the work of Reformation out of any desire of novelty but merely to discharge our duty to God in avoiding all things contrary to his Word and doing all according to it Which made our Reformers for the preservation as much as was possible of peace and unity which the holy Scriptures so much commend and enjoyn to take great care not to depart any further from any practice of the Church than it had departed from Christ the Founder of it and from the holy Scriptures whereby it ought to have governed it self Thus I have in as few words as I could told you what it is that we have received From whence we may learn both how happy we should have been had we always stuck to it and never deviated from it so happy that we should neither have had the Divisions that are among us nor any thing else which we come this day to bewail And also how foully the Roman Church hath prevaricated and departed from the simplicity of the Christian Religion First By adding many other Articles of Faith to those which were at first received and Secondly By forbidding the people to look into the holy Scriptures which contain the foundation and rule of Christian belief Let me touch a little upon these two leaving the consideration of our own condition till afterward First I say It is apparent they have highly offended God and abused his people by making a new Creed and that contrary to a known Decree of the third General Council that at Ephesus which they pretend to reverence For It ordained that it should not be lawful for any person to bring forth write or compose any other Faith than that which was defined by the holy Fathers gathered together in the Holy Ghost at the City of Nice and that whosoever should dare to compose or offer another Faith or propound it to such as were desirous to be converted to the knowledge of the Truth either from among the Gentiles or the Jews or from any Hereticks they should if they were Bishops or Clergy-men be deposed from their Office if Lay-men be anathematiz'd And yet they of Rome have not feared to violate this Decree by making a new Faith not in words merely but in sense about the adoration of Images of Saints of the Eucharist and concerning the Authority of the Pope the Doctrine of Purgatory and the rest of the Articles of the new Creed presumptuously made by the Council of Trent Some of which are of such dangerous practice that learned men among themselves Gerson Espencaeus and others have confessed it among the vulgar to be no less than Idololatrical and others doubt not to adde that it is no better among the learned And others again are so far from being Articles of Faith that for ought we can find in the Scriptures or true Antiquity they are not so much as probable opinions For instance the Authority of the Pope and the Monarchy as now they fear not to call it which he pretends to over the whole Church is founded merely in pride and ambition and as it was acquired so it hath been supported and enlarged and is still maintained by rebellion treason murthering of Princes wars dispensing with perjuries and incestuous marriages spoils and robberies of Churches and Kingdoms worldly craft and policy force and falshood forgery lying dissimulation and gross hypocrisie as may easily be made good in every particular to the satisfaction of all those who have not their eyes blinded by the God of this World Who by such villainies hath mightily disgraced Christianity which for many Ages was wholly unacquainted with any such Faith And there are also common opinions that pass among them uncontradicted as strongly believed as any Article of Faith which notwithstanding their seeming zeal for good works utterly overthrow any necessity of them For it is the avowed Doctrine of the greatest Teachers in that Church That though a man live and dye without the practice of any Christian Vertue and with the habit of many damnable sins unmortified yet if he have sorrow for sin and joyn Confession with it and receive absolution in the last moment of his life he shall certainly be saved And accordingly we see that if the lewdest persons among us will but be reconciled to the Roman Church on their death-bed they abuse them with the hope of salvation telling them there is no salvation in our Church though they were never so good but in theirs there is though they are never so bad Which is a clear demonstration That all their discourse about good Works is a mere show and that Faith alone among them is thought sufficient to do the business and that it is their Priests not Ours who teach men to rely upon a naked Faith and presume to be saved by it The cause of all which is their neglect of the rule of Faith the holy Scriptures which are so much against them that they dare not trust the people with them Secondly That 's the second thing I noted as a manifest declaration of the corruption of the Roman Church that they will by no means consent the people should look into those Books which contain the Doctrine at first received but upon the severest penalties forbid without a special Licence obtained their perusal of them as if these were the most suspected or dangerous of all other Books or as if it were reason the people should believe the Church without knowing what the Church ought to believe There is not a more evident token of their guilt than this For that it is done on purpose to keep the people in ignorance not to preserve them within the bounds of sobriety which may be done by other means is apparent from hence that even those select