or I shall Live to go out of this Church or ever to come into it again to be told of and stirred up to the consciencious discharge of our Ministerial Office thus Plainly thus Impartially thus Convincingly and I heartily Pray to God Effectually Oh my Beloved Brethren do not think that I am too earnest ot too much concerned for you and your peoples Immortal Souls For I know I know that your Souls have cost Christ very dear they have cost him his Hâ—arts Blood they have cost him his Life And can I be too much Concerned or can I ever be Concerned enough for the Salvation of those Souls which have cost my Lord my God and my Saviour which have cost Christ Crucified so much Oh those Emphatical Words of His to Simon Peter are always sounding in my Ears and deeply Rooted in my very Heart and Soul Lovest thou Me Feed my Lambs Lovest thou Me Feed my Sheep Lovest thou Me Feed my Sheep John 21. 15 16 17. And does Christ repeat this Thrice that it may make the Deeper Impression upon us And are we so Insensible and so Seared and so Judicially Hardned as not to take the Least Notice of it Does Christ here try a Ministers Love to him Onely by Catechizing his Lambs and Preaching to his Sheep And can I pretend to Love Christ when I neither Catechize nor Preach in my own Parish all the Year or perhaps all my Life long Or can I ever be too strict in recommending these Duties wherein my Love to Christ does Onely consist My Love to Christ who Loved Me and gave himself for Me when I was Dead in Trespasses and Sins Gal. 2. 20 compared with Ephes 2. 1. Oh these Eyes of mine these Eyes of mine have seen how poor Country people do Sit in Darkness and the Shadow of Death and are as Ignorant of Christianity as if Christ had scarce ever been Preached to them And I am verily perswaded that if You who have Great and Rich Places in the Countrey would but do as Christ did would but Go and See how the Multitudes committed to your Charge do Faint and are Tired and Wearied and lie down and are scattered abroad as Sheep having no Shepherd you could not possibly chuse but be moved with Pity and Compassion on them unless your Hearts are all Stone and your Bowels are all Brass and You your selves are more Barbarous than the Sea Monsters which draw out the Breast and give suck to their Young Ones Lam. 4. 3. Oh my Beloved Brethren do not think that I am too earnest or too much concerned for your and your peoples Immortal Souls For whether we be besides our selves it is to God or whether we be sober it is for your cause For the Love of Christ constraineth us because we thus judge that if One died for all then were all dead and that he died for all that they which live should not henceforth live unto Themselves but unto Him which died for them and Rose again 2 Cor. 5. 13 14 15. Thirdly The Holy Ghost has caused the Faults of God's Ministers to be written in Scripture And the same Holy Ghost assures us that the Faults of us Ministers are the Cause why our People do not Repent of their Sins and Reform their Lives For says the Lord Jerem. 23. 22. If the Prophets had stood in my Counsel and had caused my People to hear my Words then they should have turned from their evil Way and from the evil of their Doings Where you see that the Cause and indeed the Onely Cause here mentioned why the People did not turn from their evil Way and their evil Doings is because the Prophets had not stood in the Counsel of the Lord and had not caused them to hear his Words And if you will turn to Malachi 2. 6. You will there find that the great Success of Levi's Ministry in the Conversion of Souls unto God is Onely attributed to his Holy Preaching and Holy Living For the Law of Truth was in his Mouth and Iniquity was not found in his Lips he walked with God in Peace and Equity and therefore he did turn many away from Iniquity And if thy Bad Life be the Cause and the Onely Cause here mentioned why thy Parishioners are so Bad Good God what will become of thy poor Soul Is not thine own Badness enough to Damn thee but thou must also Add all the Badness of thy whole Parish to make thy Damnation the more Intolerable Can not thine own Sins sink thee deep enough into Hell but thou must also Add all the Sins of all thy people to sink thee deeper and deeper into the bottomless Pit and the Gulf impassable Oh thou hast Sins enough of thine own to answer for though thou art the best Man upon Earth and therefore be not thou Partaker of other Mens Sins 1 Tim. 5. 22. Fourthly The Holy Ghost has caused the Faults of Gods Ministers to be written in Scripture And the same Holy Ghost assures us that the Faults of us Ministers are the true and the Onely Cause Why God does curse our very Blessings and corrupt our Seed and spread Dung upon our Faces even the Dung of our solemn Feasts and make us Contemptible and Base before all the people Malachi 2. 