distinct Petition Add to this the Excellent contrivance of a great part of our Liturgy into Alternate Responses by which means the People are put to bear a considerable share in the whole Service which makes it almost impossible for them to be only idle Hearers or which is worse meer Lookers on As they are very often and may be always if they can but keep their Eyes open at the long tedious Prayers of the Nonconformists And this indeed is that which makes and denominates our Liturgy truly and properly a Book of Common-prayer For I think I may truly avouch how strange soever it may seem at first that there is no such thing as Common or Ioint-prayer any-where amongst the principal Dissenters from the Church of England For in the Romish Communion the Priest says over the appointed Prayers only to himself and the rest of the People not hearing a word of what he says repeat also their own particular Prayers to themselves and when they have done go their way Not all at once as neither doe they come at once but scatteringly one after another according as they have finished their Devotions And then for the Nonconformists their Prayers being all extempore it is as we have shewn before hardly possible for any and utterly impossible for all to joyn in them For surely People cannot joyn in a Prayer before they understand it nor can it be imagined that all Capacities should presently and immediately understand what they hear when possibly Holder-forth himself understands not what he says From all which we may venture to conclude That that excellent thing Common-prayer which is the joynt Address of an whole Congregation with united Voice as well as Heart sending up their Devotions to Almighty God is no-where to be found in these Kingdoms but in that best and nearest Copy of Primitive Christian Worship the Divine Service as it is performed according to the Orders of our Church As for those long Prayers so frequently used by some before their Sermons the Constitution and Canons of our Church are not at all responsible for them having provided us better things and with great Wisdom appointed a Form of Prayer to be used by all before their Sermons But as for this way of Praying now generally in use as it was first took up upon an humour of Novelty and Popularity and by the same carried on till it had passed into a Custom and so put the Rule of the Church first out of Use and then out of Countenance also so if it be rightly considered it will in the very nature of the thing it self be found a very senceless and absurd practice For can there be any Sense or Propriety in beginning a new tedious Prayer in the Pulpit just after the Church has for near an hour together with great variety of Offices sutable to all the Needs of the Congregation been praying for all that can possibly be fit for Christians to pray for Nothing certainly can be more irrational For which Cause amongst many more that old sober Form of Bidding Prayer which both against Law and Reason has been justled out of the Church by this Upstart Puritanical Encroachment ought with great Reason to be restored by Authority and both the use and Users of it by a strict and solemn Reinforcement of the Canon upon all without exception be rescued from that unjust Scorn of the Factious and Ignorant which the Tyranny of the contrary usurping Custom will otherwise expose them to For surely it can neither be Decency nor Order for our Clergy to Conform to the Fanaticks as many in their Prayers before Sermon now-a-days doe And thus having accounted for the Prayers of our Church according to the great Rule prescribed in the Text Let thy Words be few Let us now according to the same consider also the way of Praying so much used and applauded by such as have renounced the Communion and Liturgy of our Church and it is but reason that they should bring us something better in the room of what they have so disdainfully cast off But on the contrary are not all their Prayers exactly after the Heathenish and Pharisaical Copy always notable for those two Things Length and Tautology Two whole Hours for one Prayer at a Fast used to be reckoned but a moderate Dose and that for the most part fraught with such irreverent blasphemous Expressions that to repeat them would profane the place I am speaking in and indeed they seldom carried on the work of such a Day as their Phrase was but they left the Church in need of a new Consecration Add to this the Incoherence and Confusion the endless Repetitions and the unsufferable Nonsense that never failed to hold out even with their utmost Prolixity so that in all their long Fasts from first to last from seven in the Morning to seven in the Evening which was their measure the Pulpit was always the emptiest Thing in the Church And I never knew such a Fast kept by them but their Hearers had Cause to begin a Thanksgiving as soon as they had done And the truth is when I consider the Matter of their Prayers so full of Ramble and Inconsequence