in their obedience and frequenting of the ordinance to the Priest in his ministery and publick and privat offices To which also I adde this consideration that as the Holy Sacraments are hugely effective to spiritual purposes not onely because they convey a blessing to the worthy suscipients but because men cannot be worthy suscipients unlesse they do many excellent acts of vertue in order to a previous disposition so that in the whole conjunction and transaction of affaires there is good done by way of proper efficacy and divine blessing so it is in following the conduct of a spiritual man and consulting with him in the matter of our souls we cannot do it unless we consider our souls and make religion our businesse and examine our present state and consider concerning our danger and watch and designe for our advantages which things of themselves wil set a man much forwarder in the way of Godlinesse besides thath naturally every man will lesse dare to act a sin for which he knows he shall feel a present shame in his discoveries made to the spiritual Guide the man that is made the witnesse of his conversation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Holy men ought to know all things from God and that relate to God in order to the conduct of souls and there is nothing to be said against this if we do not suffer the devil in this affaire to abuse us as he does many people in their opinions teaching men to suspect there is a designe and a snake under the plantain But so may they suspect Kings when they command obedience or the Levites when they read the law of tithes or Parents when they teach their children temperance or Tutors when they watch their charge However it is better to venture the worst of the designe then to lose the best of the assistance and he that guides himself hath much work and much danger but he that is under the conduct of another his work is easy little and secure it is nothing but diligence and obedience and though it be a hard thing to rule well yet nothing is easier then to follow and to be obedient Sermon XXII Of Christian Prudence Part III. 7. AS it is a part of Christian prudence to take into the conduct of our soules a spiritual man for a guide so it is also of great concernment that we be prudent in the choice of him whom we are to trust in so great an interest Concerning which it will be impossible to give characters and significations particular enough to enable a choice without the interval assistances of prayer experience and the Grace of God He that describes a man can tell you the colour of his hair his stature and proportions and describe some general lines enough to distingush him from a Cyclops or a Saracen but when you chance to see the man you will discover figures or little features of which the description had produced in you no Phantasme or expectation And in the exteriour significations of a sect there are more semblances then in mens faces and greater uncertainty in the signes what is faulty strives so craftily to act the true and proper images of things and the more they are defective in circumstances the more curious they are in forms and they also use such arts of gaining Proselytes which are of most advantage towards an effect and therefore such which the true Christian ought to pursue and the Apostles actually did and they strive to follow their patterns in arts of perswasion not onely because they would seem like them but because they can have none so good so effective to their purposes that it follows that it is not more a duty to take care that we be not corrupted with false teachers then that we be not abused with false signes for we as well finde a good man teaching a false proposition as a good cause managed by ill men and a holy cause is not alwayes dressed with healthful symptomes nor is there a crosse alwayes set upon the doores of those congregations who are infected with the plague of heresy When Saint John was to separate false teachers from true he took no other course but to remark the doctrine which was of God and that should be the mark of cognisance to distinguish right shepheards from robbers and invaders every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God He that denieth it is not of God By this he bids his schollers to avoid the present sects of Ebion Cerinthus Simon Magus and such other persons that denied that Christ was at all before he came or that he came really in the flesh and a proper humanity This is a clear note and they that conversed with Saint John or believed his doctrine were sufficiently instructed in the present Questions But this note will signify nothing to us for all sects of Christians confesse Jesus Christ come in the flesh and the following sects did avoid that rock over which a great Apostle had hung out so plain a lantern In the following ages of the Church men have been so curious to signifie misbelievers that they have invented and observed some signes which indeed in some cases were true real appendages of false believers but yet such which were also or might be common to them with good men and members of the Catholick Church some few I shall remark and give a short account of them that by removing the uncertain we may fix our inquiries and direct them by certain significations lest this art of prudence turn into folly and faction errour and secular designe 1. Some men distinguish errour from truth by calling their adversaries doctrine new and of yesterday and certainly this is a good signe if it be rightly applyed for since all Christian doctrine is that which Christ taught his Church and the spirit enlarged or expounded and the Apostles delivered we are to begin the Christian aera for our faith and parts of religion by the period of their preaching our account begins then and whatsoever is contrary to what they taught is new and false and whatsoever is besides what they taught is no part of our religion and then no man can be prejudiced for believing it or not and if it be adopted into the confessions of the Church the proposition is alwayes so uncertain that it s not to be admitted into the faith and therefore if it be old in respect of our dayes it is not therefore necessary to be believed if it be new it may be received into opinion according to its probabilitie and no sects or interest are to be divided upon such accounts This onely I desire to be observed that when a truth returns from banishment by a postliminium if it was from the first though the Holy fire hath been buried or the river ran under ground yet that we do not call that new since newnesse is not to be accounted of by a proportion
