of Love Thirdly To consider the degrees and measures of our Charity with regard to the several Objects about which it is exercised Fourthly Our
Father hath not one God created us And are we not in a more peculiar and eminent manner Brethren being all the children of God by faith in Jesus Christ Are we not all members of the same Body and partakers of the same Spirit and Heirs of the same blessed Hopes of eternal life So that being Brethren upon so many accounts and by so many bonds and endearments all united to one another and all travelling towards the same heavenly Country why do we fall out by the way since we are Brethren Why do we not as becomes Brethren dwell together in unity but are so apt to quarrel and break out into heats to crumble into Sects and Parties to divide and separate from one another upon every slight and trifling occasion Give me leave a little more fully to expostulate this matter but very calmly and in the spirit of meekness and in the name of our dear Lord who loved us all at such a rate as to die for us to recommend to you this new Commandment of his that ye love one another Which is almost a new Commandment still and hardly the worse for wearing so seldom it is put on and so little hath it been practised among Christians for several Ages Consider seriously with your selves ought not the great matters wherein we are agreed our union in the Doctrines of the Christian Religion and in all the necessary Articles of that Faith which was once delivered to the Saints in the same Sacraments and in all the substantial parts of God's worship and in the great Duties and Vertues of the Christian life to be of greater force to unite us than difference in doubtful Opinions and in little Rites and Circumstances of worship to divide and break us Are not the things about which we differ in their nature indifferent that is things about which there ought to be no difference among wise men Are they not at a great distance from the life and essence of Religion and rather good or bad as they tend to the Peace and Unity of the Church or are made use of to Schism and Faction than either necessary or evil in themselves And shall little scruples weigh so far with us as by breaking the Peace of the Church about them to endanger our whole Religion Shall we take one another by the throat for an hundred pence when our common Adversary stands ready to clap upon us an Action of ten thousand talents Can we in good earnest be contented that rather than the Surplice should not be thrown out Popery should come in and rather than receive the Sacrament in the humble but indifferent posture of kneeling to swallow the Camel of Transubstantiation and adore the Elements of Bread and Wine for our God and Saviour and rather than to submit to a Set Form of Prayer to have the Service of God perform'd in an unknown Tongue Are we not yet made sensible at least in this our Day by so clear a Demonstration as the Providence of God hath lately given us and had not He been infinitely merciful to us might have proved the dearest and most dangerous Experiment that ever was I say are we not yet convinced what mighty advantages our Enemies have made of our Divisions and what a plentiful harvest they have had among us during our Differences and upon occasion of them and how near their Religion was to have entred in upon us at once at those wide breaches which we had made for it And will we still take counsel of our Enemies and chuse to follow that course to which of all other they who hate us and seek our ruine would most certainly advise and direct us Will we freely offer them that advantage which they would be contented to purchase at any rate Let us after all our sad experience at last take Warning to keep a stedfast eye upon our chief Enemy and not suffer our selves to be diverted from the consideration and regard of our greatest danger by the petty provocations of our Friends so I chuse to call those who dissent from us in lesser matters because I would fain have them so and they ought in all reason to be so But however they behave themselves we ought not much to mind those who only fling dirt at us whilst we are sure there are others who fly at our throats and strike at our very hearts Let us learn this wisdom of our Enemies who though they have many great differences among themselves yet they have made a shift at this time to unite together to destroy us And shall not we do as much to save our selves fas est ab hoste doceri It was a Principle among the ancient Romans a brave and a wise People donare inimicitias Reip. to give up and sacrifice their private enmities and quarrels to the publick good and the safety of the Common-wealth And is it not to every considerate man as clear as the Sun at Noonday that nothing can maintain and support the Protestant Religion amongst us and found our Church upon a Rock so that when the rain falls and the winds blow and the floods beat upon it it shall stand firm and unshaken That nothing can be a Bulwark of sufficient force to resist all the arts and attempts of Popery but an establisht National Religion firmly united and compacted in all the parts of it Is it not plain to every eye that little Sects and separate Congregations can never do it but will be like a Foundation of sand to a weighty Building which whatever shew it may make cannot stand long because it wants Union at the Foundation and for that reason must necessarily want strength and firmness It is not for private persons to undertake in matters of publick concernment but I think we have no cause to doubt but the Governors of our Church notwithstanding all the advantages of Authority and we think of reason too on our side are Persons of that Piety and Prudence that for Peace sake and in order to a firm Union among Protestants they would be content if that would do it not to insist upon little things but to yield them up whether to the infirmity or importunity or perhaps in some very few things to the plausible exceptions of those who differ from us But then surely on the other side men ought to bring along with them a peaceable disposition and a mind ready to comply with the Church in which they were born and baptized in all reasonable and lawful things and desirous upon any terms that are tolerable to return to the Communion of it a mind free from passion and prejudice from peevish exceptions and groundless and endless scruples not apt to insist upon little cavils and objections to which the very best things and the greatest and clearest Truths in the world are and always will be liable And whatever they have been heretofore to be henceforth no more children tossed to and fro and carried about with
