reconcile these interests together Whence it comes to pass that the usual questions that arise about their actions are not what is best to be done or what is most agreeable to their duty in this or the other case But how far they may go in the gratification of such an appetite or passion without transgressing the Laws of God How far they may satisfy their covetous desires without being unjust Whether they may use such arts or tricks in getting or saving without being knavish How far they may drink and not be drunk How far they may gratify their humour of decking and adorning themselves and yet do no unlawful thing How far they may indulge wantonness and yet be chast Now as I said before such Questions as these are not easy to be resolved nor indeed is the Gospel of Christ so contrived as if it had taken much care whether they were resolved or no. But they are really Cases and Problems that require both Judgment and Learning and likewise the consideration of abundance of particular circumstances to have a good account given of them But now the Man that doth intirely give up himself to the conduct of the Spirit and proposeth nothing to himself in all his actions but the pure Glory of God Such a Man having none of these Worldly sensual designs to serve in his actions can rarely be supposed to have any of these questions to put to himself And consequently he can never be at a loss or uncertainty how he is to act for want of a resolution of them much less can he be in danger of transgressing the bounds that God hath fixed to his Actions All the point that such a one hath to consider in any action is whether will his doing or not doing such an action better serve the ends of Religion Which will tend most to his own spiritual benefit and the profit of his Neighbour to pursue this design or to let it alone Whether will be more conducive to the honour of his Lord to gratify such an appetite or to deny it satisfaction This I say is the only question that such a Man has to put to himself and there is no difficulty in giving an answer to it For there is scarce any case to be put concerning an action but it is very obvious without an instructer to find out which side of the case if it be chosen will most minister to the ends of Vertue and Religion and Charity Or if it be not obvious then it is very certain the Man needs not much deliberate about it but may chuse either side indifferently It is a very hard matter oftentimes to determine concerning the necessity and obligation of Actions that is whether a Man be bound to do them or no. It is likewise often a hard matter to determine concerning the lawfulness of Actions whether a Man may do them or no. But it is a very easy matter in most cases to determine concerning the expedience of Actions that is to say whether it be best and fittest for a Man to do them or no. Now this last I say is the point that a throughly good Man will consider and steer himself by in all his Actions Thus for instance It may perhaps bear a dispute Whether a Man be precisely bound by God's Law to pray solemnly twice a day so as that he sins if he do not But it will bear no dispute that it is much better and more acceptable to God and beneficial to our selves to pray at least thus often than to pray seldomer And therefore such a person as I am speaking of will upon this consideration put it in practice nay and pray oftner too as he has occasion without concerning himself whether he be strictly bound so to do or no. It may bear a dispute among some Persons whether painting the Face be not allowable to Christian Women But it can bear no dispute among any that it is more agreeable to the Sobriety and Modesty and Chastity of a Disciple of Jesus Christ and better serves the ends of Religion to forbear all such suspicious Ornaments There being rarely any good end to be served by them but abundance of evil often arising from them Now this conderation alone is enough to set the heart of every serious Christian against those practices and to make them wholly to refrain them Thus again it is argued both ways about Play or Gaming whether it be lawful or no especially when sums of money are played for and the thing becomes rather an avaritious Contention than a Recreation and Divertisement some believing that it is innocent others that it is a grievous sin But there is no Man even of those that use it most but will readily acknowledge that it exposeth a Man to great and dangerous Temptations of sundry kinds that it is the occasion of abundance of sin and abundance of mischief and that it seldom fails to produce intolerable consequences both as to Mens Souls and Estates and Families Now to a Man that loves God and hath a tender sense of his duty this is enough in all Conscience to deter him for ever from the practice of Gaming though it be not made to appear to him that it is expresly and explicitly forbid by any Law of Iesus Christ. So that you see that in those points where there are disputes on both sides when the consideration is concerning the obligation or the lawfulness of an action there is no difficulty no dispute at all when the consideration is only concerning what is best and most fitting to be done concerning what is most agreeable to our duty and most conducive to the honour of