portions of Scripture which they have chosen to be read in the Church publickly they will not let the people hear in a language which they understand For which no reason can be alledged but that now mentioned they are loth the people should be acquainted with any thing that may enlighten their eyes to see the errours of that Church For Latine Prayers indeed wherein they speak to God they have this excuse That God understands all languages but for Latine Chapters of the Bible wherein God speaks to men there is nothing to be said the end of speaking to others being that we may be understood Why then should God be as a Barbarian to his people speaking to them in an unknown tongue And why should those things which in other cases would be held ridiculous and contrary to common sense be esteemed good and convenient in Religion Without all doubt such things as these are the sport of the Devil who hereby hath exposed Christianity to scorn and both kept the people from being instructed by God their Saviour and delivered them up to be most grosly abused by evil men For this mischief is not single but hath bred and brought forth another they having set up the
Christs Counsel TO HIS CHURCH IN TWO SERMONS Preached at the Two Last Fasts ONE APRIL xi MDCLXXIX THE OTHER DECEMBER xxii MDCLXXX By SYMON PATRICK D. D. DEAN of PETERBVRGH and Chaplain in Ordinary to His MAJESTY LONDON Printed by J. Macock for R. Royston Bookseller to His Most Sacred Majesty 1681. TO THE Right Honourable WILLIAM EARL of BEDFORD Knight of the Most Noble Order of the GARTER c. My very good LORD and PATRON MY LORD BEing desired by some in my Parish to print the Sermon I preached on the last Fast-day I found it necessary to prefix to it the Sermon I preacht the Fast before because this depends on that and have presumed to prefix Your Lordships Name to both because it is by Your Favour and Patronage that I preached either the one or the other in that Place The matter of them is suitable to the occasion For in the First I have chiefly pressed the General Remedy of all the evils under which we labour in the Second one Particular Remedy and in both exposed the wickedness of Popery But I have shown withal that all we say against it will not keep it out unless we will so duly prize our own Religion as to live according to it Which being in the general allowed even by those who continue to live quite contrary I see no reason why any Body should quarrel with what I have said about one particular Duty of our Religion unless they think that we have nothing to answer for upon the account of our contempt of Christs Ministers and of that Order which He hath appointed in His Church which seems to me such a dangerous sin that I could not think I discharged a good Conscience if at such a time and such an occasion I took no notice of it Wherein I do not plead our own Cause as some are wont to object to such Discourses but the Cause of Christ and of His Religion which now lyes a bleeding and we fear a dying by the wounds we give it our selves through the subtile Contrivance of our Romish Adversaries Whose Plots have been many and horrid but their first and greatest strength as appears by the directions given to their Emissaries lay in this To bring the whole Ministry of the Church of England into contempt and to divide the People from their established Pastors into a great many little Bodies under no Government but what they themselves pleased And it is apparent that by the same Popish artifice this poysonous conceit is industriously infused into the peoples mind that we are looking towards Rome if we do but tell them that they ought not to form opinions as they think good but guide themselves in their judgment by our direction But I hope the better sort are not ignorant by this time of their devices and that though there be some in the Ministry who are not so fit as they should be to direct and guide their Flocks yet they will consider that the men who most complain of it are such as will be guided by none at all no not by those whose ability and honesty cannot be suspected And it is a very great Truth also that their intemperate Speeches against the Clergy is the thing that hath frighted the weaker sort of them into such an apprehension of danger from those men as hath made them guilty of the follies which have done great injury to us all This My Lord is the grief of all good Men among us who consider the state we are in and desine the safety or have any love for the honour of our Religion For we seem now to be in such a condition as Gregory Nyssen describes in his days when things were come to such a pass that the people neither understood themselves from their own inward sense what was fit for them nor would believe those that rightly informed them No saith he * Tom. 2. p. 745. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We are exceeding angry at our Teachers and very hardly bear their admonitions their counsels are a grievance and their instruction in good things we nauseate as sick men do the medicines which their Physicians exhibite to them If a reproof be given we take it heavily if we hear a rougher word we fall into a rage if we be thrust out of the Church we blaspheme This is not the disposition of Learners nor the obedience of Disciples but the ambitious contention of seditious and rebellious people For a Scholar who desires to learn any common Art or Science ought to be like a little Child much more ought he to be like a sucking Infant who would be instructed in Christian piety because our Lord hath honoured that Age as apt to receive impressions with his commendation Now no Child rises up against the Characters and the Lineaments that his Master makes for him in Wax nor devises new Elements by a frantick Licence innovating about making Letters but exercises his hand after his Masters Copy and both in word and deed imitates what his Director delivers to him c. But a Christian doth not thus though he hath heard That except ye be converted and become like little Children ye cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven but when the Priest severely corrects his errour openly contradicts and mutters between his teeth and going round the Streets and the places of publick concourse rails and reviles and as it follows a little after sits judging even me the Bishop in the Chair of the Scorner Now what can the end of such things be but utter confusion Which necessarily follows when the unity that ought to be between the Pastors and people is quite dissolved or the people some upon one account some upon another lose all their respect for them and love to them for their works sake There hath been much speech Your Lordship knows of a Prophecy as it is called of Bishop Usher late Primate of Armagh which hath very much startled many and made them fear dreadful things Though the certainty of it hath not been so publickly attested as that which I have been bold to set down in the first of these Sermons Where Your Lordship will find something that looks like a sad Prediction which an excellent Divine and holy Man of this Church published long ago in a Book of his upon the Creed Which I wish were diligently heeded and laid to heart because it directs to the way whereby the threatning may be avoided pointing to the very sin that deserves the Judgment he denounces Which if it be slighted when we are told of it it will be one of the worst signs that can be his Prognostication will prove true and be fulfilled But they who are appointed to stand on the Watch-Tower and give notice of danger have delivered their own Souls when they have faithfully declared the mind of Christ in this matter Which was the greatest motive I had both to preach and to print these Sermons which I am
sure will be acceptable to Your Lordship not only because you have a due respect to Gods Ministers but because I present them as a token of my gratitude and of the honour I have for Your Lordship being My LORD Your most humble Servant S. PATRICK A SERMON PREACHED ON THE FAST-DAY APRIL xi MDCLXXIX REVEL II. 16. Repent or else I will come unto thee quickly and I will fight against them with the sword of my mouth WHAT our Saviour had said unto the Jews before his death in the Second Lesson for this Morning Prayer xiii Luke 3 5. Except ye repent ye shall all likewise perish He saith here in effect after his ascension to Heaven unto the Gentile Christians Repent or else I will come quickly and will fight against them with the sword of any mouth This is a Lesson for all Nations and for all Ages in which the Church of England is as much concerned now as the Church of Pergamus was then Though this Letter was not particularly directed unto us no more than to the rest of the Christian World yet the next words tell us that our Lord expects every body should take notice of it consider it and take warning by it as much as if it had been addressed to them by name ver 17. He that hath an ear to hear let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the Churches We all herein read our own doom and ought to understand the words as if our Lord had enlarged them in such a general Admonition as he gives in another case about watching xiii Mark ult And what I say unto the Church of Pergamus I say unto all Repent Repent or else I will come quickly and will fight against them with the sword of my mouth In which words you may easily discern An Exhortation to a most necessary Duty which is To repent and a Commination in case the Exhortation be not obeyed which is A denunciation of war against such obstinate Offenders who provoke him to sharpen against them the sword of his mouth The Exhortation is so frequently pressed and as frequently explained that I cannot think it fit to spend the time in telling you what it is to repent For you all know well enough that it is such a godly sorrow for what we have done amiss as makes us not only afflict our selves for our sins but utterly renounce and forsake them If you know your Baptismal Vow as who is there that can be unacquainted with it unless he affect a stupid and brutish ignorance it is easie to understand that nothing less than this can pass with God for Repentance If we had never broken that Vow there would have been no need of Repentance which is the repairing of that breach and the making it up again And how shall we make all whole but only by observing that Vow better which we have violated and broken No man of sense can think there is any other way of being reconciled to God after we have offended him but only by becoming more dutiful to him Performing that is those engagements which we always had to him and from which we can never be absolved because beside our natural obligation we have tyed and bound our selves by a solemn and most sacred Vow to be his faithful Servants When we do not keep this Vow we sin and bring a heavy guilt upon our selves From which sin and guilt if we would be freed we must Repent that is keep our Vow better forsaking the Devil and all his works heartily