and not to impose their Judgement upon others as if they had any Authority over them And this is reasonable because if it were otherwise a Man would deprive others of that Liberty which he assumes to himself and which he can claim upon no other account but because it belongs to others equally with himself Secondly This liberty of judging is not so to be understood as to take away the necessity and use of Guides and Teachers in Religion Nor can this be denied to be a reasonable limitation because the knowledge of Revealed Religion is not a thing born with us nor ordinarily supernaturally infused into men but is to be learned as other things are And if it be to be learned there must be some to teach and instruct others And they that will learn must be modest and humble and in those things of which they are no competent Judges they must give credit to their Teachers and trust their skill For instance every unlearned man is to take it upon the credit of those who are skilfull that the Scriptures are truly and faithfully translated and for the understanding of obscure Texts of Scripture and more difficult points in Religion he is to rely upon those whose proper business and employment it is to apply themselves to the understanding of these things For in these cases every man is not capable of judging himself and therefore he must necessarily trust others And in all other things he ought to be modest and unless it be in plain matters which every man can judg of he ought rather to distrust himself than his Teacher And this respect may be given to a Teacher without either supposing him to be infallibe or making an absolute resignation of my judgment to him A man may be a very able Teacher suppose of the Mathematicks and fit to have the respect which is due to a Teacher tho he be not infallible in those Sciences and because Infallibility is not necessary to such a Teacher it is neither necessary nor convenient that I should absolutely resign up my Judgment to him For though I have reason to credit him within the compass of his Art in things which I do not know I am not therefore bound to believe him in things plainly contrary to what I and all mankind do certainly know For example if upon pretence of his skill in Arithmetick which I am learning of him he should tell me That twice two do not make four but five though I believed him to be the best Mathematician in the World yet I cannot believe him in this thing Nor is there reason I should because I did not come to learn this of him but knew as much of that before as he or any man else could tell me The case is the same in matters of Religion in which there are some things so plain and lie so level to all capacities that every man is almost equally judg of them As I shall have occasion farther to shew by and by Thirdly Neither does this liberty of judging exempt men from a due submission and obedience to their Teachers and Governors Every man is bound to obey the lawful Commands of his Governors and what by publick consent and Authority is determined and established ought not to be gainsaid by private Persons but upon very clear evidence of the falshood or unlawfulness of it And this is every mans duty for the maintaining of Order and out of regard to the Peace and Unity of the Church which is not to be violated upon every scruple and frivolous pretence And when men are perverse and disobedient Authority is Judg and may restrain and punish them Fourthly Nor do I so far extend this Liberty of judging in Religion as to think every man fit to dispute the Controversies of Religion A great part of people are ignorant and of so mean capacity as not to be able to judge of the force of a very good Argument much less of the issue of a long Dispute and such persons ought not to engage in disputes of Religion but to beg God's direction and to rely upon their Teachers and above all to live up to the plain dictates of natural Light and the clear Commands of God's Word and this will be their best security And if the providence of God have placed them under such Guides as do seduce them into Error their Ignorance is invincible and God will not condemn them for it so long as they sincerely endeavour to do the will of God so far as they know it And this being the case of many especially in the Church of Rome where Ignorance is so industriously cherished I have so much charity as to hope well concerning many of them And seeing that Church teacheth and enjoins the people to worship Images it is in some sense charitably done of them not to let them know the second Commandment that they may not be guilty of sinning against so plain a Law Having premised these Cautions I proceed in the II. Place To represent to you the grounds of this Principle of our Religion viz. That we allâ—w private persons to judge for themselves in matters of Religion First Because many things in Religion especially those which are most necessary to be believed and practised are so plain that every man of ordinary capacity after competent instruction in matters of Religion which is always to be supposed can as well judge of them for himself as any man or company of men in the world can judge for him Because in these he hath a plain Rule to go by Natural Light and clear Revelation of Scripture And this is no new Principle of the Protestants but most expresly owned by the ancient Fathers Whatever things are necessary are plain saith St. Chrysostom All things are plainly contained in Scripture which concern faith and a good life saith St Austin And nothing can be more reasonable than that those things which are plain to every man should be left to every man's judgment For every man can judg of what is plain of evident Truth and Falshood Virtue and Vice of Doctrines and Laws plainly delivered in Scripture if we believe any thing to be so which is next to madness to deny I will refer it to no mans Judgment upon earth to determine for me Whether there be a God or not Whether Murder and Perjury be Sins Whether it be not plain in Scripture That Jesus Christ is the Son of God That he became man and died for us and rose again So that there is no need of a Judg in these cases Nor can I possibly believe any man to be so absolutely infallible as not to call his infallibility into question if he determines any thing contrary to what is plain and evident to all mankind For if he should determine that there is no God or that he is not to be woshipped or that he will not punish and reward men or which is the case that Bellarmin puts that
and clear enough That there is a God and That his Providence governs the World and That there is another Life after this though neither Pope nor Council had ever declared any thing about these matters And for Revealed Doctrines we may be certain enough of all that is necessary if it be true which the Fathers tell us That all things necessary are plainly revealed in the Holy Scriptures Fourthly An infallible Judge if there were one is no certain way to end Controversies and to preserve the unity of the Church unless it were likewise infallibly certain That there is such a Judge and Who he is For till men were sure of both these there would still be a Controversy whether there be an infallible Judge and who he is And if it be true which they tell us That without an infallible Judge Controversies cannot be ended then a Controversie concerning an infallible Judge can never be ended And there are two Controversies actually on foot about an infallible Judge One Whether there be an infallible Judge or not which is a Controversie between Us and the Church of Rome and the other Who this infallible Judge is which is a Controversie among themselves which could never yet be decided And yet till it be decided Infallibility if they had it would be of no use to them for the ending of Controversies Fifthly There is no such absolute need as is pretended of determining all Controversies in Religion If men would devest themselves of prejudice and interest as they ought in matters of Religion the necessary things of Religion are plain enough and men would generally agree well enough about them But if men will suffer themselves to be by assed by these they would not hearken to an infallible Judge if there were one or they would find out some way or other to call his Infallibility into question And as for doubtful and lesser matters in Religion charity and mutual forbearance among Christians would make the Church as peaceable and happy as perhaps it was ever design'd to be in this World without absolute unity in Opinion Sixthly and Lastly Whatever may be the inconveniences of mens judging for themselves in Religion yet taking this