God and Religion as to that action That is evident enough in all Cases nor is any Man at a loss for finding it out And that is the Principle which I say every sincere lover of God governs himself by and which I would have us all to propose to our selves for the rule of our actions in order to the securing us from those snares and stumbling-blocks to which the affinity between Vertue and Vice lawful and unlawful will otherwise expose us Let us not stand upon points with God Almighty as if so much was his and so much was our own as if we were to share our selves between his Service and our own Pleasures and Profits and the like and were resolved not to pay him any more respect or love than what some express letter of his Law doth exact at our hands But let us so entirely devote our selves to his Service as to do not only all those things which we are strictly bound to do or else we are transgressors but all those things that are acceptable to him all those things that are praise-worthy and tend to the perfection of our nature and the reputation of Christ's Religion Let us make it the end of our actions not to seek our selves but his glory every day to grow better and better and in every Occurrence to
is and that therefore he may go on some time longer with the Company the Wine by this means steals upon him and he is before he was aware fallen into the sin of Intemperance and Excess And thus it is not only as to the use of our liberty in things allowed but as to the performance of our duty in things commanded Every Man is sensible that it is a principal Law of our Religion to be Charitable and to give Alms out of our substance But now it is not so easy a matter for any Man to define and set out the quantum or the precise proportion of Alms which every one is bound to give so as to be able to pronounce that if a Man give so much he performs his duty and is a Charitable Man for one in his Circumstances but if he gives less than that he is Covetous and Uncharitable Now I say because this duty of Charity is thus indefinitely left and there is such an affinity and undistinguishableness between the least measures of Charity and the sin of being uncharitable Men do from hence often take occasion to fall short in the performance of it And as in the former instance I gave about drinking they are apt to take more liberty than is allowed them so in this they are apt to do less than is commanded them For if they do but give something to the poor out of their yearly Income they think they give enough to satisfy the Command of Charity and so they make no Conscience of saving and hoarding without end or without measure There are a hundred more instances besides these two that I have named wherein there is such a latitude left to our practices and the difference between lawful and unlawful duty and sin lies in so small a compass that it is hard to separate and distinguish them unless a Man be both very wise and very honest We have not any Law of God which defines how often we are to pray Or when it is our duty to fast Or to what degree we may be angry Or how we are to govern our selves as to the quantity or kinds of our meat and drink Or how far we may comply with the Customs of the World Or how splendid we may be in our apparel and equippage Or what games and recreations may be used and how often Or what Rules we are to go by in buying and selling and our other dealings with Men Or how far we may seek our own when our right cannot be obtained without prejudice to our Neighbour In these I say and abundance of other Cases we have no express particular Laws of God to steer and measure our actions by nor indeed is it possible we should have Because what is fit and reasonable to be done in these Cases admits of so great a difference from the infinite variety of the circumstances of particular Men. What now must we do in these Cases How must we order our selves that we may perform our duty and keep out of sin Why in answer to this I say We have only general rules to direct us in these matters and those rules we are to apply to our own particular cases In this latitude that things are left in we are to use our liberty as carefully and as prudently as is possible taking our measures from the principles of reason and the general rules of the Gospel Now what those general rules and measures are it is my business at this time to treat of And three things I have here to propose for the use of our liberty which will I think be a sufficient direction to us in all cases of this nature and which if we do carefully observe we shall never use our liberty for an occasion to the Flesh but we shall both come up to what is our duty and shall likewise avoid all those sins which Mankind are so frequently betrayed into through the too great affinity that there is between Vertue and Vice and the indiscreet exercise of their liberty upon occasion thereof And the first thing I would possess you all with and which indeed as it is the most general so it is the best advice that can be given in this matter is this That we would endeavour to be heartily honest and serious in the business of Religion That we would sincerely devote our selves to the service of God That we would purify our minds as much as may be from all sensual and selfish