and misunderstood and reproved and rejected by any of her wilful or ignorant sons and daughters so it is also as hard that they should be bound not to see when the case is plain and evident There may be mischiefs on both sides but the former sort of evils men may avoid if they will for they may be humble and modest and entertain better opinions of their Superiours then of themselves and in doubtful things give them the honour of a just opinion and if they do not do so that evil will be their own private for that it become not publike the King and the Bishop are to take care but for the latter sort of evil it will certainly become universal If I say an authoritative false doctrine be imposed and is to be accepted accordingly for then all men shall be bound to professe against their conscience that is with their mouthes not to confesse unto salvation what with their hearts they believe unto righteousnesse The best way of remedying both the evils is that Governours lay no burden of doctrines or lawes but what are necessary or very profitable and that Inferiours do not contend for things unnecessary nor call any thing necessary that is not till then there will be evils on both sides and although the Governours are to carry the Question in the point of law reputation and publike government yet as to Gods Judicature they will bear the bigger load who in his right do him an injury and by the impresses of his authority destroy his truth But in this case also although separating be a suspicious thing and intolerable unlesse it be when a sin is imposed yet to separate is also accidentall to truth for some men separate with reason some men against reason therefore here all the certainty that is in the thing is when the truth is secured and all the security to the men will be in the humility of their persons and the heartinesse and simplicity of their intention and diligence of inquiry The Church of England had reason to separate from the Confession and practises of Rome in many particulars and yet if her children separate from her they may be unreasonable and impious 5. The wayes of direction which we have from holy Scripture to distinguish false Apostles from true are taken from their doctrine or their lives That of the doctrine is the most sure way if we can hit upon it but that also is the thing signified and needs to have other signes Saint John and Saint Paul took this way for they were able to do it infallibly All that confesse Jesus incarnate are of God said Saint John those men that deny it are hereticks avoid them and Saint Paul bids to observe them that cause divisions and offences against the doctrine delivered Them also avoid that do so And we might do so as easily as they if the world would onely take their depositum that doctrine which they delivered to all men that is the Creed and superinduce nothing else but suffer Christian faith to rest in its own perfect simplicity unmingled with arts and opinions and interests This course is plain and easie and I will not intricate it with more words but leave it directly in its own truth and certainty with this onely direction That when we are to choose our doctrine or our side we take that which is in the plain unexpounded words of Scripture for in that onely our religion can consist Secondly choose that which is most advantageous to a holy life to the proper graces of a Christian to humility to charity to forgivenesse and alms to obedience and complying with governments to the honour of God and the exaltation of his attributes and to the conservation and advantages of the publike societies of men and this last Saint Paul directs Let ours be carefull to maintain goodworks for necessary uses for he that heartily pursues these proportions cannot be an ill man though he were accidentally and in the particular applications deceived 6. But because this is an act of wisdom rather then prudence and supposes science or knowledge rather then experience therefore it concerns the prudence of a Christian to observe the practise and the rules of practise their lives and pretences the designes and colours the arts of conduct and gaining proselytes which their Doctors and Catechists do use in order to their purposes and in their ministery about souls For although many signes are uncertain yet some are infallible and some are highly probable 7. Therefore those teachers that pretend to be guided by a private spirit are certainly false Doctors I remember what Simmias in Plutarch tels concerning Socrates that if he heard any man say he saw a divine vision he presently esteemed him vain and proud but if he pretended onely to have heard a voice or the word of God he listened to that religiously and would enquire of him with curiosity There was some reason in his fancy for God does not communicate himself by the eye to men but by the ear ye saw no figure but ye heard a voice said Moses to the people concerning God and therefore if any man pretends to speak the word of God we will enquire concerning it the man may the better be heard