Principle with the Cautions I have given I doubt not to make it appear that the inconveniences are far the least on that side The present condition of humane Nature doth not admit of any constitution of things whether in Religion or Civil matters which is free from all kind of exception and inconvenience That is the best state of things which is liable to the least and fewest If men be modest and humble and willing to learn God hath done that which is sufficient for the assurance of our Faith and for the peace of his Church without an infallible Judge And if men will not be so I cannot tell what would be sufficient I am sure there were Heresies and Schisms in the Apostles Times when Those who governed the Church were certainly guided by an infallible Spirit God hath appointed Guides and Teachers for us in matters of Religion and if we will be contented to be instructed by them in those necessary Articles and Duties of Religion which are plainly contained in Scripture and to be counselled and directed by them in things that are more doubtful and difficult I do not see why we might hot do well enough without any infallible Judge or Guide But still it will be said Who shall judge what things are plain and what doubtful The answer to this in my opinion is not difficult For if there be any thing plain in Religion every man that hath been duly instructed in the Principles of Religtion can judge of it or else it is not plain But there are some things in Religion so very plain that no Guide or Judge can in reason claim that Authority over men as to oblige them to believe or do the contrary no though he pretend to Infallibility no though he were an Apostle though he were an Angel from heaven S. Paul puts the case so high Gal. 1.8 Though we or an Angel from heaven preach any other Gospel unto you than what you have received let him be accursed which plainly supposeth that Christians may and can judge when Doctrines are contrary to the Gospel What not believe an Apostle nor an Angel from heaven if he should teach any thing evidently contrary to the plain Doctrine of the Gospel If he should determine Vertue to be Vice and Vice to be Vertue No not an Apostle nor an Angel because such a Doctrine as this would confound and overturn all things in Religion And yet Bellarmin puts this very Case and says If the Pope should so determine we were bound to believe him unless we would sin against Conscience I will conclude this Discourse by putting a very plain and familiar Case by which it will appear what credit and authority is fit to be given to a Guide and what not Suppose I came a Stranger into England and landing at Dover took a Guide there to conduct me in my way to York which I knew before by the Mapp to lie North of Dover having committed my self to him if he lead me for two or three days together out of any plain Road and many times over hedge and ditch I cannot but think it strange that in a civil and well inhabited Country there should be no High-ways from one part of it to another Yet thus far I submit to him though not without some regret and impatience But then if after this for two or three days more he lead me directly South and with my face full upon the Sun at noon day and at last bring me back again to Dover Pere and still bids me follow him Then certainly no modesty do's oblige a man not to dispute with his Guide and to tell him surely that can be no way because it is Sea Now though he set never so bold a face upon the matter and tell me with all the gravity and authority in the world That it is not the Sea but dry Land under the species and appearance of Water and that whatever my eyes tell me having once committed my self to his guidance I must not trust my own senses in the case it being one of the most dangerous sorts of Infidelity for a man to believe his own eyes rather than his faithful and infallible Guide All this moves me not but I begin to expostulate roundly with him and to let him understand that if I must not believe what I see he is like to be of no farther use to me because I shall not be able at this rate to know whether I have a Guide and whether I follow him or not In short I tell him plainly that when I took him for my Guide I did not take him to tell me the difference between North and South between a Hedge and a High-way between Sea and dry Land all this I knew before as well as he
long before his death Greater love than this hath no man that a man lay down his life for his friend ye are my friends if ye do whatsoever I command you It is a wonderfull love which he hath expressed to us and worthy to be had in perpetual remembrance And all that he expects from us by way of thankfull acknowledgment is to celebrate the remembrance of it by the frequent participation of this blessed Sacrament And shall this charge laid upon us by him who laid down his life for us lay no obligation upon us to the solemn remembrance of that unparallel'd kindness which is the fountain of so many blessings and benefits to us It is a sign we have no great sense of the benefit when we are so unmindfull of our benefactour as to forget him days without number The Obligation he hath laid upon us is so vastly great not only beyond all requital but beyond all expression that if he had commanded us some very grievous thing we ought with all the readiness and chearfulness in the world to have done it how much more when he hath imposed upon us so easie a commandment a thing of no burthen but of immence benefit when he hath onely said to us Eat O friends and drink O beloved when he onely invites us to his table to the best and most delicious Feast that we can partake of on this side heaven If we seriously believe the great blessings which are there exhibited to us and ready to be conferred upon us we should be so far from neglecting them that we should heartily thank God for every opportunity he offers to us of being made partakers of such benefits When such a price is put into our hands shall we want hearts to make use of it Methinks we should long with David who saw but the shadow of these blessings to be satisfied with the good things of God's house and to draw near his altar and should cry out with him O when shall I come and appear before thee My soul longeth yea even fainteth for the courts of the Lord and my flesh cryeth out for the living God And if we had a just esteem of things we should account it the greatest infelicity and judgment in the world to be debarred of this privilege which yet we do deliberately and frequently deprive our selves of We exclaim against the Church of Rome with great impatience and with a very just indignation for robbing the People of half of this blessed Sacrament and taking from them the cup of blessing the cup of salvation and yet we can patiently endure for some months nay years to exclude our selves wholly from it If no such great benefits and blessings belong to it why do we complain of them for hindring us of any part of it But if there do why do we by our own neglect deprive our selves of the whole In vain do we bemoan the decay of our graces and our slow progress and improvement in Christianity whilst we wilfully despise the best means of our growth in goodness Well do we deserve that God should send leanness into our souls and make them to consume and pine away in perpetual doubting and trouble if when God himself doth spread so bountifull a Table for us and set before us the bread of life we will not come and feed upon it with joy and thankfulness A DISCOURSE AGAINST TRANSVBSTANTIATION Concerning the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper one of the two great positive Institutions of the Christian