Principles and in all our actions and pursuits have more respect to the doing our duty and the approving our selves to our great Lord and Master than to any other consideration This is that which St. Paul so often exhorts us to Whether saith he you eat or drink or whatever ye do do all to the glory of God And again Whatever ye do do it heartily as unto the Lord knowing that of the Lord you shall receive the reward of the inheritance If we could once get our selves possessed of this Probity this Purity of mind and heart it would better instruct us in the use of our liberty and teach us to distinguish between good and evil what is fit to be done and what ought not to be done in all cases and emergencies we are concerned in than all the dry Rules of Casuistical learning be they never so carefully and accurately laid down When a Man is once arrived to that holy temper of mind that he heartily loves God and his Neighbour and has such a lively sense of the truth and the excellency of Christ's Religion that he is resolved that that shall influence and govern the whole course of his Life and that he will do all his actions as much as he can for the honour of our Lord and the advancement of his service in the World There can hardly any particular case occur to such a Man in which he will not have rules and measures ready at hand to steer and direct him in his proceedings Nay this general Principle alone of doing all his actions to the glory of God that is to say to the honour of his Religion and the edification of his Neighbour I say this alone will afford him sufficient light and direction for the government of his actions in all Contingencies Because there is no action he can be ingaged in but it is at the first sight discernable whether the doing of it or the not doing of it doth more tend to the honour of his Religion or the good of others That which makes the conduct of a Man's self in this World so nice and difficult a matter and has given occasion to the discussion of so many cases of Conscience about the lawfulness or unlawfulness of Actions is this That Men are not throughly honest but halt between God and the World They have a great mind to serve their pleasures and their ambition and their secular ends and yet to serve God too and this puts them upon tampering and trying to
consider not what may lawfully be done but what is most becoming a Disciple of Iesus Christ to do In a word what ever is best in any action what ever most serves the ends of piety what ever tends most to the credit of our Religion and the benefit of others let us consider that and act accordingly And thus I am sure to design and act is most suitable to the nature and genius of our Christian Religion nay indeed it is the principal Law and Commandment of it The design of Christianity is not to adjust the precise bounds of Vertue and Vice lawful and unlawful which is that that a great many among us so greedily hanker after For the best that could have come from such a design had been only this that Men by this means might have been fairly instructed how they might have avoided the being bad though they never became very good But the design of Christianity is to make Men as good as they can possibly be as devout as humble as charitable as temperate as contented as heavenly-minded as their natures will allow of in this World And for the producing this effect the exact distinguishing the limits of the several Vertues and their opposite Vices signifies very little The Laws of our great Master are not like the Civil Municipal Laws of Kingdoms which are therefore wonderfully nice and critical and particular in setting bounds to the practices of Men because they only look at overt actions so that if a Man do but keep his actions within the compass of the letter of the Law he may be accounted a good Subject and is no way obnoxious to the penalties which the Law threatens If our Religion had been of this strain we should without doubt have had a World of particular Laws and Precepts and directions about our actions in all emergent Cases more than we now have And we might as easily have known from the Bible what was forbidden unlawful anger what was excessive drinking what was pride and luxury in Apparel and the like as we now know by the Statute-Book what is Burglary or Murder or Treason But there was no need of these particularities in the institution of Christ Jesus His Religion was to be a Spiritual thing And the design of it was not to make us chast or temperate or humble or charitable in such a degree but to make us as chast and temperate as humble and charitable as pure and holy in all our Conversation as we possibly can be This I say was the design of Christ's Religion It was to be the Highest Philosophy that was ever taught to Mankind It was to make us the most excellent and perfect Creatures as to purity of mind and heart that humane nature is capable of And therefore it hath not been so accurate and particular in prescribing bounds to our outward actions because it was abundantly enough for the securing them to oblige us to the highest degree of inward purity And this it hath done above all the Laws and Religions in the World It teacheth us to abhor every thing that is evil or impure in all the kinds of it in all the degrees