because he may be certainly reproved if he speaks amisse but if he pretends to visions and revelations to a private spirit and a mission extraordinary the man is proud and unlearned vicious and impudent No Scripture is of private interpretation saith S. Peter that is of private emission or declaration Gods words were delivered indeed by single men but such as were publikely designed Prophets remarked with a known character approved of by the high Priest and Sanhedrim indued with a publike spirit and his doctrines were alwayes agreeable to the other Scriptures But if any man pretends now to the spirit either it must be a private or publike if it be private it can but be usefull to himself alone and it may cozen him too if it be not assisted by the spirit of a publike man But if it be a publike spirit it must enter in at the publike door of ministeries and divine ordinances of Gods grace and mans endeavour it must be subject to the Prophets it is discernable and judicable by them and therefore may be rejected and then it must pretend no longer For he that will pretend to an extraordinary spirit and refuses to be tried by the ordinary wayes must either prophecy or work miracles or must have a voice from heaven to give him testimony The Prophets in the old Testament and the Apostles in the New and Christ between both had no other way of extraordinary probation and they that pretend to any thing extraordinary cannot ought not to be beleeved unlesse they have something more then their own word If I bear witnesse of my self my witnesse is not true said Truth it self our Blessed Lord. But secondly they that intend to teach by an
extraordinary spirit if they pretend to teach according to Scripture must be examined by the measures of Scripture and then their extraordinary must be judged by the ordinary spirit and stands or falls by the rules of every good mans religion and publike government and then we are well enough But if they speak any thing against Scripture it is the spirit of Antichrist and the spirit of the Devil For if an Angel from heaven he certainly is a spirit preach any other doctrine let him be accursed But this pretence of a single and extraordinary spirit is nothing else but the spirit of pride errour and delusion a snare to catch easie and credulous souls which are willing to die for a gay word and a distorted face it is the parent of folly and giddy doctrine impossible to be proved and therefore uselesse to all purposes of religion reason or sober counsels it is like an invisible colour or musick without a sound it is and indeed is so intended to be a direct overthrow of order and government and publike ministeries It is bold to say any thing and resolved to prove nothing it imposes upon willing people after the same manner that Oracles and the lying Daemons did of old time abusing men not by proper efficacy of its own but because the men love to be abused it is a great disparagement to the sufficiency of Scripture and asperses the Divine providence for giving to so many ages of the Church an imperfect religion expressely against the truth of their words who said they had declared the whole truth of God and told all the will of God and it is an affront to the Spirit of God the Spirit of wisdom and knowledge of order and publike ministeries But the will furnishes out malice and the understanding sends out levity and they marry and produce a phantastick dream and the daughter sucking winde instead of the milk of the word growes up to madnesse and the spirit of reprobation Besides all this an extraordinary spirit is extremely unnecessary and God does not give immissions and miracles from heaven to no purpose and to no necessities of his Church for the supplying of which he hath given Apostles and Evangelists Prophets and Pastors Bishops and Priests the spirit of Ordination and the spirit of instruction Catechists and Teachers Arts and Sciences Scriptures and a constant succession of Expositors the testimony of Churches and a constant line of tradition or delivery of Apostolical Doctrine in all things necessary to salvation And after all this to have a fungus arise from the belly of mud and darknesse and nourish a gloworm that shall challenge to out-shine the lantern of Gods word and all the candles which God set upon a hill and all that the Spirit hath set upon the candlesticks and all the starres in Christs right hand is to annull all the excellent established orderly and certain effects of the Spirit of God and to worship the false fires of the night He therefore that will follow a Guide that leads him by an extraordinary spirit shall go an extraordinary way and have a strange fortune and a singular religion and a portion by himself a great way off from the common inheritance of the Saints who are all led by the Spirit of God and have one heart and one minde one faith and one hope the same baptisme and the helps of the Ministery leading them to the common countrey which is the portion of all that are the sons of adoption consigned by the Spirit of God the earnest of their inheritance Concerning the pretence of a private spirit for interpretation of the confessed doctrine of God the holy Scriptures it will not so easily come into this Question of choosing our spirituall Guides Because every person that can be Candidate in this office that can be chosen to guide others must be a publike man that is of a holy calling sanctified or separate publikely to the office and then to interpret is part of his calling and imployment and to do so is the work of a publike spirit he is ordained and designed he is commanded and inabled to do it and in this there is no other caution to be interposed but that the more publike the man is of the more authority his interpretation is and he comes neerest to a law of order and in the matter of