and in every respect so very like the language of a Dream and compare it with their Carriage of themselves in Prayer with their Eyes for the most part shut and their Arms stretched out in Yawning posture a Man that should hear any of them pray might by a very pardonable Error be induced to think that he was all the time hearing one talking in his sleep besides the strange Vertue which their Prayers had to procure sleep in others too So that he who should be present at all their long Cant would shew a greater Ability in Watching than ever they could pretend to in Praying if he could forbear sleeping having so strong a Provocation to it and so fair an Excuse for it In a word such were their Prayers both for Matter and Expression that could any one truly and exactly write them out it would be the shrewdest and most effectual way of Writing against them that could possibly be thought of I should not have thus troubled either you or my self by raking into the Dirt and Dunghill of these men's Devotions upon the account of any thing either done or said by them in the late times of Confusion for as they have the King 's so I wish them God's pardon also for both whom I am sure they have offended much more than they have both Kings put together But that which has provoked me thus to rip up and expose to you their nauseous and ridiculous way of addressing to God even upon the most solemn Occasions is that intolerably rude and unprovoked Insolence and Scurrility with which they are every day reproaching and scoffing at our Liturgy and the Users of it and thereby alienating the Minds of the People from it to such a degree that many Thousands are drawn by
doated upon it But here in this first Chapter he deals with the Greeks or Gentiles who sought for and promised themselves the same Happiness from the Dictates of Right Reason which the Iews did from the Mosaick Law Where after he had took an account of what their bare Reason had taught them in the Things of God and compared the Super-structure with the Foundation their Practice with their Knowledge he finds them so far from arriving at the Happiness which they aspired to by this means that upon a full survey of the whole matter the Result of all comes to this sad and deplorable Issue That they were sinfull and miserable and that without excuse In the Words taken with the Coherence of the precedent and subsequent Verses we have these Four Things considerable I. The Sin here followed upon a certain sort of Men with this so severe a Judgment namely That knowing God they did not glorifie him as God ver 21. II. The Persons guilty of this Sin They were such as professed themselves Wise ver 22. III. The Cause or Reason of their falling into this Sin which was their holding the Truth in Unrighteousness ver 18. And IV. and Lastly The Iudgment or rather the State and Condition penally consequent upon these Sinners namely That they were without excuse ver 20. Of each of which in their Order And first for the first of them The Sin here followed with so severe a Iudgment and so highly aggravated and condemned by the Apostle is by the united Testimony of most Divines upon this place the Sin of Idolatry Which the Apostle affirms to consist in this That the Gentiles glorified not God as God Which General Charge he also draws forth into Particulars As That they changed his Glory into the Similitude and Images of Men and Beasts and Birds where by Glory he means God's Worship to wit that by which Men glorifie him and not the Essential Glory of his Nature it being such a Glory as was in Men's power to change and to debase and therefore must needs consist either in those Actions or those Means which they performed the Divine Worship by I know no place from which we may more clearly gather what the Scripture accounts Idolatry than from this Chapter From whence that I may represent to you what Idolatry is and wherein one sort of it at least does consist you may observe that the Persons who are here charged with it are positively affirmed to have known and acknowledged the True God For it is said of them that they knew his Eternal Power and Godhead in this 20th Verse nay and they worshipped him too From whence this undeniably and invincibly follows That they did not look upon those Images which they addressed to as Gods nor as Things in which the Divine Nature did or could enclose it self nor consequently to which they gave or ultimately designed their Religious Worship This Conclusion therefore I inferr and assert That Idolatry is not only an Accounting or Worshipping that for God which is not God but it is also a Worshipping the True God in a way wholly unsutable to his Nature and particularly by the Mediation of Images and Corporeal Resemblances of Him This is Idolatry For the Persons here spoken of pretended to glorifie the true God but they did not glorifie him as God and upon that account stand arraigned for Idolaters Common Sence and Experience will and must