Religion there are two main Points of difference between Vs and the Church of Rome One about the Doctrine of Transubstantiation in which they think but are not certain that they have the Scripture and the words of our Saviour on their side The other about the administration of this Sacrament to the People in both kinds in which we are sure that we have the Scripture and our Saviour's Institution on our side and that so plainly that our Adversaries themselves do not deny it Of the first of these I shall now treat and endeavour to shew against the Church of Rome That in this Sacrament there is no substantial change made of the Elements of Bread and Wine into the natural Body and Bloud of Christ that Body which was born of the Virgin Mary and suffered upon the Cross for so they explain that hard word Transubstantiation Before I engage in this Argument I cannot but observe what an unreasonable task we are put upon by the bold confidence of our Adversaries to dispute a matter of Sense which is one of those things about which Aristotle hath long since pronounc'd there ought to be no dispute It might well seem strange if any man should write a Book to prove that an Egg is not an Elephant and that a Musket-bullet is not a Pike It is every whit as hard a case to put to maintain by a long Discourse that what we see and handle and taste to be Bread is Bread and not the Body of a man and what we see and taste to be Wine is Wine and not Bloud And if this evidence may not pass for sufficient without any farther proof I do not see why any man that hath confidence enough to do so may not deny any thing to be what all the World sees it is or affirm any thing to be what all the World sees it is not and this without all possibility of being farther confuted So that the business of Transubstantiation is not a controversie of Scripture against Scripture or of Reason against Reason but of downright Impudence against the plain meaning of Scripture and all the Sense and Reason of Mankind It is a most Self-evident Falshood and there is no Doctrine or Proposition in the World that is of it self more evidently true than Transubstantiation is evidently false And yet if it were possible to be true it would be the most ill-natur'd and pernicious truth in the World because it would suffer nothing else to be true it is like the Roman-Catholick Church which will needs be the whole Christian Church and will allow no other Society of Christians to be any part of it So Transubstantiation if it be true at all it is all truth and nothing else is true for it cannot be true unless our Senses and the Senses of all mankind be deceived about their proper objects and if this he true and certain then nothing else can be so for if we be not certain of what we see we can be certain of nothing And yet notwithstanding all this there are a Company of men in the World so abandon'd and given up by God to the efficacy of delusion as in good earnest to believe this gross and palpable Errour and to impose the belief of it upon the Christian World under no less penalties than of temporal death and eternal damnation And therefore to undeceive if possible these deluded Souls it will be necessary to examine the pretended grounds of
thing because it self stands in need of another Miracle to give testimony to it and to prove that it was wrought And neither in Scripture nor in profane Authours nor in common use of speech is any thing call'd a Miracle but what falls under the notice of our senses A Miracle being nothing else but a supernatural effect evident to sense the great end and design whereof is to be a sensible proof and conviction to us of something that we do not see And for want of this Condition Transubstantiation if it were true would be no Miracle It would indeed be very supernatural but for all that it would not be a Sign or Miracle For a Sign or Miracle is always a thing sensible otherwise it could be no Sign Now that such a change as is pretended in Transubstantiation should really be wrought and yet there should be no sign and appearance of it is a thing very wonderfull but not to sense for our senses perceive no change the Bread and Wine in the Sacrament to all our senses remaining just as they were before And that a thing should remain to all appearance just as it was hath nothing at all of wonder in it we wonder indeed when we see a strange thing done but no man wonders when he sees nothing done So that Transubstantiation if they will needs have it a Miracle is such a Miracle as any man may work that hath but the confidence to face men down that he works it and the fortune to be believed And though the Church of Rome may magnify their Priests upon account of this Miracle which they say they can work every day and every hour yet I cannot understand the reason of it for when this great work as they call it is done there is nothing more appears to be done than if there were no Miracle Now such a Miracle as to all appearance is no Miracle I see no reason why a Protestant Minister as well as a Popish Priest may not work as often as he pleases or if he can but have the patience to let it alone it will work it self For surely nothing in the world is easier than to let a thing be as it is and by speaking a few words over it to make it just what it was before Every man every day may work ten thousand such Miracles And thus I have dispathc'd the First part of my Discourse which was to consider the pretended grounds and Reasons of the Church of Rome for this Doctrine and to shew the weakness and insufficiency of them I come in the SECOND place to produce our Objections against it Which will be of so much the greater force because I have already shewn this Doctrine to be destitute of all Divine warrant and authority and of any other sort of Ground sufficient in reason to justify it So that I do not now object against a Doctrine which hath a fair probability of Divine Revelation on its side for that would weigh down all objections which did not plainly overthrow the probability and credit of its Divine Revelation But I object against a Doctrine by the mere will and Tyranny of men impos'd upon the belief of Christians without any evidence of Scripture and against all the evidence of Reason and Sense The Objection I shall reduce to these two Heads First The infinite scandal of this Doctrine to the Christian Religion And Secondly The monstrous and insupportable absurdity of it First The infinite scandal of this Doctrine to the Christian Religion And that upon these four accounts 1. Of the stupidity of this Doctrine 2. The real barbarousness of this Sacrament and Rite of our Religion upon supposition of the truth of this Doctrine 3. Of the cruel and bloudy consequences of it 4. Of the danger of Idolatry which they are certainly guilty of if this Doctrine be not true 1. Upon account of the stupidity of this Doctrine I remember that Tully who was a man of very good sense instanceth in the conceit of eating God as the extremity of madness and so stupid an apprehension as he thought no man was ever guilty of * De Nat. Deorum l. 3. When we call says he the fruits of the earth Ceres and wine Bacchus we use but the common language but do you think any man so mad as to believe that which he eats to be God It seems he could not believe that so extravagant a folly had ever entred into the mind of man It is a very severe saying of Averroes the Arabian Philosopher who lived after this Doctrine was entertained among Christians and ought to make the Church or Rome blush * Dionys Carthus in 4. dist 10. art 1. if she can I have travell'd says he over the world and have found divers Sects but so sottish a Sect or Law I never