2 3 9. Where you see that all the Seed both of your Body and Ground all your Estate all your Land all your Money all your Cattle and all your other temporal Blessings are Cursed by God himself because you do not perform the Work of your Ministry without Fear or Favour but are Partial in the Law of the most High ver 9. You either Fear such a Mans Person and Dare not or you Admire such a Mans Person and Will not tell him of his Sins in Hope of getting something from him by your base and cowardly Silence And because you are thus Partial in Gods Law having Mens Persons in Admiration because of Advantage and Preferring one before another therefore God will certainly curse all your Blessings yea and he has cursed them already ver 2. And therefore if the common Observation that is in every ones Mouth be really True I do not say It is True But if it be really True That Clergy-mens Children are more Vnfortunate than other Mens then One Great Cause of it is this Their Fathers do not faithfully discharge their Ministerial Office And therefore God according to his Threatning does corrupt all the Seed both of their Body and Ground and lays a dreadful Curse upon all their Blessings and Estates And those Estates and God's Curse are Entailed together upon their Children as the Leprosy and Estate of Gehazi descended together upon his Posterity 2 Kings 5. 27. And therefore the Meat Drink Cloaths Portions and all other things which the Children of such ungodly Ministers have are cursed with the Curse of God And how then can such Children possibly Thrive and Prosper in the World For if the Blessing of
was driven away to bind up that which was broken and to strengthen that which was Sick Ezek. 34. 16. Dost thou not chuse to be the Author of a New Notion tho' it be False rather than to Preach and to Press an Old Known Truth upon the Hearts of thy Hearers Dost thou not chuse to Introduce three Gods into the World rather than be content with the Old and True way of Expressing the Trinity Fifthly If thou art neither Ignorant nor Idle nor Covetous nor Voluptuous nor Proud yet art thou not Deceitful Art thou not a Deceitful Handler and Corrupter of Gods Word Dost thou not hold that Original Sin is not Properly a Sin or if it be so it is but the Least of all Sins Dost thou not hold the Pelagian and Arminian Doctrines instead of the Articles and Homilies of our Church Dost thou not say that our Articles are only Articles of Peace and not Articles of Religion Dost thou not say that our Homilies do only contain such Doctrines as were Necessary for the Time they were Writ in but not for the Time we now Live in Dost thou not Adore Free-will so far as to make an Idol of it yea and to make God himself to Wait upon its Choice in the Almighty Work of thy Conversion Dost thou not make God to be in a manner an Idle Spectator and thy Free-will to be the Onely Agent in thy Salvation Dost thou not Attribute so much to Natural Reason and Moral Suasion that the Powerful and Effectual and Irresistible working of Gods Spirit is wholly Rejected by thee as a meer Dream and an Idle Fancy Dost thou not Extol thine Own Strength so far as to Frustrate the Grace of Christ Dost not Thou and not God make Thee to Differ from another which is directly contrary to St. Pauls Doctrine 1 Cor. 4. 7. Dost thou not lay so great a Stress upon Little things as to neglect the Weightier matters of the Law Dost thou not make a Conscience of Bowing at the Name of Jesus and dost thou make any Conscience at all of Cursing and Swearing by his Name by his Blood and by his Wounds Dost thou not not make a Conscience of Signing a Child with the Sign of the Cross in Baptism and dost thou make any Conscience at all of Catechizing that Child in the Doctrine of the Cross of Christ tho' both the Rubrick and the 59th Canon command thee to do so every Lords-day and Holy day in the After-noon upon pain of Sharp Reproof for the first Fault Suspension for the second and Excommunication for the third Dost thou not cry out mightily against those that Sacrilegiously rob the Church of its Patrimony and dost thou at all cry out against thy Self and Others that rob Christ of those Souls which he has purchased with his Blood by Suffering them to Perish for want of True and Saving Knowledge Dost thou not cry out mightily against those people that rob thee of the Least of thy Tithes and Offerings and dost thou at all cry out against thy Self and Others that rob those very people of their Heart's Blood their Lives their Souls and their Salvation by Suffering them to be Damned for want of Catechizing and Preaching Dost thou not cry out mightily against the Papists for feeding their Communicants with meer Species and Accidents instead of Substantial Bread and Wine representing the Body and Blood of Christ and dost not thou Thy self at the same time Serve thy Hearers just at the same Rate whilst thou Contendest so Much and so Earnestly for the Rites and Ceremonies and so Little if at all for the Doctrines of our Church Sixthly If thou art neither Ignorant nor Idle nor Covetous nor Voluptuous nor Proud nor Deceitful yet art thou not far Worse than all these For dost thou not refuse to be Good Thy self and hinder Others to be so Dost thou not refuse to Fast upon Ember-week Thy self and hinder Others to do so and Reproach them for it Dost thou not refuse to Preach Thy self and hinder Others to do so if thou thinkest they will Dare to Preach against thy Great and Crying and Reigning and Damning Sins Thy Pluralities thy Non-Residence thy Arminianism and thy Shameful Neglect of Catechizing and Daily Prayers in thy Church and Family Dost thou not get as many Church-Preferments as thou possibly canst and refuse to Preach in them All Thy self and thereby hinder all others that are both Learned and Laborious both Able and Willing to Preach in them in their own Persons Dost thou not Envy and Hate a good Orthodox Minister in thy very Heart and Soul and say of him as the Scribes and Pharisees did of Christ He hath a Devil and is Mad why hear ye Him John 10. 