evince the Truth of this For can any one imagine that Men of Reason who had their Senses quick and their Wits and Discourse entire could take that Image or Statue which they fell down before to be a God Could they think that to be Infinite and Immense the Ubiquity of which they could thrust into a corner of their Closet Or could they conceive that to be Eternal which a few days before they had seen a Log or a Rude Trunk and perhaps the other piece of it a Joynt-stool in the Workman's Shop The Ground and Reason of all Worship is an Opinion of Power and Will in the Person worshipped to answer and supply our Desires which he cannot possibly doe unless he first apprehend them But can any Man who is Master of Sense himself believe the Rational Heathens so void of it as to think that those Images could fulfill the Petitions which they could not hear pity the Wants they could not see doe all Things when they could not stir an hand or a foot 'T is impossible they should but it is also certain that they were Idolaters And therefore it is clear that their Idolatry consisted in something else and the History of it would demonstrate so much were it proper to turn a Sermon into an History So that we see here that the Sin condemned in the Text was the Worshipping of the True God by Images For the Defence of which there is no doubt but they might have pleaded and did plead for those Images that they used them not as Objects but only as Means and Instruments of Divine Worship not as what they worshipped but as that by which they directed their Worship to God Though still me-thinks it is something hard to conceive that none of the Worship should fall upon the Image by the way or that the Water can be conveyed into the Sea without so much as wetting the Channel through which it passes But however you see it requires a very distinguishing Head and an even Hand and no small Skill in directing the Intention to carry a Prayer quite through to its Journey 's end Though after all the Mischief of it is that the Distinction which looks so fine in the Theory generally miscarries in the Practice especially where the Ignorant Vulgar are the Practicers who are the worst in the World at distinguishing but yet make far the greatest part of Mankind and are as much concerned and obliged to pray as the wisest and the best but withall infinitely unhappy if they cannot perform a Necessary Duty without School-distinctions nor beg their daily Bread without Metaphysicks And thus much for the first Thing proposed namely the Sin here spoken against by the Apostle in the Text which was Idolatry 2. The second is the Persons charged with this Sin And they were not the Gnosticks as some whimsically imagine who can never meet with the Words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but presently the Gnosticks must be drawn in by Head and Shoulders But the Persons here meant were plainly and manifestly the Old Heathen Philosophers such as not only in the Apostles but also in their own phrase professed themselves to be wise Their great Title was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the word of Applause still given to their Lectures was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And Pythagoras was the first who abated of the Invidiousness of the Name and from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 brought it down to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from a Master to a Lover of Wisdom from
a Professor to a Candidate These were the Men here intended by St. Paul Men famous in their respective Ages the great Favourites of Nature and the Top and Master-piece of Art Men whose aspiring Intellectuals had raised them above the Common Level and made them higher by the Head than the World round about them Men of a Polite Reason and a Notion refined and enlarged by Meditation Such as with all these Advantages of Parts and Study had been toiling and plodding many years to out-wit and deceive themselves sat up many Nights and spent many Days to impose a Fallacy upon their Reason and in a word ran the Round of all the Arts and Sciences to arrive at length at a glorious and elaborate Folly even these I say these Grandees and Giants in Knowledge who thus look'd down as it were upon the rest of Mankind and laughed at all besides themselves as Barbarous and Insignificant as quick and sagacious as they were to look into the little Intrigues of Matter and Motion which a Man might Salvâ Suentiâ or at least Salvâ animâ ignorare yet blunder'd and stumbl'd about their grand and principal Concern the knowledge of their Duty to God sinking into the meanest and most ridiculous Instances of Idolatry even so far as to Worship the great God under the form of Beasts and creeping things to adore Eternity and Immensity in a Brute or a Plant or some viler thing bowing down in their Adoration to such Things as they would scarce otherwise have bowed down to take up Nay and to rear Temples and make Altars