found as is the Sect of the Christians because with their own teeth they devour their God whom they worship It was great stupidity in the People of Israel to say Come let us make us Gods but it was civilly said of them Let us make us Gods that may go before us in comparison of the Church of Rome who say Let us make a God that we may eat him So that upon the whole matter I cannot but wonder that they should chuse thus to expose Faith to the contempt of all that are endued with Reason And to speak the plain truth the Christian Religion was never so horribly exposed to the scorn of Atheists and Infidels as it hath been by this most absurd and senseless Doctrine But thus it was foretold that †2 Thess 2.10 the Man of Sin should come with Power and Signs and Lying Miracles and with all deceiveableness of unrighteousness with all the Legerdemain and jugling tricks of falshood and imposture amongst which this of Transubstantiation which they call a Miracle and we a Cheat is one of the chief And in all probability those common jugling words of hocus pocus are nothing else but a corruption of hoc est corpus by way of ridiculous imitation of the Priests of the Church of Rome in their trick of Transubstantiation Into such contempt by this foolish Doctrine and pretended Miracle of theirs have they brought the most sacred and venerable Mystery of our Religion 2. It is very scandalous likewise upon account of the real barbarousness of this Sacrament and Rite of our Religion upon supposition of the truth of this Doctrine Literally to eat the flesh of the Son of man and to drink his bloud St. Austin as I have shewed before declares to be a great Impiety And the impiety and barbarousness of the thing is not in truth extenuated but onely the appearance of it by its being done under the Species of Bread and Wine For the thing they acknowledge is really done and they believe that they verily eat and drink the natural flesh and bloud of Christ And what can any man do more unworthily towards his
doubted whether that kind of confirmation which God hath given to the Christian Religion would be strong enough to prove it supposing Transubstantiation to be a part of it Because every man hath as great evidence that Transubstantiation is false as he hath that the Christian Religion is true Suppose then Transubstantiation to be part of the Christian Doctrine it must have the same confirmation with the whole and that is Miracles But of all Doctrines in the world it is peculiarly incapable of being proved by a Miracle For if a Miracle were wrought for the proof of it the very same assurance which any man hath of the truth of the Miracle he hath of the falshood of the Doctrine that is the clear evidence of his Senses For that there is a Miracle wrought to prove that what he sees in the Sacrament is not bread but the body of Christ there is onely the evidence of sense and there is the very same evidence to prove that what he sees in the Sacrament is not the body of Christ but bread So that here would arise a new Controversie whether a man should rather believe his Senses giving testimony against the Doctrine of Transubstantiation or bearing witness to a Miracle wrought to confirm that Doctrine there being the very same evidence against the truth of the Doctrine which there is for the truth of the Miracle And then the Argument for Transubstantiation and the Objection against it would just ballance one another and consequently Transubstantiation is not to be proved by a Miracle because that would be to prove to a man by some thing that he sees that he doth not see what he sees And if there were no other evidence that Transubstantiation is no part of the Christian Doctrine this would be sufficient that what proves the one doth as much overthrow the other and that Miracles which are certainly the best and highest external proof of Christianity are the worst proof in the world of Transubstantiation unless a man can renounce his senses at the same time that he relies upon them For a man cannot believe a Miracle without relying upon sense nor Transubstantiation without renouncing it So that never were any two things so ill coupled together as the Doctrine of Christianity and that of Transubstantiation because they draw several ways and are ready to strangle one another For the main evidence of the Christian Doctrine which is Miracles is resolved into the certainty of sense but this evidence is clear and point-blank against Transubstantiation 4. And Lastly I would ask what we are to think of the Argument which our Saviour used to convince his Disciples after his Resurrection that his Body was really risen and that they were not deluded by a Ghost or Apparition Is it a necessary and conclusive Argument or not * Luk. 24.38 39. And he said unto them why are ye troubled and why do thoughts arise in your hearts Behold my hands and my feet that it is I my self for a Spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see me have But now if we suppose with the Church of Rome the Doctrine of Transubstantiation to be true and that he had instructed his Disciples in it just before his death strange thoughts might justly have risen in their hearts and they might have said to him Lord it is but a few days ago since thou didst teach us not to believe our senses but directly contrary to what we saw viz. that the bread which thou gavest us in the Sacrament though we saw it and handled it and tasted it to be bread yet was not bread but thine own natural body and now thou appealed to our senses to prove that this is thy body which we now see If seeing and handling be an unquestionable evidence that things are what they appear to our senses then we were deceived before in the Sacrament and if they be not then we are not sure now that this is thy body which we now see and handle but it may be perhaps bread under the appearance of flesh and bones just as in the Sacrament that which we saw and handled and tasted to be bread was thy flesh and bones under the form and appearance of bread Now upon this supposition it would have been a hard matter to have quieted the thoughts of the Disciples For if the Argument which our Saviour used did certainly prove to them that what they saw and handled was his body his very natural flesh and bones because they saw and handled them which it were impious to deny it would as strongly prove that what they saw and received before in the Sacrament was not the natural body and bloud of Christ but real bread and wine And consequently that according to our Saviour's arguing after his Resurrection they had no reason to believe Transubstantiation before For that very Argument by which our Saviour proves the reality of his body after his Resurrection doth as strongly prove the reality of bread and wine after Consecration But our Saviour's Argument was most infallibly good and true and therefore the Doctrine of Transubstantiation is undoubtedly false Upon the whole matter I shall onely say this that some other Points between us and the Church of Rome are managed with some kind of wit and subtilty but this of Transubstantiation is carried out by mere dint of impudence and facing down of Mankind And of this the more discerning persons of that Church are of late grown so sensible that they would now be glad to be rid of this odious and ridiculous Doctrine But the Council of Trent hath rivetted it so fast into their Religion and made it so necessary and essential a Point of their belief that they cannot now part with it if they would it is like a Mill-stone hung about the neck of Popery which will sink it at the last And though some of their greatest Wits as Cardinal Perron and of late Monsieur Arnauld have undertaken the defence of it in great Volumes yet it is an absurdity of that monstrous and massy weight that no humane authority or wit are able to support it It will make the very Pillars of St. Peter's crack and requires more Volumes to make it good than would fill the Vatican And now I would apply my self to the poor deluded People of that Church if they were either permitted by their Priests or durst venture without their leave to look into their Religion and to examine the Doctrines of it Consider and shew your selves men Do not suffer your selves any longer to be led blindfold and by an implicit Faith in your Priests into the belief of nonsense and contradiction Think it enough and too much to let them rook you of your money for pretended Pardons and counterfeit Reliques but let not the Authority of any Priest or Church persuade you out of your Senses Credulity is certainly a fault as well as Infidelity and he who said blessed are they that have