government is to be observed but the more holy and the more learnd the man is his interpretation in matter of Question is more likely to be true and though lesse to be pressed as to the publick confession yet it may be more effective to a private perswasion provided it be done without scandal or lessening the authority or disparagement to the more publick person 8. Those are to be suspected for evil guides who to get authority among the people pretend a great zeal and use a bold liberty in reproving Princes and Governours nobility and Prelates for such homilies cannot be the effects of a holy religion which lay a snare for authority and undermine power and discontent the people and make them bold against Kings and immodest in their own stations and trouble the government Such men may speak a truth or teach a true doctrine for every such designe does not unhallow the truth of God but they take some truthes and force them to minister to an evil end but therefore mingle not in the communities of such men for they will make it a part of your religion to prosecute that end openly which they by arts of the Tempter have insinuated privately But if ever you enter into the seats of those Doctors that speak reproachfully of their Superiours or detract from government or love to curse the King in their heart or slander him with their mouths or disgrace their persons blesse your self and retire quickly for there dwells the plague but the spirit of God is not president of the assembly and therefore you shall observe in all the characters which the B. Apostles of our Lord made for describing and avoiding societies of hereticks false guides and bringers in of strange doctrines still they reckon treason and rebellion so S. Paul In the last dayes perillous times shall come the men shall have the form of Godlinesse and denie the power of it they shall be Traitors heady high minded that 's their characteristic note So Saint Peter the Lord knoweth how to deliver the Godly out of temptations and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgement to be punished But chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleannesse and despise government presumptuous are they self willed they are not afraid to speak evil of dignities The same also is recorded and observed by Saint Jude likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh despise dominion and speak evil of dignities These three testimonies are but the declaration of one great contingency they are the same prophesy declared by three Apostolical men that
burning basons do with intolerable circles of reflected fire Such are the principles of a sinners Philosophy And no wiser are his hopes all his hopes that he hath is that he shall have time to repent of that which he chooses greedily that he whom he every day provokes will save him whether he will or no that he can in an instant or in a day make amends for all the evils of 40 years or else that he shall be saved whether he does or no that heaven is to be had for a sigh or a short prayer and yet hell shall not be consequent to the affections and labours and hellish services of a whole life he goes on and cares not he hopes without a promise and refuses to beleeve all the threatnings of God but beleeves he shall have a mercy for which he never had a revelation If this be knowledge or wisdome then there is no such thing as folly no such disease as madnesse But then consider that there are some sins whose very formality is a lye Superstition could not be in the world if men did beleeve God to be good and wise free and mercifull not a tyrant not an unreasonable exactor no man would dare do in private what he fears to do in publick if he did know that God sees him there and will bring that work of darknesse into light But he is so foolish as to think that if he sees nothing nothing sees him for if men did perceive God to be present and yet do wickedly it is worse with them then I have yet spoke of and they beleeve another lie that to be seen by man will bring more shame then to be discerned by God or that the shame of a few mens talk is more intolerable then to be confounded before Christ and his army of Angels and Saints and all the world * He that excuses a fault by telling a lie beleeves it better to be guilty of two faults then to be thought guilty of one and every hypocrite thinks it not good to be holy but to be accounted so is a fine thing that is that opinion is better then reality and that there is in vertue nothing good but the fame of it * And the man that takes revenge relies upon this foolish proposition that his evill that he hath already suffer'd growes lesse if another suffers the like that his wound cannot smart if by my hand he dies that gave it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the sad accents and dolefull tunes are increased by the number of mourners but the sorrow is not at all lessened I shall not need to thrust into this account the other evils of mankinde that are the events of ignorance but introduc'd by sin such as are our being moved by what we see strongly and weakly by what we understand that men are moved rather by a fable then by a syllogisme by parables then by demonstrations by examples then by precepts by seeming things then by reall by shadowes then by substances that men judge of things by their first events and measure the events by their own short lives or shorter observations that they are credulous to beleeve what they wish and incredulous of what makes against them measuring truth or falshood by measures that cannot fit them as foolishly as if they should judge of a colour by the dimensions of a body or feel musick with the hand they make generall conclusions from particular instances and take account of Gods actions by the measures of a man Men call that justice that is on their side