to Fear Lust and Revenge there being scarce a corrupt Passion of the Mind or a Distemper of the Body but what they Worshipp'd So that it could not be expected that they should ever repent of those Sins which they thought fit to Deifie nor Mortifie those corrupt Affections to which they ascribed a kind of Divinity and Immortality By all which they fell into a greater Absurdity in Matter of Practice than ever any one of them did in Point of Opinion which yet certainly was very hard namely That having confessed a God and allowed him the Perfections of a God to wit an Infinite Power and an Eternal Godhead they yet denied him the Worship of God Thus reversing the Great Truths they had subscribed to in Speculation by a brutish sensless Devotion manag'd with a greater Prostration of Reason than of Body Had the poor vulgar Rout only who were held under the Prejudices and Prepossessions of Education been abused into such Idolatrous Superstitions as to adore a Marble or a Golden Deity it might have been detested indeed or pitied but not so much to be wonder'd at But for the Stoa the Academy or the Peripaton to own such a Paradox for an Aristotle or a Plato to think their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their Eternal Mind or Universal Spirit to be found in or served by the Images of four-footed Beasts For the Stagirite to recognize his Gods in his own Book de Animalibus This as the Apostle says was without excuse And how will these Men answer for their Sins who stand thus Condemned for their Devotions And thus from the Persons here charged by the Apostle with the Sin of Idolatry pass we now to the 3d. Thing proposed namely the Cause or Reason of their falling into this Sin and that was their holding of the Truth in Righteousness For the making out of which we must enquire into these Two things 1. What was the Truth here spoken of 2. How they held it in Unrighteousness For the first of them there were these six great Truths the knowledge of which the Gentile Philosophers stood accountable for As 1. That there was a God a Being distinct from this visible material World infinitely Perfect Omniscient Omnipotent Eternal Transcendently Good and Holy For all this is included in the very Notion of a God And this was a Truth wrote with a Sun-beam clear and legible to all Mankind and received by Universal Consent 2. That this God was the Maker and Governour of this visible World The first of which was evident from the very Order of Causes the great Argument by which Natural Reason evinces a God It being necessary in such an Order or Chain of Causes to ascend to and terminate in some First Which should be the Original of Motion and the Cause of all other Things but It self be caused by none And then That God also governed the World this followed from the other For that a Creature should not depend upon its Creator in all respects in which it is capable of depending upon Him amongst which to be governed by Him is certainly one is contrary to the Common Order and Nature of Things and those Essential Relations which by vertue thereof they bear to one another and consequently Absurd and Impossible So that upon a bare Principle of Reason Creation must needs inferr Providence and God's making the World irrefragably prove that he governs it too or that a Being of a Dependent Nature remains nevertheless Independent upon Him in that respect Besides all which it is also certain that the Heathens did actually acknowledge the World governed by a Supreme Mind which knowledge whether they had it from Tradition or the Discourses of Reason they stood however equally accountable for upon either account 3 ly That this God or Supreme Being was to be Worshipped For this was founded upon his Omnipotence and his Providence Since He who could preserve or destroy as he pleased and withall governed the World ought surely to be depended upon by those who were thus obnoxious to his Power and subject to his Government which Dependence could not manifest it self but by Acts of Worship Homage and Address to the Person thus depended upon 4 ly That this God was to be Worshipped or Addressed to by Vertuous and Pious Practices For so much his Essential Holiness required and those Innate Notions of Turpe Honestum wrote in the Consciences of all Men and joyned with the Apprehensions they had of the Infinite Purity of the Divine Nature could not but suggest 5 ly That upon any Deviation from Vertue and Piety it was the Duty of every Rational Creature so deviating to condemn renounce and be sorry for every such Deviation That is in other words to repent of it What indeed the Issue or Effect of such a Repentance might be bare Reason could not of it self discover but that a peccant Creature should disapprove and repent of every Violation of and Declination from the Rules of Iust and Honest this Right Reason discoursing upon the Stock of its own Principles could not but Inferr And the Conscience of every Man before it is debauched and hardned by Habitual Sin will recoil after the doing of an Evil Action and acquit him after a Good 6 ly and Lastly That every such Deviation from Duty rendred the Person so deviating liable and obnoxious to Punishment I do not