of it and in all the tendencies towards it And to lay out our selves in the pursuit of every thing that is honest that is lovely that is praise-worthy and of good report among Men. If this now be the design of our Religion and these be the Laws of it I leave it to you to judge of these two things First Whether it doth not highly concern all of us that profess this holy Religion to endeavour in all our Conversation to be as holy and as vertuous as we can and to do as much good as we can and not to content our selves with such a degree of honesty and vertue as is just sufficient to the rendering us not vicious And then secondly Whether if we do thus endeavour we can easily be at a loss in distinguishing between good and evil duty and sin in any instance And consequently Whether we can be much in danger of ill using our liberty and so transgressing upon that account I have been longer upon this first head than I intended but I shall make amends for it by dispatching the two following in so much the fewer words And indeed after so large an account as I have given of the general Rule there is less need of dwelling upon particular ones II. In the second place In order to the right use of our liberty and so securing our selves from falling into sin through mistaking the measures of good and evil This will be a good rule to propose to our selves namely That in matters of Duty we should rather do too much than too little But in matters of Indifferency we should rather take too little of our liberty than too much First As to matters of Duty my meaning is this That where the Laws of God have generally and indefinitely commanded a thing but have not set down rules about the particular measures and proportions of it in that case it is advisable rather to do more than we are perhaps precisely bound to do that so we may be sure we have performed our duty than by being scanty in our obedience to run the hazard of falling short of our duty Thus for instance Our Lord in the New Testament hath often and solemnly commanded us to pray But neither he nor his Apostles have any where told us how often we are to pray only they have bid us pray frequently In this Case now a Man that makes a Conscience of performing his duty will take all occasions and opportunities of lifting up holy hands and devout affections to his heavenly Father However he will not fail at least once every time he riseth and once every time he goes to rest to offer up a solemn Sacrifice of Prayer and Praise Less than this I say he must not do for fear he break the Commandment of praying frequently praying continually But more than this it will become him to do in order to the giving himself satisfaction that he hath fully performed it Thus again To give alms to the poor is an indispensable Duty of our Religion But what proportion of our substance we are to give away in Alms and Charity is no where set down but is wholly left to our discretion Now in this case it is certainly much more advisable to give liberally and largely and plentifully even as much as our condition in this World and the necessities of our Families can allow though by so doing we should prove to have given in greater abundance than we were strictly obliged to Than by giving stingily and pinchingly now and then a little pocket money or so to run the hazard of being Transgressors of the Commandment and having our Portion among the covetous and unmerciful There is no damage comes to a Man by doing the former but on the contrary a great deal of good For God never
I have been now recommending especially under the two last heads is not intended to be a rule or direction to any Hypochondriack or Melancholy Persons or such as are apt to be over-scrupulous about their actions For indeed to such persons it is the worst advice that can be given For they are apt to doubt and boggle at every thing be it never so innocent and free from blame They dare not eat a hearty meal for fear of being Intemperate And for fear of not being devout enough they exhaust their Spirits and spoil their health through the continual intention of their minds to serious things Now Persons that are of this temper are rather to be encouraged to take more liberties than they do than to abate any that they make use of But their case is of another consideration and foreign to my present purpose and therefore I here say no more about it It being sufficient to have given this intimation to such people that they do not make an ill use of any thing that I have now represented for assuredly what hath been now said doth not much concern them 2. The other thing I have to say and that by way of Encouragement is this I doubt not but some will be apt to think that the Rules I have now given about the exercise of our liberty are much too strict and severe and that if they must be tied up to such measures then farewel all the joy and pleasure and comfort of their lives But to such People I would crave leave to say that they have very wrong notions of this matter The using of their liberty in such a manner as I have been recommending would not rob them of one true pleasure or comfort that this World affords So far from that that I am very sure whoever frames his life according to these measures shall live a hundred times a