and all their own causes are right and they are so alwayes they are so when they affirm them in their youth and they are so when they deny them in their old age and they are confident in all their changes and their first error which they now see does not make them modest in the proposition which they now maintain for they do not understand that what was may be so again So foolish and ignorant was I said David and as it were a beast before thee Ambition is folly and temerity is ignorance and confidence never goes without it and impudence is worse and zeal or contention is madnesse and prating is want of wisdome and lust destroyes it and makes a man of a weak spirit and a cheap reasoning and there are in the Catalogue of of sins very many which are directly kinds and parts and appendages of ignorance such as are blindnesse of minde affected ignorance and wilfull neglect of hearing the word of God resolved incredulity forgetfulnesse of holy things lying and beleeving a lye this is the fruit of sin this is the knowledge that the Devill promised to our first parents as the rewards of disobedience and although they sinn'd as weakly and fondly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 upon as slight grounds and trifling a temptation and as easie a deception as many of us since yet the causes of our ignorance are increased by the multiplication of our sins and if it was so bad in the green tree it is much worse in the dry and no man is so very a fool as the sinner and none are wise but the servants of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The wise Chaldees and the wiser Hebrewes which worship God chastly and purely they only have a right to be called wise all that do not so are fools and ignorants neither knowing what it is to be happy nor how to purchase it ignorant of the noblest end and of the competent means towards it they neither know God nor themselves and no ignorance is greater then this or more pernicious What man is there in the world that thinks himself covetous or proud and yet millions are who like Harpaste think that the house is dark but not themselves Vertue makes our desires temperate and regular it observes our actions condemns our faults mortifies our lusts watches all our dangers and temptations but sin makes our desires infinite and we would have we cannot tell what we strive that we may forget our faults we labour that we may neither remember nor consider we justifie our errors and call them innocent and that which is our shame we miscall honour and our whole life hath in it so many weak discourses and trifling propositions that the whole world of sinners is like the Hospitall of the insensati madnesse and folly possesses the greater part of mankinde What greater madnesse is there then to spend the price of a whole farm in contention for three sheaves of corn and yet tantum pectora caecae noctis habent this is the wisdome of such as are contentious and love their own will more then their happinesse their humour more then their peace Furor est post omnia perdere naulum Men lose their reason and their religion and themselves at last for want of understanding and all the wit and discourses by which sin creeps in are but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 frauds of the tongue and consultations of
issues for though no man can say that much speaking is a sin yet the Scripture sayes In multiloquio peccatum non deerit Sin goes along with it and is an ingredient in the whole composition For it is impossible but a long and frequent discourse must be served with many passions and they are not alwayes innocent for he that loves to talke much must rem corradere scrape materials together to furnish out the scenes and long orations and some talke themselves into anger and some furnish out their dialogues with the lives of others either they detract or censure or they flatter themselves and tell their owne stories with friendly circumstances and pride creeps up the sides of the discourse and the man entertains his friend with his owne Panegyrick or the discourse lookes one way and rowes another and more mindes the designe then its own truth and most commonly will be so ordered that it shall please the company and that truth or honest plainnesse seldome does or there is a byasse in it which the more of weight and transportation it hath the lesse it hath of ingenuity Non credo Auguribus qui aureis rebus divinant like Sooth-sayers men speak fine words to serve ends and then they are not beleeved or at last are found lyars and such discourses are built up to serve the ministeries or pleasures of the company but nothing else Pride and flattery malice and spite self-love and vanity these usually wait upon much speaking and the reward of it is that the persons grow contemptible and troublesome they engage in quarrels and are troubled to answer exceptions some will mistake them and some will not beleeve them and it will be impossible that the minde should be perpetually present to a perpetuall talker but they will forget truth and themselves and their own relations And upon this account it is that the Doctors of the Primitive Church doe literally expound those minatory words of our blessed Saviour Verily I say unto you of every idle word that men shall speak they shall give account at the day of Judgement And by idle words they understand such as are not usefull to edification and instruction So St. Basil So great is the danger of an idle word that though a word be in its owne kinde good yet unlesse it be directed to the edification of faith he is not free from danger that speaks it To this purpose are the words of St. Gregory while the tongue is not restrained from idle words ad temeritatem stultae increpationis efferatur it is made wilde or may be brought forth to rashnesse and folly And therein lies