20. Yea and to Compleat thy Character Dost thou not reckon it a Greater fault for a Man to Tell thee of these thy Faults than it is for thee and others to be Guilty of them And thus I have endeavoured to Examine every Minister here present out of Gods own Word whether he be really guilty of those Sins which the Ministers of former Ages are Recorded in Scripture to have been guilty of I neither Accuse you of nor Condemn you for any one of all these Sins But I wish with all my Heart and Soul that both God and your own Consciences may Acquit and Absolve you from them all For I call Heaven and Earth to Record That I do not say these things to Shame you but as my Beloved Brethren I Warn you 1 Cor. 4. 14. I Warn you all in Gods Name and in Christ's Name that you do not think your selves Altogether Free from All or from any One of all these Sins For Original Sin which has in its self the Seed of every Sin whatever is not Wholly Mortified in the Best of you all And therefore it may make you to fall into the very Worst of all these Sins as it made St. Peter to Deny Christ with Cursing and Swearing and Hazael to do such Barbarous things as he thought None but a Dog could ever have done 2 Kings 8. 13. I Warn you all in Gods Name and in Christ's Name that as you value the Salvation of your own Souls and of them that hear you so be ye Sure not to find fault with the Holy Ghost who has commanded me upon pain of Damnation to Warn you all against all these Sins Nor yet to find fault with Me who according to the measure of Grace and Faithfulness He has given me have Conscienciously obey'd his command and incurr'd your Displeasure for the Good of your Souls But lay all the fault if you are guilty of any fault where it only ought to be laid even upon your own selves And resolve resolve immediately upon a full and perfect Amendment of Life from this very Day from this very Hour from this very Moment For we do not know whether any of us shall Live one Moment longer We do not know whether You
God makes a Man Rich the Curse of God must needs make him Poor Prov. 10. 22. And here in our Church no Man can be received into the Ministry but he must first make a Solemn Subscription that he acknowledgeth the Articles and the Common-prayer Book to be Agreeable to God's Word and that he will use That and No other Form in publick Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments And no Man that is thus solemnly received into the Ministry can be Lawfully admitted into any Ecclesiastical Place With or Without Cure of Souls but he must also Take a most Strict and Severe Oath against Simony And if it were possible for us to know how many have broken this Oath and are guilty of Perjury and have broken their Subscription to the Common-prayer Book which they pretend to Magnifie and Admire so much by neglecting to Catechize and to Read the Daily Prayers and Homilies and have broken their Subscription to the Articles by private Disputing publick Preaching and Printing against them If I say it were possible for us to know how many are guilty of these things it would make us All if we have but the least Sense of their miserable State to quake and tremble to Think of their Numbers And yet all these men have all their Blessings and all their Estates thus unlawfully gotten cursed with the Curse of God And they can not possibly leave them to their Children but they must also at the same time necessarily leave the Curse of God along with them And how then can such Children while they Keep and Live upon these accursed things without making any Restitution of them to the Right Owners How can they I say possibly Thrive and Prosper in the World unless God will suffer them to do so on Purpose that their Prosperity may destroy them and make their Destruction the more Intolerable Prov. 1. 32. And indeed if a Man seriously considers the Proceedings of God in this Particular without all Prejudice and Partiality he will presently find them to be most highly Reasonable For all people committed to a Ministers Charge are or at least he is to endeavour to make them his Children according to the Spirit begotten again through his Ministry to a lively Hope by the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the Dead Galat. 4. 19. compared with 1 Pet. 1. 