much out of Date with some as Christ's Divinity and Satisfaction I say let a Man consider these and the like Vertues together with the contrary Sins and Vices that do oppose them and then as out of a full Armory or Magazine let him furnish his Conscience with Texts of Scripture particularly enjoyning the one and forbidding or threatning the other And yet I do not say that he should stuff his Mind like the Margent of some Authors with Chapter and Verse heaped together at all Adventures but only that he should sortifie it with some few Texts which are home and apposite to his Case And a Conscience thus supplied will be like a Man armed at all Points and always ready either to receive or to attack his Enemy Otherwise it is not a Man's having Arms in his house no nor yet his having Courage and Skill to use them but it is his having them still about him which must both secure him from being set upon and defend him when he is Accordingly Men must know that without taking the forementioned Course all that they do in this Matter is but lost Labour and that they read the Scriptures to as little purpose as some use to quote them Much Reading being like much Eating wholly useless without Digestion and it is impossible for a Man to digest his Meat without also retaining it Till Men get what they read into their Minds and fix it in their Memories they keep their Religion as they use to doe their Bibles only in their Closet or carry it in their Pocket and that you may imagine must improve and affect the Soul just as much as a Man's having plenty of Provision only in his Stores will nourish and support his Body When Men forget the Word heard or read by them the Devil is said to steal it out of their Hearts Luke 8. 12. And for this Cause we do with as much Reason as Propriety of Speech call the Committing of a Thing to memory the getting it by heart For it is the Memory that must transmit it to the Heart and it is in vain to expect that the Heart should keep its hold of any Truth when the Memory has let it go 4. The Fourth and Last way that I shall mention for the getting of the Conscience rightly informed and afterwards keeping it so is frequently and impartially to account with it It is with a Man and his Conscience as with one Man and another amongst whom we use to say that Even Reckoning makes lasting Friends and the way to make Reckonings even I am sure is to make them often Delays in Accompts are always suspicious and bad enough in themselves but commonly much worse in their Cause For to deferr an Accompt is the ready way to perplex it and when it comes to be perplexed and intricate no Man either as to his Temporal or Spiritual Estate can know of himself what he is or what he has or upon what bottom he stands But the amazing Difficulty and greatness of his Account will rather terrifie than inform him and keep him from setting heartily about such a Task as he despairs ever to go through with For no Man willingly begins what he has no hope to finish But let a Man apply to this Work by frequent Returns and short Intervals while the Heap is small and the Particulars few and he will find it easie and conquerable And his Conscience like a faithfull Steward shall give him in a plain open and entire Account of himself and hide nothing from him Whereas we know if a Steward or Cashier be suffered to run on from year to year without bringing him to a Reckoning it is odds but such a sottish forbearance will in time teach him to shuffle and strongly tempt him to be a Cheat if not also make him so For as the Accompt runs on generally the Accomptant goes backward And for this Cause some judge it adviseable for a Man to account with his Heart every day and this no doubt is the best and surest Course for still the oftener the better And some prescribe Accompting once a Week longer than which it is by no means safe to delay it For a Man shall find his Heart deceitfull and his Memory weak and Nature extremely averse from seeking narrowly after That which it is unwilling to find and being found will assuredly disturb it So that upon the whole matter it is infinitely absurd to think that Conscience can be kept in order without frequent Examination If a man would have his Conscience deal clearly with him he must deal severely with That Often scouring and cleansing it will make it bright and when it is so he may see himself in it And if he sees any Thing amiss let this satisfie him That no man is or can be the worse for knowing the very worst of himself On the contrary if Conscience by a long neglect of and dis-acquaintance with it self comes to contract an inveterate Rust or Soil a man may as well expect to see his Face in a Mud-wall as that such a Conscience should give him a true