the secret of the reproofe A periculo liber non est ad temeritatem efferatur the man is not free from danger and he may grow rash and foolish and run into crimes whilest he gives his Tongue the reins and lets it wander and so it may be fit to be reproved though in its nature it were innocent I deny not but sometimes they are more severe St. Gregory calls every word vain or idle quod aut ratione justae necessitatis aut intentione piae utilitatis caret and St. Hierom calls it vain quod sine utilitatis loquentis dicitur audientis which profits neither the speaker nor the hearer The same is affirmed by St. Chrysostom and Gregory Nyssen upon Ecclesiastes and the same seems intimated in the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as it is in some copies every word that is idle or empty of businesse But for the stating the case of Conscience I have these things to say 1. That the words of our blessed Saviour being spoken to the Jews were so certainly intended as they best and most commonly understood and by vain they understood false or lying not uselesse or imprudent and yet so though our blessed Saviour hath not so severely forbidden every empty unsignificant discourse yet he hath forbidden every lie though it be in genere bonorum as St. Basil's expression is that is though it be in the intention charitable or in the matter innocent 2. Of every idle word we shal give account but yet so that sometimes the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the judgment shall fall upon the words not upon the persons they be hay and stubble uselesse and impertinent light and easie the fire shall consume them and himselfe shall escape with that losse he shall then have no honor no fair return for such discourses but they shall with losse and prejudice be rejected and cast away 3. If all unprofitable discourses be reckoned for idle words and put upon the account yet even the capacities of profit are so large and numerous that no man hath cause to complain that his tongue is too much restrained by this severity For in all the wayes in which he can doe himselfe good or his neighbour he hath his liberty he is onely to secure the words from being directly criminal and himselfe from being arrested with a passion and then he may reckon it lawfull even upon the severest account to discourse freely while he can instruct or while he can please his neighbour Aut prodesse solent aut delectare while himselfe gets a fair opinion and a good name apt to serve honest and fair purposes he may discourse himselfe into a friendship or help to preserve it he may serve the works of art or nature of businesse publick or private the needs of his house or the uses of mankinde he may increase learning or confirm his notices cast in his symbol of experience and observation till the particulars may become a proverbiall sentence and a rule he may serve the ends of civility and popular addresses or may instruct his brother or himselfe by something which at that time shall not be reduc'd to a precept by way of meditation but is of it selfe apt at another time to doe it he may speak the praises of the Lord by discoursing of any of the works of creation and himselfe or his brother may afterwards remember it to that purpose he may counsell or teach reprove or admonish call to minde a precept or disgrace a vice reprove it by a parable or a story by way of Idea or witty representment and he that can finde talke beyond all this discourse that cannot become usefull in any one of these purposes may well be called a prating man and expect to give account of his folly in the dayes of recompense 4. Although in this latitude a mans discourses may be free and safe from judgement yet the man is not unlesse himself designe it to good and wise purposes not alwayes actually but by an habituall and generall purpose Concerning which he may by these measures best take his accounts 1. That he be sure to speak nothing that may minister to a vice willingly and by observation 2. If any thing be of a suspicious and dubious nature that he
need to bid men be wary as to take care that they be innocent Indeed in religion we are usually too loose and ungirt exposing our selves to temptation and others to offence and our name to dishonour and the cause it self to reproach and we are open and ready to every evil but persecution from that we are close enough and that alone we call prudence but in the matter of interest we are wary as serpents subtil as foxes vigilant as the birds of the night rapacious as Kites tenacious as grapling hooks and the weightiest anchors and above all false and hypocritical as a thin crust of ice spread upon the face of a deep smooth and dissembling pit if you set your foot your foot slips or the ice breaks and you sink into death and are wound in a sheet of water descending into mischief or your grave suffering a great fall or a sudden death by your confidence and unsuspecting foot There is an universal crust of hypocrisie that covers the face of the greatest part of mankinde Their religion consists in forms and outsides and serves reputation or a designe but does not serve God Their promises are but fair language and the civilities of the Piazzas or Exchanges and disband and unty like the air that beat upon their teeth when they spake the delicious and hopefull words Their oaths are snares to catch men and make them confident Their contracts are arts and stratagems to deceive measured by profit and possibility and every thing is lawfull that is gainfull and their friendships are trades of getting and their kindnesse of watching a dying friend is but the office of a vulture the gaping for a legacy the spoil of the carcasse and their sicknesses are many times policies of state sometimes a designe to shew the riches of our bed-chamber and their funeral tears are but the