and mediation of Jesus Christ as he hath given us Commandment because there is but one God and one Mediator between God and Man the Man Christ Jesus If it seem evil unto you to have the liberty to serve God in a Language you can understand and to have the free use of the Holy Scriptures which are able to make men wise unto Salvation and to have the Sacraments of our Religion entirely administred to us as our Lord did institute and appoint And on the other hand if it seem good to us to put our necks once more under that yoke which our Fathers were not able to bear If it be really a Preferment to a Prince to hold the Pope's Stirrup and a Privilege to be deposed by him at his pleasure and a courtesie to be kill'd at his command If to pray without Understanding and to obey without Reason and to believe against Sense if Ignorance and implicit Faith and an Inquisition be in good earnest such charming and desirable things Then welcome Popery which wherever thou comest dost infallibly bring all these wonderfull Privileges and Blessings along with thee But the Question is not now about the choice but the change of our Religion after we have been so long settled in the quiet possession and enjoyment of it Men are very loth to change even a false Religion Hath a Nation changed their Gods which yet are no Gods And surely there is much more reason why we should be tenacious of the Truth and hold fast that which is good We have the best Religion in the World the very same which the Son of God revealed which the Apostles planted and confirmed by Miracles and which the noble Army of Martyrs sealed with their Blood And we have retrench'd from it all false Doctrines and superstitious Practices which have been added since And I think we may without immodesty say That upon the plain square of Scripture and Reason of the Tradition and Practice of the first and best Ages of the Christian Church we have fully justified Our Religion and made it evident to the World that our Adversaries are put to very hard shifts and upon a perpetual disadvantage in the defence of Theirs I wish it were as easie for us to justifie our Lives as our Religion I do not mean in comparison of our Adversaries for that as bad as we are I hope we are yet able to do but in comparison of the Rules of our holy Religion from which we are infinitely swerv'd which I would to God we all did seriously consider and lay to heart I say in comparison of the Rules of our Holy Religion which teach us to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts and to live soberly and righteously and godly in this present World in expectation of the blessed hope and the glorious appearance of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ To whom with the Father and the Holy Ghost c. JOSHUA XXIV 15. And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord chuse you this day whom you will serve THese words as I have already declared in the former Discourse are the last counsel and advice which Joshua gave to the People of Israel after he had safely conducted them into the Land of Canaan And that he might more effectually perswade them to continue stedfast in the worship of the true God by an eloquent kind of insinuation he doth as it were once more set them at liberty and leave them to their own choice If it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord chuse you this day whom you will serve The plain sense of which Words may be resolved into this Proposition That notwithstanding all the prejudices and objections against the true Religion yet it hath those real advantages on its side that it may safely be referred to any impartial and considerate man's choice If it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord intimating that to some persons and upon some accounts it may seem so but when the matter is throughly examined the resolution and choice cannot be difficult nor require any long deliberation Chuse you this day whom you will serve The true Religion hath always layn under some prejudices with partial arid inconsiderate men arising chiefly from these two Causes the prepossessions of a false Religion and the contrariety of the true Religion to the inclinations of men and the uneasiness of it in point of practice First From the prepossessions of a false Religion which hath always been wont to lay claim to Antiquity and Vniversality and to charge the true Religion with Novelty and Singularity And both these are intimated before the Text Put away the Gods whom your Fathers served on the other side of the Flood and in Egypt and chuse you this day whom you will serve It was pretended that the worship of Idols was the ancient Religion of the world of those great Nations the Egyptians and Chaldeans and of all the Nations round about them But this hath already been considered at large Secondly There are another sort of prejudices against Religion more apt to stick with men of better sense and reason and these arise principally from the contrariety of the true Religion to the inclinations of men and the uneasiness of it in point of practice It is pretended that Religion is a heavy yoke and lays too great a restraint upon humane Nature and that the Laws of it bear too hard upon the general inclinations of mankind I shall not at present meddle with the speculative Objections against Religion upon account of the pretended unreasonableness of many things in point of Belief because the contrariety of the true Religion to the inclinations of men and the uneasiness of it in point of practice is that which in truth lies at the bottom of Atheism and Insidelity and raises all that animosity which is in the minds of bad men against Religion and exasperates them to oppose it with all their wit and malice Men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil And if this prejudice were but once removed and men were in some measure reconciled to the practice of Religion the speculative Objections against it would almost vanish of themselves for there wants little else to enable a man to answer them but a willingness of mind to have them answered and that we have no interest and inclination to the contrary And therefore I shall at present wholly apply my self to remove this prejudice against Religion from the contrariety of it to the inclinations of men and the uneasiness of it in point of practice And there are two parts of this Objection 1st That a great part of the Laws of Religion do thwart the natural inclinations of men which may reasonably be supposed to be from God And 2ly That all of them together are a heavy yoke and do lay too great a restraint upon humane Nature intrenching too much upon the pleasures and liberty of it I.