happier Life and shall enjoy the World and all the pleasures and advantages of it much more to his own content and satisfaction than if he put no check to the craving of his Appetites but always indulged and gratified them in every thing and as much as they desired Assure your selves Vertue and Religion will never hinder you from enjoying any pleasure or satisfaction that is natural On the contrary there is great reason to believe that the practice thereof will extreamly heighten and advance the satisfactions you can receive from your Worldly Enjoyments I doubt not in the least but to a sincerely pious and vertuous Man and that hath a regard to God in all his actions even the very pleasures and comfotts of this Life are more gratifying and affecting than to any sensual or wicked Man For such a one as he is more capable of enjoying them so do they come to him likewise without the mixtures of those uneasy troublesome bitter reflections that other Men feel in the very best of their Enjoyments Let no Man therefore apprehend any loss of his pleasures by entirely devoting himself to God's Service and using his liberty in that careful way I have been recommending Let him not think that he shall hereby be too much straitned and confined For certainly this is the true means not only to keep him for ever from being a Slave to any thing but also mightily to improve and encrease his liberty For by thus exercising himself all the powers of his Soul will be vastly inlarged and he will hereby attain both leisure and will to employ all his rational Faculties about the best and the noblest objects in the World which will yield him the greatest pleasure that is to be had on this side Heaven Whereas if he had given up himself to be govern'd by any of his sensual Appetites he had been a poor narrow confined Creature indeed not capable of any greater satisfactions or pleasures than what the Brutes do enjoy as well as himself but with less uneasiness and fewer disturbances It is true indeed a sensual Man hath no notion of this kind of pleasures no more than a Beast hath of the pleasures of a Man And therefore it is no wonder that such Men entertain all talk about them as little better than meer Cant and Iargon But I seriously appeal to all Men that have ever made any trials in the way of Religion and Vertue whether the Contentments and satisfactions they have received from the rational use of their liberty and the thoughts and reflections that hereby they do approve themselves to God and live in hopes of his Favour and have a fair prospect of a glorious Immortal State in another World I say whether they do not find the pleasures and contentments that arise from hence to be infinitely more solid and substantial and durable than any of those that they receive from the gratification of their sensual Appetites in a vitious unreasonable manner Oh therefore Let none of us make any scruple of devoting our selves entirely and without reserve to God Almighty's Service Let none of us be afraid to put reasonable restraints upon our Passions and Appetites Assuredly the thus using our liberty is the certain way to preserve and encrease it and with it the pleasure and comfort of our Lives and not only so but to render us Everlastingly Happy and Blessed in the other World Which that we may all be God of his infinite mercy grant c. FINIS Books Printed for Walter Kettilby at the Bishop's-Head in St. Paul's Church-Yard THE Theory of the Earth containing an Account of the Original of the Earth and of all the general Changes which it hath already undergone or is to undergo till the Consummation of all things The two first Books concerning the Deluge and concerning Paradise The two last Books concerning the burning of the World and concerning the new Heavens and new Earth fol. Bishop Overal's Convocation-Book MDC VI. concerning the Government of God's Catholick Church and the Kingdoms of the whole World 4 to A discourse concerning Conscience the first Part wherein an account is given of the Nature and Rule and Obligation of it And the case of those who separate from the Communion of the Church of England as by Law established upon this pretence that it is against their Conscience to join in it is stated and discussed A discourse of Conscience The second Part concerning a doubting Conscience A Fast-Sermon before the House of Commons April 11. 1679. on Revel ii 5. The Duty and Happiness of doing good in two Sermons the former Preached at the Yorkshire Feast Feb. 17. 1679. on Eccl. iii. 10. the other before the Lord Mayor at the Spittle Apr. 14. 1680. on 1 Tim. vi 17 18 19. A Sermon at the Election of the Lord Mayor Sept. 29. 1680. on Psal. cxii 4. A Lent-Sermon at Whitehal March 20. 1684. on Luke xvi 31. These seven last by the Reverend Dr. Sharp Dean of Canterbury Mr. Ieffery's Religion the Perfection of Man 8 vo Mr. Raymond's Pattern of pure and undefiled Religion 8o 's Exposition on the Church Catechism 80. The Faith and Practice of a Church of England Man The third Edition 12o Dr. Pelling's Sermon before the King and Queen Dec. 8. 1689. Mr. Lamb's Sermon before the King and Queen Ian. 19. 1689. 's Dialogue between a Minister and his Parishioners about the Lord's Supper 8o Mr. W. Allen's Nature Series and Order of Occurrences c. 8o