paranymphs and pious solicitors of a second Bride and every thing that is ugly must be hid and every thing that is handsome must be seen and that will make a fair cover for a huge deformity and therefore it is as they think necessary that men should alwayes have some pretences and forms some faces of religion or sweetnesse of language confident affirmatives or bold oaths protracted treaties or multitude of words affected silence or grave deportment a good name or a good cause a fair relation or a worthy calling great power or a pleasant wit any thing that can be fair or that can be usefull any thing that can do good or be thought good we use it to abuse our brother or promote our interests Leporina resolved to die being troubled for her husbands danger and he resolved to die with her that had so great a kindnesse for him as not to out-live the best of her husbands fortune It was agreed and she temperd the poyson and drank the face of the unwholesome goblet but the weighty poyson sunke to the bottome and the easie man drank it all off and died and the woman carried him forth to funeral and after a little illnesse which she soon recovered she enterd upon the inheritance and a second marriage Tuta frequensque via est This is an usual and a safe way to cozen upon colour of friendship or religion but that is hugely criminal to tell a lie to abuse a mans belief and by it to enter upon any thing of his possession or his injury is a perfect destruction of all humane society the most ignoble of all humane follies perfectly contrary to God who is Truth it self the greatest argument of a timorous and a base a cowardly and a private minde not at all honest or confident to see the Sun a vice fit for slaves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Dio Chrysostomus calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the most timorous and the basest of beasts use craft and lie in wait and take their prey and save their lives by deceit and it is the greatest injury to the abused person in the world for besides that it abuses his interest it also makes him for ever insecure and uneasie in his confidence which is the period of cares the rest of a mans spirit it makes it necessary for a man to be jealous and suspicious that is to be troublesome to himself and every man else and above all lying or craftinesse and unfaithful usages robs a man of the honour of his soul making his understanding uselesse and in the condition of a fool spoiled and dishonoured and despised 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Said Plato Every soul loses truth very unwillingly Every man is so great a lover of truth that if he hath it not he loves to beleeve he hath and would fain have all the world to beleeve as he does either presuming that he hath truth or else hating to be deceived or to be esteemed a cheated and an abused person Non licet suffurari mentem hominis etiam Samaritani said R. Moses sed veritatem loquere atque age ingenuè If a man be a Samaritan that is a hated person a person from whom you differ in matter of religion yet steal not his minde away but speak truth to him honestly and ingenuously A mans soul loves to dwell in truth it is his resting place and if you take him from thence you take him into strange regions a place of banishment and dishonour Qui ignotos loedit latro appellatur qui amicos paulò minus quam parricida He that hurts strangers is a thief but he that hurts his friends is little better then a parricide That 's the brand and stigma of hypocrisie and lying it hurts our friends mendacium in damnum potens and makes the man that owns it guilty of a crime that is to be punished by the sorrows usually suffered in the most execrable places of the cities But I must reduce the duty to particulars and discover the contrary vice by the several parts of its proportion 1. The first office of Christian simplicity consists in our religion and manners that they he open and honest publike and justifiable the same at home and abroad for besides the ingenuity and honesty of this there is an indispensable and infinite necessity it should be so because whoever is a hypocrite in his religion mocks God presenting to him the outside and reserving the inward for his enemy which is either a denying God to be the searcher of our hearts or else an open defiance of his omniscience and of his justice To provoke God that we may deceive men to defie his Almightinesse that we may abuse our brother is to destroy all that is Sacred all that is prudent it is an open hostility to all things humane and divine a breaking from all the bands of all relations and uses God so cheaply as if he were to be treated or could be cozened like a weak man and an undiscerning and easie merchant But so is the life of many men Vita fallax abditos sensus
a distinct and a new message Prophets must not offer any doctrine to the people or pretend a doctrine for which they had not a commission from God But which way soever they be expounded they will conclude right in this particular For if they signifie an ordinary mission then there is an ordinary mission of preachers which no man must usurpe unlesse he can prove his title certainly and clearly derivative from God which when any man of the Laity can doe we must give him the right hand of fellowship and wish him good speed But if these words signifie an extraordinary case and that no message must be pretended by Prophets but what they have commission for then must not ordinary persons pretend an extraordinary mission to an ordinary purpose for besides that God does never doe things unreasonably nor will endure that order be interrupted to no purpose he will never give an extraordinary Commission unlesse it be to a proportionable end whosoever pretends to a license of preaching by reason of an extraordinary calling must