3. And if a Minister that does not Catechize and Preach in his own Parish-Church does Force his Children according to the Spirit to go from Parish to Parish and from Church to Church to beg a little spiritual Food for their Souls that are ready to Starve for Hunger and Thirst then is it not most highly reasonable that his Children according to the Flesh should be forced to go from House to House and to beg their Bread from Door to Door And if a Minister forces his Spiritual Children to starve for want of the Body and Blood of Christ frequently Administred to them in the Blessed Sacrament then is it not most highly reasonable that his Natural Children should be forced to Starve for want of Meat and Drink Sure I am whatever you think of this Now God has long since Threatned it and he will certainly bring it to pass For says the Lord Hos 4. 6 7. My people are destroyed for lack of Knowledge because thou hast rejected Knowledge I will also reject thee that thou shalt be no Priest to me seeing thou hast forgotten the Law of thy God I will also forget thy Children and change their Glory into Shame And the Priests eat up the Sin of my people and they set their Heart on their Iniquity That is they Eat and Feast upon the Sacrifices which my people offer for their Sins and they are heartily glad that they commit so many Sins and do not at all endeavour to Reclaim 'em lest their Gain should be lost And then it follows ver 10. They shall eat of those Sacrifices unlawfully gotten and they shall not have enough they shall commit Whoredom thinking thereby to increase their Children and they shall not Increase because they have left off to take heed to the Lord. Where you see that the Sins of the Priests are Threatned with Scarcity of Bread and they Affect and Reach their Children as well as Themselves And you also see that every Morsel you eat and every Draught you drink and every Rag of Cloaths you and your Children wear are the Price of the Blood and Souls of those poor People which are Starved on Earth and Damned in Hell for want of your Catechizing and Preaching Every Glass of Wine you drink is Bought with the Price and Mingled with the Blood of those poor People which Perish through your Neglect You Grind the Faces of the poor and then as the Psalmist elegantly expresseth it You eat them up for Bread whenever you Feed your selves with the Tithes and Offerings of those people who are ready to perish everlastingly because of your shameful Absence from them all the Year long And by this means Ye cover the Altar of the Lord with the Tears the Weeping and the Crying out of those Poor Starved and Damned Souls Insomuch that the Lord regardeth not your Offering any more nor receiveth it with good will at your Hands Mal. 2. 13. And how then can you ever expect that your Estates thus Damnably gotten should ever Thrive or Prosper with You or your Children And therefore though you have no Regard to your own Souls nor to the Souls of your people nor to the Blood of Christ which was Shed for the Redemption both of your and their Souls yet however have some little Regard to the Bodies and Souls of your poor Children Oh do not make them a Generation of God's Wrath Do not make them the Heirs of your Vices as well as your Estates Do not make them to Inherit your Curses as well as your Blessings Oh remember what a dreadful Legacy Joab left to his Children 2 Sam. 3. 29. One of them was to have an Issue another a Leprosy another to lean on his Staff for Lameness another to fall on the Sword and another to lack Bread And canst thou find in thy Heart to leave thy Children no better yea far worse Legacies than these are Canst thou find in thy Heart to leave thy Ignorance and Idleness to one thy Covetousness and Voluptuousness to another thy Pride and Malice to another and thy Neglect of Catechising Preaching and daily Prayers in thy Church and Family to another of thy Children Canst thou find in thy Heart to leave thy Children no better Legacies than these are Canst thou pretend to Love thy Children and yet leave them Nothing to Live upon but thy Vices and thy Curses the Tears of the Living and the Blood of the Dead And canst thou still expect that they should Thrive and Prosper in the World when this is all the Portion and all the Stock thou givest them to begin the World and to set up
with Fifthly There was heretofore a Generation of Men who cried up The Temple of the Lord the Temple of the Lord The Temple of the Lord Jerem. 7. 4. And yet those very Men were the greatest Enemies to that Temple For it is there expresly said of them verse 6. 9. That they would oppress the Poor the Fatherless and the Widow they would shed innocent Blood Steal Murder commit Adultery Swear falsly burn Incense to Baal and walk after other Gods And have not We just such another sort of Men now adays who cry up The Church The Church The Church and yet will do Nothing for the Church but Drink and Swear and Whore and take away the Church-Land and Call the Best Men of its Communion the Soundest Preachers and the Strictest Livers a Company of Puritans and Phanaticks And these Men I know very well will presently pretend a great deal of Zeal and will find Fault with those Texts of Scripture which I have Quoted out of God's own Word for the Proof of my Doctrine And to these Men I will only say thus much A chast Virgin or a chast Wife does not at all think her self abused when she hears a Whore or an Adultress set forth in