believing God's holy Word and obediently keeping his Commandments If we be truly sorrowful and afflicted that we have not done thus in which Repentance begins we must resolve and seriously endeavour to make this our business hereafter in which Repentance ends and is compleated I shall say no more in so plain a business which hath been urged upon you a thousand times not by one alone but by all God's Ministers that ever you heard preach about it And what Theme is there more common that comes oftner into the Pulpits I wish the perpetual sound of it without due regard have not made it become so ineffectual that now men turn a deaf ear to such Discourses as beaten and thredbare Subjects to which they need not give any attendance But if any man have an ear still open let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the Churches here in this Book Let him hear at least what a desperate course he runs if he continue to neglect a Duty which is so well known that he thinks he need not hear of it any more For our Saviour threatens such as would not repent that he would come unto them quickly and fight against them with the sword of his mouth The first Motive you know to a change is commonly an apprehension of the danger of that course wherein a man is at present engaged This is apt to put a stop unto him in his way and bring him to a stand The very first sight of it when it smites his Soul is wont to repress the violence and heat wherewith he pursues his sinful desires A new scene of thoughts begin to appear in his mind and he is led to consider with himself Whither am I going What mischief is this which threatens me Whither will this course carry me and what will be the end of these things And if the danger be very great and pressing and his apprehension of it also be great and proportionable to the danger this strikes the greater fear and dread into his Soul And fear of what will insue disposes him to a change and alteration of his course of life that he may escape those miseries which he sees he is drawing upon himself Especially if he be perswaded as you have often heard that no terrours or affrightments no entreaties or prayers no crys or tears no sadness or affliction of Spirit no outward humiliation or abasements no purposes no promises will prevail for his deliverance from that danger without an effectual reformation and forsaking those wicked ways that necessarily lead to death and destruction And it is no hard matter one would think for men to convince themselves of this Truth For suppose you were in a journey and you should be told of nay should see a great Pit or Precipice to which and no whither else that Road did directly lead would you think of any other means to avoid it but only by turning into another path Though you should quiver and tremble like a Leaf when it is shaken with the Wind though you should conceive the greatest horrour and offer never so many Prayers and Vows nay though you turned your faces about and looked the contrary way yet if still you should proceed and go forward in that Road you would most certainly hurle your selves though you turn'd your backs of it and were loth to see it into inevitable ruine This is exactly the case of every Sinner who besides that his way
hatred and detestation of the wickedness of their Brethren After which pattern Christ expected the Church of Pergamus should be severe against all those among them who were seduced from the Christian purity in Doctrine and in Manners by the like artifice of the Devils Agents Whereby he knew he should put them out of Christs favour and if they continued in those wicked courses quite unchurch them and bring them again under his vassalage This is the Repentance which Christ here calls for in my Text and which He requires of all Governours and those in Authority Civil or Spiritual that they should not be slack in punishing sin and suppressing all false Doctrine and especially those leud opinions which lead men to all manner of loosness and wickedness For if you observe it the Church of Pergamus had been stedfast in the Faith in the time of persecution and when Antipas his faithful Martyr suffered were a commendable people in many things as we likewise in this Church at least our Forefathers may be commended for this that in the days of Fire and Faggot many chose to dye rather than to change their Religion But there were a few things which Christ had against them First Because they had those among them who held the Doctrine of Balaam c. and Secondly Those who held the Doctrine of the Nicolaitans who were another sort of filthy people giving themselves over unto promiscuous lusts of uncleanness When He saith They had such among them He means they connived at them and did not eject them For it was not their fault that those men held such opinions but that they suffered them without the censure of the Church And then immediately He addes Repent or else I will come against thee quickly c. As much as to say You must suffer these men no longer among you that was their repentance at that time or if you do I will not endure it but will come and punish you for this indifference in Religion Now I leave you all to judge whether the Factors of the evil one have not taken this very course to unchurch us and we by our negligence be not in the way to unchurch our selves They have infused poysonous principles into mens minds and taught them for instance to decry Marriage as a foolish slavery to think Fornication an innocent thing and so to give