look that he be furnished with an extraordinary message lest his Commission be ridiculous and when he comes he must be sure to shew his authority by an argument proportionable that is by such a probation without which no wise man can reasonably beleeve him which cannot be lesse then miraculous and divine In all other cases he comes under the curse of the non missi those whom God sent not they goe on their own errand and must pay themselves their wages But besides that the Apostles were therefore to have an immediate mission because they were to receive new instructions these instructions were such as were by an ordinary and yet by a distinct ministery to be conveyed for ever after and therefore did design an ordinary successive and lasting power and authority Nay our blessed Lord went one step further in this provision even to remark the very first successors and partakers of this power to be taken into the lot of this ministery and they were the seventy two whom Christ had sent as probationers of their future preaching upon a short errand into the Cities of Judah But by this assignation of more persons then those to whom he gave immediate commission he did declare that the office of preaching was to be dispensed by a separate and peculiar sort of men distinct from the people and yet by others then those who had the commission extraordinary that is by such who were to be called to it by an ordinary vocation As Christ constituted the office and named the persons both extraordinary and ordinary present and successive so he provided gifts for them too that the whole dispensation might be his and might be apparent And therefore Christ when he ascended up on high gave gifts to men to this very purpose and these gifts comming from the same Spirit made separation of distinct ministeries under the same Lord. So S. Paul testifies expresly Now there are diversities of gifts but the same spirit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there are different administrations differencies of ministeries it is the proper word for Church offices the ministery is distinguished by the gift It is not a gift for the ministery but the ministery it selfe is the gift and distinguished accordingly An extraordinary ministery needs an extraordinary and a miraculous gift that is a miraculous calling and vocation and designation by the holy Ghost but an ordinary gift cannot sublime an ordinary person to a supernaturall imployment and from this discourse of the differing gifts of the Spirit S. Paul without any further artifice concludes that the Spirit intended a distinction of Church officers for the work of the ministery for the conclusion of the discourse is that God hath set some in the Church first Apostles secondarily Prophets thirdly Teachers and lest all Gods people should usurpe these offices which God by his Spirit hath made separate and distinguished he addes Are all Apostles are all Prophets are all Teachers If so then were all the body one member quite contrary to nature and to Gods Oeconomy And that this designation of distinct Church officers is for ever S. Paul also affirmes as expresly as this question shall need He gave some Apostles some Prophets and some Evangelists and some Pastors and Teachers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the work of the ministery till we all arrive at the unity of faith which as soon as it shall happen then commeth the end Till the end be the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the work of the Ministery must goe forwards and is incumbent upon the Pastors and Teachers this is their work and they are the ministers whom the holy Ghost designed 1. For I consider that either to preach requires but an ordinary or an extraordinary ability if it requires an extraordinary they who are illiterate and unlearned persons are the unfittest men in the world for it if an ordinary sufficiency will discharge it why cannot they suppose the clergy of a competency and strength sufficient to doe that which an ordinary understanding and faculties can performe what need they entermeddle with that to which no extraordinary assistance is required or else why do they set their shoulder to such a work with which no strength but extraordinary is commensurate in the first case it is needlesse in the second it is uselesse in both vain and impertinent For either no man needs their help or if they did they are very unable to help I am sure they are if they be unlearned persons and if they be learned they well enough know that to teach the people is not a power of speaking but is also an act of jurisdiction and authority and in which order is at least concerned in an eminent degree Learned men are not so forward and those are most confident who have least reason 2. Although as Homilies to the people are now used according to the smallest rate many men more preach then should yet besides that to preach prudently gravely piously and with truth requires more abilities then are discernible by the people such as make even a plain work reasonable to wise men and usefull to their hearers and acceptable to God besides this I say the office of teaching is of larger extent then making homilies or speaking prettily enough to please the common and undiscerning auditors They that are appointed to teach the people must respondere de jure give account of their faith in defiance of the numerous armies of Hereticks they must watch for their flock and use excellent arts to arme them against all their weaknesses from within and hostilities from without they must streng then the weak confirme the strong compose the scrupulous satisfie the doubtfull and be ready to answer cases of conscience and I beleeve there are not so little as 5000 cases already started up among the Casuists and for ought I know there may be 5000 times 5000. And