her proper Colours And a Learned and a Laborious Minister does not at all think Himself or the Ministerial Office abused when an Ignorant an Idle a Covetous a Wanton and a Proud Pharisee is described to the Life If any Man here present finds himself Touch'd in God's Name let him Reform and Amend And if not why does he then find Fault Let him rather Bless God that he stands and take heed that he do not fall When we thus lay the Axe to the Root of the Tree and begin where God's Judgments usually do with God's own House first and deal impartially with our selves then our Hearers will think we are in good Earnest when we do not spare our selves they will think we have the same Blessed Spirit that Moses had who did not Spare either Himself or his Brother Aaron or his Sister Miriam but Plainly and Publickly recorded their Faults in Scripture as well as others and they will never be able to be Angry with us for telling them of their Sins roundly and smartly to their Face And indeed to tell you my Mind freely it is not our Priviledge Onely to tell other Men of their Sins and never to be told of our own It is not our Prerogative Onely to declaim against other Mens Vices and to Live and to Reign in our own without Controul No No If ever the Church be Reformed We Church-Men and We Clergy-Men must first Reform our selves For We are the Salt of the Earth and therefore we are to spend our selves as Salt is spent to Season others and to keep them from Corruption and how can we do so if we our selves have lost our Savour We are the light of the World and therefore we are to spend our selves as a Candle is spent to enlighten others and how can we do so if we our selves are all Darkness Matt. 5. 13 14. Sixthly If it be a dismal Sight to see several Thousands of poor people Fainting and ready to Perish for want of a little Meat and Drink to feed their Bodies then is it not a far worse Sight to see several Thousands of poor people Fainting and ready to Perish for want of good Catechizing and Preaching to feed their Souls For though a Man's Body starve for want of Meat and Drink yet his Soul may go to Heaven notwithstanding as is plain from what is recorded of Lazarus Luke 16. 21 22. But if a Man's Soul starve for want of Catechizing and Preaching both his Body and his Soul in the Ordinary Way of God's Providence must needs go to Hell A Famine of Bread is bad but a Famine of the Word is far Worse For the Soul that feeds upon the Word is far better than the Body that feeds upon Bread For says the Prophet Isa 30. 20. Though the Lord give you the Bread of Adversity and the Water of Affliction yet shall not thy Teachers be removed into a Corner any more Where you see that though a Man be fed with the Bread of Adversity and the Water of Affliction that is such course Fare as is scarce able to keep Body and Soul together yet as long as he has his Teachers left him and he may both See and Hear them he has that which is far better For It is better to be a Beggar with the Gospel than to be a King without it For says the Holy K. David It is better to be a Door-keeper in the House of the Lord than to dwell in the Tents of Vngodliness Psalm 84. 10. And therefore it is a shrewd Sign that God is extreme Angry with a People when he takes away a good Minister from them For When God took away Lot the Preacher of Righteousness from Sodom he presently rained upon it Fire and Brimstone from Heaven Gen. 19. 22 24. It is a shrewd Sign that God is extreme Angry with a people when he sends them a bad Minister For when God sets a Lyon a Wolf or a Leopard to Watch over a City has he not a mind to Destroy it Jeremiah 5. 6. And when God put a lying Spirit into the Mouth of all Ahab's Prophets to perswade him to go up to Ramoth-Gilead had he not fully determined that Place for his Destruction 1 Kings 22. 23. And therefore you may all assure your selves that God has not many People to Save in that Parish where he does not Settle a good Minister For if God has any Harvest in a Parish he will certainly Send a good Labourer to reap it down to gather it up and to put it into his Barn If God has any Sheep in a Parish he will certainly Send a good Shepherd to look after them For if God has much People at Corinth or any where else he always Sends them a Paul or some other able Minister to Instruct them in the Faith of Christ Act 18. 9 10. For the Harvest the Sheep and the People of God are the Jewels of the Lord of Hosts and they shall all be carefully made up and safely kept by that watchful Keeper of Israel that never Slumbers nor Sleeps Malachi 3. 17. compared with Psalm 121. 4. For that God who takes care of every Sparrow and numbreth the Hairs of your Head and suffers not so much as a Tear you shed in Secret to be lost but puts it in his Bottle and notes it in his Book that good God who does all this will never suffer the Souls of his People to be lost for want of a good Minister to look after them unless you think that your Souls which are his Jewels and for which Christ died are not worth so much as a Sparrow a Hair of your Head or a Tear that falls down your Cheeks when you weep for your Sins Lastly If our Fore-Fathers