Report of his Condition no it leaves him wholly in the Dark as to the greatest Concern he has in both Worlds He can neither tell whether God be his Friend or his Enemy or rather he has shrewd Cause to suspect him his Enemy and cannot possibly know him to be his Friend And this being his Case he must live in Ignorance and die in Ignorance and it will be hard for a man to die in it without dying for it too And now what a wretched Condition must that man needs be in whose Heart is in such Confusion such Darkness and such a settled Blindness that it shall not be able to tell him so much as one true Word of himself Flatter him it may I confess as those are generally good at flattering who are good for nothing else but in the mean time the poor Man is left under the fatal Necessity of a remediless Delusion For in judging of a man's Self if Conscience either cannot or will not inform him there is a certain Thing called Self-love that will be sure to deceive him And thus I have shewn in four several Particulars what is to be done both for the getting and keeping of the Conscience so informed as that it may be able to give us a Rational Confidence towards God As 1. That the Voice of Reason in all the Dictates of Natural Morality ought carefully to be attended to by a strict Observance of what it commands but especially of what it forbids 2. That every Pious Motion from the Spirit of God ought tenderly to be cherished and by no means checked or quenched either by Resistance or Neglect 3. That Conscience is to be kept close to the Rule of the written Word 4 ly and Lastly That it is frequently to be examined and severely accounted with And I doubt not but a Conscience thus disciplined shall give
Injunction in God's Revealed Word For these Two are all the Ways by which God speaks to Men now-a-days I say shew me something from hence which countermands or condemns all or any of the fore-mentioned Ceremonies of our Church and then I will yield the Cause But if no such Reason no such Scripture can be brought to appear in their behalf against us but that with screwed Face and dolefull Whine they only ply you with senceless Harangues of Conscience against carnal Ordinances the Dead Letter and human Inventions on the one hand and loud Out-cries for a further Reformation on the other then rest you assured that they have a design upon your Pocket and that the word Conscience is used only as an Instrument to pick it and more particularly as it calls it a further Reformation signifies no more with reference to the Church than as if one man should come to another and say Sir I have already taken away your Cloak and doe fully intend if I can to take away your Coat also This is the true meaning of this word further Reformation and so long as you understand it in this sence you cannot be imposed upon by it Well but if these mighty Men at Chapter and Verse can produce you no Scripture to over-throw our Church-ceremonies I will undertake to produce Scripture enough to warrant them even all those places which absolutely enjoyn Obedience and Submission to Lawfull Governours in all not unlawfull Things particularly that in 1 Pet. 2. 13. and that in Heb. 13. 17. of which two places more again presently together with that other in 1 Cor. 14. last verse enjoyning Order and Decency in God's Worship and in all things relating to it And consequently till these Men can prove the fore-mentioned Things ordered by our Church to be either intrinsecally unlawfull or undecent I doe here affirm by the Authority of the foregoing Scriptures That the use of them as they stand established amongst us is necessary and that all Pretences or Pleas of Conscience to the contrary are nothing but Cant and Cheat Flam and Delusion In a word the Ceremonies of the Church of England are as necessary as the Injunctions of an undoubtedly lawfull Authority the Practice of the Primitive Church and the General Rules of Decency determined to Particulars of the greatest Decency can make them necessary And I would not for all the World be arraigned at the last and great Day for disturbing the Church and disobeying Government and have no better Plea for so doing than what those of the Separation were ever yet able to defend themselves by But some will here say perhaps If this be all that you require of us we both can and doe bring you Scripture against your Church-ceremonies even that which condemns all Will-worship Col. 2. 