up themselves to commit all uncleanness with greediness that so forgetting all respect to our Religion they may in the issue make them Romanists and proselyte them to their Idolatrous Services that is make them ten times more the Children of the Devil than they were befoee And what other way is there to be saved from the destruction which these and other vices will bring upon us but that which we are not willing to take for every man to repent of his own wickedness and turn to God and then for those who have authority to set themselves with all their might to punish and to root out such wickednesses with all the principles that lead unto them together with the Abettors and Supporters of them And here it may be fit to observe That a few things if very destructive to Religion may provoke the Divine severity against a Church For they were no more that Christ charges this Church of Pergamus withal and yet if they did not amend He threatens to come and fight against them with the Sword of his mouth What will become of us then whom He hath so many things to charge withal if we go on still to provoke Him with them to jealousie I doubt we cannot clear our selves from such filthinesses as are here mentioned nor from foul Doctines leading to them which too many have entertained nor from coldness and indifference in Religion if not plain infidelity nor from a disposition of heart in some to turn back to Rome the spiritual Egypt again nor from conniving at the defection which so many have made from Christs true Religion here established and not endeavouring to suppress all those that seek to destroy it And which is still more we are foully guilty of slighting that Authority which should call men to an account for all their wickedness and not only reprove and rebuke but censure and chastise and exercise Christs Discipline upon notorious Offenders This is a thing not only laugh'd at and despised but hated and scorned nay the Ministers of Christ themselves are but lightly esteemed For which if there were nothing else we may be sure Christ will reckon with us Reckon with us did I say He hath done it in part already and yet we are not cured of this malignant humour which makes me fear the saddest part of the reckoning is still behind Take the Prognostication in the words of a great Doctor of this Church * Dr Jackson on the Creed Book II. Chap. 9. who thus denounced God's Judgments against this Nation a good while before the late Wars upon this very account That he saw the people running headlong into this great sin which is marvellously encreased since that time Questionless saith he this open malapert scoffing disobedience to all Ecclesiastical Power now openly professed by the meanest and countenanced by many great ones of the Laity is the sin which to all that know Gods Judgments or have been observant to look into the days of our visitation cries loudest in the Almighties ears more loud by much than the Prayers of Friars Monks and Jesuits do for Gods vengeance upon this land For vengeance to be executed by no other than our sword inveterate malicious enemies by no other grievances than by the doubled grievances of the long-enraged Romanists iron-yoke which is now prepared for us ten times more heavy and irksome than that was which our Forefathers have born I pray God this do not prove a true Prediction If it do we cannot say but we were forewarned and that Gods Watchmen discharged themselves and told us beforehand of the danger Which we had better prevent by becoming more obedient to their godly admonitions by submitting to their just censures by esteeming them very highly for their works sake and giving them all due encouragement to do their duties sincerely And though some be negligent and idle or ignorant let not either the baseness or the leudness of any of their persons tempt you to despise their office For that 's the reason in that Doctors opinion why God sends no better men in many places God knows saith he for whose fake it is but we may at fear it is especially for the infidelity and disloyalty of this people towards Him and for their disobedience to his Messengers that He sends them such idle foolish and lewd Pastors as they have in many places Because the Laity of this Land are so prone and head-strong to cast off Christs yoke and to deny due obedience to his faithful Ministers He therefore sets such Watchmen over them in many places as they shall
in humane reason they can by no other means be remedied than by the special hand of Heaven Which we come therefore here to implore in a particular blessing upon the consultations and endeavours of the great Council of the Kingdom and in defeating the wicked counsels and devices of our enemies and uniting the hearts of all his Majesties loyal Protestant Subjects But these great Blessings we cannot reasonably hope to obtain no not by our Fasting and Humiliation and Prayers unless we endeavour a true reconciliation with God by being unfeignedly penitent and resolving to forsake those sins which we our selves confess have brought us into such distresses and perplexities as nothing else can remedy Now in order unto this As I excited you on the last Day of solemn Fasting and Prayer to a serious and speedy Repentance by such Arguments as I found in those words of our Saviour to another of the seven Churches of Asia ii 16. Repent or else I will come unto thee quickly and fight against thee with the sword of my mouth so at this time I shall direct you a little in the way and method