by a vigorous resolution and an unwearied diligence and a patient continuance in well doing might win and wear a more glorious Crown and be fit to receive a more ample reward from his bounty and goodness yea in some sense I may say from his justice For God is not unrighteous to forget our work and labour and love He will fully consider all the pains that any of us take in his service and all the difficulties that we struggle with out of love to God and clashing of our duty with our inclination is I hope fully answered Since God hath provided so powerfull and effectual a remedy against our natural impotency and infirmity by the Grace of the Gospel And though to those who have wilfully contracted vicious habits a religious and vertuous course of life be very difficult yet the main difficulty lyes in our first entrance upon it And when that is over the ways of goodness are as easy as it is sit any thing should be that is so excellent and that hath the encouragement of so glorious a reward Custome will reconcile men almost to any thing but there are those charms in the ways of wisedom and vertue that a little acquaintance and conversation with them will soon make them more delightfull than any other course And who would grudge any pains and trouble to bring himself into so safe and happy a condition After we have tryed both courses of Religion and Profaneness of Vertue and Vice we shall certainly find that nothing is so wise so easie and so comfortable as to be vertuous we are inwardly convinced we ought to do Nor would I desire more of any man in this matter than to follow the soberest convictions of his own mind and to do that which upon the most serious consideration at all times in prosperity and affliction in sickness and health in the time of life and at the hour of death he judgeth wisest and safest for him to do I proceed to the Branch of the Objection that the Laws of Religion and particularly of the Christian Religion are a heavy yoke laying too great a restraint upon humane nature and entrenching too much upon the pleasures and liberty of it There was I confess some pretence for this Objection against the Jewish Religion which by the multitude of its positive Institutions and external observances must needs have been very burthensome And the same Objection lyes against the Church of Rome who as they have handled Christianity by the unreasonable number of their needless and senseless Ceremonies have made the yoke of Christ heavier than that of Moses and the Gospel a more carnal Commandment than the Law So that Christianity is lost among them in the trappings and accoutrements of it with which instead of adorning Religion they have strangely disguised it and quite stifled it in the crowd of external Rites and Ceremonies But the pure Christian Religion as it was delivered by our Saviour hath hardly any thing in it that is positive except the two Sacraments which are not very troublesome neither but very much for our comfort and advantage because they convey and confirm to us the great blessings and privileges of our Religion In other things Christianity hath hardly imposed any other Laws upon us but what are enacted in our Natures or are agreeable to the prime and fundamental Laws of it nothing but what every man's reason either dictates to him to be necessary or approves as highly fit and reasonable But we do most grosly mistake the nature of pleasure and liberty if we promise them to our selves in any evil and wicked course For upon due search and tryal it will be found that true pleasure and perfect freedom are no where to be found but in the practice of vertue and in the service of God The Laws of Religion do not abridge us of any pleasure that a wise man can desire and safely enjoy I mean without a greater evil and trouble consequent upon it The pleasure of commanding our appetites and governing our passions by the rules of Reason which are the Laws of God is infinitely to be preferred before any sensual pleasure whatsoever Because it is the pleasure of wifedom and discretion and gives us the satisfaction of having done that which is best and fittest for reasonable Creatures to do Who would not rather chuse to govern himself as Scipio did amidst all the temptations and opportunities of sensual pleasure which his power and victories presented to him than to wallow in all the delights of sense Nothing is more certain in reason and experience than that every inordinate appetite and affection is a punishment to it self and is perpetually crossing its own pleasure and defeating its own satisfaction by over-shooting the mark it aims at For instance Intemperance in eating and drinking instead of delighting and satisfying nature doth but load and cloy it and instead of quenching a natural thirst which it is extremely pleasant to do creates an unnatural one which is troublesome and endless The pleasure of Revenge as soon as it is executed turns into grief and pity guilt and remorse and a thousand melancholy wishes that we had retrained our selves from so unreasonable an Act. And the same is as evident in other sensual excesses not so fit to be dedescribed We may trust Epicurus for this that there can be no true pleasure without temperance in the use of pleasure And God and Reason have set us no other bounds concerning the use of sensual pleasures but that we take care not to be injurious to our selves or others in the kind or degree of them And it is very visible that all sensual excess is naturally attended with a double inconvenience As it goes beyond the limits of nature it begets bodily pains and diseases As it transgresseth the rules of Reason and Religion it breeds guilt and remorse in the mind And these are beyond comparison the two greatest evils in this world a diseased body and a discontented mind And in this I am sure I speak to the inward feeling and experience of men and say nothing but what every vicious man finds and hath a more lively sense of than is to be expressed by words When all is done there is no pleasure comparable to that of Innocency and freedom from the stings of a guilty conscience This is a pure and spiritual pleasure much above any sensual delight And yet among all the delights of sense that of health which is the natural consequent of a sober and chaâ—te and regular life is a sensual pleasure far beyond that of any Vice For it is the life of life and that which gives a gratefull relish to all our other enjoyments It is not indeed so violent and transporting a pleasure but it is pure and even and lasting and hath no guilt and regret no sorrow and trouble in it or after it which is a worm that infallibly breeds in all vicious and unlawfull pleasures and