23. and such other like places To which I answer first That the Will-worship forbidden in that Scripture is so termed not from the Circumstance but from the Object of Religious Worship and we readily own That it is by no means in the Church's Power to appoint or chuse whom or what it will Worship But that does not inferr That it is not therefore in the Church's Power to appoint how and in what manner it will Worship the true Object of Religious Worship provided that in so doing it observes such Rules of Decency as are proper and conducing to that purpose So that this Scripture is wholly Irrelative to the case before us and as impertinently applied to it as any poor Text in the Revelation was ever applied to the grave and profound Whimsies of some Modern Interpreters But 2 dly to this Objection about Will-worship I answer yet further That the fore-mentioned Ceremonies of the Church of England are no Worship nor part of God's Worship at all nor were ever pretended so to be and if they are not so much as Worship I am sure they cannot be Will-worship But we own them only for Circumstances Modes and Solemn Usages by which God's Worship is orderly and decently performed I say we pretend them not to be parts of Divine Worship but for all that to be such things as the Divine Worship in some Instance or other cannot be without For that which neither does nor can give vital Heat may yet be necessary to preserve it And he who should strip himself of all that is no part of himself would quickly find or rather feel the Inconvenience of such a Practice and have cause to wish for a Body as void of sense as such an Argument Now the Consequence in both these cases is perfectly Parallel and if so you may rest satisfied That what is non-sense upon a Principle of Reason will never be sense upon a Principle of Religion But as touching the Necessity of the aforesaid Usages in the Church of England I shall lay down these four Propositions 1. That Circumstantials in the Worship of God as well as in all other humane Actions are so necessary to it that it cannot possibly be performed without them 2. That Decency in the Circumstantials of God's Worship is absolutely necessary 3. That the General Rule and Precept of Decency is not capable of being reduced to Practice but as it is exemplified in and determined to particular Instances And 4 ly and Lastly That there is more of the General Nature of Decency in those particular Usages and Ceremonies which the Church of England has pitched upon than is or can be shewn in any other whatsoever These things I affirm and when you have put them all together let any one give me a solid and sufficient Reason for the giving up those few Ceremonies of our Church if he can All the Reason that I could ever yet hear alleaged by the chief Factors for a General Intromission of all Sorts Sects and Perswasions into our Communion is That those who separate from us are stiff and obstinate and will not submit to the Rules and Orders of our Church and that therefore they ought to be taken away Which is a goodly Reason indeed and every way worthy of the Wisdom and Integrity of those who alleage it And to shew that it is so let it be but transferred from the Ecclesiastical to the Civil Government from Church to State and let all Laws be abrogated which any great or sturdy Multitude of Men have no mind to submit to That is in other words let Laws be made to obey and not to be obeyed and upon these terms I doubt not but you will find that Kingdom or rather that Common-wealth finely governed in a short time And thus I have shewn the Absurdity Folly and Impertinence of alleaging the Obligation of Conscience where there is no Law or Command of God mediate or immediate to found that Obligation upon And yet as bad as this is it were well if the bare Absurdity of these Pretences were the worst thing which we had to charge them with But it is not so For our second
nor yet towards themselves who are far from being either And thus I have shewn you the First ground upon which the Testimony of Conscience concerning a man's spiritual Estate comes to be so Authentick and so much to be relied upon to wit the high Office which it holds as the Vicegerent of God himself in the Soul of Man Together with the Two grand Inferences drawn from thence The first of them shewing the Absurdity Folly and Impertinence of pretending Conscience against any Thing when there is no Law of God mediate or immediate against it And the other setting forth the intolerable Blasphemy and Impiety of pretending Conscience for any Thing which the known Law of God is directly against and stands in open defiance of Proceed we now to the second Ground from which Conscience derives the Credit of its Testimony in judging of our spiritual Estate and that consists in those Properties and Qualities which so peculiarly fit it for the discharge of its fore-mentioned Office in all things relating to the Soul And these are Three First The Quickness of its Sight Secondly The Tenderness of its Sense And Thirdly and Lastly It s Rigorous and Impartial way of giving Sentence Of each of which in their Order And first For the Extraordinary quickness and sagacity of its Sight in spying out every Thing which can any way concern the Estate of the Soul As the Voice of it I shew was as loud as Thunder so the Sight of it is as piercing and quick as Lightning It presently sees the Guilt and looks through all the Flaws and Blemishes of a sinfull Action and on the other side observes the