of repentance and point at some things of which you are to repent from these words which I have read out of our Saviour's Letter to the Church of Sardis with whom we of this Church have too manifest a resemblance For as our blessed Lord complains ver 1. we have a name that we live i. e. are good Christians but alas in deed and truth are dead for we produce not the fruits of Christian vertue There is a great deal of bustle and stir about Religion for which we seem to be mightily concerned but the inward life and power of it is generally wanting which we do not love to be troubled withal Nay we can scarce say so much of our people as God doth of Judah in the first Lesson for Evening Prayer lviii Isai 2. They seek me daily and delight to know my ways as a Nation that did righteousness and forsook not the Ordinances of their God c. which alas we have most openly deserted though this was far short we find in that Chapter of making them an acceptable Nation to him At the best we must confess we are fallen asleep and grown very slothful as our Saviour here supposes ver 2. them of Sardis to have been and there is so great and universal a decay of true piety and goodness among us that we are in apparent danger to lose the small remainders of it Something good there is still left in this Church as there was in that but far from that intire and compleat obedience which our Lord expects from us as will appear by considering what is to be done by us for our recovery to a better condition And there are three things which our Lord here requires of them in my Text and are incumbent upon every one of us as our necessary Duty if we would be saved from our present danger First To remember what they had received and heard Secondly To hold it fast Thirdly To repent of their forgetfulness I suppose their looseness and indifferency in their Religion I shall treat of them all in the order wherein they stand and consider them both with respect to the condition of that Church to whom they were first delivered and then with respect to ours who have no less need of such admonitions I. The first of them supposes That they had been taught some Doctrin which they had received and entertained with belief and had heard it also often since inculcated and pressed so I understand the words by those Pastors who were set over them by the Apostle or those who first delivered the Truth unto them Which was nothing else but the Christian Religion of which I must not here speak at large but only tell you It is that way of serving God which is prescribed by Christ and his Apostles in the Books of the New Testament Wherein we now read what they then received by word of mouth from the Apostles and understand fully what we must believe and do to be saved Now as there is no cause to which God more frequently ascribes the sins and particularly the Idolatry of the Children of Israel than their forgetfulness of Him and of his Law and of what He had done for them so this very thing stupid forgetfulness and neglect of what Christ and his Apostles delivered by Signs and wonders and mighty deeds introduced that deadness in Religion of which our Saviour complains in the beginning of this Chapter and He foresaw would bring in all the corruptions which afterwards followed in the Church and began very early to appear in the Christian World For there arose false Apostles and false Prophets nay direct Antichrists as this very Apostle Sr John tells us men who denied the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ that brought in damnable Heresies sleighted the authority of the Apostles turned the Grace of God into lasciviousness nay brought back the old Idolatry as you read in the foregoing Chapter of this Book vers 14.20 And though this Church of Sardis is not charged with so deep a degree of Apostasie as those of Pergamus and Thyatira yet there was great danger of falling into it unless they took this advice of our Saviour to remember better than they had done what they had received and heard Which is the very same with that which God himself had given of old to the Israelites to prevent their defection from Him in many places of the Book of Deuteronomy viii 1 2 18 c. and which his Prophets were wont to give in after times as the first step to their recovery when they had revolted from God their Saviour xlvi Isai 8 9. vi Mic. 5. Who here calls upon his Church in like manner to bring to remembrance and think again and again till they had fixed it in their mind what they had received and with what affection also they had embraced the Gospel of God's Grace for that may be implied in the Particle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 how you have received and heard as the only means to preserve them from lapsing farther into a worse condition and losing that good which was still remaining but ready to dye among them This the Apostles afterward endeavoured with great care and diligence and promised as we read in St. Peter 2. i. 12 13 15. to endeavour that after their decease they might have those things in remembrance always which they had been taught But for want of the like diligence and watchfulness in the people who did not take such heed as they ought to have done to these admonitions the Christian Religion in process of time was so adulterated that a great part of the Church fell into that lamentable apostasie which is foretold and described in this Book of the Revelation and which we see now fulfilled too plainly in the Church of Rome and those of its