Exhortations of Scripture which are likewise read to the people in an unknown tongue Are these directed to God or to the people only And are they not designed by God for their instruction and read either to that purpose or to none And is it possible to instruct men by what they do not understand This is a new and wonderfull way of teaching by concealing from the people the things which they should learn Is it not all one as to all purposes of edification as if the Scriptures were not read or any thing else in the place of them as they many times do their Legends which the wiser sort among them do not believe when they read them For all things are alike to them that understand none as all things are of a colour in the dark Ignorance knows no difference of things it is only knowledge that can distinguish 3. They say that some do at least in some measure understand the particular prayers If they do that is no thanks to them It is by accident if they are more knowing than the rest and more than the Church either desires or intends For if they desired it they might order their service so as every man might understand it 4. They say that it is convenient that God should be served and worshipped in the same Language all the world over Convenient for whom For God or for the People Not for God surely For he understands all other Languages as well as Latin and for any thing we know to the contrary likes them as well And certainly it cannot be so convenient for the People because they generally understand no Language but their own and it is very inconvenient they should not understand what they do in the service of God But perhaps they mean that it is convenient for the Roman Church to have it so because this will look like an argument that they are the Catholick or universal Church when the Language which was originally theirs shall be the universal Language in which all Nations shall serve God and by this means also they may bring all Nations to be of their Religion and yet make them never the wiser and this is a very great convenience because knowledge is a troublesome thing and ignorance very quiet and peaceable rendring men fit to be governed and unfit to dispute II. As to their depriving the people of the Scriptures the summ of what they say may be reduced to these three Heads 1. That the Church can give leave to men to read the Scriptures But this not without great trouble and difficulty there must be a Licence for it under the hand of the Bishop or Inquisitor by the advice of the Priest or Confessor concerning the fitness of the Person that desires this privilege And we may be sure they will think none fit but those of whom they have the greatest confidence and security And whoever presumes to do it otherwise is to be denied absolution which is as much as in them lies to damn men for presuming to read the Word of God without their leave And whatever they may allow here in England where they hold their people upon more slippery terms yet this privilege is very rarely granted where they are in full possession of their power and have the people perfectly under their Yoke 2. They tell us they instruct the people otherwise This indeed were something if they did it to purpose but generally they do it very sparingly and slightly Their Sermons are commonly made up of feigned stories and miracles of Saints and exhortations to the worship of them and especially of the blessed Virgin and of their Images and Relicks And for the truth of this I appeal to the innumerable Volumes of their Sermons and Postils in print which I suppose are none of their worst I am sure Erasmus says that in his time in several Countries the people did scarce once in half a year hear a profitable Sermon to exhort them to true piety Indeed they allow the people some Catechisms and Manuals of devotion and yet in many of them they have the conscience and the confidence to steal away the second Commandment in the face of the eighth But to bring the matter to a point if those helps of instruction are agreeable to the Scriptures why are they so afraid the people should read the Scriptures if they are not why do they deceive and delude them 3. They say that people are apt to wrest the Scriptures to their own destruction and that the promiscuous use of them hath been the great occasion of Heresies It cannot be denyed to be the condition of the very best things in the world that they are liable to be abused health and light and liberty as well as knowledge But must all these be therefore taken away This very inconvenience of peoples wresting the Scriptures to their own ruine St. Peter takes notice of in his days but he do's not therefore forbid men the reading of them as his more prudent Successours have done since Suppose the reading of the Scriptures hath been the occasion of Heresies were there ever more than in the first Ages of Christianity and yet neither the Apostles nor their Successours ever prescribed this remedy But are they in earnest must not men know the truth for sear of falling into Errour Because men may possibly miss their way at noon-day must they never travel but in the night when they are sure to lose it And when all is done this is not true that Heresies have sprung from this cause They have generally been broached by the learned from whom the Scriptures neither were nor could be concealed And for this I appeal to the History and Experience of all Ages I am well assured the ancient Fathers were of another mind St. Chrysostome says if men would be conversant in the Scriptures and attend to them they would not only not fall into errours themselves but rescue those that are deceived And that the Scriptures would instruct men both in right opinions and a good life And St. Hierome more expresly to our purpose That infinite evils arise from the Ignorance of the Scriptures and that from that cause the most part of Heresies have come But if what they say were true is not this to lay the blame of all the ancient Heresies upon the ill management of things by our Saviour and his Apostles and the holy Fathers of the Church for so many Ages and their imprudent dispensing of the Scriptures to the people This indeed is to charge the matter home and yet this consequence is unavoidable For the Church of Rome cannot justifie the piety and prudence of their present practices without accusing all these But the thing which they mainly rely upon as to both these practices is this That though these things were otherwise in the Apostles time and in the Antient Church yet the Church hath power to alter them according to the exigence and circumstances of