Candidness of a Man's very Principles the sincerity of his Intentions and the whole Carriage of every Circumstance in a Vertuous performance So strict and accurate is this spiritual Inquisition Upon which Account it is That there is no such Thing as perfect Secresie to encourage a rational Mind to the Perpetration of any base Action For a Man must first extinguish and put out the Great Light within him his Conscience he must get away from himself and shake off the Thousand Witnesses which he always carries about him before he can be alone And where there is no Solitude I am sure there can be no Secresie 'T is confessed indeed that a Long and a Bold Course of Sinning may as we have shewn elsewhere very much dimn and darken the discerning Faculty of Conscience For so the Apostle assures us it did with those in Rom. 1. 21. and the same no doubt it does every Day but still so as to leave such Persons both then and now many notable lucid Intervals Sufficient to convince them of their Deviations from Reason and Natural Religion and thereby to render them inexcusable and so in a word to stop their Mouths though not save their Souls In short their Conscience was not stark Dead but under a kind of Spiritual Apoplexy or Deliquium The Operation was hindred but the Faculty not destroyed And now if Conscience be naturally thus apprehensive and sagacious certainly this ought to be another great Ground over and above its bare Authority why we should trust and rely upon the Reports of it For Knowledge is still the Ground and Reason of Trust and so much as any one has of Discernment so far he is secured from Error and Deception and for that Cause fit to be confided in No Witness so much to be credited as an Eye-witness And Conscience is like the great Eye of the World the Sun always open always making Discoveries Justly therefore may we by the Light of it take a View of our Condition 2 ly Another Property or Quality of Conscience enabling it to judge so truly of our spiritual Estate is the Tenderness of its Sense For as by the Quickness of its Sight it directs us what to doe or not to doe so by this Tenderness of its Sense it excuses or accuses us as we have done or not done according to those Directions And it is altogether as nice delicate and tender in Feeling as it can be perspicacious and quick in Seeing For Conscience you know is still called and accounted the Eye of the Soul and how troublesome is the least Mote or Dust falling into the Eye and how quickly does it weep and water upon the least Grievance that afflicts it And no less exact is the Sense which Conscience preserved in its Native Purity has of the least Sin For as great Sins wast so small ones are enough to wound it and every Wound you know is painfull till it festers beyond Recovery As soon as ever Sin gives the Blow Conscience is the first Thing that feels the Smart No sooner does the poysoned Arrow Enter but that begins to bleed inwardly Sin and Sorrow the Venom of one and the Anguish of the other being Things inseparable Conscience if truly tender never complains without a Cause though I confess there is a new fashioned Sort of Tenderness of Conscience which always does so But that is like the Tenderness of a Bog or Quagmire and it is very dangerous coming near it for fear of being swallowed up by it For when Conscience has once acquired this Artificial Tenderness it will strangely enlarge or contract it Swallow as it pleases so that sometimes a Camel shall slide down with Ease where at other times even a Gnat may chance to stick by the Way It is indeed such a Kind of Tenderness as makes the Person who has it generally very tender of obeying the Laws but never so of breaking them And therefore since it is commonly at such Variance with the Law I think the Law is the fittest Thing to deal with it In the mean time let no Man deceive himself or think that true Tenderness of Conscience is any Thing else but an awfull and exact Sense of the Rule which should direct and of the Law which should govern it And while it steers by this Compass and is sensible of every Declination from it so long it is truly and properly Tender and fit to be relied upon whether it checks or approves a Man for what he does For from hence alone springs its excusing or accusing Power All accusation in the very Nature of the Thing still supposing and being founded upon some Law For where there is no Law there can be no Transgression and where there can be no Transgression I am sure there ought to be no Accusation And here when I speak of Law I mean both the Law of God and of Man too For where the Matter of a Law is a Thing not Evil every Law of Man is vertually and at a second Hand the Law of God also For as much as it binds in the strength of the Divine Law commanding Obedience to Every Ordinance of Man as we have already shewn And therefore all Tenderness of Conscience against such Laws is Hypocrisie and patronized by none but Men of Design who look upon it as